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What has John Bercow done now? | He has told the government that it cannot send Theresa Mays Brexit deal back for a third vote in parliament immediately unless there have been substantial changes made to it. He has based his decision on Erskine May, the officialparliamentary rulebook. This work was begun by Thomas Erskine May, a constitutional expert who in 1844 published a work on the proceedings of parliament. He later became clerk of the Commons and regularly updated the work, as did others in later years. It is now into its 24th edition. Page 397 of the document states that a motion or amendment which is the same, in substance as something already voted on should not be brought forward again in a session of parliament. No. The Speaker said he was responding to questions on the issue from MPs, among them Labours Chris Bryant, who last week tabled an amendment to the second meaningful vote on Mays deal making such a point. It was withdrawn without a vote, but the point was made. The Speaker said the general principle, as outlined by Erskine May, dates back to 1604. In his speech last Tuesday about his amendment, Bryant gave a series of examples where Speakers had refused MPs permission to raise issues which had already been decided that session, including about extra funding to nursery schools in 1864, limiting rail workers hours in 1891, and on womens suffrage in 1912. Yes according to parliamentary rules, as Speaker he is the highest authority of the House of Commons, and has final say over how the business is conducted, as well as other key choices, for example: which tabled amendments are selected for votes. In theory, yes. Amid a series of points of order by MPs to Bercow after his announcement, Conservative Alex Burghart asked if the Commons could simply suspend the standing orders which prevent repeat votes. This was, the Speaker replied, up to the house. Whether or not MPs would vote to pass such a measure is another matter. Yes and this is one raised as a possibility by the solicitor general, Robert Buckland. It would be the idea of circumventing the rules around not repeating a vote in the same session of parliament by simply calling a new session of parliament. This would mean the government would prorogue parliament the technical term for ending its session and then call it to sit again. There is a part-precedence for this in the passage of the 1949 Parliament Act, which reduced the powers of the House of Lords in delaying certain legislation. The law was blocked by the Lords twice, over two parliamentary sessions. Since the existing law which the new act was replacing the 1911 Parliament Act required three parliamentary sessions to pass before the Commons could overturn the Lords, the Attlee government prorogued parliament ending the session and began a new special session lasting from 14 to 26 September 1948, complete with its own Kings speech. Asked by MPs if this could happen, Bercow said it would be an unusual step but confirmed it was possible. You cant at least not yet. Currently Erskine May, all 1,097 pages of it, will cost you 439.99 for a hard copy from the parliament bookshop. However, change is afoot. it is already digitised and available on the parliamentary intranet. In December the leaders of the Commons, Andrea Leadsom, said it would soon be available to all for free. This is expected to happen with the upcoming 25th edition. | Bercow has told the government it cannot send May's deal back for a third vote. He has based his decision on the officialparliamentary rulebook, Erskine May. Document states that a motion or amendment should not be brought forward again. | pegasus | 2 | https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/mar/18/what-has-john-bercow-done-now | 0.234497 |
Are Democrats Facing Their Own Tea Party-Style Reckoning? | Tom Davis was a seven-term congressman from Virginias 11th district. A wave election in midterms leading to a new House majority, won with victories by moderates in swing districts. A few freshman members in some of the safest seats in the country pursuing an ideologically pure agenda that riles up the partys base but could endanger the moderates who were essential to winning the majority. Its all so familiar. And I would know. Story Continued Below In 1994, I was part of a Republican wave that retook the House for the first time in four decades. I represented Northern Virginia, where many voters are centrists and expect their representatives not to be beholden to the extremes in either party. And over my seven termsincluding a stint leading the National Republican Campaign Committee for two election cyclesI saw my conservative credentials questioned and denied by some on the ideological right. It was a prelude of things to come. After I left the House in 2008, I watched as the Tea Party wave crested in 2010, the House Freedom Caucus formed, and a new GOP House majority succumbed to infighting where members from the most safely deep-red Republican seats set the terms of the debate, held legislation hostage and endangered the reelection of moderates and more pragmatic members. I witnessed the transformation of my party into one increasingly challenging for centrists. And now, Im seeing the same thing happening to the Democrats. Just as her Republican predecessors had to manage the Freedom Caucus demands for legislation that would endanger more vulnerable Republicans, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has to govern around the lefts highly energized and emergent Herbal Tea Party segment. That wing, led by vocal freshmen, is rooted in solidly Democratic, highly urbanized areas where incumbents only worry is securing their partys nominationand to do that, they need to appeal only to the base. Meanwhile, the many freshmen Democrats elected in traditionally red districtswho must hew to the center to have any chance of being reelected in 2020get painted with the same brush, imperiling the partys majority. For Democrats, letting the tail wag the dog is a no-win formula. And already, Republicans are seeing a resurgence of sorts. In special elections held this year, the GOP has flipped state Senate seats in Connecticut, Kentucky and Minnesota, and a state House seat in Connecticut. This is in stark contrast to the run-up to the 2018 midterms, when the GOP was losing special election after special election in reliably Republican districts. If Pelosi wants to turn things around before its too late and prevent the Democratic Party from melting down, she needs to learn from what Republicans didand didnt doover the past decade in responding to their own insurgents from within. Lesson 1: Dont mistake your partys opposition to the president for unity. Pelosi has room to maneuver that her Republican predecessor did not have. One significant differentiator is that House Democrats are not saddled with protecting and defending President Donald Trumps actions. As speaker, Paul Ryan had to walk a tightrope in the first two years of the Trump presidencytrying not to alienate the president, his congressional allies or his supporters in the base, all while making progress on the House GOPs own longtime legislative priorities, which didnt always overlap with those of the administration. Now, Democrats and their voters are united in opposition to Trump. Still, House Democrats need to cobble together majorities to pass appropriations bills and raise the debt ceiling and would be well advised not to overdramatize these issues, as Republicans did. But on other issues, they are free to maneuver and to assess blame on the president or the Senate Republicans for public policy failures. That said, simply opposing a president from the opposition party doesnt, in itself, mean your party is going to stick together. You can unite the opposition enough to paper over intraparty differences some of the time, but eventually those differences will come to the fore. Heres why: Members from safe districts will be more likely to want endless theatrical investigationssometimes of dubious meritthat can detract from the proactive message the party would prefer to send. Members from moderate or swing seats benefit from pursuing the policies and messages that resonate strongest in voters lives. A constant focus on stymying the president detracts from that goal. Fissures will develop. The activist base will get angry at the moderates they feel arent doing enough to oppose the president. Moderates will be pressured to abandon what made them electable in the first place. And if they dont, theyll face expensive, competitive primariesusually against an ideologically pure candidate who can excite the base and potentially win the primary, but cannot hold the seat in the long term. Lesson 2: Realize that you are unlikely to get the president to sign any major legislation, and figure out how that should shape your message. In Congress, a leaders success generally stems from the ability to do two things: move legislation and reelect members. Pelosi has no equal in the first category. However, with no realistic chance of enacting laws without a Trump signature, her ability to do anything besides messaging is limitedwhich makes it more complicated to do the second category. Lacking some sort of bipartisan legislative accomplishment to point to, theres a good chance the partys message will be aimed at the base instead of swing voters. Just ask some of the Republicans defeated in 2018 how that worked. It will jeopardize the majority. A similar dynamic was at play after Republicans took the House in 2010. They were not able to pass any major legislation that President Barack Obama was interested in signing into law. Instead, they voted to repeal Obamacare over a dozen times and shut down the government when unable to get their riders on appropriations bills. Republicans might have been better served finding some common ground with Democrats and exhibiting some talent for governing. The Republican class of 1994 did exactly that in reforming welfare. Finding common ground on an infrastructure bill would be helpful for Democrats in this Congress. Lesson 3: Do not let the most vitriolic and uncompromising members of your party set the policy agenda. Under Speakers Boehner and Ryan, Republican leadership bowed to pressure from the most conservative, safe-district members, unsuccessfully attempting to repeal Obamacarea move popular with the base, but unpopular among the broader electorateand enacting tax reform which, in eliminating the ability of some taxpayers to deduct state taxes above a certain threshold, turned California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Pennsylvania and other high-tax states into killing zones for Republicans in the 2018 elections, denying the GOP a majority they thought redistricting had ensured. One lesson to be learned from the Republican failures is that the public airing of intraparty disputes, while helpful in party safe havens, has a damaging effect on the partys brand in swing districts. Even Republicans who voted no on party initiatives were held liable on Election Day for what the rest of the party did. (This was also true for Democrats in the 2010 election; half of all the House Democrats who voted against Obamacare were defeated by Republicans anyway.) On this front, Pelosi is not likely to get help from the partys presidential contenders, as the race to win over the activist base emphasizes liberal litmus tests on controversial proposals like Medicare for All, the Green New Deal and reparations. Individual House members in more conservative districts will (and should) try to separate themselves from these issues. But as voting habits become more parliamentary in nature and less localized (with help from the earmark ban, which has made the localization of House races more difficult, as members have no tangible project to bring home), party branding dominates. Lesson 4: Do not mistake a wave election in the midterms for momentum in the upcoming presidential race. As is often the case, parties misread their mandates. Voters elected Democrats in 2018 to put a check on the president and balance government rather than giving President Trump a blank check. But midterms rarely indicate how the next presidential election will turn out. One has to look no further than 1994 and 2010 to see that those midtermsboth tidal waves for Republicansin no way predicted the outcome of the presidential elections two years laterwhen Bob Dole lost to Bill Clinton and Mitt Romney lost to Barack Obama, respectively. Democrats over-investigating the administration, or discussing policies outside the mainstream do not help their cause for 2020, in the swing districts that delivered their majority. The midterms were a referendum on Trump. But the 2020 will be different! It will be about the competing visions of the two presidential nominees. These potential nominees need to woo activist Democratic voters in order to be nominated. Playing to swing voters in the primary season is unlikely. This further complicates Democratic branding efforts among independent voters. Going into 2018, Republicans ignored the early signs of voter unrest at their peril. They let their tail wag their dog. Now, its happening to the Democrats. Two months into the new Congress, the exuberance of her most progressive members is a challenge to Pelosis majority. And it will remain so. But if the early returns from recent special elections are to be given credenceand, looking at historic trends, they shouldthe atmospherics of the 2018 elections are gone. | Tom Davis: Democrats are facing their own Tea Party-style Reckoning. | ctrlsum | 0 | https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/03/18/democrats-aoc-ocasio-cortez-socialists-pelosi-congress-left-tea-party-225813 | 0.253249 |
Are Democrats Facing Their Own Tea Party-Style Reckoning? | Tom Davis was a seven-term congressman from Virginias 11th district. A wave election in midterms leading to a new House majority, won with victories by moderates in swing districts. A few freshman members in some of the safest seats in the country pursuing an ideologically pure agenda that riles up the partys base but could endanger the moderates who were essential to winning the majority. Its all so familiar. And I would know. Story Continued Below In 1994, I was part of a Republican wave that retook the House for the first time in four decades. I represented Northern Virginia, where many voters are centrists and expect their representatives not to be beholden to the extremes in either party. And over my seven termsincluding a stint leading the National Republican Campaign Committee for two election cyclesI saw my conservative credentials questioned and denied by some on the ideological right. It was a prelude of things to come. After I left the House in 2008, I watched as the Tea Party wave crested in 2010, the House Freedom Caucus formed, and a new GOP House majority succumbed to infighting where members from the most safely deep-red Republican seats set the terms of the debate, held legislation hostage and endangered the reelection of moderates and more pragmatic members. I witnessed the transformation of my party into one increasingly challenging for centrists. And now, Im seeing the same thing happening to the Democrats. Just as her Republican predecessors had to manage the Freedom Caucus demands for legislation that would endanger more vulnerable Republicans, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has to govern around the lefts highly energized and emergent Herbal Tea Party segment. That wing, led by vocal freshmen, is rooted in solidly Democratic, highly urbanized areas where incumbents only worry is securing their partys nominationand to do that, they need to appeal only to the base. Meanwhile, the many freshmen Democrats elected in traditionally red districtswho must hew to the center to have any chance of being reelected in 2020get painted with the same brush, imperiling the partys majority. For Democrats, letting the tail wag the dog is a no-win formula. And already, Republicans are seeing a resurgence of sorts. In special elections held this year, the GOP has flipped state Senate seats in Connecticut, Kentucky and Minnesota, and a state House seat in Connecticut. This is in stark contrast to the run-up to the 2018 midterms, when the GOP was losing special election after special election in reliably Republican districts. If Pelosi wants to turn things around before its too late and prevent the Democratic Party from melting down, she needs to learn from what Republicans didand didnt doover the past decade in responding to their own insurgents from within. Lesson 1: Dont mistake your partys opposition to the president for unity. Pelosi has room to maneuver that her Republican predecessor did not have. One significant differentiator is that House Democrats are not saddled with protecting and defending President Donald Trumps actions. As speaker, Paul Ryan had to walk a tightrope in the first two years of the Trump presidencytrying not to alienate the president, his congressional allies or his supporters in the base, all while making progress on the House GOPs own longtime legislative priorities, which didnt always overlap with those of the administration. Now, Democrats and their voters are united in opposition to Trump. Still, House Democrats need to cobble together majorities to pass appropriations bills and raise the debt ceiling and would be well advised not to overdramatize these issues, as Republicans did. But on other issues, they are free to maneuver and to assess blame on the president or the Senate Republicans for public policy failures. That said, simply opposing a president from the opposition party doesnt, in itself, mean your party is going to stick together. You can unite the opposition enough to paper over intraparty differences some of the time, but eventually those differences will come to the fore. Heres why: Members from safe districts will be more likely to want endless theatrical investigationssometimes of dubious meritthat can detract from the proactive message the party would prefer to send. Members from moderate or swing seats benefit from pursuing the policies and messages that resonate strongest in voters lives. A constant focus on stymying the president detracts from that goal. Fissures will develop. The activist base will get angry at the moderates they feel arent doing enough to oppose the president. Moderates will be pressured to abandon what made them electable in the first place. And if they dont, theyll face expensive, competitive primariesusually against an ideologically pure candidate who can excite the base and potentially win the primary, but cannot hold the seat in the long term. Lesson 2: Realize that you are unlikely to get the president to sign any major legislation, and figure out how that should shape your message. In Congress, a leaders success generally stems from the ability to do two things: move legislation and reelect members. Pelosi has no equal in the first category. However, with no realistic chance of enacting laws without a Trump signature, her ability to do anything besides messaging is limitedwhich makes it more complicated to do the second category. Lacking some sort of bipartisan legislative accomplishment to point to, theres a good chance the partys message will be aimed at the base instead of swing voters. Just ask some of the Republicans defeated in 2018 how that worked. It will jeopardize the majority. A similar dynamic was at play after Republicans took the House in 2010. They were not able to pass any major legislation that President Barack Obama was interested in signing into law. Instead, they voted to repeal Obamacare over a dozen times and shut down the government when unable to get their riders on appropriations bills. Republicans might have been better served finding some common ground with Democrats and exhibiting some talent for governing. The Republican class of 1994 did exactly that in reforming welfare. Finding common ground on an infrastructure bill would be helpful for Democrats in this Congress. Lesson 3: Do not let the most vitriolic and uncompromising members of your party set the policy agenda. Under Speakers Boehner and Ryan, Republican leadership bowed to pressure from the most conservative, safe-district members, unsuccessfully attempting to repeal Obamacarea move popular with the base, but unpopular among the broader electorateand enacting tax reform which, in eliminating the ability of some taxpayers to deduct state taxes above a certain threshold, turned California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Pennsylvania and other high-tax states into killing zones for Republicans in the 2018 elections, denying the GOP a majority they thought redistricting had ensured. One lesson to be learned from the Republican failures is that the public airing of intraparty disputes, while helpful in party safe havens, has a damaging effect on the partys brand in swing districts. Even Republicans who voted no on party initiatives were held liable on Election Day for what the rest of the party did. (This was also true for Democrats in the 2010 election; half of all the House Democrats who voted against Obamacare were defeated by Republicans anyway.) On this front, Pelosi is not likely to get help from the partys presidential contenders, as the race to win over the activist base emphasizes liberal litmus tests on controversial proposals like Medicare for All, the Green New Deal and reparations. Individual House members in more conservative districts will (and should) try to separate themselves from these issues. But as voting habits become more parliamentary in nature and less localized (with help from the earmark ban, which has made the localization of House races more difficult, as members have no tangible project to bring home), party branding dominates. Lesson 4: Do not mistake a wave election in the midterms for momentum in the upcoming presidential race. As is often the case, parties misread their mandates. Voters elected Democrats in 2018 to put a check on the president and balance government rather than giving President Trump a blank check. But midterms rarely indicate how the next presidential election will turn out. One has to look no further than 1994 and 2010 to see that those midtermsboth tidal waves for Republicansin no way predicted the outcome of the presidential elections two years laterwhen Bob Dole lost to Bill Clinton and Mitt Romney lost to Barack Obama, respectively. Democrats over-investigating the administration, or discussing policies outside the mainstream do not help their cause for 2020, in the swing districts that delivered their majority. The midterms were a referendum on Trump. But the 2020 will be different! It will be about the competing visions of the two presidential nominees. These potential nominees need to woo activist Democratic voters in order to be nominated. Playing to swing voters in the primary season is unlikely. This further complicates Democratic branding efforts among independent voters. Going into 2018, Republicans ignored the early signs of voter unrest at their peril. They let their tail wag their dog. Now, its happening to the Democrats. Two months into the new Congress, the exuberance of her most progressive members is a challenge to Pelosis majority. And it will remain so. But if the early returns from recent special elections are to be given credenceand, looking at historic trends, they shouldthe atmospherics of the 2018 elections are gone. | Tom Davis: Democrats are facing their own Tea Party-style Reckoning. He says they need to learn from Republicans' mistakes in dealing with insurgents from within. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/03/18/democrats-aoc-ocasio-cortez-socialists-pelosi-congress-left-tea-party-225813 | 0.529072 |
Are Democrats Facing Their Own Tea Party-Style Reckoning? | Tom Davis was a seven-term congressman from Virginias 11th district. A wave election in midterms leading to a new House majority, won with victories by moderates in swing districts. A few freshman members in some of the safest seats in the country pursuing an ideologically pure agenda that riles up the partys base but could endanger the moderates who were essential to winning the majority. Its all so familiar. And I would know. Story Continued Below In 1994, I was part of a Republican wave that retook the House for the first time in four decades. I represented Northern Virginia, where many voters are centrists and expect their representatives not to be beholden to the extremes in either party. And over my seven termsincluding a stint leading the National Republican Campaign Committee for two election cyclesI saw my conservative credentials questioned and denied by some on the ideological right. It was a prelude of things to come. After I left the House in 2008, I watched as the Tea Party wave crested in 2010, the House Freedom Caucus formed, and a new GOP House majority succumbed to infighting where members from the most safely deep-red Republican seats set the terms of the debate, held legislation hostage and endangered the reelection of moderates and more pragmatic members. I witnessed the transformation of my party into one increasingly challenging for centrists. And now, Im seeing the same thing happening to the Democrats. Just as her Republican predecessors had to manage the Freedom Caucus demands for legislation that would endanger more vulnerable Republicans, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has to govern around the lefts highly energized and emergent Herbal Tea Party segment. That wing, led by vocal freshmen, is rooted in solidly Democratic, highly urbanized areas where incumbents only worry is securing their partys nominationand to do that, they need to appeal only to the base. Meanwhile, the many freshmen Democrats elected in traditionally red districtswho must hew to the center to have any chance of being reelected in 2020get painted with the same brush, imperiling the partys majority. For Democrats, letting the tail wag the dog is a no-win formula. And already, Republicans are seeing a resurgence of sorts. In special elections held this year, the GOP has flipped state Senate seats in Connecticut, Kentucky and Minnesota, and a state House seat in Connecticut. This is in stark contrast to the run-up to the 2018 midterms, when the GOP was losing special election after special election in reliably Republican districts. If Pelosi wants to turn things around before its too late and prevent the Democratic Party from melting down, she needs to learn from what Republicans didand didnt doover the past decade in responding to their own insurgents from within. Lesson 1: Dont mistake your partys opposition to the president for unity. Pelosi has room to maneuver that her Republican predecessor did not have. One significant differentiator is that House Democrats are not saddled with protecting and defending President Donald Trumps actions. As speaker, Paul Ryan had to walk a tightrope in the first two years of the Trump presidencytrying not to alienate the president, his congressional allies or his supporters in the base, all while making progress on the House GOPs own longtime legislative priorities, which didnt always overlap with those of the administration. Now, Democrats and their voters are united in opposition to Trump. Still, House Democrats need to cobble together majorities to pass appropriations bills and raise the debt ceiling and would be well advised not to overdramatize these issues, as Republicans did. But on other issues, they are free to maneuver and to assess blame on the president or the Senate Republicans for public policy failures. That said, simply opposing a president from the opposition party doesnt, in itself, mean your party is going to stick together. You can unite the opposition enough to paper over intraparty differences some of the time, but eventually those differences will come to the fore. Heres why: Members from safe districts will be more likely to want endless theatrical investigationssometimes of dubious meritthat can detract from the proactive message the party would prefer to send. Members from moderate or swing seats benefit from pursuing the policies and messages that resonate strongest in voters lives. A constant focus on stymying the president detracts from that goal. Fissures will develop. The activist base will get angry at the moderates they feel arent doing enough to oppose the president. Moderates will be pressured to abandon what made them electable in the first place. And if they dont, theyll face expensive, competitive primariesusually against an ideologically pure candidate who can excite the base and potentially win the primary, but cannot hold the seat in the long term. Lesson 2: Realize that you are unlikely to get the president to sign any major legislation, and figure out how that should shape your message. In Congress, a leaders success generally stems from the ability to do two things: move legislation and reelect members. Pelosi has no equal in the first category. However, with no realistic chance of enacting laws without a Trump signature, her ability to do anything besides messaging is limitedwhich makes it more complicated to do the second category. Lacking some sort of bipartisan legislative accomplishment to point to, theres a good chance the partys message will be aimed at the base instead of swing voters. Just ask some of the Republicans defeated in 2018 how that worked. It will jeopardize the majority. A similar dynamic was at play after Republicans took the House in 2010. They were not able to pass any major legislation that President Barack Obama was interested in signing into law. Instead, they voted to repeal Obamacare over a dozen times and shut down the government when unable to get their riders on appropriations bills. Republicans might have been better served finding some common ground with Democrats and exhibiting some talent for governing. The Republican class of 1994 did exactly that in reforming welfare. Finding common ground on an infrastructure bill would be helpful for Democrats in this Congress. Lesson 3: Do not let the most vitriolic and uncompromising members of your party set the policy agenda. Under Speakers Boehner and Ryan, Republican leadership bowed to pressure from the most conservative, safe-district members, unsuccessfully attempting to repeal Obamacarea move popular with the base, but unpopular among the broader electorateand enacting tax reform which, in eliminating the ability of some taxpayers to deduct state taxes above a certain threshold, turned California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Pennsylvania and other high-tax states into killing zones for Republicans in the 2018 elections, denying the GOP a majority they thought redistricting had ensured. One lesson to be learned from the Republican failures is that the public airing of intraparty disputes, while helpful in party safe havens, has a damaging effect on the partys brand in swing districts. Even Republicans who voted no on party initiatives were held liable on Election Day for what the rest of the party did. (This was also true for Democrats in the 2010 election; half of all the House Democrats who voted against Obamacare were defeated by Republicans anyway.) On this front, Pelosi is not likely to get help from the partys presidential contenders, as the race to win over the activist base emphasizes liberal litmus tests on controversial proposals like Medicare for All, the Green New Deal and reparations. Individual House members in more conservative districts will (and should) try to separate themselves from these issues. But as voting habits become more parliamentary in nature and less localized (with help from the earmark ban, which has made the localization of House races more difficult, as members have no tangible project to bring home), party branding dominates. Lesson 4: Do not mistake a wave election in the midterms for momentum in the upcoming presidential race. As is often the case, parties misread their mandates. Voters elected Democrats in 2018 to put a check on the president and balance government rather than giving President Trump a blank check. But midterms rarely indicate how the next presidential election will turn out. One has to look no further than 1994 and 2010 to see that those midtermsboth tidal waves for Republicansin no way predicted the outcome of the presidential elections two years laterwhen Bob Dole lost to Bill Clinton and Mitt Romney lost to Barack Obama, respectively. Democrats over-investigating the administration, or discussing policies outside the mainstream do not help their cause for 2020, in the swing districts that delivered their majority. The midterms were a referendum on Trump. But the 2020 will be different! It will be about the competing visions of the two presidential nominees. These potential nominees need to woo activist Democratic voters in order to be nominated. Playing to swing voters in the primary season is unlikely. This further complicates Democratic branding efforts among independent voters. Going into 2018, Republicans ignored the early signs of voter unrest at their peril. They let their tail wag their dog. Now, its happening to the Democrats. Two months into the new Congress, the exuberance of her most progressive members is a challenge to Pelosis majority. And it will remain so. But if the early returns from recent special elections are to be given credenceand, looking at historic trends, they shouldthe atmospherics of the 2018 elections are gone. | Tom Davis: Democrats are facing their own Tea Party-style Reckoning. He says they need to learn from Republicans' mistakes in dealing with insurgents from within. Davis: If Democrats want to avoid melting down, they must not let their party's base wag the dog. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/03/18/democrats-aoc-ocasio-cortez-socialists-pelosi-congress-left-tea-party-225813 | 0.630009 |
How Important Is Oncology For Pfizer? | Pfizers (NYSE:PFE) oncology business contributes more than 10% to its overall top line. This can be attributed to its breast cancer drug ~ Ibrance ~ which has been doing well of late, and it has a large addressable market. The contribution of oncology drugs to the companys overall sales will likely increase in the coming years, with new compounds, such as Bavencio, getting the regulatory nod, and more drugs in its late stage pipeline. In this note we discuss the importance of oncology drugs for Pfizer. You can adjust various drivers to see the divisions impact on the companys overall earnings. Also, heres more Healthcare Data. Oncology Revenues Are On An Upward Trajectory Oncology revenues have seen rapid growth from close to $1.5 billion in 2012 to around $6 billion in 2018. This can be attributed primarily to the success of its two drugs ~ Ibrance and Sutent. While Sutent is a $1 billion plus drug, Ibrance generates over $4 billion in annual sales. Ibrance has been approved for the treatment of breast cancer, and is currently being tested in phase 3 for another three variants of breast cancer. The drugs peak sales are expected to be as high as $8 billion. This is possible given that breast cancer is the most prevalent cancer type in women. Nearly 268,600 new cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed in women in 2019, according to the American Cancer Society. Most of the breast cancer cases are HER2 (human epidermal growth factor receptor 2), an indication for which Ibrance has secured approval. This means that Ibrance targets a very broad set of breast cancer patients. However, last year Novartis saw its breast cancer drug Kisqali getting approvals for multiple indications. As more drugs are approved for different forms of treatment, Ibrance could face the risk of sales slowing in the coming years. For now, Ibrance is the leader in CDK 4/6 (cyclin-dependent kinase) inhibitor class in the U.S., with 90% share in terms of new prescription volume. The future growth will likely come from expansion in international markets, primarily Europe and Japan. Oncologys Contribution To Pfizers EPS We use adjusted net income margin of around 32%, similar to that of Pfizer overall, to arrive at $0.36 contribution to Pfizers total earnings. To understand the contribution to Pfizers stock price, we use around 18x forward price to earnings multiple, and arrive at a $6 figure, which accounts for roughly 15% of the companys current stock price. Our price to earnings multiple for Pfizer is slightly above most of the other pharmaceutical companies, given the growth visibility in Pfizers sales from 2021, especially from biosimilars, anti-infective drugs, and a strong late stage pipeline. In fact, oncology sales contribution is expected to increase from 11% currently to close to 20% by the end of our forecast period in 2025, led by its new compounds. Explore example interactive dashboards and create your own. | Pfizers (NYSE:PFE) oncology business contributes more than 10% to its overall top line. | bart | 0 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2019/03/18/how-important-is-oncology-for-pfizer/ | 0.373962 |
How Important Is Oncology For Pfizer? | Pfizers (NYSE:PFE) oncology business contributes more than 10% to its overall top line. This can be attributed to its breast cancer drug ~ Ibrance ~ which has been doing well of late, and it has a large addressable market. The contribution of oncology drugs to the companys overall sales will likely increase in the coming years, with new compounds, such as Bavencio, getting the regulatory nod, and more drugs in its late stage pipeline. In this note we discuss the importance of oncology drugs for Pfizer. You can adjust various drivers to see the divisions impact on the companys overall earnings. Also, heres more Healthcare Data. Oncology Revenues Are On An Upward Trajectory Oncology revenues have seen rapid growth from close to $1.5 billion in 2012 to around $6 billion in 2018. This can be attributed primarily to the success of its two drugs ~ Ibrance and Sutent. While Sutent is a $1 billion plus drug, Ibrance generates over $4 billion in annual sales. Ibrance has been approved for the treatment of breast cancer, and is currently being tested in phase 3 for another three variants of breast cancer. The drugs peak sales are expected to be as high as $8 billion. This is possible given that breast cancer is the most prevalent cancer type in women. Nearly 268,600 new cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed in women in 2019, according to the American Cancer Society. Most of the breast cancer cases are HER2 (human epidermal growth factor receptor 2), an indication for which Ibrance has secured approval. This means that Ibrance targets a very broad set of breast cancer patients. However, last year Novartis saw its breast cancer drug Kisqali getting approvals for multiple indications. As more drugs are approved for different forms of treatment, Ibrance could face the risk of sales slowing in the coming years. For now, Ibrance is the leader in CDK 4/6 (cyclin-dependent kinase) inhibitor class in the U.S., with 90% share in terms of new prescription volume. The future growth will likely come from expansion in international markets, primarily Europe and Japan. Oncologys Contribution To Pfizers EPS We use adjusted net income margin of around 32%, similar to that of Pfizer overall, to arrive at $0.36 contribution to Pfizers total earnings. To understand the contribution to Pfizers stock price, we use around 18x forward price to earnings multiple, and arrive at a $6 figure, which accounts for roughly 15% of the companys current stock price. Our price to earnings multiple for Pfizer is slightly above most of the other pharmaceutical companies, given the growth visibility in Pfizers sales from 2021, especially from biosimilars, anti-infective drugs, and a strong late stage pipeline. In fact, oncology sales contribution is expected to increase from 11% currently to close to 20% by the end of our forecast period in 2025, led by its new compounds. Explore example interactive dashboards and create your own. | Pfizers (NYSE:PFE) oncology business contributes more than 10% to its overall top line. This can be attributed to its breast cancer drug Ibrance, which has been doing well of late. | bart | 1 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2019/03/18/how-important-is-oncology-for-pfizer/ | 0.485817 |
Who is Ian Shugart, the man who will replace Privy Council clerk Michael Wernick? | OTTAWA Ian Shugart, the man tapped to replace Michael Wernick as Canadas top civil servant after Wernicks resignation on Monday in the wake of the SNC-Lavalin scandal, is a longtime public servant who once served in Brian Mulroneys Tory government. He has served as deputy minister of Foreign Affairs since 2016, and has also held top spots at Employment and Social Development Canada and at Environment Canada, working with Conservative and Liberal governments. Speaking to reporters in Ottawa on Monday, after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his intention to name Shugart the next Privy Council clerk, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said her deputy is a fantastic choice. I have found him to be a tremendously effective deputy minister, someone who I trust completely, and someone who is 100-per-cent devoted to the Canadian national interest, and someone with excellent judgment, she said. Wernick announced his retirement Monday after nearly 38 years in the public service after becoming embroiled in the SNC-Lavalin controversy, with former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould naming him as one of several officials who she says inappropriately pressured her to negotiate an agreement with the Quebec engineering giant that would have allowed it to avoid criminal prosecution. In her testimony before the House of Commons justice committee last month, Wilson-Raybould accused Wernick of making veiled threats about what would happen to her career if she didnt comply. Wernick has testified twice before the same committee and denied that anything inappropriate occurred, claiming that Wilson-Raybould experienced only lawful advocacy. Shugart comes to the Privy Council Office after nearly 30 years in the public service. He was named deputy minister of Environment in 2008, under the Harper government, and was moved to Employment and Social Development in 2010. He became Freelands deputy in May 2016, replacing Daniel Jean, who was tapped to become Trudeaus national security adviser. His appointment to the Foreign Affairs role has been criticized by some because of his lack of international experience, though he defended his resume in a 2017 interview with Open Canada. Im not just an import from some other department, as a senior deputy minister, he said. No, but I know some things that some people in this department dont know, and its useful for them to have access to that. Shugart has previously occupied senior positions at Health Canada and was the executive director of the Medical Research Council, the precursor to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, from 1993 to 1997. He has a bachelors degree in political economy from the University of Torontos Trinity College. Someone who is 100-per-cent devoted to the Canadian national interest Ian Shugart will bring with him a wealth of experience to the role of clerk of the Privy Council and secretary to the cabinet, Trudeau said in a statement. Having served as a deputy minister in three different departments, Mr. Shugart is well-placed to lead the federal public service as it continues to implement the Government of Canadas agenda and deliver high-quality service to Canadians. Prior to joining the public service, Shugart worked in the leaders office of the Progressive Conservatives when they formed the official opposition in the early 1980s, under Joe Clark and then Mulroney. He went on to work for the federal health and energy ministers under Mulroneys Tory government, between 1984 and 1991. Shugart has not made many public statements in recent years, but he did give a speech last May at a conference in Ottawa about Canadas international interests, in which he talked about how Canada should deal with countries that are hostile to Western interests and established rules. The number of countries that we could reliably say and assume were like-minded with Canada and our closest allies, its a smaller group than it was before, he said, adding that Canada must be guided by a belief in multilateralism in addressing such threats. Speaking to a parliamentary committee last June about an auditor generals report on consular services to Canadians abroad, Shugart also provided some perspective on his role as a public servant. Under both (Harper and Trudeau) governments I have personally had the experience many times of giving ministers unwelcome advice and welcome advice, good news and bad, he said. That is our responsibility, and deputy ministers are very well aware of that. It is not always a comfortable responsibility to carry, but we do understand and, in my experience, follow that basic responsibility to tell the truth to our political masters, to follow their direction but to tell them the truth and give them our very best advice. Email: mforrest@postmedia.com | Twitter: MauraForrest | Ian Shugart has served as deputy minister of Foreign Affairs since 2016. | ctrlsum | 0 | https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/who-is-ian-shugart-the-man-who-will-replace-privy-council-clerk-michael-wernick | 0.178171 |
Who is Ian Shugart, the man who will replace Privy Council clerk Michael Wernick? | OTTAWA Ian Shugart, the man tapped to replace Michael Wernick as Canadas top civil servant after Wernicks resignation on Monday in the wake of the SNC-Lavalin scandal, is a longtime public servant who once served in Brian Mulroneys Tory government. He has served as deputy minister of Foreign Affairs since 2016, and has also held top spots at Employment and Social Development Canada and at Environment Canada, working with Conservative and Liberal governments. Speaking to reporters in Ottawa on Monday, after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his intention to name Shugart the next Privy Council clerk, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said her deputy is a fantastic choice. I have found him to be a tremendously effective deputy minister, someone who I trust completely, and someone who is 100-per-cent devoted to the Canadian national interest, and someone with excellent judgment, she said. Wernick announced his retirement Monday after nearly 38 years in the public service after becoming embroiled in the SNC-Lavalin controversy, with former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould naming him as one of several officials who she says inappropriately pressured her to negotiate an agreement with the Quebec engineering giant that would have allowed it to avoid criminal prosecution. In her testimony before the House of Commons justice committee last month, Wilson-Raybould accused Wernick of making veiled threats about what would happen to her career if she didnt comply. Wernick has testified twice before the same committee and denied that anything inappropriate occurred, claiming that Wilson-Raybould experienced only lawful advocacy. Shugart comes to the Privy Council Office after nearly 30 years in the public service. He was named deputy minister of Environment in 2008, under the Harper government, and was moved to Employment and Social Development in 2010. He became Freelands deputy in May 2016, replacing Daniel Jean, who was tapped to become Trudeaus national security adviser. His appointment to the Foreign Affairs role has been criticized by some because of his lack of international experience, though he defended his resume in a 2017 interview with Open Canada. Im not just an import from some other department, as a senior deputy minister, he said. No, but I know some things that some people in this department dont know, and its useful for them to have access to that. Shugart has previously occupied senior positions at Health Canada and was the executive director of the Medical Research Council, the precursor to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, from 1993 to 1997. He has a bachelors degree in political economy from the University of Torontos Trinity College. Someone who is 100-per-cent devoted to the Canadian national interest Ian Shugart will bring with him a wealth of experience to the role of clerk of the Privy Council and secretary to the cabinet, Trudeau said in a statement. Having served as a deputy minister in three different departments, Mr. Shugart is well-placed to lead the federal public service as it continues to implement the Government of Canadas agenda and deliver high-quality service to Canadians. Prior to joining the public service, Shugart worked in the leaders office of the Progressive Conservatives when they formed the official opposition in the early 1980s, under Joe Clark and then Mulroney. He went on to work for the federal health and energy ministers under Mulroneys Tory government, between 1984 and 1991. Shugart has not made many public statements in recent years, but he did give a speech last May at a conference in Ottawa about Canadas international interests, in which he talked about how Canada should deal with countries that are hostile to Western interests and established rules. The number of countries that we could reliably say and assume were like-minded with Canada and our closest allies, its a smaller group than it was before, he said, adding that Canada must be guided by a belief in multilateralism in addressing such threats. Speaking to a parliamentary committee last June about an auditor generals report on consular services to Canadians abroad, Shugart also provided some perspective on his role as a public servant. Under both (Harper and Trudeau) governments I have personally had the experience many times of giving ministers unwelcome advice and welcome advice, good news and bad, he said. That is our responsibility, and deputy ministers are very well aware of that. It is not always a comfortable responsibility to carry, but we do understand and, in my experience, follow that basic responsibility to tell the truth to our political masters, to follow their direction but to tell them the truth and give them our very best advice. Email: mforrest@postmedia.com | Twitter: MauraForrest | Ian Shugart will replace Michael Wernick as Privy Council clerk. He has served as deputy minister of Foreign Affairs since 2016. He is a longtime public servant who once served in Brian Mulroney's Tories. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/who-is-ian-shugart-the-man-who-will-replace-privy-council-clerk-michael-wernick | 0.451078 |
Who is Ian Shugart, the man who will replace Privy Council clerk Michael Wernick? | OTTAWA Ian Shugart, the man tapped to replace Michael Wernick as Canadas top civil servant after Wernicks resignation on Monday in the wake of the SNC-Lavalin scandal, is a longtime public servant who once served in Brian Mulroneys Tory government. He has served as deputy minister of Foreign Affairs since 2016, and has also held top spots at Employment and Social Development Canada and at Environment Canada, working with Conservative and Liberal governments. Speaking to reporters in Ottawa on Monday, after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his intention to name Shugart the next Privy Council clerk, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said her deputy is a fantastic choice. I have found him to be a tremendously effective deputy minister, someone who I trust completely, and someone who is 100-per-cent devoted to the Canadian national interest, and someone with excellent judgment, she said. Wernick announced his retirement Monday after nearly 38 years in the public service after becoming embroiled in the SNC-Lavalin controversy, with former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould naming him as one of several officials who she says inappropriately pressured her to negotiate an agreement with the Quebec engineering giant that would have allowed it to avoid criminal prosecution. In her testimony before the House of Commons justice committee last month, Wilson-Raybould accused Wernick of making veiled threats about what would happen to her career if she didnt comply. Wernick has testified twice before the same committee and denied that anything inappropriate occurred, claiming that Wilson-Raybould experienced only lawful advocacy. Shugart comes to the Privy Council Office after nearly 30 years in the public service. He was named deputy minister of Environment in 2008, under the Harper government, and was moved to Employment and Social Development in 2010. He became Freelands deputy in May 2016, replacing Daniel Jean, who was tapped to become Trudeaus national security adviser. His appointment to the Foreign Affairs role has been criticized by some because of his lack of international experience, though he defended his resume in a 2017 interview with Open Canada. Im not just an import from some other department, as a senior deputy minister, he said. No, but I know some things that some people in this department dont know, and its useful for them to have access to that. Shugart has previously occupied senior positions at Health Canada and was the executive director of the Medical Research Council, the precursor to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, from 1993 to 1997. He has a bachelors degree in political economy from the University of Torontos Trinity College. Someone who is 100-per-cent devoted to the Canadian national interest Ian Shugart will bring with him a wealth of experience to the role of clerk of the Privy Council and secretary to the cabinet, Trudeau said in a statement. Having served as a deputy minister in three different departments, Mr. Shugart is well-placed to lead the federal public service as it continues to implement the Government of Canadas agenda and deliver high-quality service to Canadians. Prior to joining the public service, Shugart worked in the leaders office of the Progressive Conservatives when they formed the official opposition in the early 1980s, under Joe Clark and then Mulroney. He went on to work for the federal health and energy ministers under Mulroneys Tory government, between 1984 and 1991. Shugart has not made many public statements in recent years, but he did give a speech last May at a conference in Ottawa about Canadas international interests, in which he talked about how Canada should deal with countries that are hostile to Western interests and established rules. The number of countries that we could reliably say and assume were like-minded with Canada and our closest allies, its a smaller group than it was before, he said, adding that Canada must be guided by a belief in multilateralism in addressing such threats. Speaking to a parliamentary committee last June about an auditor generals report on consular services to Canadians abroad, Shugart also provided some perspective on his role as a public servant. Under both (Harper and Trudeau) governments I have personally had the experience many times of giving ministers unwelcome advice and welcome advice, good news and bad, he said. That is our responsibility, and deputy ministers are very well aware of that. It is not always a comfortable responsibility to carry, but we do understand and, in my experience, follow that basic responsibility to tell the truth to our political masters, to follow their direction but to tell them the truth and give them our very best advice. Email: mforrest@postmedia.com | Twitter: MauraForrest | Ian Shugart will replace Michael Wernick as Privy Council clerk. He has served as deputy minister of Foreign Affairs since 2016. He is a longtime public servant who once served in Brian Mulroneys Tory government. He will take up his new role on Monday. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/who-is-ian-shugart-the-man-who-will-replace-privy-council-clerk-michael-wernick | 0.504558 |
Should mass shooters remain nameless? | A few months after teen shooters killed 12 classmates and her father at Columbine High School, Coni Sanders was standing in line at a grocery store with her young daughter when they came face to face with the magazine cover. It showed the two gunmen who had carried out one of the deadliest school shootings in United States history. Ms. Sanders realized that few people knew much about her father, who saved countless lives. But virtually everyone knew the names and the tiniest of details about the attackers who carried out the carnage. In the decades since Columbine, a growing movement has urged news organizations to refrain from naming the shooters in mass slayings and to cease the steady drumbeat of biographical information about them. Critics say giving the assailants notoriety offers little to help understand the attacks and instead fuels celebrity-style coverage that only encourages future attacks. The 1999 Colorado attack continues to motivate mass shooters, including the two men who this week stormed their former school in Brazil, killing seven people. The gunman who attacked two mosques in New Zealand on Friday, killing at least 49 people, was said to have been inspired by the man who in 2015 killed nine black worshippers at a church in Charleston, South Carolina. Adam Lankford, a criminologist at the University of Alabama, who has studied the influence of media coverage on future shooters, said it's vitally important to avoid excessive coverage of gunmen. "A lot of these shooters want to be treated like celebrities. They want to be famous. So the key is to not give them that treatment," he said. The notion hit close to home for Ms. Sanders. Seemingly everywhere she turned the grocery store, a restaurant, a newspaper, or magazine she would see the faces of the Columbine attackers and hear or read about them. Even in her own home, she was bombarded with their deeds on TV. Everyone knew their names. "And if you said the two together, they automatically knew it was Columbine," Ms. Sanders said. "The media was so fascinated and so was our country and the world that they really grasped onto this every detail. Time and time again, we couldn't escape it." Criminologists who study mass shootings say the vast majority of shooters are seeking infamy and soak up the coverage as a guide. Just four days after the 2017 Las Vegas concert shooting, which stands as the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, Mr. Lankford published a paper urging journalists to refrain from using shooters' names or going into exhaustive detail about their crimes. These attackers, he argued, are trying to outdo previous shooters with higher death tolls. Media coverage serves only to encourage copycats. Late last year, the Trump administration's federal Commission on School Safety called on the media to refrain from reporting the names and photos of mass shooters. It was one of the rare moments when gun-rights advocates and gun-control activists agreed. "To suggest that the media alone is to blame or is primarily at fault for this epidemic of mass shootings would vastly oversimply this issue," said Adam Skaggs, chief counsel for the Giffords Law Center, which works to curb gun violence. Mr. Skaggs said he is "somewhat sympathetic to journalists' impulse to cover clearly important and newsworthy events and to get at the truth.... But there's a balance that can be struck between ensuring the public has enough information ... and not giving undue attention to perpetrators of heinous acts." Studies show a contagion effect from coverage of both homicides and suicides. The Columbine shooters, in particular, have an almost cult-like status, with some followers seeking to emulate their trench-coat attire and expressing admiration for their crime, which some have attributed to bullying. The gunman in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting kept a detailed journal of decades' worth of mass shootings. James Alan Fox, a professor at Northeastern University who has studied mass shootings, said naming shooters is not the problem. Instead, he blamed over-the-top coverage that includes irrelevant details about the killers, such as their writings and their backgrounds, that "unnecessarily humanizes them." "We sometimes come to know more about them their interests and their disappointments than we do about our next-door neighbors," Mr. Fox said. Law enforcement agencies have taken a lead, most recently with the Aurora, Illinois, police chief, who uttered just once the name of the gunman who killed five co-workers and wounded five officers last month. "I said his name one time for the media, and I will never let it cross my lips again," Chief Kristen Ziman said in a Facebook post. Some media, most notably CNN's Anderson Cooper, have made a point of avoiding using the name of these gunmen. The Associated Press names suspects identified by law enforcement in major crimes. However, in cases in which the crime is carried out seeking publicity, the AP strives to restrict the mention of the name to the minimum needed to inform the public, while avoiding descriptions that might serve a criminal's desire for publicity or self-glorification, said John Daniszewski, the AP's vice president and editor-at-large for standards. For Caren and Tom Teves, the cause is personal. Their son Alex was among those killed in an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater in 2012. They were both traveling out of state when the shooting happened, and it took 15 hours for them to learn the fate of their son. During those hours, they heard repeatedly about the shooter but virtually nothing about the victims. Not long after, they created the No Notoriety movement, encouraging media to stick to reporting relevant facts rather than the smallest of biographical details. They also recommend publishing images of the shooter in places that are not prominent, steering clear of "hero" poses or images showing them holding weapons, and not publishing any manifestos. Get the Monitor Stories you care about delivered to your inbox. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy "We never say don't use the name. What we say is use the name responsibly and don't turn them into anti-heroes," Tom Teves said. "Let's portray them for what they are: They're horrible human beings that are completely skewed in their perception of reality, and their one claim to fortune is sneaking up behind you and shooting you." This story was reported by The Associated Press. | A growing movement has urged news organizations to refrain from naming the shooters in mass slayings. | pegasus | 0 | https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2019/0318/Should-mass-shooters-remain-nameless | 0.146544 |
Should mass shooters remain nameless? | A few months after teen shooters killed 12 classmates and her father at Columbine High School, Coni Sanders was standing in line at a grocery store with her young daughter when they came face to face with the magazine cover. It showed the two gunmen who had carried out one of the deadliest school shootings in United States history. Ms. Sanders realized that few people knew much about her father, who saved countless lives. But virtually everyone knew the names and the tiniest of details about the attackers who carried out the carnage. In the decades since Columbine, a growing movement has urged news organizations to refrain from naming the shooters in mass slayings and to cease the steady drumbeat of biographical information about them. Critics say giving the assailants notoriety offers little to help understand the attacks and instead fuels celebrity-style coverage that only encourages future attacks. The 1999 Colorado attack continues to motivate mass shooters, including the two men who this week stormed their former school in Brazil, killing seven people. The gunman who attacked two mosques in New Zealand on Friday, killing at least 49 people, was said to have been inspired by the man who in 2015 killed nine black worshippers at a church in Charleston, South Carolina. Adam Lankford, a criminologist at the University of Alabama, who has studied the influence of media coverage on future shooters, said it's vitally important to avoid excessive coverage of gunmen. "A lot of these shooters want to be treated like celebrities. They want to be famous. So the key is to not give them that treatment," he said. The notion hit close to home for Ms. Sanders. Seemingly everywhere she turned the grocery store, a restaurant, a newspaper, or magazine she would see the faces of the Columbine attackers and hear or read about them. Even in her own home, she was bombarded with their deeds on TV. Everyone knew their names. "And if you said the two together, they automatically knew it was Columbine," Ms. Sanders said. "The media was so fascinated and so was our country and the world that they really grasped onto this every detail. Time and time again, we couldn't escape it." Criminologists who study mass shootings say the vast majority of shooters are seeking infamy and soak up the coverage as a guide. Just four days after the 2017 Las Vegas concert shooting, which stands as the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, Mr. Lankford published a paper urging journalists to refrain from using shooters' names or going into exhaustive detail about their crimes. These attackers, he argued, are trying to outdo previous shooters with higher death tolls. Media coverage serves only to encourage copycats. Late last year, the Trump administration's federal Commission on School Safety called on the media to refrain from reporting the names and photos of mass shooters. It was one of the rare moments when gun-rights advocates and gun-control activists agreed. "To suggest that the media alone is to blame or is primarily at fault for this epidemic of mass shootings would vastly oversimply this issue," said Adam Skaggs, chief counsel for the Giffords Law Center, which works to curb gun violence. Mr. Skaggs said he is "somewhat sympathetic to journalists' impulse to cover clearly important and newsworthy events and to get at the truth.... But there's a balance that can be struck between ensuring the public has enough information ... and not giving undue attention to perpetrators of heinous acts." Studies show a contagion effect from coverage of both homicides and suicides. The Columbine shooters, in particular, have an almost cult-like status, with some followers seeking to emulate their trench-coat attire and expressing admiration for their crime, which some have attributed to bullying. The gunman in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting kept a detailed journal of decades' worth of mass shootings. James Alan Fox, a professor at Northeastern University who has studied mass shootings, said naming shooters is not the problem. Instead, he blamed over-the-top coverage that includes irrelevant details about the killers, such as their writings and their backgrounds, that "unnecessarily humanizes them." "We sometimes come to know more about them their interests and their disappointments than we do about our next-door neighbors," Mr. Fox said. Law enforcement agencies have taken a lead, most recently with the Aurora, Illinois, police chief, who uttered just once the name of the gunman who killed five co-workers and wounded five officers last month. "I said his name one time for the media, and I will never let it cross my lips again," Chief Kristen Ziman said in a Facebook post. Some media, most notably CNN's Anderson Cooper, have made a point of avoiding using the name of these gunmen. The Associated Press names suspects identified by law enforcement in major crimes. However, in cases in which the crime is carried out seeking publicity, the AP strives to restrict the mention of the name to the minimum needed to inform the public, while avoiding descriptions that might serve a criminal's desire for publicity or self-glorification, said John Daniszewski, the AP's vice president and editor-at-large for standards. For Caren and Tom Teves, the cause is personal. Their son Alex was among those killed in an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater in 2012. They were both traveling out of state when the shooting happened, and it took 15 hours for them to learn the fate of their son. During those hours, they heard repeatedly about the shooter but virtually nothing about the victims. Not long after, they created the No Notoriety movement, encouraging media to stick to reporting relevant facts rather than the smallest of biographical details. They also recommend publishing images of the shooter in places that are not prominent, steering clear of "hero" poses or images showing them holding weapons, and not publishing any manifestos. Get the Monitor Stories you care about delivered to your inbox. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy "We never say don't use the name. What we say is use the name responsibly and don't turn them into anti-heroes," Tom Teves said. "Let's portray them for what they are: They're horrible human beings that are completely skewed in their perception of reality, and their one claim to fortune is sneaking up behind you and shooting you." This story was reported by The Associated Press. | In the decades since Columbine, a growing movement has urged news organizations to refrain from naming the shooters in mass slayings and to cease the steady drumbeat of biographical information about them. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2019/0318/Should-mass-shooters-remain-nameless | 0.144245 |
Should mass shooters remain nameless? | A few months after teen shooters killed 12 classmates and her father at Columbine High School, Coni Sanders was standing in line at a grocery store with her young daughter when they came face to face with the magazine cover. It showed the two gunmen who had carried out one of the deadliest school shootings in United States history. Ms. Sanders realized that few people knew much about her father, who saved countless lives. But virtually everyone knew the names and the tiniest of details about the attackers who carried out the carnage. In the decades since Columbine, a growing movement has urged news organizations to refrain from naming the shooters in mass slayings and to cease the steady drumbeat of biographical information about them. Critics say giving the assailants notoriety offers little to help understand the attacks and instead fuels celebrity-style coverage that only encourages future attacks. The 1999 Colorado attack continues to motivate mass shooters, including the two men who this week stormed their former school in Brazil, killing seven people. The gunman who attacked two mosques in New Zealand on Friday, killing at least 49 people, was said to have been inspired by the man who in 2015 killed nine black worshippers at a church in Charleston, South Carolina. Adam Lankford, a criminologist at the University of Alabama, who has studied the influence of media coverage on future shooters, said it's vitally important to avoid excessive coverage of gunmen. "A lot of these shooters want to be treated like celebrities. They want to be famous. So the key is to not give them that treatment," he said. The notion hit close to home for Ms. Sanders. Seemingly everywhere she turned the grocery store, a restaurant, a newspaper, or magazine she would see the faces of the Columbine attackers and hear or read about them. Even in her own home, she was bombarded with their deeds on TV. Everyone knew their names. "And if you said the two together, they automatically knew it was Columbine," Ms. Sanders said. "The media was so fascinated and so was our country and the world that they really grasped onto this every detail. Time and time again, we couldn't escape it." Criminologists who study mass shootings say the vast majority of shooters are seeking infamy and soak up the coverage as a guide. Just four days after the 2017 Las Vegas concert shooting, which stands as the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, Mr. Lankford published a paper urging journalists to refrain from using shooters' names or going into exhaustive detail about their crimes. These attackers, he argued, are trying to outdo previous shooters with higher death tolls. Media coverage serves only to encourage copycats. Late last year, the Trump administration's federal Commission on School Safety called on the media to refrain from reporting the names and photos of mass shooters. It was one of the rare moments when gun-rights advocates and gun-control activists agreed. "To suggest that the media alone is to blame or is primarily at fault for this epidemic of mass shootings would vastly oversimply this issue," said Adam Skaggs, chief counsel for the Giffords Law Center, which works to curb gun violence. Mr. Skaggs said he is "somewhat sympathetic to journalists' impulse to cover clearly important and newsworthy events and to get at the truth.... But there's a balance that can be struck between ensuring the public has enough information ... and not giving undue attention to perpetrators of heinous acts." Studies show a contagion effect from coverage of both homicides and suicides. The Columbine shooters, in particular, have an almost cult-like status, with some followers seeking to emulate their trench-coat attire and expressing admiration for their crime, which some have attributed to bullying. The gunman in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting kept a detailed journal of decades' worth of mass shootings. James Alan Fox, a professor at Northeastern University who has studied mass shootings, said naming shooters is not the problem. Instead, he blamed over-the-top coverage that includes irrelevant details about the killers, such as their writings and their backgrounds, that "unnecessarily humanizes them." "We sometimes come to know more about them their interests and their disappointments than we do about our next-door neighbors," Mr. Fox said. Law enforcement agencies have taken a lead, most recently with the Aurora, Illinois, police chief, who uttered just once the name of the gunman who killed five co-workers and wounded five officers last month. "I said his name one time for the media, and I will never let it cross my lips again," Chief Kristen Ziman said in a Facebook post. Some media, most notably CNN's Anderson Cooper, have made a point of avoiding using the name of these gunmen. The Associated Press names suspects identified by law enforcement in major crimes. However, in cases in which the crime is carried out seeking publicity, the AP strives to restrict the mention of the name to the minimum needed to inform the public, while avoiding descriptions that might serve a criminal's desire for publicity or self-glorification, said John Daniszewski, the AP's vice president and editor-at-large for standards. For Caren and Tom Teves, the cause is personal. Their son Alex was among those killed in an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater in 2012. They were both traveling out of state when the shooting happened, and it took 15 hours for them to learn the fate of their son. During those hours, they heard repeatedly about the shooter but virtually nothing about the victims. Not long after, they created the No Notoriety movement, encouraging media to stick to reporting relevant facts rather than the smallest of biographical details. They also recommend publishing images of the shooter in places that are not prominent, steering clear of "hero" poses or images showing them holding weapons, and not publishing any manifestos. Get the Monitor Stories you care about delivered to your inbox. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy "We never say don't use the name. What we say is use the name responsibly and don't turn them into anti-heroes," Tom Teves said. "Let's portray them for what they are: They're horrible human beings that are completely skewed in their perception of reality, and their one claim to fortune is sneaking up behind you and shooting you." This story was reported by The Associated Press. | In the decades since Columbine, a growing movement has urged news organizations to refrain from naming the shooters in mass slayings and to cease the steady drumbeat of biographical information about them. Critics say giving the assailants notoriety offers little to help understand the attacks and instead fuels celebrity-style coverage that only encourages future attacks. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2019/0318/Should-mass-shooters-remain-nameless | 0.177134 |
Is BTS Already Headed For Another No. 1 Album? | Its been less than a year since K-pop outfit BTS made history by becoming the first act from their genre to score a No. 1 album in the U.S. with their full-length Love Yourself: Tear. That one accomplishment would have been a career high for most groups, but the Bangtan Boys (another name theyve been known by) didnt rest on their success, instead prepping another album almost immediately. The follow-up record, Love Yourself: Answer, was released in August, and it, too, went straight to the peak of the Billboard 200, making them one of the few acts that have landed a pair of leaders in the same calendar year. As is their typical way of working, BTS is already back with new music, and the vocal group has announced a new album entitled Map of the Soul: Persona, which will drop on April 12. Three albums in less than a year is an incredible amount of music for any musicians to create, but is it too much for fans...or will BTS collect a third No. Perhaps their greatest competition when it comes to claiming the No. 1 with their upcoming release is pop/jazz singer-songwriter and pianist Norah Jones, whose new record Begin Again is slated to be made available the same day. Jones has released half a dozen records now, and the lowest position shes had to settle for when it comes debuts is No. 3, while three of them have topped the Billboard 200. Most of her records open with over 100,000 units, though her most recent effort, 2016s Day Breaks, didnt even make 50,000 in its first frame. Even if she inches back toward her usual selling figures, it might only move about half as many units as BTS most recent No. 1, which launched with 185,000 equivalent units, most of which were sales. Behind Jones, a handful of titles could begin their time on the Billboard 200 inside the top 10Anderson .Paaks Ventura, Melissa Etheridges The Medicine Show and perhaps even LSDs (the supergroup featuring Sia, Labrinth and Diplo) self-titled debutbut none of them will challenge BTS for the throne. When predicting future chart-leading albums, its also smart to look not only at what else will be released on the same day, but what came out in the week(s) prior. The frame before Map of the Soul: Persona arrives, only Khalids Free Spirit, which has a good shot at going to No. 1 upon arrival, will likely hold on inside the top 10 for a second stint, though its second-week figures shouldn't be enough to hold powerhouses like BTS back. Perhaps the only thing that could derail BTS chances of scoring a third No. 1 album in less than 12 months is a surprise release from one of the music industrys superstars, and thats always nearly impossible to predict. If, say, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift or a hip-hop favorite like Drake or Eminem came out of nowhere with another full-length, they may have a shot at winning the week...but at the moment, there arent enough rumblings and rumors to give the K-pop heavyweights reason to worry. | K-pop group BTS will release a new album on April 12. It will be their third No. 1 album. | ctrlsum | 0 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2019/03/18/is-bts-already-headed-for-another-no-1-album/ | 0.279026 |
Is BTS Already Headed For Another No. 1 Album? | Its been less than a year since K-pop outfit BTS made history by becoming the first act from their genre to score a No. 1 album in the U.S. with their full-length Love Yourself: Tear. That one accomplishment would have been a career high for most groups, but the Bangtan Boys (another name theyve been known by) didnt rest on their success, instead prepping another album almost immediately. The follow-up record, Love Yourself: Answer, was released in August, and it, too, went straight to the peak of the Billboard 200, making them one of the few acts that have landed a pair of leaders in the same calendar year. As is their typical way of working, BTS is already back with new music, and the vocal group has announced a new album entitled Map of the Soul: Persona, which will drop on April 12. Three albums in less than a year is an incredible amount of music for any musicians to create, but is it too much for fans...or will BTS collect a third No. Perhaps their greatest competition when it comes to claiming the No. 1 with their upcoming release is pop/jazz singer-songwriter and pianist Norah Jones, whose new record Begin Again is slated to be made available the same day. Jones has released half a dozen records now, and the lowest position shes had to settle for when it comes debuts is No. 3, while three of them have topped the Billboard 200. Most of her records open with over 100,000 units, though her most recent effort, 2016s Day Breaks, didnt even make 50,000 in its first frame. Even if she inches back toward her usual selling figures, it might only move about half as many units as BTS most recent No. 1, which launched with 185,000 equivalent units, most of which were sales. Behind Jones, a handful of titles could begin their time on the Billboard 200 inside the top 10Anderson .Paaks Ventura, Melissa Etheridges The Medicine Show and perhaps even LSDs (the supergroup featuring Sia, Labrinth and Diplo) self-titled debutbut none of them will challenge BTS for the throne. When predicting future chart-leading albums, its also smart to look not only at what else will be released on the same day, but what came out in the week(s) prior. The frame before Map of the Soul: Persona arrives, only Khalids Free Spirit, which has a good shot at going to No. 1 upon arrival, will likely hold on inside the top 10 for a second stint, though its second-week figures shouldn't be enough to hold powerhouses like BTS back. Perhaps the only thing that could derail BTS chances of scoring a third No. 1 album in less than 12 months is a surprise release from one of the music industrys superstars, and thats always nearly impossible to predict. If, say, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift or a hip-hop favorite like Drake or Eminem came out of nowhere with another full-length, they may have a shot at winning the week...but at the moment, there arent enough rumblings and rumors to give the K-pop heavyweights reason to worry. | K-pop group BTS will release a new album on April 12. It will be the group's third No. 1 album in less than a year. They will face competition from Norah Jones and Khalid. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2019/03/18/is-bts-already-headed-for-another-no-1-album/ | 0.264975 |
Is BTS Already Headed For Another No. 1 Album? | Its been less than a year since K-pop outfit BTS made history by becoming the first act from their genre to score a No. 1 album in the U.S. with their full-length Love Yourself: Tear. That one accomplishment would have been a career high for most groups, but the Bangtan Boys (another name theyve been known by) didnt rest on their success, instead prepping another album almost immediately. The follow-up record, Love Yourself: Answer, was released in August, and it, too, went straight to the peak of the Billboard 200, making them one of the few acts that have landed a pair of leaders in the same calendar year. As is their typical way of working, BTS is already back with new music, and the vocal group has announced a new album entitled Map of the Soul: Persona, which will drop on April 12. Three albums in less than a year is an incredible amount of music for any musicians to create, but is it too much for fans...or will BTS collect a third No. Perhaps their greatest competition when it comes to claiming the No. 1 with their upcoming release is pop/jazz singer-songwriter and pianist Norah Jones, whose new record Begin Again is slated to be made available the same day. Jones has released half a dozen records now, and the lowest position shes had to settle for when it comes debuts is No. 3, while three of them have topped the Billboard 200. Most of her records open with over 100,000 units, though her most recent effort, 2016s Day Breaks, didnt even make 50,000 in its first frame. Even if she inches back toward her usual selling figures, it might only move about half as many units as BTS most recent No. 1, which launched with 185,000 equivalent units, most of which were sales. Behind Jones, a handful of titles could begin their time on the Billboard 200 inside the top 10Anderson .Paaks Ventura, Melissa Etheridges The Medicine Show and perhaps even LSDs (the supergroup featuring Sia, Labrinth and Diplo) self-titled debutbut none of them will challenge BTS for the throne. When predicting future chart-leading albums, its also smart to look not only at what else will be released on the same day, but what came out in the week(s) prior. The frame before Map of the Soul: Persona arrives, only Khalids Free Spirit, which has a good shot at going to No. 1 upon arrival, will likely hold on inside the top 10 for a second stint, though its second-week figures shouldn't be enough to hold powerhouses like BTS back. Perhaps the only thing that could derail BTS chances of scoring a third No. 1 album in less than 12 months is a surprise release from one of the music industrys superstars, and thats always nearly impossible to predict. If, say, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift or a hip-hop favorite like Drake or Eminem came out of nowhere with another full-length, they may have a shot at winning the week...but at the moment, there arent enough rumblings and rumors to give the K-pop heavyweights reason to worry. | K-pop group BTS will release a new album on April 12. It will be the group's third No. 1 album in less than a year. They will face competition from Norah Jones and other acts on the same day, but they should be in good shape. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2019/03/18/is-bts-already-headed-for-another-no-1-album/ | 0.299303 |
Can Belmont win an NCAA Tournament game? | CLOSE Belmont has gotten into the NCAA Tournament seven times in the past, but always on automatic berths. Mike Organ, USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee Belmont is back in the NCAA Tournament. Getting into the field of 68 remains a huge accomplishment for the Bruins. But getting in on an at-large bid brings with it a completely different feel along with added expectations. "That's what I'm most nervous about now, is living up to this choice (by the NCAA Tournament selection committee)," coach Rick Byrd said. Belmont (26-5) plays Temple (23-9) at 8:10 p.m. Tuesday (TruTV) in a First Four game in Dayton, Ohio. The winner will play No. 6 seed Maryland in the East Region. The selection committee elected to put Belmont in the tournament this year rather than being required to do so as it had been the seven times in the past when the Bruins earned automatic berths by winning conference tournaments. The Bruins never have won an NCAA Tournament game. The closest they came was in 2008 when they gave Duke a scare before losing 71-70. Belmont also played well against Virginia the last time it was in the NCAA Tournament in 2015. The Bruins cut a 14-point deficit in the second half to two with 4:30 minutes remaining before falling 79-67. Better equipped On several occasions Byrd has said this team is one of the very best he has coached in his 33 years at Belmont. Dylan Windler, a 6-foot-8 forward, is an NBA prospect. Fellow senior Kevin McClain, a guard, and freshman center Nick Muszynski joined Windler on the All-OVC first team. Muszynski missed the OVC tournament championship game against Murray State with an ankle injury but Byrd said Monday he will play Tuesday. Freshman point guard Grayson Murphy from Independence is 12th nationally in assists per game (6.6). NEWSLETTERS Get the Sports newsletter delivered to your inbox We're sorry, but something went wrong Top and trending sports headlines you need to know for your busy day. Please try again soon, or contact Customer Service at 1-800-342-8237. Delivery: Daily Invalid email address Thank you! You're almost signed up for Sports Keep an eye out for an email to confirm your newsletter registration. More newsletters "Even the team that played Duke to a point, that team didn't have the capability this team does to compete with those kind of athletes and skill players that we're going to have to face in this tournament," Byrd said. "I think we are more ready in that regard." The only component this team lacks is a history in the NCAA Tournament. "We don't have as much experience as that (2008) team had in playing in the NCAA Tournament; we have none," Byrd said. "But I've seen teams win first-round games that have never been there before, and that's what we will try to do." Peaking down the stretch The selection committee has made it clear in the past it favors teams that are playing well heading into the tournament, and Belmont fits that template. The Bruins struggled at the start of the Ohio Valley Conference season when they lost twice to Jacksonville over a two-week span. The second loss came on Jan. 17. Belmont didn't lose again until March 9 in the conference tournament championship. "The fact that we won 14 straight at the end of the year helped," Byrd said. "They always talk about picking teams based on how they are playing late in the season. We certainly played well. Not only did we win those games, (but) we won all but one of them by double-figures." Belmont's average margin of victory during the 14-game win streak was 20 points. The past matters After going to the NCAA Tournament seven times in 10 seasons, Belmont gained a reputation as one of the nation's top mid-major programs. The Bruins also have been in the National Invitation Tournament four times. They advanced to the quarterfinals in 2014 and second round in 2017. That past success also could have played a role in Belmont earning the at-large bid. "They're supposed to look at each team separately on its own merits for each year, and I've got to trust that's what they tried to do," Byrd said. "And if there was any part of the consistency of our program or any other part of the program that swung things our way, that's great." Temple's tournament history Like Belmont, Temple is led by a veteran coach in Fran Dunphy, 70. This game could be Dunphy's last. He is in his 13th season with the Owls and already has announced his retirement at the end of the season. Dunphy replaced John Chaney in 2006. Temple is in the NCAA Tournament for the 33rd time. The Owls' last appearance came in 2016 when they lost to Iowa 72-70 in overtime. Belmont's NCAA NET ranking is 48th. Temple is 56th. More: What to know about Temple, the Bruins' First Four opponent More: First Four: Belmont vs. Temple TV, Game time, Odds, Streaming More: Belmont's Rick Byrd brought to tears after Bruins get NCAA Tournament at-large bid Reach Mike Organ at 615-259-8021 or on Twitter @MikeOrganWriter. | Belmont has never won an NCAA Tournament game. Coach Rick Byrd says his team is better equipped this year. | ctrlsum | 0 | https://www.tennessean.com/story/sports/2019/03/18/ncaa-tournament-belmont-temple-fran-dunphy-rick-byrd-first-four/3202396002/ | 0.719083 |
Can Belmont win an NCAA Tournament game? | CLOSE Belmont has gotten into the NCAA Tournament seven times in the past, but always on automatic berths. Mike Organ, USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee Belmont is back in the NCAA Tournament. Getting into the field of 68 remains a huge accomplishment for the Bruins. But getting in on an at-large bid brings with it a completely different feel along with added expectations. "That's what I'm most nervous about now, is living up to this choice (by the NCAA Tournament selection committee)," coach Rick Byrd said. Belmont (26-5) plays Temple (23-9) at 8:10 p.m. Tuesday (TruTV) in a First Four game in Dayton, Ohio. The winner will play No. 6 seed Maryland in the East Region. The selection committee elected to put Belmont in the tournament this year rather than being required to do so as it had been the seven times in the past when the Bruins earned automatic berths by winning conference tournaments. The Bruins never have won an NCAA Tournament game. The closest they came was in 2008 when they gave Duke a scare before losing 71-70. Belmont also played well against Virginia the last time it was in the NCAA Tournament in 2015. The Bruins cut a 14-point deficit in the second half to two with 4:30 minutes remaining before falling 79-67. Better equipped On several occasions Byrd has said this team is one of the very best he has coached in his 33 years at Belmont. Dylan Windler, a 6-foot-8 forward, is an NBA prospect. Fellow senior Kevin McClain, a guard, and freshman center Nick Muszynski joined Windler on the All-OVC first team. Muszynski missed the OVC tournament championship game against Murray State with an ankle injury but Byrd said Monday he will play Tuesday. Freshman point guard Grayson Murphy from Independence is 12th nationally in assists per game (6.6). NEWSLETTERS Get the Sports newsletter delivered to your inbox We're sorry, but something went wrong Top and trending sports headlines you need to know for your busy day. Please try again soon, or contact Customer Service at 1-800-342-8237. Delivery: Daily Invalid email address Thank you! You're almost signed up for Sports Keep an eye out for an email to confirm your newsletter registration. More newsletters "Even the team that played Duke to a point, that team didn't have the capability this team does to compete with those kind of athletes and skill players that we're going to have to face in this tournament," Byrd said. "I think we are more ready in that regard." The only component this team lacks is a history in the NCAA Tournament. "We don't have as much experience as that (2008) team had in playing in the NCAA Tournament; we have none," Byrd said. "But I've seen teams win first-round games that have never been there before, and that's what we will try to do." Peaking down the stretch The selection committee has made it clear in the past it favors teams that are playing well heading into the tournament, and Belmont fits that template. The Bruins struggled at the start of the Ohio Valley Conference season when they lost twice to Jacksonville over a two-week span. The second loss came on Jan. 17. Belmont didn't lose again until March 9 in the conference tournament championship. "The fact that we won 14 straight at the end of the year helped," Byrd said. "They always talk about picking teams based on how they are playing late in the season. We certainly played well. Not only did we win those games, (but) we won all but one of them by double-figures." Belmont's average margin of victory during the 14-game win streak was 20 points. The past matters After going to the NCAA Tournament seven times in 10 seasons, Belmont gained a reputation as one of the nation's top mid-major programs. The Bruins also have been in the National Invitation Tournament four times. They advanced to the quarterfinals in 2014 and second round in 2017. That past success also could have played a role in Belmont earning the at-large bid. "They're supposed to look at each team separately on its own merits for each year, and I've got to trust that's what they tried to do," Byrd said. "And if there was any part of the consistency of our program or any other part of the program that swung things our way, that's great." Temple's tournament history Like Belmont, Temple is led by a veteran coach in Fran Dunphy, 70. This game could be Dunphy's last. He is in his 13th season with the Owls and already has announced his retirement at the end of the season. Dunphy replaced John Chaney in 2006. Temple is in the NCAA Tournament for the 33rd time. The Owls' last appearance came in 2016 when they lost to Iowa 72-70 in overtime. Belmont's NCAA NET ranking is 48th. Temple is 56th. More: What to know about Temple, the Bruins' First Four opponent More: First Four: Belmont vs. Temple TV, Game time, Odds, Streaming More: Belmont's Rick Byrd brought to tears after Bruins get NCAA Tournament at-large bid Reach Mike Organ at 615-259-8021 or on Twitter @MikeOrganWriter. | Belmont has never won an NCAA Tournament game. Coach Rick Byrd says his team is better equipped this year. The Bruins have won 14 straight games after a two-game losing streak. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://www.tennessean.com/story/sports/2019/03/18/ncaa-tournament-belmont-temple-fran-dunphy-rick-byrd-first-four/3202396002/ | 0.746472 |
Can Belmont win an NCAA Tournament game? | CLOSE Belmont has gotten into the NCAA Tournament seven times in the past, but always on automatic berths. Mike Organ, USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee Belmont is back in the NCAA Tournament. Getting into the field of 68 remains a huge accomplishment for the Bruins. But getting in on an at-large bid brings with it a completely different feel along with added expectations. "That's what I'm most nervous about now, is living up to this choice (by the NCAA Tournament selection committee)," coach Rick Byrd said. Belmont (26-5) plays Temple (23-9) at 8:10 p.m. Tuesday (TruTV) in a First Four game in Dayton, Ohio. The winner will play No. 6 seed Maryland in the East Region. The selection committee elected to put Belmont in the tournament this year rather than being required to do so as it had been the seven times in the past when the Bruins earned automatic berths by winning conference tournaments. The Bruins never have won an NCAA Tournament game. The closest they came was in 2008 when they gave Duke a scare before losing 71-70. Belmont also played well against Virginia the last time it was in the NCAA Tournament in 2015. The Bruins cut a 14-point deficit in the second half to two with 4:30 minutes remaining before falling 79-67. Better equipped On several occasions Byrd has said this team is one of the very best he has coached in his 33 years at Belmont. Dylan Windler, a 6-foot-8 forward, is an NBA prospect. Fellow senior Kevin McClain, a guard, and freshman center Nick Muszynski joined Windler on the All-OVC first team. Muszynski missed the OVC tournament championship game against Murray State with an ankle injury but Byrd said Monday he will play Tuesday. Freshman point guard Grayson Murphy from Independence is 12th nationally in assists per game (6.6). NEWSLETTERS Get the Sports newsletter delivered to your inbox We're sorry, but something went wrong Top and trending sports headlines you need to know for your busy day. Please try again soon, or contact Customer Service at 1-800-342-8237. Delivery: Daily Invalid email address Thank you! You're almost signed up for Sports Keep an eye out for an email to confirm your newsletter registration. More newsletters "Even the team that played Duke to a point, that team didn't have the capability this team does to compete with those kind of athletes and skill players that we're going to have to face in this tournament," Byrd said. "I think we are more ready in that regard." The only component this team lacks is a history in the NCAA Tournament. "We don't have as much experience as that (2008) team had in playing in the NCAA Tournament; we have none," Byrd said. "But I've seen teams win first-round games that have never been there before, and that's what we will try to do." Peaking down the stretch The selection committee has made it clear in the past it favors teams that are playing well heading into the tournament, and Belmont fits that template. The Bruins struggled at the start of the Ohio Valley Conference season when they lost twice to Jacksonville over a two-week span. The second loss came on Jan. 17. Belmont didn't lose again until March 9 in the conference tournament championship. "The fact that we won 14 straight at the end of the year helped," Byrd said. "They always talk about picking teams based on how they are playing late in the season. We certainly played well. Not only did we win those games, (but) we won all but one of them by double-figures." Belmont's average margin of victory during the 14-game win streak was 20 points. The past matters After going to the NCAA Tournament seven times in 10 seasons, Belmont gained a reputation as one of the nation's top mid-major programs. The Bruins also have been in the National Invitation Tournament four times. They advanced to the quarterfinals in 2014 and second round in 2017. That past success also could have played a role in Belmont earning the at-large bid. "They're supposed to look at each team separately on its own merits for each year, and I've got to trust that's what they tried to do," Byrd said. "And if there was any part of the consistency of our program or any other part of the program that swung things our way, that's great." Temple's tournament history Like Belmont, Temple is led by a veteran coach in Fran Dunphy, 70. This game could be Dunphy's last. He is in his 13th season with the Owls and already has announced his retirement at the end of the season. Dunphy replaced John Chaney in 2006. Temple is in the NCAA Tournament for the 33rd time. The Owls' last appearance came in 2016 when they lost to Iowa 72-70 in overtime. Belmont's NCAA NET ranking is 48th. Temple is 56th. More: What to know about Temple, the Bruins' First Four opponent More: First Four: Belmont vs. Temple TV, Game time, Odds, Streaming More: Belmont's Rick Byrd brought to tears after Bruins get NCAA Tournament at-large bid Reach Mike Organ at 615-259-8021 or on Twitter @MikeOrganWriter. | Belmont has never won an NCAA Tournament game. Coach Rick Byrd says his team is better equipped this year. The Bruins have won 14 straight games after a slow start to the season. The NCAA Tournament starts Tuesday in Dayton, Ohio, with a first-round game against Temple. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.tennessean.com/story/sports/2019/03/18/ncaa-tournament-belmont-temple-fran-dunphy-rick-byrd-first-four/3202396002/ | 0.705853 |
How Did the F.A.A. Allow the Boeing 737 Max to Fly? | With virtually every day that has passed since the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, which killed a hundred and fifty-seven people, more disturbing news has emerged. On Sunday, a spokesperson for Ethiopias ministry of transport said that the black box that was recovered from the wreckage of Flight 302 indicated that clear similarities were noted between Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and Indonesian Lion Air Flight 610, which crashed last October, killing a hundred and eighty-nine people. The plane involved in the Lion Air tragedy was also a Boeing 737 Max 8, and investigators suspect that the cause of that crash was a malfunctioning automated-flight-control feature, which caused the aircrafts nose to dip repeatedly during its initial ascent out of the airport in Jakarta. The automated-flight-control feature on the 737 Max, which is called a Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), was designed to prevent a high-speed stall. It works by tilting part of the horizontal stabilizer in the tail of the plane, and investigators at the Ethiopian crash site have found physical evidence that this part of the plane was, indeed, configured to dive. Radar data has indicated that both planes jerked up and down in erratic fashion after takeoff. The captain of the Ethiopian Airlines flight reported a flight control problem to the air-traffic control tower. Data from the black box of the Lion Air plane showed that its pilots repeatedly pulled back on the control yoke to try to disengage the MCAS and level the flight path of the plane. The pilots fought continuously until the end of the flight, an official from the Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee said in November, after the planes black box was recovered. This is all frightening enough, and it raises serious questions about why Boeing didnt tell airlines and pilots much more about the MCASin particular, how to disengage it in an emergencybefore the 737 Max was put into service in 2017, the Washington Post reported. Boeing has delivered three hundred and seventy-six of these planes to airlines around the world. Practically all of them have now been grounded out of safety concerns. Boeing has promised a software fix to address some of the potential problems created by the MCAS. Thats too little, too late, of course, and it doesnt address the even larger issue of how the 737 Max was allowed to fly in the first place. On Sunday, the Seattle Times, the home-town newspaper of Boeings commercial division, published the results of a lengthy investigation into the federal certification of the 737 Max. It found that the F.A.A. outsourced key elements of the certification process to Boeing itself, and that Boeings safety analysis of the new plane contained some serious flaws, including several relating to the MCAS. The Boeing analysis understated the power of the new flight control system, the Seattle Times article said. When the planes later entered service, MCAS was capable of moving the tail more than four times farther than was stated in the initial safety analysis document. The Boeing analysis also failed to account for how the system could reset itself each time a pilot responded, thereby missing the potential impact of the system repeatedly pushing the airplanes nose downward. In the case of the Lion Air flight, investigators suspect the MCAS was reacting to faulty data gathered from a single flight sensor mounted on the fuselage. It turns out that the F.A.A., with congressional approval, has over the years delegated increasing authority to Boeing to take on more of the work of certifying the safety of its own airplanes, the Seattle Times said. In the case of the 737 Max, which is a longer and more fuel-efficient version of previous 737s, Boeing was particularly eager to get the plane into service quickly, so it could compete with Airbuss new A320neo. Early on, employees of the F.A.A. and Boeing decided how to divide up the certification work. But halfway through the process we were asked by management to re-evaluate what would be delegated, a former F.A.A. safety engineer told the Seattle Times. Management thought we had retained too much at the FAA: There was constant pressure to re-evaluate our initial decisions, the former engineer said. And even after we had reassessed it there was continued discussion by management about delegating even more items down to the Boeing Company. Even the work that was retained, such as reviewing technical documents provided by Boeing, was sometimes curtailed. There wasnt a complete and proper review of the documents, the former engineer added. Review was rushed to reach certain certification dates. The new revelations dont stop there. Federal prosecutors and Department of Transportation officials are scrutinizing the development of Boeing Co.s 737 MAX jetliners, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. A grand jury in Washington, D.C., issued a broad subpoena dated March 11 to at least one person involved in the 737 MAXs development, seeking related documents, including correspondence, emails and other messages, a source told the paper. (The Justice Department and Department of Transportation declined to comment on the Journals reporting.) The criminal investigation began well before the crash of the Ethiopian Airlines Flight. Its not clear yet whether it is focussing on the MCAS system, the report in the Journal said. But, that article added, In the U.S., it is highly unusual for federal prosecutors to investigate details of regulatory approval of commercial aircraft designs, or to use a criminal probe to delve into dealings between the FAA and the largest aircraft manufacturer the agency oversees. Probes of airliner programs or alleged lapses in federal safety oversight typically are handled as civil cases, often by the DOT inspector general. In a statement to the Seattle Times, Boeing said that the F.A.A. considered the final configuration and operating parameters of MCAS during MAX certification, and concluded that it met all certification and regulatory requirements. The F.A.A., in a statement issued on Sunday, said that the 737 MAX certification program followed the FAAs standard certification process. Given that two brand-new 737 Maxes have plunged to earth, befuddling their pilots and costing three hundred and forty-six people their lives, these statements are hardly reassuring. We need to know a lot more about how the FAA allowed this plane to take to the air. | The Boeing 737 Max was allowed to fly, despite serious safety concerns. The F.A.A., with congressional approval, has delegated increasing authority to Boeing to make safety improvements. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/how-did-the-faa-allow-the-boeing-737-max-to-fly | 0.398965 |
How Did the F.A.A. Allow the Boeing 737 Max to Fly? | With virtually every day that has passed since the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, which killed a hundred and fifty-seven people, more disturbing news has emerged. On Sunday, a spokesperson for Ethiopias ministry of transport said that the black box that was recovered from the wreckage of Flight 302 indicated that clear similarities were noted between Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and Indonesian Lion Air Flight 610, which crashed last October, killing a hundred and eighty-nine people. The plane involved in the Lion Air tragedy was also a Boeing 737 Max 8, and investigators suspect that the cause of that crash was a malfunctioning automated-flight-control feature, which caused the aircrafts nose to dip repeatedly during its initial ascent out of the airport in Jakarta. The automated-flight-control feature on the 737 Max, which is called a Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), was designed to prevent a high-speed stall. It works by tilting part of the horizontal stabilizer in the tail of the plane, and investigators at the Ethiopian crash site have found physical evidence that this part of the plane was, indeed, configured to dive. Radar data has indicated that both planes jerked up and down in erratic fashion after takeoff. The captain of the Ethiopian Airlines flight reported a flight control problem to the air-traffic control tower. Data from the black box of the Lion Air plane showed that its pilots repeatedly pulled back on the control yoke to try to disengage the MCAS and level the flight path of the plane. The pilots fought continuously until the end of the flight, an official from the Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee said in November, after the planes black box was recovered. This is all frightening enough, and it raises serious questions about why Boeing didnt tell airlines and pilots much more about the MCASin particular, how to disengage it in an emergencybefore the 737 Max was put into service in 2017, the Washington Post reported. Boeing has delivered three hundred and seventy-six of these planes to airlines around the world. Practically all of them have now been grounded out of safety concerns. Boeing has promised a software fix to address some of the potential problems created by the MCAS. Thats too little, too late, of course, and it doesnt address the even larger issue of how the 737 Max was allowed to fly in the first place. On Sunday, the Seattle Times, the home-town newspaper of Boeings commercial division, published the results of a lengthy investigation into the federal certification of the 737 Max. It found that the F.A.A. outsourced key elements of the certification process to Boeing itself, and that Boeings safety analysis of the new plane contained some serious flaws, including several relating to the MCAS. The Boeing analysis understated the power of the new flight control system, the Seattle Times article said. When the planes later entered service, MCAS was capable of moving the tail more than four times farther than was stated in the initial safety analysis document. The Boeing analysis also failed to account for how the system could reset itself each time a pilot responded, thereby missing the potential impact of the system repeatedly pushing the airplanes nose downward. In the case of the Lion Air flight, investigators suspect the MCAS was reacting to faulty data gathered from a single flight sensor mounted on the fuselage. It turns out that the F.A.A., with congressional approval, has over the years delegated increasing authority to Boeing to take on more of the work of certifying the safety of its own airplanes, the Seattle Times said. In the case of the 737 Max, which is a longer and more fuel-efficient version of previous 737s, Boeing was particularly eager to get the plane into service quickly, so it could compete with Airbuss new A320neo. Early on, employees of the F.A.A. and Boeing decided how to divide up the certification work. But halfway through the process we were asked by management to re-evaluate what would be delegated, a former F.A.A. safety engineer told the Seattle Times. Management thought we had retained too much at the FAA: There was constant pressure to re-evaluate our initial decisions, the former engineer said. And even after we had reassessed it there was continued discussion by management about delegating even more items down to the Boeing Company. Even the work that was retained, such as reviewing technical documents provided by Boeing, was sometimes curtailed. There wasnt a complete and proper review of the documents, the former engineer added. Review was rushed to reach certain certification dates. The new revelations dont stop there. Federal prosecutors and Department of Transportation officials are scrutinizing the development of Boeing Co.s 737 MAX jetliners, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. A grand jury in Washington, D.C., issued a broad subpoena dated March 11 to at least one person involved in the 737 MAXs development, seeking related documents, including correspondence, emails and other messages, a source told the paper. (The Justice Department and Department of Transportation declined to comment on the Journals reporting.) The criminal investigation began well before the crash of the Ethiopian Airlines Flight. Its not clear yet whether it is focussing on the MCAS system, the report in the Journal said. But, that article added, In the U.S., it is highly unusual for federal prosecutors to investigate details of regulatory approval of commercial aircraft designs, or to use a criminal probe to delve into dealings between the FAA and the largest aircraft manufacturer the agency oversees. Probes of airliner programs or alleged lapses in federal safety oversight typically are handled as civil cases, often by the DOT inspector general. In a statement to the Seattle Times, Boeing said that the F.A.A. considered the final configuration and operating parameters of MCAS during MAX certification, and concluded that it met all certification and regulatory requirements. The F.A.A., in a statement issued on Sunday, said that the 737 MAX certification program followed the FAAs standard certification process. Given that two brand-new 737 Maxes have plunged to earth, befuddling their pilots and costing three hundred and forty-six people their lives, these statements are hardly reassuring. We need to know a lot more about how the FAA allowed this plane to take to the air. | The Boeing 737 Max was allowed to fly, despite serious safety concerns. The F.A.A., with congressional approval, has delegated increasing authority to Boeing to make safety improvements to the 737 Max. The 737 Max has been grounded since the crash of Lion Air Flight 610 in October. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/how-did-the-faa-allow-the-boeing-737-max-to-fly | 0.531855 |
Who spent the most on lobbying in Minnesota last year? | Calgary-based energy company Enbridge was Minnesotas biggest spender on lobbying in 2018, according to a new report. The company spent nearly $11.1 million, the vast majority of the money used to advocate in front of the Public Utilities Commission for the right to build a massive oil pipeline across northern Minnesota. The PUC approved the 340-mile pipeline, called Line 3, in June of 2018. The $2.6 billion project is still wending its way through the regulatory process after more than three years. Enbridge still must get several additional permits. The administration of Gov. Tim Walz is appealing the PUC approval. Other energy companies including Xcel, CenterPoint and Freeborn Wind Energy also spent heavily, mostly on lobbying the PUC. The total spent to influence the PUC by all interested parties nearly $15.3 million is the highest amount ever, according to the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board. Other kinds of lobbying of the Legislature and the executive branch by companies, trade associations, unions, nonprofits and other groups totaled more than $60 million, which is the lowest since 2012. The Minnesota Chamber of Commerce and the Minnesota Business Partnership which represents the states largest companies like 3M and Target were the next two biggest spenders on lobbying after Enbridge, together shelling out about $3.3 million as they tried to improve the states tax and regulatory climate for their members. Rounding out the top 10 in spending were local government lobbying groups League of Minnesota Cities and Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities; and tobacco giant RAI Services. The American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees and Education Minnesota two large unions representing public workers both made the top 20 in lobbying spending, in the face of a GOP-controlled Legislature. | Enbridge spent nearly $11.1 million to lobby the Public Utilities Commission for the right to build a massive oil pipeline across northern Minnesota. | bart | 0 | http://www.startribune.com/enbridge-spent-most-on-lobbying-in-2018/507324972/ | 0.273677 |
Who spent the most on lobbying in Minnesota last year? | Calgary-based energy company Enbridge was Minnesotas biggest spender on lobbying in 2018, according to a new report. The company spent nearly $11.1 million, the vast majority of the money used to advocate in front of the Public Utilities Commission for the right to build a massive oil pipeline across northern Minnesota. The PUC approved the 340-mile pipeline, called Line 3, in June of 2018. The $2.6 billion project is still wending its way through the regulatory process after more than three years. Enbridge still must get several additional permits. The administration of Gov. Tim Walz is appealing the PUC approval. Other energy companies including Xcel, CenterPoint and Freeborn Wind Energy also spent heavily, mostly on lobbying the PUC. The total spent to influence the PUC by all interested parties nearly $15.3 million is the highest amount ever, according to the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board. Other kinds of lobbying of the Legislature and the executive branch by companies, trade associations, unions, nonprofits and other groups totaled more than $60 million, which is the lowest since 2012. The Minnesota Chamber of Commerce and the Minnesota Business Partnership which represents the states largest companies like 3M and Target were the next two biggest spenders on lobbying after Enbridge, together shelling out about $3.3 million as they tried to improve the states tax and regulatory climate for their members. Rounding out the top 10 in spending were local government lobbying groups League of Minnesota Cities and Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities; and tobacco giant RAI Services. The American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees and Education Minnesota two large unions representing public workers both made the top 20 in lobbying spending, in the face of a GOP-controlled Legislature. | Calgary-based energy company Enbridge was Minnesotas biggest spender on lobbying in 2018. Other energy companies including Xcel, CenterPoint and Freeborn Wind Energy also spent heavily. | ctrlsum | 1 | http://www.startribune.com/enbridge-spent-most-on-lobbying-in-2018/507324972/ | 0.491635 |
Who spent the most on lobbying in Minnesota last year? | Calgary-based energy company Enbridge was Minnesotas biggest spender on lobbying in 2018, according to a new report. The company spent nearly $11.1 million, the vast majority of the money used to advocate in front of the Public Utilities Commission for the right to build a massive oil pipeline across northern Minnesota. The PUC approved the 340-mile pipeline, called Line 3, in June of 2018. The $2.6 billion project is still wending its way through the regulatory process after more than three years. Enbridge still must get several additional permits. The administration of Gov. Tim Walz is appealing the PUC approval. Other energy companies including Xcel, CenterPoint and Freeborn Wind Energy also spent heavily, mostly on lobbying the PUC. The total spent to influence the PUC by all interested parties nearly $15.3 million is the highest amount ever, according to the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board. Other kinds of lobbying of the Legislature and the executive branch by companies, trade associations, unions, nonprofits and other groups totaled more than $60 million, which is the lowest since 2012. The Minnesota Chamber of Commerce and the Minnesota Business Partnership which represents the states largest companies like 3M and Target were the next two biggest spenders on lobbying after Enbridge, together shelling out about $3.3 million as they tried to improve the states tax and regulatory climate for their members. Rounding out the top 10 in spending were local government lobbying groups League of Minnesota Cities and Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities; and tobacco giant RAI Services. The American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees and Education Minnesota two large unions representing public workers both made the top 20 in lobbying spending, in the face of a GOP-controlled Legislature. | Calgary-based energy company Enbridge was Minnesotas biggest spender on lobbying in 2018. The total spent to influence the PUC by all interested parties nearly $15.3 million is the highest amount ever, according to the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board. | ctrlsum | 2 | http://www.startribune.com/enbridge-spent-most-on-lobbying-in-2018/507324972/ | 0.530374 |
Did Indianapolis Motor Speedway flex its muscle to get billboard taken down? | CLOSE Almost every year since 1947, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway has released thousands of balloons on race day morning. Now, they're catching heat for a practice critics say endangers wildlife. Emily Hopkins, emily.hopkins@indystar.com An effort to draw attention to the environmental impacts of the Indy 500 balloon release has been cut short. A billboard decrying the race day tradition was unveiled this week in Indianapolis, and was scheduled to be on display until April 14. But this afternoon, Danielle Vosburgh, co-founder of Balloons Blow and the Florida woman behind the campaign, received a message from someone asking why the billboard was already gone. "Initially, I was like what the heck, but its kind of funny," said Vosburgh, who added that she's not deterred and is looking for a different avenue to publicize her cause in Indianapolis. The billboard showed an image of a balloon as well as a photo of a balloon hanging from the beak of a bird. The text read "BALLOONS POLLUTE AND KILL. #StopLitteringIMS BalloonsBlow.org." Vosburgh told The Indianapolis Star, part of the USA TODAY Network, that a representative from OUTFRONT Media, which owns and operates the billboard, told her that someone from Indianapolis Motor Speedway called the billboard company's office and claimed that the billboard's message was an attack ad. OUTFRONT Media then took down the billboard. A billboard message calls on Indianapolis Motor Speedway to retire its decades-old tradition of releasing thousands of balloons on race morning, seen on 16th street, just west of the intersection with Indiana Avenue in Indianapolis on Monday, March 18, 2019. The billboard, commissioned by environmental activism and education website BalloonsBlow.org, was funded by donations and a grant from the Fund for Wild Nature. (Photo: Jenna Watson/IndyStar) IMS spokesman Alex Damron, though, would only say Monday that, "We did not reach out to the billboard company to ask for it to be taken down." But he did not say whether someone from IMS contacted OUTFRONT to otherwise discuss the billboard. OUTFRONT Media did not respond to a request for comment. The Indianapolis Star first reported on the billboard on Monday afternoon. A few hours later, it received reports that it had been taken down. This is third billboard that Vosburgh has funded to raise awareness about balloon releases and their danger to wildlife. Her first was stationed outside of Disneyworld in Orlando, and the second was debuted in August near the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Vosburgh said she was also preparing to fund a billboard near Clemson University, until the college announced last year that it was abandoning its balloon release. According to Vosburgh, U-NL and IMS are the last two instiutions to orchestrate large-scale balloon releases. Vosburgh grew up cleaning the shores of southeast Florida. Over the last decade, she said she's noticed more and more balloons washing up on the beach. She and her sister founded Balloons Blow, a website dedicated to educating the public on the risk balloons pose to wildlife and the environment. A billboard message calls on Indianapolis Motor Speedway to retire its decades-old tradition of releasing thousands of balloons on race morning, seen on 16th street, just west of the intersection with Indiana Avenue in Indianapolis on Monday, March 18, 2019. The billboard, commissioned by environmental activism and education website BalloonsBlow.org, was funded by donations and a grant from the Fund for Wild Nature. (Photo: Jenna Watson/IndyStar) The problem, Vosburgh said, is that after balloons are released, they ultimately make their way back to earth where they're not much different than any other kind of litter. "We need to dispose of our garbage properly," she told The Star last week. "You wouldnt throw balloons on the ground so why would you let them into the air where theyre going to land somewhere else?" The Indianapolis Motor Speedway has released thousands of balloons as part of its opening festivities almost every year since 1947. Damron, the Speedway's director of communications, told The Star in 2018 that the balloons were made of an organic, biodegradable rubber, and that IMS had no intention of abandoning the release. NEWSLETTERS Get the Sports newsletter delivered to your inbox We're sorry, but something went wrong Sports news, no matter the season. Stop by for the scores, stay for the stories. Please try again soon, or contact Customer Service at 1-800-872-0001. Delivery: Daily Invalid email address Thank you! You're almost signed up for Sports Keep an eye out for an email to confirm your newsletter registration. More newsletters "We have not considered an alternative. The balloon release is a cherished piece of our pre-race ceremony and will continue to be part of Race Day," he said at the time. In response to the latest development, Damron last week emailed this statement to IndyStar: The balloon release remains a part of the Indianapolis 500 pre-race program. However, we continue listening to and evaluating feedback from multiple perspectives on the topic. Were reaching out to several stakeholders and talking with experts to fully understand the impact of this practice and determine its status in the years ahead. Experts told IndyStar that the balloons can take years to degrade and pose a real threat to wildlife, which mistakes the latex for food. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also routinely requests the public not to release balloons. Emily Hopkins covers the environment for IndyStar. Contact her at emily.hopkins@indystar.com. Follow on Twitter: @_thetextfiles. | A billboard decrying the Indy 500 balloon release was unveiled this week in Indianapolis. The billboard read "BALLOONS POLLUTE AND KILL. #StopLitteringIMS BalloonsBlow.org" The Indianapolis Motor Speedway said it did not ask for the billboard to be taken down. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/motor/indycar/2019/03/18/indy-500-indianapolis-motor-speedway-get-protest-billboard-removed/3207967002/ | 0.223353 |
Why are Venezuelans seeking refuge in crypto-currencies? | Image copyright Megan Janetsky Image caption Eli Meregote uses crypto-currencies to send money home to Venezuela Crypto-currencies have faced a lot of criticism since Bitcoin first came on the scene 10 years ago. But for one group of people, they're proving very useful. Venezuela has seen its currency rendered practically valueless after suffering one of the worst periods of hyperinflation since World War Two. A cup of coffee now costs 2,800 bolivars (21p; 28 cents), up from 0.75 bolivars 12 months ago - an increase of 373,233%, according to Bloomberg data. And that's after a 2018 devaluation that knocked five zeros off the currency. More than three million Venezuelans have left the country, as essential goods such as toilet paper and medicine have become unaffordable and crime has soared. As a result, many are turning to digital assets such as Bitcoin as an alternative to the Venezuelan bolivar. And given how volatile Bitcoin is - its value has plunged from nearly 15,000 in 2017 to less than 3,000 now - it's an indication of just how desperate people have become. Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Bitcoin may be volatile but the Venezuelan bolivar has been losing value much faster Even the government has launched its own crypto-currency, the Petro, supposedly backed by oil, to provide a solution to the economic crisis. But critics say it is a sham and there is no evidence of anyone using it. Eli Meregote, 28, has been using Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies as a way of sending money home from Colombia where he now lives and works, avoiding the fees usually associated with money transfer services such as Western Union. "I first discovered crypto in 2017 when I lost my job in Venezuela," the CCTV technician says. "Even if I had my job, it would've been useless anyway, because the minimum wage was $4 a month." Cryptos offered him "total control" of his money "without banks or third parties", he says. "With Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies, I can send money home faster and without obstacles." Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Venezuela blackout crisis: "It's like living in the apocalypse" Bitcoin was designed to be a global, digital currency that governments and banks couldn't interfere with. Like many other crypto-currencies it works by recording all transactions permanently on a distributed ledger called the blockchain. Critics say Bitcoin and other cryptos - there are more than 1,600 globally - are unstable, use too much energy, and are used by money launderers or those wanting to buy illicit goods on the web. But for Venezuelans, storing their money in a digital wallet in the form of Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dash or any of the others, is still a better option than holding on to the national currency. Adoption has rocketed, with trading volumes on Localbitcoins.com - a person-to-person Bitcoin trading platform - rivalling those of the US. Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Much of the country, including Caracas, was plunged into darkness Although trading volumes dipped in March due to a power cut that plunged the country into darkness for days, February saw trading levels reach 6.84m ($8.76m) per week and nearly 1m per day, according to crypto-currency data tracker Coin Dance. "Many Venezuelans are using Bitcoin to convert their bolivars, which are being permanently devalued by hyperinflation, to keep something of value," says economist Asdrubal Oliveros of Caracas-based consultancy Econanalitica. "It is practically a vehicle for buying foreign currency and to conserve value, as it is relatively easy and you can keep small amounts which do not involve large investments." Image copyright AFP/Getty Images Image caption Venezuelan bolivar notes are now useful only for making handicraft gifts Mr Oliveros points out that in Venezuela many people work as freelancers, receiving their pay in bitcoin since in most cases they do not have accounts abroad that allow them to make transfers in dollars. "Receiving payments in bolivars does not make much sense," he says. Matt Aaron, who works for Bitcoin.com, the Bitcoin news and trading platform, in Venezuela, says: "We pay our team members in Caracas in Bitcoin Cash. Transactions are instant and cost less than a cent to make." Ricardo Carrasco, 29, an IT engineer who is paid in bitcoin, is a fan of the crypto-currency. "It has given me access to the financial world outside Venezuela," he says. "We are not free to exchange our currency for US dollars or any other currency. We don't have access to the banking services of the world, so crypto allows you to bypass those barriers." Image copyright Ricardo Carrasco Image caption Ricardo Carrasco likes Bitcoin's borderless nature Mr Carrasco sells small amounts of Bitcoin on Localbitcoins.com and other exchanges, and receives money in bolivars to his Venezuelan account. He is then able to buy goods with his card as and when he needs to. "It is a pretty simple, straightforward process," he says. But Venezuela's government is intervening, recently launching a remittance service that caps the amount of crypto-currency someone inside the country can receive. It has started earning commissions from the transactions. More Technology of Business One thing is certain: despite the Bitcoin crash and loss in value of other crypto-currencies, Venezuelans have more interest in digital assets than ever before. In the Colombian border town of Cucuta, which sees tens of thousands of fleeing Venezuelans arrive every day, a new crypto-currency cash machine (ATM) was opened in March. It is designed to make carrying funds safer and more convenient. Image copyright Reuters Image caption Security services have clashed with looters panicking about short supplies of goods "With the ATM, Venezuelans can receive bitcoin from anywhere in the world and cash out in Colombian pesos right away," says Matias Goldenhrn from Athena, the company that installed the machine. "A Venezuelan family of four, getting on a bus in Cucuta to emigrate to Argentina, was carrying all their life savings in cash on their 14-day bus journey," he recalls. "They just exchanged all the money into bitcoin and, once they arrived at their final destination, sold the crypto for the local currency, hence not risking travelling with the money on them. "It made life a lot easier for them." At least there is one country in the world where Bitcoin is serving a practical value for ordinary citizens rather than speculators. Follow Technology of Business editor Matthew Wall on Twitter and Facebook | Eli Meregote uses crypto-currencies to send money home to Venezuela. | pegasus | 0 | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47553048 | 0.103587 |
Why are Venezuelans seeking refuge in crypto-currencies? | Image copyright Megan Janetsky Image caption Eli Meregote uses crypto-currencies to send money home to Venezuela Crypto-currencies have faced a lot of criticism since Bitcoin first came on the scene 10 years ago. But for one group of people, they're proving very useful. Venezuela has seen its currency rendered practically valueless after suffering one of the worst periods of hyperinflation since World War Two. A cup of coffee now costs 2,800 bolivars (21p; 28 cents), up from 0.75 bolivars 12 months ago - an increase of 373,233%, according to Bloomberg data. And that's after a 2018 devaluation that knocked five zeros off the currency. More than three million Venezuelans have left the country, as essential goods such as toilet paper and medicine have become unaffordable and crime has soared. As a result, many are turning to digital assets such as Bitcoin as an alternative to the Venezuelan bolivar. And given how volatile Bitcoin is - its value has plunged from nearly 15,000 in 2017 to less than 3,000 now - it's an indication of just how desperate people have become. Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Bitcoin may be volatile but the Venezuelan bolivar has been losing value much faster Even the government has launched its own crypto-currency, the Petro, supposedly backed by oil, to provide a solution to the economic crisis. But critics say it is a sham and there is no evidence of anyone using it. Eli Meregote, 28, has been using Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies as a way of sending money home from Colombia where he now lives and works, avoiding the fees usually associated with money transfer services such as Western Union. "I first discovered crypto in 2017 when I lost my job in Venezuela," the CCTV technician says. "Even if I had my job, it would've been useless anyway, because the minimum wage was $4 a month." Cryptos offered him "total control" of his money "without banks or third parties", he says. "With Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies, I can send money home faster and without obstacles." Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Venezuela blackout crisis: "It's like living in the apocalypse" Bitcoin was designed to be a global, digital currency that governments and banks couldn't interfere with. Like many other crypto-currencies it works by recording all transactions permanently on a distributed ledger called the blockchain. Critics say Bitcoin and other cryptos - there are more than 1,600 globally - are unstable, use too much energy, and are used by money launderers or those wanting to buy illicit goods on the web. But for Venezuelans, storing their money in a digital wallet in the form of Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dash or any of the others, is still a better option than holding on to the national currency. Adoption has rocketed, with trading volumes on Localbitcoins.com - a person-to-person Bitcoin trading platform - rivalling those of the US. Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Much of the country, including Caracas, was plunged into darkness Although trading volumes dipped in March due to a power cut that plunged the country into darkness for days, February saw trading levels reach 6.84m ($8.76m) per week and nearly 1m per day, according to crypto-currency data tracker Coin Dance. "Many Venezuelans are using Bitcoin to convert their bolivars, which are being permanently devalued by hyperinflation, to keep something of value," says economist Asdrubal Oliveros of Caracas-based consultancy Econanalitica. "It is practically a vehicle for buying foreign currency and to conserve value, as it is relatively easy and you can keep small amounts which do not involve large investments." Image copyright AFP/Getty Images Image caption Venezuelan bolivar notes are now useful only for making handicraft gifts Mr Oliveros points out that in Venezuela many people work as freelancers, receiving their pay in bitcoin since in most cases they do not have accounts abroad that allow them to make transfers in dollars. "Receiving payments in bolivars does not make much sense," he says. Matt Aaron, who works for Bitcoin.com, the Bitcoin news and trading platform, in Venezuela, says: "We pay our team members in Caracas in Bitcoin Cash. Transactions are instant and cost less than a cent to make." Ricardo Carrasco, 29, an IT engineer who is paid in bitcoin, is a fan of the crypto-currency. "It has given me access to the financial world outside Venezuela," he says. "We are not free to exchange our currency for US dollars or any other currency. We don't have access to the banking services of the world, so crypto allows you to bypass those barriers." Image copyright Ricardo Carrasco Image caption Ricardo Carrasco likes Bitcoin's borderless nature Mr Carrasco sells small amounts of Bitcoin on Localbitcoins.com and other exchanges, and receives money in bolivars to his Venezuelan account. He is then able to buy goods with his card as and when he needs to. "It is a pretty simple, straightforward process," he says. But Venezuela's government is intervening, recently launching a remittance service that caps the amount of crypto-currency someone inside the country can receive. It has started earning commissions from the transactions. More Technology of Business One thing is certain: despite the Bitcoin crash and loss in value of other crypto-currencies, Venezuelans have more interest in digital assets than ever before. In the Colombian border town of Cucuta, which sees tens of thousands of fleeing Venezuelans arrive every day, a new crypto-currency cash machine (ATM) was opened in March. It is designed to make carrying funds safer and more convenient. Image copyright Reuters Image caption Security services have clashed with looters panicking about short supplies of goods "With the ATM, Venezuelans can receive bitcoin from anywhere in the world and cash out in Colombian pesos right away," says Matias Goldenhrn from Athena, the company that installed the machine. "A Venezuelan family of four, getting on a bus in Cucuta to emigrate to Argentina, was carrying all their life savings in cash on their 14-day bus journey," he recalls. "They just exchanged all the money into bitcoin and, once they arrived at their final destination, sold the crypto for the local currency, hence not risking travelling with the money on them. "It made life a lot easier for them." At least there is one country in the world where Bitcoin is serving a practical value for ordinary citizens rather than speculators. Follow Technology of Business editor Matthew Wall on Twitter and Facebook | Venezuela is suffering one of the worst periods of hyperinflation since World War Two. As a result, many are turning to digital assets such as Bitcoin as an alternative to the Venezuelan bolivar. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47553048 | 0.360054 |
Why are Venezuelans seeking refuge in crypto-currencies? | Image copyright Megan Janetsky Image caption Eli Meregote uses crypto-currencies to send money home to Venezuela Crypto-currencies have faced a lot of criticism since Bitcoin first came on the scene 10 years ago. But for one group of people, they're proving very useful. Venezuela has seen its currency rendered practically valueless after suffering one of the worst periods of hyperinflation since World War Two. A cup of coffee now costs 2,800 bolivars (21p; 28 cents), up from 0.75 bolivars 12 months ago - an increase of 373,233%, according to Bloomberg data. And that's after a 2018 devaluation that knocked five zeros off the currency. More than three million Venezuelans have left the country, as essential goods such as toilet paper and medicine have become unaffordable and crime has soared. As a result, many are turning to digital assets such as Bitcoin as an alternative to the Venezuelan bolivar. And given how volatile Bitcoin is - its value has plunged from nearly 15,000 in 2017 to less than 3,000 now - it's an indication of just how desperate people have become. Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Bitcoin may be volatile but the Venezuelan bolivar has been losing value much faster Even the government has launched its own crypto-currency, the Petro, supposedly backed by oil, to provide a solution to the economic crisis. But critics say it is a sham and there is no evidence of anyone using it. Eli Meregote, 28, has been using Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies as a way of sending money home from Colombia where he now lives and works, avoiding the fees usually associated with money transfer services such as Western Union. "I first discovered crypto in 2017 when I lost my job in Venezuela," the CCTV technician says. "Even if I had my job, it would've been useless anyway, because the minimum wage was $4 a month." Cryptos offered him "total control" of his money "without banks or third parties", he says. "With Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies, I can send money home faster and without obstacles." Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Venezuela blackout crisis: "It's like living in the apocalypse" Bitcoin was designed to be a global, digital currency that governments and banks couldn't interfere with. Like many other crypto-currencies it works by recording all transactions permanently on a distributed ledger called the blockchain. Critics say Bitcoin and other cryptos - there are more than 1,600 globally - are unstable, use too much energy, and are used by money launderers or those wanting to buy illicit goods on the web. But for Venezuelans, storing their money in a digital wallet in the form of Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dash or any of the others, is still a better option than holding on to the national currency. Adoption has rocketed, with trading volumes on Localbitcoins.com - a person-to-person Bitcoin trading platform - rivalling those of the US. Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Much of the country, including Caracas, was plunged into darkness Although trading volumes dipped in March due to a power cut that plunged the country into darkness for days, February saw trading levels reach 6.84m ($8.76m) per week and nearly 1m per day, according to crypto-currency data tracker Coin Dance. "Many Venezuelans are using Bitcoin to convert their bolivars, which are being permanently devalued by hyperinflation, to keep something of value," says economist Asdrubal Oliveros of Caracas-based consultancy Econanalitica. "It is practically a vehicle for buying foreign currency and to conserve value, as it is relatively easy and you can keep small amounts which do not involve large investments." Image copyright AFP/Getty Images Image caption Venezuelan bolivar notes are now useful only for making handicraft gifts Mr Oliveros points out that in Venezuela many people work as freelancers, receiving their pay in bitcoin since in most cases they do not have accounts abroad that allow them to make transfers in dollars. "Receiving payments in bolivars does not make much sense," he says. Matt Aaron, who works for Bitcoin.com, the Bitcoin news and trading platform, in Venezuela, says: "We pay our team members in Caracas in Bitcoin Cash. Transactions are instant and cost less than a cent to make." Ricardo Carrasco, 29, an IT engineer who is paid in bitcoin, is a fan of the crypto-currency. "It has given me access to the financial world outside Venezuela," he says. "We are not free to exchange our currency for US dollars or any other currency. We don't have access to the banking services of the world, so crypto allows you to bypass those barriers." Image copyright Ricardo Carrasco Image caption Ricardo Carrasco likes Bitcoin's borderless nature Mr Carrasco sells small amounts of Bitcoin on Localbitcoins.com and other exchanges, and receives money in bolivars to his Venezuelan account. He is then able to buy goods with his card as and when he needs to. "It is a pretty simple, straightforward process," he says. But Venezuela's government is intervening, recently launching a remittance service that caps the amount of crypto-currency someone inside the country can receive. It has started earning commissions from the transactions. More Technology of Business One thing is certain: despite the Bitcoin crash and loss in value of other crypto-currencies, Venezuelans have more interest in digital assets than ever before. In the Colombian border town of Cucuta, which sees tens of thousands of fleeing Venezuelans arrive every day, a new crypto-currency cash machine (ATM) was opened in March. It is designed to make carrying funds safer and more convenient. Image copyright Reuters Image caption Security services have clashed with looters panicking about short supplies of goods "With the ATM, Venezuelans can receive bitcoin from anywhere in the world and cash out in Colombian pesos right away," says Matias Goldenhrn from Athena, the company that installed the machine. "A Venezuelan family of four, getting on a bus in Cucuta to emigrate to Argentina, was carrying all their life savings in cash on their 14-day bus journey," he recalls. "They just exchanged all the money into bitcoin and, once they arrived at their final destination, sold the crypto for the local currency, hence not risking travelling with the money on them. "It made life a lot easier for them." At least there is one country in the world where Bitcoin is serving a practical value for ordinary citizens rather than speculators. Follow Technology of Business editor Matthew Wall on Twitter and Facebook | Venezuela is suffering one of the worst periods of hyperinflation since World War Two. As a result, many are turning to digital assets such as Bitcoin as an alternative to the Venezuelan bolivar. But critics say Bitcoin and other cryptos are unstable, use too much energy and are used by money launderers. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47553048 | 0.468111 |
Who's joining the Huskies in the Midwest Region of the NCAA tournament? | The Huskies are a nine seed in the NCAA tournament. The Huskies are a nine seed in the NCAA tournament. 1 / 83 Back to Gallery The Huskies are dancing. We haven't heard that in a while. For the first time in eight years, Washington (26-8) is headed to the NCAA tournament. The Huskies were able to nab an at-large bid despite falling to Oregon in the Pac-12 championship game on Saturday. RELATED: Huskies choke, fall to Oregon 68-48 in Pac-12 title game The Huskies, awarded a nine seed, will face eighth-seeded Utah State (28-6) out of the Mountain West in Columbus, Ohio in a Midwest Region showdown Friday. RELATED: Washington holds off Colorado 66-61 in Pac-12 semifinals Browse through the gallery above for the other teams in the Midwest Region, and the rest of the field of this year's NCAA tournament. Ben Arthur is a sports reporter for the SeattlePI. He can be reached by email at benjaminarthur@seattlepi.com. Follow him on twitter at @benyarthur. | The Huskies are a nine seed in the NCAA tournament. They will face Utah State (28-6) out of the Mountain West in Columbus, Ohio in a Midwest Region showdown Friday. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://www.seattlepi.com/sports/college/article/UW-Washington-Huskies-NCAA-midwest-region-13697698.php | 0.273264 |
Who's joining the Huskies in the Midwest Region of the NCAA tournament? | The Huskies are a nine seed in the NCAA tournament. The Huskies are a nine seed in the NCAA tournament. 1 / 83 Back to Gallery The Huskies are dancing. We haven't heard that in a while. For the first time in eight years, Washington (26-8) is headed to the NCAA tournament. The Huskies were able to nab an at-large bid despite falling to Oregon in the Pac-12 championship game on Saturday. RELATED: Huskies choke, fall to Oregon 68-48 in Pac-12 title game The Huskies, awarded a nine seed, will face eighth-seeded Utah State (28-6) out of the Mountain West in Columbus, Ohio in a Midwest Region showdown Friday. RELATED: Washington holds off Colorado 66-61 in Pac-12 semifinals Browse through the gallery above for the other teams in the Midwest Region, and the rest of the field of this year's NCAA tournament. Ben Arthur is a sports reporter for the SeattlePI. He can be reached by email at benjaminarthur@seattlepi.com. Follow him on twitter at @benyarthur. | The Huskies are a nine seed in the NCAA tournament. They will face Utah State (28-6) out of the Mountain West in Columbus, Ohio in a Midwest Region showdown Friday. They are the first team to earn an at-large bid in eight years. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.seattlepi.com/sports/college/article/UW-Washington-Huskies-NCAA-midwest-region-13697698.php | 0.260654 |
What if Kyle Busch's 200 NASCAR wins is just the beginning? | On Sunday, Busch earned his 53rd win in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, and combined with his 53 Truck Series win and 94 in the Xfinity Series, leaves him with 200 victories across NASCARs three national series. Read Also: Kyle Busch overcomes penalty to capture NASCAR win No. 200 Scroll to continue with content Ad Social media and talk radio have been filled with debate in recent weeks about what that accomplishment means and how it compares to the 200 wins Richard Petty amassed only in the Cup series during his remarkable career. Both are Hall of Fame-worthy accomplishments and should be judged on their own merits. At the time each of them raced, they were the best in the business. It may sound somewhat silly, but consider Busch is just 33 years old. birthday. Six of the late Dale Earnhardts seven titles came in his 30s. birthday. The point is, while many are stuck contemplating the significance of what Busch has already accomplished and where it ranks in NASCAR history, Buschs entire story may be nowhere near written. Should he want to and his health allow it, Busch could well have another decade or more of NASCAR competition ahead. In his most recent 10 years, Busch collected 41 of his Cup wins, 73 in Xfinity and 44 of his Truck Series victories. Simply matching his previous 10 years of Cup wins over the next decade would put Busch very near the 100 win mark in that series. Story continues When asked about measuring the greatest of all time on Sunday, Busch said: Jimmie Johnson, he should be the GOAT, the greatest of all time. He won the most championships in the most different ways of having to win a championship, in the most different cars he had to be able to drive to win races. Yes, Johnson has. The same could also be said for Busch considering he has spent far more time than Johnson in the other two other series, each of which has their own differences in competition. A dramatic new aero package also debuted in the Cup series this season and Busch has already won two of the first four races that have utilized it. Busch has a Hall of Fame list of achievements in his NASCAR career. Although a scary thought to his competition, the best of Kyle Busch the race car driver may still be yet to come. | Kyle Busch won his 200th NASCAR race on Sunday. The 33-year-old is just 33 years old. Busch has a Hall of Fame list of achievements in his NASCAR career. The best of Busch the race car driver may still be yet to come. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://sports.yahoo.com/kyle-busch-apos-200-nascar-231350480.html?src=rss | 0.151067 |
What is the significance of Friday prayers in Islam? | (The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) Rose S. Aslan, California Lutheran University (THE CONVERSATION) Following the terror attack on two New Zealand mosques last week, many Muslim communities across the world gathered as usual for their most important weekly ritual Friday prayers. In the past few years, Muslims have been attacked and killed while praying, many a times on a Friday. Worshippers have been targeted in countries such as Nigeria, Pakistan, Egypt, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Iraq and Kuwait. Muslims pray five times a day every day, but the most important prayer of the week is jumah, or the day of gathering, on Friday. The religious significance Im a scholar of Islam who researches and writes about Muslim ritual practices. The Quran invokes the importance of Friday as a sacred day of worship in a chapter called Al-Jumah, meaning the day of congregation, which is also the word for Friday in Arabic. It states, O you who believe! When you are called to congregational (Friday) prayer, hasten to the remembrance of God and leave off trade. That is better for you, if you but knew. Muslims believe Friday was chosen by God as a dedicated day of worship. In addition to the prayer itself, which is shorter than the usual midday prayers, Friday services include a sermon, usually given by a professional male Muslim clergy member in Muslim majority countries, but in the West, they are also given by a male lay community member. Muslim men are required to attend Friday prayers as long as they not traveling, while women are given the option to attend, given their traditional role in the household when Islam was established. In some countries, such as India, Pakistan and Tajikistan, women are not usually permitted to pray in mosques whereas in countries like Iran and Kenya, they attend in larger numbers. In almost all mosques, men and women pray separately. In some places women are behind the men in the same room and in others, women are in a different room or behind a barrier. In the West, many women choose to attend prayer if they can get time away from work or other duties. In Los Angeles and elsewhere in North America and Europe, women lead their own Friday prayer services. To prepare for prayers, Muslims bathe, apply perfume and brush their teeth to make their appearance pleasant to their fellow worshippers. The Prophet Muhammad spoke of the value of praying in congregation rather than individually, promising spiritual rewards, such as answered prayers and forgiveness for ones sins. Attending Friday prayers, the Prophet said, is equivalent to one entire year of praying and fasting alone. A song by U.S. Muslim singer Raef Haggag describes how Muslims prepare and perform jumah prayers and their benefits. It provides a light but serious message about the significance of Friday prayers, especially for Western Muslims. The tradition of prayer Some Muslim majority countries, such as Egypt, Iran and Pakistan, include Friday as part of the weekend, with Saturday sometimes being a holiday, and Sunday being a regular workday. On this day, many Muslims spend the day with their families, attend the prayer and also relax, although practices can vary. Commercial activities always continue after Friday prayers, but in Muslim-majority countries, most people get the day off. Many people who do not have time to attend the mosque during the week will make a special effort to attend during Friday prayers. In countries where the call to prayer is projected from loudspeakers, entire cities will be saturated with their sounds. Sermons too are often publicly broadcast, and in many cities, including in Western countries such as France, congregants overflow into the streets around mosques. Crowded cities are often empty and quiet, up until the prayers, after which they are full of people enjoying their day off. In the United States, Muslims have to receive special accommodation from their workplace to visit a nearby mosque. Some workplaces such as universities, hospitals or corporate offices, allow employees to organize their own Friday prayer on site. As a religious ritual that goes back to the practice of the Prophet, Friday prayers hold a special place for Muslims. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here: http://theconversation.com/what-is-the-significance-of-friday-prayers-in-islam-113702. | Rose S. Aslan: Friday prayers are a sacred day of worship in Islam. She says Friday is the most important prayer of the week, but the day of gathering is on Friday. Friday services include a sermon, usually given by a professional male Muslim clergy member. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/What-is-the-significance-of-Friday-prayers-in-13699168.php | 0.166218 |
What's it like to go to school on a remote island? | Whitney went to find out what school life was like on the remote Scottish island of Muck Everyone lives in different places - maybe you live in a city, in a small village, out in the countryside or on an island. But one thing that everyone has in common is we all have to go to school! In July 2017, Whitney travelled for two hours on a boat to visit an island called Muck in the remote Scottish highlands to see what school life is like there. Before finding out more about what school life is like there, watch the video below to learn a little bit more about the island. To enjoy the CBBC Newsround website at its best you will need to have JavaScript turned on. WATCH: Find out more about the isle of Muck Six facts about what school life is like Getting to school - The island is very small and there is no school bus, so the students can walk or cycle to school. Class - As there are only nine pupils in the whole school (one who is in nursery), everybody is in the same class - even though everybody is different ages. This is different to most schools. Teacher - One teacher teaches everybody! So Mrs M gives everybody different activities to do, depending how old they are. Lessons - With such lovely natural surroundings, the class can enjoy lessons outside and use the environment to learn and do activities. Lunch - As there are no shops on the island, all of the food for everybody's packed lunches has to arrive on the island by boat! After primary school - There is only one primary school on the island but no secondary school. Once students are 12, they have to take a boat and go to secondary school on the mainland. To enjoy the CBBC Newsround website at its best you will need to have JavaScript turned on. We asked some of the children where the best place at school was. Click here to find out what they said! Then, watch the video below to discover their favourite things about island life, whether it's playing outside or having to get food from a boat. To enjoy the CBBC Newsround website at its best you will need to have JavaScript turned on. Let us know in the comments below! | Whitney went to find out what school life was like on the remote Scottish island of Muck. The island is very small and there is no school bus, so the students can walk or cycle to school. | bart | 1 | https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/46432270 | 0.390885 |
What's it like to go to school on a remote island? | Whitney went to find out what school life was like on the remote Scottish island of Muck Everyone lives in different places - maybe you live in a city, in a small village, out in the countryside or on an island. But one thing that everyone has in common is we all have to go to school! In July 2017, Whitney travelled for two hours on a boat to visit an island called Muck in the remote Scottish highlands to see what school life is like there. Before finding out more about what school life is like there, watch the video below to learn a little bit more about the island. To enjoy the CBBC Newsround website at its best you will need to have JavaScript turned on. WATCH: Find out more about the isle of Muck Six facts about what school life is like Getting to school - The island is very small and there is no school bus, so the students can walk or cycle to school. Class - As there are only nine pupils in the whole school (one who is in nursery), everybody is in the same class - even though everybody is different ages. This is different to most schools. Teacher - One teacher teaches everybody! So Mrs M gives everybody different activities to do, depending how old they are. Lessons - With such lovely natural surroundings, the class can enjoy lessons outside and use the environment to learn and do activities. Lunch - As there are no shops on the island, all of the food for everybody's packed lunches has to arrive on the island by boat! After primary school - There is only one primary school on the island but no secondary school. Once students are 12, they have to take a boat and go to secondary school on the mainland. To enjoy the CBBC Newsround website at its best you will need to have JavaScript turned on. We asked some of the children where the best place at school was. Click here to find out what they said! Then, watch the video below to discover their favourite things about island life, whether it's playing outside or having to get food from a boat. To enjoy the CBBC Newsround website at its best you will need to have JavaScript turned on. Let us know in the comments below! | Whitney went to find out what school life was like on the remote Scottish island of Muck. The island is very small and there is no school bus, so the students can walk or cycle to school. As there are only nine pupils in the whole school, everybody is in the same class - even though everybody is different ages. | bart | 2 | https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/46432270 | 0.516068 |
Is Arizona Theatre Company keeping its diversity promises? | Keith Contreras and Arlene Chico-Lugo in Arizona Theatre Companys Native Gardens, which opened the 2018-19 season. (Photo: Tim Fuller) Last Friday the Ides of March was the final day for David Ivers as artistic director of Arizona Theatre Company. I assume there was cake accompanied by heartfelt farewells, but also, just maybe, a whiff of we hardly knew ye in the air. Previously head of the Utah Shakespeare Festival, Ivers arrived in 2017 bursting with enthusiasm to restore a brand tarnished by years of financial turmoil and back-office strife. He promised to build bridges to underserved communities and bring a party atmosphere to the companys productions in Tucson and Phoenix. Then, after less than two years, he was hired away by South Coast Repertory in California, a top-tier company in his home state. It was his dream job, he said. And so this week, Arizonas leading theater producer is moving on. On Monday Ivers replacement, Sean Daniels (currently still at Merrimack Repertory Theatre outside Boston), announced his picks for the final two slots in 2019-20 The Royale, a historical play about the African-American boxer Jack Johnson, and the feminist comedy Women in Jeopardy! And hell be making trips to Arizona this spring to get going on yet another transition. David Ivers became artistic director of Arizona Theatre Company on July 1, 2017. He previously held the same title at the Utah Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City. (Photo: Karl Hugh) But the fact that Ivers tenure was short does not mean it wasnt impactful, and theres no doubt he delivered on his central promise to bring more diversity to the stage and backstage as well. A detailed review of Arizona Theatres productions over the past three years tells the tale in hard numbers. In 2016-17, under the last longtime artistic director David Ira Goldstein, the companys six-play season featured zero female playwrights, and two-thirds of actors playing named characters (36 out of 54) were men. Nearly 95 percent of those actors were white. Those numbers are even worse than the previous seasons, in part because the one play by and about people of color La Esquinita, USA was a one-man show. But there also seemed to be little effort to improve those numbers through colorblind casting in shows like Fiddler on the Roof and Holmes and Watson. The following season, chosen by Goldstein but overseen by Ivers, showed improvements: Two women playwrights were represented and 37.5 percent of named roles went to women. Most strikingly, about 40 percent of roles were performed by actors of color (largely due to the Latino-themed play The River Bride and a production of Man of La Mancha featuring many Hispanic artists). Amelia Moore (left), Michelle Dawson and Louis Tucci in Arizona Theatre Companys "Man of La Mancha." (Photo: Tim Fuller) The current season is the only one fully chosen by Ivers, and his claim that it is the companys most diverse ever is backed up by the numbers. On the stage, at least, there is real gender parity, with women getting 25 out of 49 named roles. And fully half of those roles are going to minority actors, with 12 Latino and seven African-American characters (thank you, August Wilson) and additional gains through colorblind casting. Backstage, two of six directors were women this season, compared with only one for each of the previous years. Two directors were minority. Not that there isnt more progress to be made, or conversation to be had. As advocates such as the Kilroys push for equal representation of female playwrights, only two of six plays, both this year and next, represent womens voices. The focus on equity for women and people of color is important, but there are many other underrepresented communities, including LGBT and disabled characters/actors, that are fighting for a place at the table. NEWSLETTERS Get the Things to do this weekend newsletter delivered to your inbox We're sorry, but something went wrong Best Things to do this weekend Please try again soon, or contact Customer Service at 1-800-332-6733. Delivery: Thurs Invalid email address Thank you! You're almost signed up for Things to do this weekend Keep an eye out for an email to confirm your newsletter registration. More newsletters But as Arizona Theatre Company starts a new chapter a little earlier than expected Ivers has left a foundation to build on. Talk to the writer about arts and culture at kerry.lengel@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4896. Follow him at facebook.com/LengelOnTheater and twitter.com/KerryLengel. Support local journalism. Subscribe to azcentral.com today. Subscribe to azcentral.com for guides, reviews and expert advice. Read or Share this story: https://www.azcentral.com/story/entertainment/arts/2019/03/19/diversity-in-theater-arizona-theatre-company-makes-big-strides/3204577002/ | David Ivers is leaving Arizona Theatre Company after less than two years. Ivers promised to bring more diversity to the stage and backstage. | ctrlsum | 0 | https://www.azcentral.com/story/entertainment/arts/2019/03/19/diversity-in-theater-arizona-theatre-company-makes-big-strides/3204577002/ | 0.278536 |
Is Arizona Theatre Company keeping its diversity promises? | Keith Contreras and Arlene Chico-Lugo in Arizona Theatre Companys Native Gardens, which opened the 2018-19 season. (Photo: Tim Fuller) Last Friday the Ides of March was the final day for David Ivers as artistic director of Arizona Theatre Company. I assume there was cake accompanied by heartfelt farewells, but also, just maybe, a whiff of we hardly knew ye in the air. Previously head of the Utah Shakespeare Festival, Ivers arrived in 2017 bursting with enthusiasm to restore a brand tarnished by years of financial turmoil and back-office strife. He promised to build bridges to underserved communities and bring a party atmosphere to the companys productions in Tucson and Phoenix. Then, after less than two years, he was hired away by South Coast Repertory in California, a top-tier company in his home state. It was his dream job, he said. And so this week, Arizonas leading theater producer is moving on. On Monday Ivers replacement, Sean Daniels (currently still at Merrimack Repertory Theatre outside Boston), announced his picks for the final two slots in 2019-20 The Royale, a historical play about the African-American boxer Jack Johnson, and the feminist comedy Women in Jeopardy! And hell be making trips to Arizona this spring to get going on yet another transition. David Ivers became artistic director of Arizona Theatre Company on July 1, 2017. He previously held the same title at the Utah Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City. (Photo: Karl Hugh) But the fact that Ivers tenure was short does not mean it wasnt impactful, and theres no doubt he delivered on his central promise to bring more diversity to the stage and backstage as well. A detailed review of Arizona Theatres productions over the past three years tells the tale in hard numbers. In 2016-17, under the last longtime artistic director David Ira Goldstein, the companys six-play season featured zero female playwrights, and two-thirds of actors playing named characters (36 out of 54) were men. Nearly 95 percent of those actors were white. Those numbers are even worse than the previous seasons, in part because the one play by and about people of color La Esquinita, USA was a one-man show. But there also seemed to be little effort to improve those numbers through colorblind casting in shows like Fiddler on the Roof and Holmes and Watson. The following season, chosen by Goldstein but overseen by Ivers, showed improvements: Two women playwrights were represented and 37.5 percent of named roles went to women. Most strikingly, about 40 percent of roles were performed by actors of color (largely due to the Latino-themed play The River Bride and a production of Man of La Mancha featuring many Hispanic artists). Amelia Moore (left), Michelle Dawson and Louis Tucci in Arizona Theatre Companys "Man of La Mancha." (Photo: Tim Fuller) The current season is the only one fully chosen by Ivers, and his claim that it is the companys most diverse ever is backed up by the numbers. On the stage, at least, there is real gender parity, with women getting 25 out of 49 named roles. And fully half of those roles are going to minority actors, with 12 Latino and seven African-American characters (thank you, August Wilson) and additional gains through colorblind casting. Backstage, two of six directors were women this season, compared with only one for each of the previous years. Two directors were minority. Not that there isnt more progress to be made, or conversation to be had. As advocates such as the Kilroys push for equal representation of female playwrights, only two of six plays, both this year and next, represent womens voices. The focus on equity for women and people of color is important, but there are many other underrepresented communities, including LGBT and disabled characters/actors, that are fighting for a place at the table. NEWSLETTERS Get the Things to do this weekend newsletter delivered to your inbox We're sorry, but something went wrong Best Things to do this weekend Please try again soon, or contact Customer Service at 1-800-332-6733. Delivery: Thurs Invalid email address Thank you! You're almost signed up for Things to do this weekend Keep an eye out for an email to confirm your newsletter registration. More newsletters But as Arizona Theatre Company starts a new chapter a little earlier than expected Ivers has left a foundation to build on. Talk to the writer about arts and culture at kerry.lengel@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4896. Follow him at facebook.com/LengelOnTheater and twitter.com/KerryLengel. Support local journalism. Subscribe to azcentral.com today. Subscribe to azcentral.com for guides, reviews and expert advice. Read or Share this story: https://www.azcentral.com/story/entertainment/arts/2019/03/19/diversity-in-theater-arizona-theatre-company-makes-big-strides/3204577002/ | David Ivers is leaving Arizona Theatre Company after less than two years. Ivers promised to bring more diversity to the stage and backstage. The company is keeping its diversity promises. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://www.azcentral.com/story/entertainment/arts/2019/03/19/diversity-in-theater-arizona-theatre-company-makes-big-strides/3204577002/ | 0.599976 |
Is Arizona Theatre Company keeping its diversity promises? | Keith Contreras and Arlene Chico-Lugo in Arizona Theatre Companys Native Gardens, which opened the 2018-19 season. (Photo: Tim Fuller) Last Friday the Ides of March was the final day for David Ivers as artistic director of Arizona Theatre Company. I assume there was cake accompanied by heartfelt farewells, but also, just maybe, a whiff of we hardly knew ye in the air. Previously head of the Utah Shakespeare Festival, Ivers arrived in 2017 bursting with enthusiasm to restore a brand tarnished by years of financial turmoil and back-office strife. He promised to build bridges to underserved communities and bring a party atmosphere to the companys productions in Tucson and Phoenix. Then, after less than two years, he was hired away by South Coast Repertory in California, a top-tier company in his home state. It was his dream job, he said. And so this week, Arizonas leading theater producer is moving on. On Monday Ivers replacement, Sean Daniels (currently still at Merrimack Repertory Theatre outside Boston), announced his picks for the final two slots in 2019-20 The Royale, a historical play about the African-American boxer Jack Johnson, and the feminist comedy Women in Jeopardy! And hell be making trips to Arizona this spring to get going on yet another transition. David Ivers became artistic director of Arizona Theatre Company on July 1, 2017. He previously held the same title at the Utah Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City. (Photo: Karl Hugh) But the fact that Ivers tenure was short does not mean it wasnt impactful, and theres no doubt he delivered on his central promise to bring more diversity to the stage and backstage as well. A detailed review of Arizona Theatres productions over the past three years tells the tale in hard numbers. In 2016-17, under the last longtime artistic director David Ira Goldstein, the companys six-play season featured zero female playwrights, and two-thirds of actors playing named characters (36 out of 54) were men. Nearly 95 percent of those actors were white. Those numbers are even worse than the previous seasons, in part because the one play by and about people of color La Esquinita, USA was a one-man show. But there also seemed to be little effort to improve those numbers through colorblind casting in shows like Fiddler on the Roof and Holmes and Watson. The following season, chosen by Goldstein but overseen by Ivers, showed improvements: Two women playwrights were represented and 37.5 percent of named roles went to women. Most strikingly, about 40 percent of roles were performed by actors of color (largely due to the Latino-themed play The River Bride and a production of Man of La Mancha featuring many Hispanic artists). Amelia Moore (left), Michelle Dawson and Louis Tucci in Arizona Theatre Companys "Man of La Mancha." (Photo: Tim Fuller) The current season is the only one fully chosen by Ivers, and his claim that it is the companys most diverse ever is backed up by the numbers. On the stage, at least, there is real gender parity, with women getting 25 out of 49 named roles. And fully half of those roles are going to minority actors, with 12 Latino and seven African-American characters (thank you, August Wilson) and additional gains through colorblind casting. Backstage, two of six directors were women this season, compared with only one for each of the previous years. Two directors were minority. Not that there isnt more progress to be made, or conversation to be had. As advocates such as the Kilroys push for equal representation of female playwrights, only two of six plays, both this year and next, represent womens voices. The focus on equity for women and people of color is important, but there are many other underrepresented communities, including LGBT and disabled characters/actors, that are fighting for a place at the table. NEWSLETTERS Get the Things to do this weekend newsletter delivered to your inbox We're sorry, but something went wrong Best Things to do this weekend Please try again soon, or contact Customer Service at 1-800-332-6733. Delivery: Thurs Invalid email address Thank you! You're almost signed up for Things to do this weekend Keep an eye out for an email to confirm your newsletter registration. More newsletters But as Arizona Theatre Company starts a new chapter a little earlier than expected Ivers has left a foundation to build on. Talk to the writer about arts and culture at kerry.lengel@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4896. Follow him at facebook.com/LengelOnTheater and twitter.com/KerryLengel. Support local journalism. Subscribe to azcentral.com today. Subscribe to azcentral.com for guides, reviews and expert advice. Read or Share this story: https://www.azcentral.com/story/entertainment/arts/2019/03/19/diversity-in-theater-arizona-theatre-company-makes-big-strides/3204577002/ | David Ivers is leaving Arizona Theatre Company after less than two years. Ivers promised to bring more diversity to the stage and backstage. The company is keeping its diversity promises, says Tim Fuller. He says the company's current season is its most diverse ever, at least on the stage. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.azcentral.com/story/entertainment/arts/2019/03/19/diversity-in-theater-arizona-theatre-company-makes-big-strides/3204577002/ | 0.638985 |
Why On Earth Would Giants Fans Trust Dave Gettleman? | Dave Gettleman wants you to trust him. Nevermind that that he's done nothing to earn your faith. Forget that his tenure as Giants general manager has led to Big Blue's rapid ascension up New York's competitive list of dysfunctional teams. Ignore the fact that every time he opens his mouth he sounds more clueless and leaves those listening more confused. "Very honestly, it's not my responsibility to tell you guys what I'm doing," Gettleman said on a Monday conference call, evoking Philadelphia-esque buzzwords while offering his first public comments since trading Odell Beckham Jr. to the Browns. "Just like it's not my responsibility to respond to every rumor that comes down the pike. That's not my responsibility. "Trust me, we've got a plan. You've got to be patient. Everyone wants the answers now. We're in an instant-gratification world. Over time, you'll see it. You've got to trust it." While Gettleman is technically right about the first part there are times when it's best to keep details to oneself in this business he's sorely mistaken if he thinks people are just going to take his word when it comes to having a plan. The last two offseasons have shown zero semblance of one. This offseason has especially been a disaster. The trade for Beckham Jr., which left the Giants with an underwhelming package of the 17th overall pick, a third-round pick and safety Jabrill Peppers and $16 million in dead money, has Giants fans up in arms and experts scratching their heads. There was also the decision to let star safety Landon Collins walk for nothing when multiple asset-fetching options were on the table. Meanwhile, Gettleman has taken every possible opportunity to prop up a declining Eli Manning, whose play and salary is hamstringing New York's ability to look toward the future. "The narrative that Eli is overpaid and can't play is a crock," Gettleman insisted despite abundant evidence to the contrary. Forget trusting Gettleman's plan. Those who root for and cover the team shouldn't trust that he watches the games based on comments like that. It was with the media that Gettleman spoke with on Monday, but it was the fans that he was talking to. It's their trust that he's trying to earn or demand, rather but that's not going to come blindly. Neither will tolerance for phrases such as, "You've got to be patient." Rarely has that been this city's style; it takes a certain level of credibility to play that card in New York, and Gettleman doesn't have it. In fact, the more he speaks, the deeper a hole he digs. He says he's alright with that, though. At the end of the day, you guys gotta say Gettlemans out of his mind' or 'He knows what hes talking about when he evaluates players," he said. "And Im okay if you disagree with me. Maybe he is personally. We'll see about that. | Dave Gettleman wants you to trust him. Nevermind that that he's done nothing to earn your faith. Forget that his tenure as Giants general manager has led to Big Blue's rapid ascension up New York's competitive list of dysfunctional teams. | bart | 1 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/garyphillips/2019/03/19/giants-fans-trust-dave-gettleman-eli-manning-odell-beckham-jr/ | 0.107292 |
Why On Earth Would Giants Fans Trust Dave Gettleman? | Dave Gettleman wants you to trust him. Nevermind that that he's done nothing to earn your faith. Forget that his tenure as Giants general manager has led to Big Blue's rapid ascension up New York's competitive list of dysfunctional teams. Ignore the fact that every time he opens his mouth he sounds more clueless and leaves those listening more confused. "Very honestly, it's not my responsibility to tell you guys what I'm doing," Gettleman said on a Monday conference call, evoking Philadelphia-esque buzzwords while offering his first public comments since trading Odell Beckham Jr. to the Browns. "Just like it's not my responsibility to respond to every rumor that comes down the pike. That's not my responsibility. "Trust me, we've got a plan. You've got to be patient. Everyone wants the answers now. We're in an instant-gratification world. Over time, you'll see it. You've got to trust it." While Gettleman is technically right about the first part there are times when it's best to keep details to oneself in this business he's sorely mistaken if he thinks people are just going to take his word when it comes to having a plan. The last two offseasons have shown zero semblance of one. This offseason has especially been a disaster. The trade for Beckham Jr., which left the Giants with an underwhelming package of the 17th overall pick, a third-round pick and safety Jabrill Peppers and $16 million in dead money, has Giants fans up in arms and experts scratching their heads. There was also the decision to let star safety Landon Collins walk for nothing when multiple asset-fetching options were on the table. Meanwhile, Gettleman has taken every possible opportunity to prop up a declining Eli Manning, whose play and salary is hamstringing New York's ability to look toward the future. "The narrative that Eli is overpaid and can't play is a crock," Gettleman insisted despite abundant evidence to the contrary. Forget trusting Gettleman's plan. Those who root for and cover the team shouldn't trust that he watches the games based on comments like that. It was with the media that Gettleman spoke with on Monday, but it was the fans that he was talking to. It's their trust that he's trying to earn or demand, rather but that's not going to come blindly. Neither will tolerance for phrases such as, "You've got to be patient." Rarely has that been this city's style; it takes a certain level of credibility to play that card in New York, and Gettleman doesn't have it. In fact, the more he speaks, the deeper a hole he digs. He says he's alright with that, though. At the end of the day, you guys gotta say Gettlemans out of his mind' or 'He knows what hes talking about when he evaluates players," he said. "And Im okay if you disagree with me. Maybe he is personally. We'll see about that. | Dave Gettleman wants you to trust him. Nevermind that he's done nothing to earn your faith. Gettleman's tenure as Giants general manager has led to Big Blue's rapid ascension up New York's competitive list of dysfunctional teams. The last two offseasons have shown zero semblance of one. | pegasus | 2 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/garyphillips/2019/03/19/giants-fans-trust-dave-gettleman-eli-manning-odell-beckham-jr/ | 0.231505 |
Did The Industry Deliver On 5G At MWC 2019? | This year is shaping up to be the year of 5G, with virtually every single company talking up their 5G game in one way or another. Since many of the first 5G smartphones and networks are expected to launch in 2019, MWC Barcelona 2019 was a prime opportunity for everyone to make their announcements and show off what they had been working on. Lets take a look at what all was announced, and when to expect it. 5G modems and more One of the fundamental aspects of 5G is the modem. Sometimes this is lost on people, but you need a good 5G modem and RF front-end to make 5G happen. Intel showed off its 8160 modem, announced in December of last year, which is due to ship at the end of this year and will be in devices next year. Qualcomm followed up its current X50 modem (shipping in phones this quarter) with its new X55 modem, which is shipping now and will be out in devices by the end of the year. In addition to that, Qualcomm also announced it would have a next-generation smartphone SoC with an integrated modem (which it calls a mobile platform) next year. An integrated 5G modem will create significant power and space savings and should enable Qualcomms partners to extend their 5G leadership into 2020. Qualcomm spent most of its time and effort at MWC 19 showing off its 5G modem and using it to power real 5G demos with their partners (including OnePlus, LG, OPPO and Sony ). Theres no question that Qualcomm has 5G modem leadership, but the 5G modem race is no longer a two-horse race. In December, MediaTek also announced its first 5G modem, the M70. At MWC, MediaTek showed off its modem and demonstrated it operationally running 5G with partners equipment, including Nokia . The company demonstrated a throughput of 1.1 Gbps over 3.5 GHz on 5G NR, as well as a simulated mmWave demo (since it doesnt have a mmWave RF front-end for 5G quite yet). Using Anritsu test equipment, the mmWave demo peaked at 4.1 Gbpscomparable to what Qualcomm and Intel demonstrated at last years MWC. Huawei always has a large presence at MWC, and this year was no exception. The company had its 5G modem, the Balong 5000, on display, but it was not accompanied by any 5G demos as far as I could see. Huawei made a lot of inaccurate claims about the Balong 5000 during its launch eventspecifically that it was the first with a 7nm multi-mode modem and the first with NSA and SA network architecture. Neither claims are trueQualcomms X55 5G modem already does these things. Huawei also claims to be the fastest on mmWave, at 6.5 Gbps, but that doesnt beat Qualcomms claimed 7 Gbps. I am happy with how quickly Huawei brought a consumer 5G modem to market but making such inaccurate claims dont help the companys credibility with those in the know. We reached out to Huawei for comment but didn't receive an answer by the time of publication. While Intel did not announce any new modems at MWC 2019, it did announce its first mmWave RF Front-end module, which is what will enable Apple and others to utilize the high frequency and high-bandwidth 5G bands of spectrum. The ability to support both mmWave and Sub-6GHz 5G is key to ensuring full 5G coverage and speeds and bringing a complete 5G device to market. The expectation is that this will be available in late 2020 to early 2021, which lines up with where I believe Intel is currently in its 5G development process. This means we most likely wont see any PC or smartphone with Intel mmWave 5G inside until 2021. I was impressed by Intels live 5G Spiderman VR gaming demo at the show, but I was disappointed to see that it used the same Intel 5G hardware as the companys first 5G NR demo from last September. 5G phones 5G phones were the primary focus of the show. Qualcomm was at the center of the 5G phone launches, with its partners (including Xiaomi , Sony, OPPO, Vivo and LG) all announcing 5G devices or prototypes for 2019 and beyond. There is still a bit of uncertainty from many manufacturers when it comes to mmWave 5G phones. Samsung without a doubt was the most confident with its Galaxy S10 5G, but those capabilities will vary by geography and by what operators have available. Many European and Asian operators are pushing for sub-6GHz 5G launches before they start talking about mmWave, which is more difficult. Korea and the US, however, appear much more prepared for mmWave, so I expect thats where well see the bulk of mmWave 5G devices. Huawei talked up its 5G phone capabilities, taking the opportunity of the show to announce the new Mate X. Still, there was no inclination that it would necessarily be a mmWave device. In fact, on Huaweis site, it only claims four supported 5G bands2.5 GHz (same band as Sprint), 3.5, 3.7, and 4.7 GHz. This most likely means that Huaweis Mate X will have slower downlink speeds than Samsungs Galaxy Fold (also showcased at the show). Since Samsung is already showing its 5G mmWave version of the Galaxy S10, I expect that the 5G version of the Fold will have it as well (especially considering the price point Samsung is targeting). 5G beyond phones Now that we know 5G is coming to phones in both Sub-6GHz and mmWave, the next phase is expanding the ecosystem beyond phones. After all, if 5G is going to be as omnipresent and relevant in the future as weve been promised, theres going to have to be more devices than phones on 5G networks. Both Intel and Qualcomm took steps in that direction at MWC 19 in Barcelona, introducing modules that allow their 5G modems to be used in fixed wireless deployments. Intel announced a partnership with Fibocom to enable these M.2 modules and in addition to multiple gateway partners that will be upgradable to 5G. Qualcomm announced it was creating a 5G reference design for Sub-6GHz and mmWave wireless broadband. This reference design will help operators to more easily deploy fixed wireless 5G for their customers to deliver high-bandwidth connections that utilize their new 5G networks. Companies like Verizon have already deployed fixed wireless, but not using the 5G NR standard; I expect that more operators will use these new platforms for fixed wireless from Qualcomm and Intel. Due to the bevy of information and announcements at the show, some things slipped under the radar that are worth mentioning. Qualcomm announced a 5G version of its 8cx SoC for PCs, which means that we should see a 5G PC powered by Qualcomm as early as this year. Qualcomm says it is shipping the 8cx 5G to customers already and will have commercial devices in late 2019. Qualcomm also announced its next generation of 4G and 5G automotive platforms with support for C-V2X and HP-GNSS (high-precision multi-frequency global navigation satellite system). The new Snapdragon Automotive 5G Platform will also support DSDA (dual SIM dual active) which enables simultaneous 4G and 5G connectivity for maximum compatibility with early cellular networks. These new automotive platforms are expected to sample later this year and ship in production vehicles in 2021. This means 2021 will likely be the earliest well see 5G integrated into a car since nobody else has made any announcements in the area. SES Networks gave us a look at the potential future of 5G deployments in rural areas with its 5G satellite capabilities. I for one am excited to see what its rapid 5G cell prototype could do for rural deployments of 5G. I believe that if governments and operators work together, they can use technologies like satellite-supported 5G to narrow the digital divide between cities and rural areaswhich is wider than it likely has ever been. Currently, SES Networks offers Mobile Network as a Service Anywhere, which helps operators and cloud providers broaden their reach in rural areas with significantly less work than before. Moving forward The industry delivered quite a bit on what it promised with 5G at MWC 2019 and answered many of the questions weve had for the technology moving into the future. However, there are still some unanswered questionsspecifically about what carriers networks will look like, what they will charge, and when we can expect true 5G networks to drive these devices to their full potential. Many operators talked about 5G deployments and supporting devices, but few of them gave specific details about what kind of performance users can expect on their devices now and into the future. This has always been a concern of mine because the expectations for 5G are already quite highoverpromising and underdelivering wont go over well. Deploying 5G in sub-6GHz will deliver the coverage users expect and are used to but wont provide the significant speed improvements over 4G that users are expecting. Conversely, operators launching mmWave first will be able to deliver on the high-performance claims, but coverage will initially be limited, and users will struggle to find service or stay on mmWave service for very long. The ball is now in the operators courtits their turn to deliver. Disclosure: Moor Insights & Strategy, like all research and analyst firms, provides or has provided research, analysis, advising, and/or consulting to many high-tech companies in the industry, including Qualcomm, Intel, Huawei, Samsung Electronics, and Sony. The authors do not hold any equity positions with any companies cited in this column. | MWC Barcelona 2019 was a prime opportunity for everyone to make their announcements and show off what they had been working on. 5G modems and more are expected to launch in 2019. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/moorinsights/2019/03/19/did-the-industry-deliver-on-5g-at-mwc-2019/ | 0.24826 |
Did The Industry Deliver On 5G At MWC 2019? | This year is shaping up to be the year of 5G, with virtually every single company talking up their 5G game in one way or another. Since many of the first 5G smartphones and networks are expected to launch in 2019, MWC Barcelona 2019 was a prime opportunity for everyone to make their announcements and show off what they had been working on. Lets take a look at what all was announced, and when to expect it. 5G modems and more One of the fundamental aspects of 5G is the modem. Sometimes this is lost on people, but you need a good 5G modem and RF front-end to make 5G happen. Intel showed off its 8160 modem, announced in December of last year, which is due to ship at the end of this year and will be in devices next year. Qualcomm followed up its current X50 modem (shipping in phones this quarter) with its new X55 modem, which is shipping now and will be out in devices by the end of the year. In addition to that, Qualcomm also announced it would have a next-generation smartphone SoC with an integrated modem (which it calls a mobile platform) next year. An integrated 5G modem will create significant power and space savings and should enable Qualcomms partners to extend their 5G leadership into 2020. Qualcomm spent most of its time and effort at MWC 19 showing off its 5G modem and using it to power real 5G demos with their partners (including OnePlus, LG, OPPO and Sony ). Theres no question that Qualcomm has 5G modem leadership, but the 5G modem race is no longer a two-horse race. In December, MediaTek also announced its first 5G modem, the M70. At MWC, MediaTek showed off its modem and demonstrated it operationally running 5G with partners equipment, including Nokia . The company demonstrated a throughput of 1.1 Gbps over 3.5 GHz on 5G NR, as well as a simulated mmWave demo (since it doesnt have a mmWave RF front-end for 5G quite yet). Using Anritsu test equipment, the mmWave demo peaked at 4.1 Gbpscomparable to what Qualcomm and Intel demonstrated at last years MWC. Huawei always has a large presence at MWC, and this year was no exception. The company had its 5G modem, the Balong 5000, on display, but it was not accompanied by any 5G demos as far as I could see. Huawei made a lot of inaccurate claims about the Balong 5000 during its launch eventspecifically that it was the first with a 7nm multi-mode modem and the first with NSA and SA network architecture. Neither claims are trueQualcomms X55 5G modem already does these things. Huawei also claims to be the fastest on mmWave, at 6.5 Gbps, but that doesnt beat Qualcomms claimed 7 Gbps. I am happy with how quickly Huawei brought a consumer 5G modem to market but making such inaccurate claims dont help the companys credibility with those in the know. We reached out to Huawei for comment but didn't receive an answer by the time of publication. While Intel did not announce any new modems at MWC 2019, it did announce its first mmWave RF Front-end module, which is what will enable Apple and others to utilize the high frequency and high-bandwidth 5G bands of spectrum. The ability to support both mmWave and Sub-6GHz 5G is key to ensuring full 5G coverage and speeds and bringing a complete 5G device to market. The expectation is that this will be available in late 2020 to early 2021, which lines up with where I believe Intel is currently in its 5G development process. This means we most likely wont see any PC or smartphone with Intel mmWave 5G inside until 2021. I was impressed by Intels live 5G Spiderman VR gaming demo at the show, but I was disappointed to see that it used the same Intel 5G hardware as the companys first 5G NR demo from last September. 5G phones 5G phones were the primary focus of the show. Qualcomm was at the center of the 5G phone launches, with its partners (including Xiaomi , Sony, OPPO, Vivo and LG) all announcing 5G devices or prototypes for 2019 and beyond. There is still a bit of uncertainty from many manufacturers when it comes to mmWave 5G phones. Samsung without a doubt was the most confident with its Galaxy S10 5G, but those capabilities will vary by geography and by what operators have available. Many European and Asian operators are pushing for sub-6GHz 5G launches before they start talking about mmWave, which is more difficult. Korea and the US, however, appear much more prepared for mmWave, so I expect thats where well see the bulk of mmWave 5G devices. Huawei talked up its 5G phone capabilities, taking the opportunity of the show to announce the new Mate X. Still, there was no inclination that it would necessarily be a mmWave device. In fact, on Huaweis site, it only claims four supported 5G bands2.5 GHz (same band as Sprint), 3.5, 3.7, and 4.7 GHz. This most likely means that Huaweis Mate X will have slower downlink speeds than Samsungs Galaxy Fold (also showcased at the show). Since Samsung is already showing its 5G mmWave version of the Galaxy S10, I expect that the 5G version of the Fold will have it as well (especially considering the price point Samsung is targeting). 5G beyond phones Now that we know 5G is coming to phones in both Sub-6GHz and mmWave, the next phase is expanding the ecosystem beyond phones. After all, if 5G is going to be as omnipresent and relevant in the future as weve been promised, theres going to have to be more devices than phones on 5G networks. Both Intel and Qualcomm took steps in that direction at MWC 19 in Barcelona, introducing modules that allow their 5G modems to be used in fixed wireless deployments. Intel announced a partnership with Fibocom to enable these M.2 modules and in addition to multiple gateway partners that will be upgradable to 5G. Qualcomm announced it was creating a 5G reference design for Sub-6GHz and mmWave wireless broadband. This reference design will help operators to more easily deploy fixed wireless 5G for their customers to deliver high-bandwidth connections that utilize their new 5G networks. Companies like Verizon have already deployed fixed wireless, but not using the 5G NR standard; I expect that more operators will use these new platforms for fixed wireless from Qualcomm and Intel. Due to the bevy of information and announcements at the show, some things slipped under the radar that are worth mentioning. Qualcomm announced a 5G version of its 8cx SoC for PCs, which means that we should see a 5G PC powered by Qualcomm as early as this year. Qualcomm says it is shipping the 8cx 5G to customers already and will have commercial devices in late 2019. Qualcomm also announced its next generation of 4G and 5G automotive platforms with support for C-V2X and HP-GNSS (high-precision multi-frequency global navigation satellite system). The new Snapdragon Automotive 5G Platform will also support DSDA (dual SIM dual active) which enables simultaneous 4G and 5G connectivity for maximum compatibility with early cellular networks. These new automotive platforms are expected to sample later this year and ship in production vehicles in 2021. This means 2021 will likely be the earliest well see 5G integrated into a car since nobody else has made any announcements in the area. SES Networks gave us a look at the potential future of 5G deployments in rural areas with its 5G satellite capabilities. I for one am excited to see what its rapid 5G cell prototype could do for rural deployments of 5G. I believe that if governments and operators work together, they can use technologies like satellite-supported 5G to narrow the digital divide between cities and rural areaswhich is wider than it likely has ever been. Currently, SES Networks offers Mobile Network as a Service Anywhere, which helps operators and cloud providers broaden their reach in rural areas with significantly less work than before. Moving forward The industry delivered quite a bit on what it promised with 5G at MWC 2019 and answered many of the questions weve had for the technology moving into the future. However, there are still some unanswered questionsspecifically about what carriers networks will look like, what they will charge, and when we can expect true 5G networks to drive these devices to their full potential. Many operators talked about 5G deployments and supporting devices, but few of them gave specific details about what kind of performance users can expect on their devices now and into the future. This has always been a concern of mine because the expectations for 5G are already quite highoverpromising and underdelivering wont go over well. Deploying 5G in sub-6GHz will deliver the coverage users expect and are used to but wont provide the significant speed improvements over 4G that users are expecting. Conversely, operators launching mmWave first will be able to deliver on the high-performance claims, but coverage will initially be limited, and users will struggle to find service or stay on mmWave service for very long. The ball is now in the operators courtits their turn to deliver. Disclosure: Moor Insights & Strategy, like all research and analyst firms, provides or has provided research, analysis, advising, and/or consulting to many high-tech companies in the industry, including Qualcomm, Intel, Huawei, Samsung Electronics, and Sony. The authors do not hold any equity positions with any companies cited in this column. | This year is shaping up to be the year of 5G, with virtually every single company talking up their 5G game in one way or another. Since many of the first 5G smartphones and networks are expected to launch in 2019, MWC Barcelona 2019 was a prime opportunity for everyone to make their announcements and show off what they had been working on. | bart | 2 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/moorinsights/2019/03/19/did-the-industry-deliver-on-5g-at-mwc-2019/ | 0.225091 |
Whats Really Happening to Uighurs in Xinjiang? | Human Rights Watch reported violations on a massive scale in September 2018 in Xinjiang, Chinas most northwesterly region, targeted primarily at Turkic-speaking Muslim Uighurs, Kazakhs, and Uzbeks. The Chinese authorities denied the allegations and insisted they were combating radicalism and terrorism fomented by the Uighur-diaspora opposition and by foreign powers. Muslim nations kept quiet. Ad Policy Translated by George Miller. This essay continues our exclusive collaboration with Le Monde Diplomatique, monthly publishing jointly commissioned and shared articles, both in print and online. To subscribe to LMD, go to mondediplo.com/subscribe. It is beyond doubt that measures known as transformation through education devised in the 1990s to reeducate members of the Falun Gong sect have been adapted and applied to all members of Muslim minorities whose loyalty the regime suspects. Without official data it is impossible to know exactly how many have been affected. According to researcher Adrian Zenz, who uses public-sector data on the construction or expansion of internment facilities, as many as a million people, more than 10 percent of the Uyghur population, may have been subjected to this program or be currently interned. Under this regime, unlike the labor-camp system (laogai), suspects do not get a trial and may be detained indefinitely. Zenzs work and that of human-rights organizations shows that the system of repression operates on multiple levels, from open reeducation classes to closed camps with rigid discipline, all underpinned by the pathologization of dissidence. The system aims to eradicate ideological viruses and treat individuals according to their degree of obduracy. In December 2018 the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights requested official access to Chinas Uighur reeducation camps. The Chinese authorities eventually acknowledged the camps existence, but claimed they were places of patriotic education and occupational-training centers intended to help minorities integrate, where education and self-criticism sessions and interrogations are combined with Mandarin-language courses. Accounts in the foreign press by former detainees who have fled the country paint a darker picture than that presented by Chinese media; they describe often harsh detention conditions, strong pressure, and even physical and psychological torture. In February the Turkish government, a staunch supporter of the Uighurs, issued a public condemnation of Chinas treatment.This wave of repression may have reached a new peak, but Xinjiang has experienced many violent episodes, always followed by repressive crackdowns, a dynamic in which the Chinese government is still trapped. Control of the Silk Roads Xinjiang is bordered by huge mountain ranges and was for centuries a vital crossroads on the Silk Road. Under the Han, Sui, and Tang dynasties during the first millennium AD, it was periodically under Chinese domination as Chinese rulers wanted to prevent confederations of the steppes, which threatened their empires northern flank, from controlling the Silk Road and the wealth it generated. Related Article How the Left Should Respond to Ethnic Cleansing in China Daniel Bessner and Isaac Stone Fish After the Portuguese circumnavigated Africa, around 1500, overland routes went into a long, slow decline as maritime routes expanded. In the mid-18th century, Xinjiang (which had converted to Islam between the 10th and 17th centuries) was conquered by the Qing dynasty (16441912), but by this time it had already lost its central importance. After China cut itself off from the world, the region became an enclave, and Chinese leaders saw it as even more of a backwater because of the Sino-Soviet conflict. The fortunes of Xinjiang, one of Chinas poorest provinces, changed again as its regional and international importance grew. Mao stationed troops there in 1949 and began to align it with the rest of China through state investment. This was increased in the early 2000s as part of the Great Western Development Strategy. It coincided with massive internal migration by Han Chinese, the ethnic majority, which led to the building of new cities in the north from the 1950s and later the reshaping of the old oasis towns in the south. Xinjiang is now connected to the rest of China by high-quality motorway and rail networks. Through the driving force of state-owned enterprises and production units developed by the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, or Bingtuan for short, it has specialized in mining and agriculture (cotton, tomatoes, fruit). Current Issue View our current issue The province, which is three times the size of France, has also become a strategic center for energy production as it has 25 percent of Chinas hydrocarbon reserves and 38 percent of its coal. China wants to reduce its need to import energy, so Chinese companies extract 15 percent of its oil output and almost 25 percent of its natural gas in Xinjiang. Oil and gas pipelines linking it to central and coastal regions were built from the 1990s to transport the huge volumes of hydrocarbons that have powered Chinas economic growth. Now the authorities are turning their attention to infrastructure for liquefied coal as well as wind, solar, and hydroelectric energy. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the launch of Xi Jinpings Belt and Road Initiative, the opening up of Central Asia has turned Xinjiang into a key asset in Chinas strategy of projecting its power in Asia. Bordering Pakistan, Afghanistan, and former Soviet republics, Xinjiang has a network of road, rail, and energy-transport links on which Beijing depends to guarantee supplies and also extend its economic influence as far as Europe. The regime needs stability in this region and is ever watchful for any sign that it might succumb to Islamism or too great a US influence. Fear of insurrection Though the Chinese state has consolidated its control over the region, it remains worried about insurrection, which in the past has led to brief periods of independence, recurrent riots, and, more recently, an increased incidence of violence, including terrorism. This mainly Turkic-speaking region, which in the West used to be called East Turkestan or Chinese Turkestan, is strongly individual and was known for its instability even in imperial times. When the Qing tried to make it their new frontier (Xinjiang in Mandarin), those nostalgic for its previous Sufi theocracy used the call to defend Islam as a way of mobilizing against non-Muslim Sino-Manchu power. Until the early 20th century, Xinjiang was divided into an area dominated by Kazakh and Kyrgyz nomads in the north and the Pamir mountains, and oases inhabited by sedentary Uighurs in the south and east. After the fall of the last Chinese dynasty in 1912, Chinese warlords faced an unprecedented rise in autonomist and separatist opposition. Fresh blood flowed into this opposition from a new generation of activists: On the right were the supporters of pan-Turkism and on the left a communist movement supported and funded by the Soviets until the late 1940s. The victory of Mao and the Communists in 1949, then the repressive policies before and during the Cultural Revolution (196676), led to these networks being dismantled. In the 1980s, with the reformist branch of the Communist party (PCC) in power, people from minorities were recruited to increase engagement with the machinery of the state. New spaces for cultural and religious freedom emerged, and there was new anti-colonial nationalist activism on campuses and in Uighur intellectual circles. After the ban on Islam during the Cultural Revolution, some Uighurs turned again to religion, and in the south created madrasas, centers for groups of talibs (students of religion). Some advocated adopting Muslim social values or even creating an independent Islamic state. In 1990 the Turkestan Islamic party, a recently created network, staged an insurrection in Baren. In 1985, 1988, and 1989, in the regional capital Urumqi and other oasis towns, there were protests against colonization by immigration, and against ethnic discrimination and inequality, and the lack of political autonomy. These were led by student organizations; they degenerated into attacks on government buildings, in particular in 1989. Tibet had violent riots in March 1989 and Tiananmen Square happened in June, so the PCC feared it might lose control of the situation in Xinjiang. This fear was heightened by the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, when independence for other Turkic-speaking peoples became a reality. Return of PCC hardliners Autonomists and separatists hopes of inclusion in regional policy-making ended with the return to power of PCC hard-liners. The Communist party, Xinjiangs Islamic Association (a liaison organization representing Muslims), the regional authorities, the religious teaching system, schools, and universities, were all brought back into line. Administrators deemed wayward, overly religious, or sympathetic to separatism or independence were sacked or punished. A policy of gradual tightening of control over society was put in place. To avoid arrest, the most committed nationalist activists joined the formerly pro-communist or pan-Turk Uighur diaspora in Central Asia, Turkey, or the West, and with local organizations pursued a campaign for human rights on the Tibetan model. This nonviolent strategy adopted by nationalists led in 2004 to the creation of the Washington-based World Uyghur Congress. In Xinjiang, repression brought rising tensions. Angry Uighur crowds took to the streets in Khotan in 1995, in Yining in 1997, and elsewhere. The madrasas in the south were broken up and some in Islamo-nationalist circles considered the PCC to be at war with Islam and Uighur Muslim identity. Some talibs and nationalist cells went underground, where they formed small groups advocating violent action, including terrorism. Between 1990 and 2001 the Chinese authorities claim 200 terrorist incidents caused 162 deaths. But these groups were gradually dismantled. Between Us, We Cover the World Discipline and Punish: The Birth of Chinas Social-Credit System Ren Raphael and Ling Xi A European Spring Is Possible Yanis Varoufakis Chagos Islanders Want to Go Home Abdelwahab Biad and Elsa Edynak In March 1996 the PCC published a list of harsh directives to eradicate potentially subversive activities. This was followed by several Strike Hard campaigns (1997, 1999, 2001), which led to the creation of patriotic-education classes, an increase in actions legally classed as subversive, and waves of arrests. The same document emphasized the necessity of encouraging the influx of Han within the Production and Construction Corps. The building of mosques was severely restricted, patriotic officials were appointed as heads of places of worship, and anyone who had received unauthorized instruction in a religious school had to be registered, and tough measures were taken to prevent religion becoming involved in social and political life. Amnesty International estimates that at least 190 executions took place between January 1997 and April 1999. During this period, connections formed between a small number of Islamo-nationalist activists who had relocated to the Pakistan-Afghan region and the Taliban networks led by Jalaluddin Haqqani. This group, which Beijing refers to as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), had a harder time gaining the attention of the rich Al Qaeda networks, which had recently relocated to that region. With limited means, ETIM struggled to make much impression in Xinjiang, where sleeper networks had mostly been eradicated. The Chinese authorities took advantage of the post-9/11 environment and US forces capture of some ETIM members in Afghanistan, and developed the rhetoric of the three evil forces (sangu shili): terrorism, ethnic separatism, and religious extremism. This lumped together nonviolent democratic nationalist and autonomist groups, promoters of Islamic values in the social and political realm, ETIM jihadists, and all dissenting voices. Violent clashes in Urumqi What remained of the ETIM networks, which had withdrawn to Waziristan, adopted the name Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP), having become part of Al Qaedas global brand. They promoted violence on social networks, though Chinas Internet surveillance made their message hard to disseminate. But after a long period of calm, there were attacks in southern Xinjiang and its capital Urumqi, which began in 2008 as the Beijing Olympics approached, and spread in 2009 with violent clashes between Uighurs and Han in Urumqi. The official death toll was 197, three-quarters of them Han. The ensuing crackdown was severe. The Internet was cut off for several months, but the attacks continued. The TIP seems to have planned some of the attacks, such as in Kashgar in 2011, but many, such as the knife attacks on police and ordinary citizens, appear unplanned and were perpetrated by youths who had simply seen videos from the TIP or other jihadist movements. Some violence occurred outside Xinjiang and shocked the Chinese public: a car attack in Tiananmen Square in October 2013 (five people were killed: two tourists and the three attackers), a knife attack at Kunming station in March 2014 (31 dead, 143 injured), and an attack on an Urumqi market in May 2014 (43 dead, more than 90 injured). Other smaller-scale attacks followed; in 2014 there were more than 300 victims of terrorism in China, compared to just a handful each year in the previous decade. Chinese concern grew over the TIPs renewed involvement in Afghanistan alongside the Taliban, and especially in Syria, where it had formed links. Its participation in the Syrian conflict boosted its ranks and its support network. Having proved itself fighting alongside other constituents of the Al-Nusra Front (now Hayat Tahrir al-Sham) in northwest Syria, it gained access to heavy equipment and the ability to mobilize several hundred fighters. The TIP is a greater threat to Chinese interests in some parts of the world where it is able to conduct operationsPakistan, Afghanistan, and the Middle Eastthan in Xinjiang. Uighur society seems disinclined to embrace its hard-line brand of Islam, and the great wall of steel that President Xi wants to build around Xinjiang reduces its room for maneuver in China. End of the golden era However, the arrests and convictions (including capital sentences) that followed the 2009 riots proved a turning point for the people of Xinjiang. Many saw it as clear proof that the golden era of the 1980s, when mediators could still be found to resolve conflicts between communities, was over. Uighur resentment of Beijing turned into resentment of the Han, seen as arrogant colonizers. The PCCs recipe for community harmony is based on demographic and cultural homogenization (in reality sinicization) and tight Han control of Xinjiangs institutions. This means the replacement of the Uighur language with Mandarin in the education system, ever-tighter control by the police and the authorities, and increasing Han migration, which exacerbates the local populations sense of being overwhelmed by the Chinese. At the start of this decade, Han represented 40 percent of the regions population of 22 million (up from 6 percent in 1949) and Uighurs 45 percent (down from 75 percent). Han dominance of the economy and administration, coupled with their distrust of indigenous people, contributes to keeping a significant percentage of Uighurs at the bottom of the social pyramid. While it is true that the state provides over half the regional budget and has long guaranteed double-digit growth through massive investment, many Uighurs are less qualified or discriminated against because of their ethnicity. As Chinas new strongman, Xi promised to eradicate the terrorist threat and redefined the security approach. Antiterrorist forces were reorganized and came under closer government control. Supervision of minorities and religious affairs, which had been the responsibility of a range of authorities but also of representative organizations, was transferred to the highly centralized United Front Work Department. The judicial apparatus was also reorganized. In November 2014 Xinjiangs regional assembly had already passed a law reforming the 1994 regional religious regulations, adding 18 new articles to modernize the accreditation system for imams, mosques, and what remained of religious-teaching institutions, which were already closely monitored. In 2017 a new set of measures was passed, ostensibly to fight religious extremism. Many Muslims saw them as intrusive, as they forbade abnormal beards and wearing the veil in public. Unite as one family Control increased when Chen Quanguo was appointed secretary of the local Communist party in 2016, a post he had previously held in the autonomous region of Tibet. According to Adrian Zenz, the security budget expanded hugely. Special police units and anti-riot measures were strengthened. Police recruitment peaked between summer 2016 and summer 2017 at nearly 90,000 new officers, 12 times more than in 2009, the goal being to have a branch of the Public Security Bureau in every village. Chen also strengthened the Unite as one family program, in which state officials live with families, sometimes for several days, to identify subversive behavior, encourage denunciations, and carry out patriotic education. More than a million state officials may be involved, with southern rural areas a particular target. Xinjiang has also become a testing ground for high tech and big-data security. Smartphones can be checked at any time at police and other roadside checkpoints. A vast system of facial-recognition video surveillance has been upgraded. Most Uighurs have had to surrender their passports, destroying the hopes of those who want to emigrate. Beijing remains focused on surveilling society and punishing those who transgress. The collection of data using the Integrated Joint Operations Platform, in tandem with studying unusual behavior, aims to predict behavior and class individuals according to their degree of loyalty and perceived security risk. Among the many grounds for suspicion is having visited any of 26 countries deemed risky. Other behavior considered suspect includes contact with foreigners or people who have been abroad, downloading the banned WhatsApp social-media app, wearing a beard, not drinking alcohol or smoking, eating halal, observing Ramadan, not eating pork, and giving children Muslim first names that are considered subversive, such as Muhammad. Well-known academics, artists, and sports stars have suddenly disappeared and are probably in prison or under house arrest. In the past few months, exceptionally harsh sentences have been handed down. The former director of the Xinjiang Education Supervision Bureau and the former president of the University of Xinjiang have been sentenced to death for separatist tendencies. One of the last critical figures in Uighur intellectual circles, Ilham Tohti, who was arrested in 2014, has been sentenced to life in prison. The authorities claim these measures have been highly successful, with a sharp reduction in violence. They are proud of their security model, which combines cutting-edge technology and a level of repression that recalls the Cultural Revolution. Local party officials, religious, state employees, and intellectuals, who a few decades ago might have been able to defuse misunderstandings and conflicts with the state, are obliged to keep silent. Given the high levels of frustration among Xinjiang Muslims, this could be a dangerous approach. | Uighurs, Kazakhs, and Uzbeks have been targeted in China's Xinjiang region. | ctrlsum | 0 | https://www.thenation.com/article/china-xinjiang-uighur-oppression/ | 0.107901 |
Whats Really Happening to Uighurs in Xinjiang? | Human Rights Watch reported violations on a massive scale in September 2018 in Xinjiang, Chinas most northwesterly region, targeted primarily at Turkic-speaking Muslim Uighurs, Kazakhs, and Uzbeks. The Chinese authorities denied the allegations and insisted they were combating radicalism and terrorism fomented by the Uighur-diaspora opposition and by foreign powers. Muslim nations kept quiet. Ad Policy Translated by George Miller. This essay continues our exclusive collaboration with Le Monde Diplomatique, monthly publishing jointly commissioned and shared articles, both in print and online. To subscribe to LMD, go to mondediplo.com/subscribe. It is beyond doubt that measures known as transformation through education devised in the 1990s to reeducate members of the Falun Gong sect have been adapted and applied to all members of Muslim minorities whose loyalty the regime suspects. Without official data it is impossible to know exactly how many have been affected. According to researcher Adrian Zenz, who uses public-sector data on the construction or expansion of internment facilities, as many as a million people, more than 10 percent of the Uyghur population, may have been subjected to this program or be currently interned. Under this regime, unlike the labor-camp system (laogai), suspects do not get a trial and may be detained indefinitely. Zenzs work and that of human-rights organizations shows that the system of repression operates on multiple levels, from open reeducation classes to closed camps with rigid discipline, all underpinned by the pathologization of dissidence. The system aims to eradicate ideological viruses and treat individuals according to their degree of obduracy. In December 2018 the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights requested official access to Chinas Uighur reeducation camps. The Chinese authorities eventually acknowledged the camps existence, but claimed they were places of patriotic education and occupational-training centers intended to help minorities integrate, where education and self-criticism sessions and interrogations are combined with Mandarin-language courses. Accounts in the foreign press by former detainees who have fled the country paint a darker picture than that presented by Chinese media; they describe often harsh detention conditions, strong pressure, and even physical and psychological torture. In February the Turkish government, a staunch supporter of the Uighurs, issued a public condemnation of Chinas treatment.This wave of repression may have reached a new peak, but Xinjiang has experienced many violent episodes, always followed by repressive crackdowns, a dynamic in which the Chinese government is still trapped. Control of the Silk Roads Xinjiang is bordered by huge mountain ranges and was for centuries a vital crossroads on the Silk Road. Under the Han, Sui, and Tang dynasties during the first millennium AD, it was periodically under Chinese domination as Chinese rulers wanted to prevent confederations of the steppes, which threatened their empires northern flank, from controlling the Silk Road and the wealth it generated. Related Article How the Left Should Respond to Ethnic Cleansing in China Daniel Bessner and Isaac Stone Fish After the Portuguese circumnavigated Africa, around 1500, overland routes went into a long, slow decline as maritime routes expanded. In the mid-18th century, Xinjiang (which had converted to Islam between the 10th and 17th centuries) was conquered by the Qing dynasty (16441912), but by this time it had already lost its central importance. After China cut itself off from the world, the region became an enclave, and Chinese leaders saw it as even more of a backwater because of the Sino-Soviet conflict. The fortunes of Xinjiang, one of Chinas poorest provinces, changed again as its regional and international importance grew. Mao stationed troops there in 1949 and began to align it with the rest of China through state investment. This was increased in the early 2000s as part of the Great Western Development Strategy. It coincided with massive internal migration by Han Chinese, the ethnic majority, which led to the building of new cities in the north from the 1950s and later the reshaping of the old oasis towns in the south. Xinjiang is now connected to the rest of China by high-quality motorway and rail networks. Through the driving force of state-owned enterprises and production units developed by the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, or Bingtuan for short, it has specialized in mining and agriculture (cotton, tomatoes, fruit). Current Issue View our current issue The province, which is three times the size of France, has also become a strategic center for energy production as it has 25 percent of Chinas hydrocarbon reserves and 38 percent of its coal. China wants to reduce its need to import energy, so Chinese companies extract 15 percent of its oil output and almost 25 percent of its natural gas in Xinjiang. Oil and gas pipelines linking it to central and coastal regions were built from the 1990s to transport the huge volumes of hydrocarbons that have powered Chinas economic growth. Now the authorities are turning their attention to infrastructure for liquefied coal as well as wind, solar, and hydroelectric energy. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the launch of Xi Jinpings Belt and Road Initiative, the opening up of Central Asia has turned Xinjiang into a key asset in Chinas strategy of projecting its power in Asia. Bordering Pakistan, Afghanistan, and former Soviet republics, Xinjiang has a network of road, rail, and energy-transport links on which Beijing depends to guarantee supplies and also extend its economic influence as far as Europe. The regime needs stability in this region and is ever watchful for any sign that it might succumb to Islamism or too great a US influence. Fear of insurrection Though the Chinese state has consolidated its control over the region, it remains worried about insurrection, which in the past has led to brief periods of independence, recurrent riots, and, more recently, an increased incidence of violence, including terrorism. This mainly Turkic-speaking region, which in the West used to be called East Turkestan or Chinese Turkestan, is strongly individual and was known for its instability even in imperial times. When the Qing tried to make it their new frontier (Xinjiang in Mandarin), those nostalgic for its previous Sufi theocracy used the call to defend Islam as a way of mobilizing against non-Muslim Sino-Manchu power. Until the early 20th century, Xinjiang was divided into an area dominated by Kazakh and Kyrgyz nomads in the north and the Pamir mountains, and oases inhabited by sedentary Uighurs in the south and east. After the fall of the last Chinese dynasty in 1912, Chinese warlords faced an unprecedented rise in autonomist and separatist opposition. Fresh blood flowed into this opposition from a new generation of activists: On the right were the supporters of pan-Turkism and on the left a communist movement supported and funded by the Soviets until the late 1940s. The victory of Mao and the Communists in 1949, then the repressive policies before and during the Cultural Revolution (196676), led to these networks being dismantled. In the 1980s, with the reformist branch of the Communist party (PCC) in power, people from minorities were recruited to increase engagement with the machinery of the state. New spaces for cultural and religious freedom emerged, and there was new anti-colonial nationalist activism on campuses and in Uighur intellectual circles. After the ban on Islam during the Cultural Revolution, some Uighurs turned again to religion, and in the south created madrasas, centers for groups of talibs (students of religion). Some advocated adopting Muslim social values or even creating an independent Islamic state. In 1990 the Turkestan Islamic party, a recently created network, staged an insurrection in Baren. In 1985, 1988, and 1989, in the regional capital Urumqi and other oasis towns, there were protests against colonization by immigration, and against ethnic discrimination and inequality, and the lack of political autonomy. These were led by student organizations; they degenerated into attacks on government buildings, in particular in 1989. Tibet had violent riots in March 1989 and Tiananmen Square happened in June, so the PCC feared it might lose control of the situation in Xinjiang. This fear was heightened by the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, when independence for other Turkic-speaking peoples became a reality. Return of PCC hardliners Autonomists and separatists hopes of inclusion in regional policy-making ended with the return to power of PCC hard-liners. The Communist party, Xinjiangs Islamic Association (a liaison organization representing Muslims), the regional authorities, the religious teaching system, schools, and universities, were all brought back into line. Administrators deemed wayward, overly religious, or sympathetic to separatism or independence were sacked or punished. A policy of gradual tightening of control over society was put in place. To avoid arrest, the most committed nationalist activists joined the formerly pro-communist or pan-Turk Uighur diaspora in Central Asia, Turkey, or the West, and with local organizations pursued a campaign for human rights on the Tibetan model. This nonviolent strategy adopted by nationalists led in 2004 to the creation of the Washington-based World Uyghur Congress. In Xinjiang, repression brought rising tensions. Angry Uighur crowds took to the streets in Khotan in 1995, in Yining in 1997, and elsewhere. The madrasas in the south were broken up and some in Islamo-nationalist circles considered the PCC to be at war with Islam and Uighur Muslim identity. Some talibs and nationalist cells went underground, where they formed small groups advocating violent action, including terrorism. Between 1990 and 2001 the Chinese authorities claim 200 terrorist incidents caused 162 deaths. But these groups were gradually dismantled. Between Us, We Cover the World Discipline and Punish: The Birth of Chinas Social-Credit System Ren Raphael and Ling Xi A European Spring Is Possible Yanis Varoufakis Chagos Islanders Want to Go Home Abdelwahab Biad and Elsa Edynak In March 1996 the PCC published a list of harsh directives to eradicate potentially subversive activities. This was followed by several Strike Hard campaigns (1997, 1999, 2001), which led to the creation of patriotic-education classes, an increase in actions legally classed as subversive, and waves of arrests. The same document emphasized the necessity of encouraging the influx of Han within the Production and Construction Corps. The building of mosques was severely restricted, patriotic officials were appointed as heads of places of worship, and anyone who had received unauthorized instruction in a religious school had to be registered, and tough measures were taken to prevent religion becoming involved in social and political life. Amnesty International estimates that at least 190 executions took place between January 1997 and April 1999. During this period, connections formed between a small number of Islamo-nationalist activists who had relocated to the Pakistan-Afghan region and the Taliban networks led by Jalaluddin Haqqani. This group, which Beijing refers to as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), had a harder time gaining the attention of the rich Al Qaeda networks, which had recently relocated to that region. With limited means, ETIM struggled to make much impression in Xinjiang, where sleeper networks had mostly been eradicated. The Chinese authorities took advantage of the post-9/11 environment and US forces capture of some ETIM members in Afghanistan, and developed the rhetoric of the three evil forces (sangu shili): terrorism, ethnic separatism, and religious extremism. This lumped together nonviolent democratic nationalist and autonomist groups, promoters of Islamic values in the social and political realm, ETIM jihadists, and all dissenting voices. Violent clashes in Urumqi What remained of the ETIM networks, which had withdrawn to Waziristan, adopted the name Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP), having become part of Al Qaedas global brand. They promoted violence on social networks, though Chinas Internet surveillance made their message hard to disseminate. But after a long period of calm, there were attacks in southern Xinjiang and its capital Urumqi, which began in 2008 as the Beijing Olympics approached, and spread in 2009 with violent clashes between Uighurs and Han in Urumqi. The official death toll was 197, three-quarters of them Han. The ensuing crackdown was severe. The Internet was cut off for several months, but the attacks continued. The TIP seems to have planned some of the attacks, such as in Kashgar in 2011, but many, such as the knife attacks on police and ordinary citizens, appear unplanned and were perpetrated by youths who had simply seen videos from the TIP or other jihadist movements. Some violence occurred outside Xinjiang and shocked the Chinese public: a car attack in Tiananmen Square in October 2013 (five people were killed: two tourists and the three attackers), a knife attack at Kunming station in March 2014 (31 dead, 143 injured), and an attack on an Urumqi market in May 2014 (43 dead, more than 90 injured). Other smaller-scale attacks followed; in 2014 there were more than 300 victims of terrorism in China, compared to just a handful each year in the previous decade. Chinese concern grew over the TIPs renewed involvement in Afghanistan alongside the Taliban, and especially in Syria, where it had formed links. Its participation in the Syrian conflict boosted its ranks and its support network. Having proved itself fighting alongside other constituents of the Al-Nusra Front (now Hayat Tahrir al-Sham) in northwest Syria, it gained access to heavy equipment and the ability to mobilize several hundred fighters. The TIP is a greater threat to Chinese interests in some parts of the world where it is able to conduct operationsPakistan, Afghanistan, and the Middle Eastthan in Xinjiang. Uighur society seems disinclined to embrace its hard-line brand of Islam, and the great wall of steel that President Xi wants to build around Xinjiang reduces its room for maneuver in China. End of the golden era However, the arrests and convictions (including capital sentences) that followed the 2009 riots proved a turning point for the people of Xinjiang. Many saw it as clear proof that the golden era of the 1980s, when mediators could still be found to resolve conflicts between communities, was over. Uighur resentment of Beijing turned into resentment of the Han, seen as arrogant colonizers. The PCCs recipe for community harmony is based on demographic and cultural homogenization (in reality sinicization) and tight Han control of Xinjiangs institutions. This means the replacement of the Uighur language with Mandarin in the education system, ever-tighter control by the police and the authorities, and increasing Han migration, which exacerbates the local populations sense of being overwhelmed by the Chinese. At the start of this decade, Han represented 40 percent of the regions population of 22 million (up from 6 percent in 1949) and Uighurs 45 percent (down from 75 percent). Han dominance of the economy and administration, coupled with their distrust of indigenous people, contributes to keeping a significant percentage of Uighurs at the bottom of the social pyramid. While it is true that the state provides over half the regional budget and has long guaranteed double-digit growth through massive investment, many Uighurs are less qualified or discriminated against because of their ethnicity. As Chinas new strongman, Xi promised to eradicate the terrorist threat and redefined the security approach. Antiterrorist forces were reorganized and came under closer government control. Supervision of minorities and religious affairs, which had been the responsibility of a range of authorities but also of representative organizations, was transferred to the highly centralized United Front Work Department. The judicial apparatus was also reorganized. In November 2014 Xinjiangs regional assembly had already passed a law reforming the 1994 regional religious regulations, adding 18 new articles to modernize the accreditation system for imams, mosques, and what remained of religious-teaching institutions, which were already closely monitored. In 2017 a new set of measures was passed, ostensibly to fight religious extremism. Many Muslims saw them as intrusive, as they forbade abnormal beards and wearing the veil in public. Unite as one family Control increased when Chen Quanguo was appointed secretary of the local Communist party in 2016, a post he had previously held in the autonomous region of Tibet. According to Adrian Zenz, the security budget expanded hugely. Special police units and anti-riot measures were strengthened. Police recruitment peaked between summer 2016 and summer 2017 at nearly 90,000 new officers, 12 times more than in 2009, the goal being to have a branch of the Public Security Bureau in every village. Chen also strengthened the Unite as one family program, in which state officials live with families, sometimes for several days, to identify subversive behavior, encourage denunciations, and carry out patriotic education. More than a million state officials may be involved, with southern rural areas a particular target. Xinjiang has also become a testing ground for high tech and big-data security. Smartphones can be checked at any time at police and other roadside checkpoints. A vast system of facial-recognition video surveillance has been upgraded. Most Uighurs have had to surrender their passports, destroying the hopes of those who want to emigrate. Beijing remains focused on surveilling society and punishing those who transgress. The collection of data using the Integrated Joint Operations Platform, in tandem with studying unusual behavior, aims to predict behavior and class individuals according to their degree of loyalty and perceived security risk. Among the many grounds for suspicion is having visited any of 26 countries deemed risky. Other behavior considered suspect includes contact with foreigners or people who have been abroad, downloading the banned WhatsApp social-media app, wearing a beard, not drinking alcohol or smoking, eating halal, observing Ramadan, not eating pork, and giving children Muslim first names that are considered subversive, such as Muhammad. Well-known academics, artists, and sports stars have suddenly disappeared and are probably in prison or under house arrest. In the past few months, exceptionally harsh sentences have been handed down. The former director of the Xinjiang Education Supervision Bureau and the former president of the University of Xinjiang have been sentenced to death for separatist tendencies. One of the last critical figures in Uighur intellectual circles, Ilham Tohti, who was arrested in 2014, has been sentenced to life in prison. The authorities claim these measures have been highly successful, with a sharp reduction in violence. They are proud of their security model, which combines cutting-edge technology and a level of repression that recalls the Cultural Revolution. Local party officials, religious, state employees, and intellectuals, who a few decades ago might have been able to defuse misunderstandings and conflicts with the state, are obliged to keep silent. Given the high levels of frustration among Xinjiang Muslims, this could be a dangerous approach. | Uighurs, Kazakhs, and Uzbeks have been targeted in China's crackdown in Xinjiang. The Chinese authorities deny the allegations and insisted they were combating radicalism and terrorism. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://www.thenation.com/article/china-xinjiang-uighur-oppression/ | 0.207201 |
Whats Really Happening to Uighurs in Xinjiang? | Human Rights Watch reported violations on a massive scale in September 2018 in Xinjiang, Chinas most northwesterly region, targeted primarily at Turkic-speaking Muslim Uighurs, Kazakhs, and Uzbeks. The Chinese authorities denied the allegations and insisted they were combating radicalism and terrorism fomented by the Uighur-diaspora opposition and by foreign powers. Muslim nations kept quiet. Ad Policy Translated by George Miller. This essay continues our exclusive collaboration with Le Monde Diplomatique, monthly publishing jointly commissioned and shared articles, both in print and online. To subscribe to LMD, go to mondediplo.com/subscribe. It is beyond doubt that measures known as transformation through education devised in the 1990s to reeducate members of the Falun Gong sect have been adapted and applied to all members of Muslim minorities whose loyalty the regime suspects. Without official data it is impossible to know exactly how many have been affected. According to researcher Adrian Zenz, who uses public-sector data on the construction or expansion of internment facilities, as many as a million people, more than 10 percent of the Uyghur population, may have been subjected to this program or be currently interned. Under this regime, unlike the labor-camp system (laogai), suspects do not get a trial and may be detained indefinitely. Zenzs work and that of human-rights organizations shows that the system of repression operates on multiple levels, from open reeducation classes to closed camps with rigid discipline, all underpinned by the pathologization of dissidence. The system aims to eradicate ideological viruses and treat individuals according to their degree of obduracy. In December 2018 the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights requested official access to Chinas Uighur reeducation camps. The Chinese authorities eventually acknowledged the camps existence, but claimed they were places of patriotic education and occupational-training centers intended to help minorities integrate, where education and self-criticism sessions and interrogations are combined with Mandarin-language courses. Accounts in the foreign press by former detainees who have fled the country paint a darker picture than that presented by Chinese media; they describe often harsh detention conditions, strong pressure, and even physical and psychological torture. In February the Turkish government, a staunch supporter of the Uighurs, issued a public condemnation of Chinas treatment.This wave of repression may have reached a new peak, but Xinjiang has experienced many violent episodes, always followed by repressive crackdowns, a dynamic in which the Chinese government is still trapped. Control of the Silk Roads Xinjiang is bordered by huge mountain ranges and was for centuries a vital crossroads on the Silk Road. Under the Han, Sui, and Tang dynasties during the first millennium AD, it was periodically under Chinese domination as Chinese rulers wanted to prevent confederations of the steppes, which threatened their empires northern flank, from controlling the Silk Road and the wealth it generated. Related Article How the Left Should Respond to Ethnic Cleansing in China Daniel Bessner and Isaac Stone Fish After the Portuguese circumnavigated Africa, around 1500, overland routes went into a long, slow decline as maritime routes expanded. In the mid-18th century, Xinjiang (which had converted to Islam between the 10th and 17th centuries) was conquered by the Qing dynasty (16441912), but by this time it had already lost its central importance. After China cut itself off from the world, the region became an enclave, and Chinese leaders saw it as even more of a backwater because of the Sino-Soviet conflict. The fortunes of Xinjiang, one of Chinas poorest provinces, changed again as its regional and international importance grew. Mao stationed troops there in 1949 and began to align it with the rest of China through state investment. This was increased in the early 2000s as part of the Great Western Development Strategy. It coincided with massive internal migration by Han Chinese, the ethnic majority, which led to the building of new cities in the north from the 1950s and later the reshaping of the old oasis towns in the south. Xinjiang is now connected to the rest of China by high-quality motorway and rail networks. Through the driving force of state-owned enterprises and production units developed by the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, or Bingtuan for short, it has specialized in mining and agriculture (cotton, tomatoes, fruit). Current Issue View our current issue The province, which is three times the size of France, has also become a strategic center for energy production as it has 25 percent of Chinas hydrocarbon reserves and 38 percent of its coal. China wants to reduce its need to import energy, so Chinese companies extract 15 percent of its oil output and almost 25 percent of its natural gas in Xinjiang. Oil and gas pipelines linking it to central and coastal regions were built from the 1990s to transport the huge volumes of hydrocarbons that have powered Chinas economic growth. Now the authorities are turning their attention to infrastructure for liquefied coal as well as wind, solar, and hydroelectric energy. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the launch of Xi Jinpings Belt and Road Initiative, the opening up of Central Asia has turned Xinjiang into a key asset in Chinas strategy of projecting its power in Asia. Bordering Pakistan, Afghanistan, and former Soviet republics, Xinjiang has a network of road, rail, and energy-transport links on which Beijing depends to guarantee supplies and also extend its economic influence as far as Europe. The regime needs stability in this region and is ever watchful for any sign that it might succumb to Islamism or too great a US influence. Fear of insurrection Though the Chinese state has consolidated its control over the region, it remains worried about insurrection, which in the past has led to brief periods of independence, recurrent riots, and, more recently, an increased incidence of violence, including terrorism. This mainly Turkic-speaking region, which in the West used to be called East Turkestan or Chinese Turkestan, is strongly individual and was known for its instability even in imperial times. When the Qing tried to make it their new frontier (Xinjiang in Mandarin), those nostalgic for its previous Sufi theocracy used the call to defend Islam as a way of mobilizing against non-Muslim Sino-Manchu power. Until the early 20th century, Xinjiang was divided into an area dominated by Kazakh and Kyrgyz nomads in the north and the Pamir mountains, and oases inhabited by sedentary Uighurs in the south and east. After the fall of the last Chinese dynasty in 1912, Chinese warlords faced an unprecedented rise in autonomist and separatist opposition. Fresh blood flowed into this opposition from a new generation of activists: On the right were the supporters of pan-Turkism and on the left a communist movement supported and funded by the Soviets until the late 1940s. The victory of Mao and the Communists in 1949, then the repressive policies before and during the Cultural Revolution (196676), led to these networks being dismantled. In the 1980s, with the reformist branch of the Communist party (PCC) in power, people from minorities were recruited to increase engagement with the machinery of the state. New spaces for cultural and religious freedom emerged, and there was new anti-colonial nationalist activism on campuses and in Uighur intellectual circles. After the ban on Islam during the Cultural Revolution, some Uighurs turned again to religion, and in the south created madrasas, centers for groups of talibs (students of religion). Some advocated adopting Muslim social values or even creating an independent Islamic state. In 1990 the Turkestan Islamic party, a recently created network, staged an insurrection in Baren. In 1985, 1988, and 1989, in the regional capital Urumqi and other oasis towns, there were protests against colonization by immigration, and against ethnic discrimination and inequality, and the lack of political autonomy. These were led by student organizations; they degenerated into attacks on government buildings, in particular in 1989. Tibet had violent riots in March 1989 and Tiananmen Square happened in June, so the PCC feared it might lose control of the situation in Xinjiang. This fear was heightened by the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, when independence for other Turkic-speaking peoples became a reality. Return of PCC hardliners Autonomists and separatists hopes of inclusion in regional policy-making ended with the return to power of PCC hard-liners. The Communist party, Xinjiangs Islamic Association (a liaison organization representing Muslims), the regional authorities, the religious teaching system, schools, and universities, were all brought back into line. Administrators deemed wayward, overly religious, or sympathetic to separatism or independence were sacked or punished. A policy of gradual tightening of control over society was put in place. To avoid arrest, the most committed nationalist activists joined the formerly pro-communist or pan-Turk Uighur diaspora in Central Asia, Turkey, or the West, and with local organizations pursued a campaign for human rights on the Tibetan model. This nonviolent strategy adopted by nationalists led in 2004 to the creation of the Washington-based World Uyghur Congress. In Xinjiang, repression brought rising tensions. Angry Uighur crowds took to the streets in Khotan in 1995, in Yining in 1997, and elsewhere. The madrasas in the south were broken up and some in Islamo-nationalist circles considered the PCC to be at war with Islam and Uighur Muslim identity. Some talibs and nationalist cells went underground, where they formed small groups advocating violent action, including terrorism. Between 1990 and 2001 the Chinese authorities claim 200 terrorist incidents caused 162 deaths. But these groups were gradually dismantled. Between Us, We Cover the World Discipline and Punish: The Birth of Chinas Social-Credit System Ren Raphael and Ling Xi A European Spring Is Possible Yanis Varoufakis Chagos Islanders Want to Go Home Abdelwahab Biad and Elsa Edynak In March 1996 the PCC published a list of harsh directives to eradicate potentially subversive activities. This was followed by several Strike Hard campaigns (1997, 1999, 2001), which led to the creation of patriotic-education classes, an increase in actions legally classed as subversive, and waves of arrests. The same document emphasized the necessity of encouraging the influx of Han within the Production and Construction Corps. The building of mosques was severely restricted, patriotic officials were appointed as heads of places of worship, and anyone who had received unauthorized instruction in a religious school had to be registered, and tough measures were taken to prevent religion becoming involved in social and political life. Amnesty International estimates that at least 190 executions took place between January 1997 and April 1999. During this period, connections formed between a small number of Islamo-nationalist activists who had relocated to the Pakistan-Afghan region and the Taliban networks led by Jalaluddin Haqqani. This group, which Beijing refers to as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), had a harder time gaining the attention of the rich Al Qaeda networks, which had recently relocated to that region. With limited means, ETIM struggled to make much impression in Xinjiang, where sleeper networks had mostly been eradicated. The Chinese authorities took advantage of the post-9/11 environment and US forces capture of some ETIM members in Afghanistan, and developed the rhetoric of the three evil forces (sangu shili): terrorism, ethnic separatism, and religious extremism. This lumped together nonviolent democratic nationalist and autonomist groups, promoters of Islamic values in the social and political realm, ETIM jihadists, and all dissenting voices. Violent clashes in Urumqi What remained of the ETIM networks, which had withdrawn to Waziristan, adopted the name Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP), having become part of Al Qaedas global brand. They promoted violence on social networks, though Chinas Internet surveillance made their message hard to disseminate. But after a long period of calm, there were attacks in southern Xinjiang and its capital Urumqi, which began in 2008 as the Beijing Olympics approached, and spread in 2009 with violent clashes between Uighurs and Han in Urumqi. The official death toll was 197, three-quarters of them Han. The ensuing crackdown was severe. The Internet was cut off for several months, but the attacks continued. The TIP seems to have planned some of the attacks, such as in Kashgar in 2011, but many, such as the knife attacks on police and ordinary citizens, appear unplanned and were perpetrated by youths who had simply seen videos from the TIP or other jihadist movements. Some violence occurred outside Xinjiang and shocked the Chinese public: a car attack in Tiananmen Square in October 2013 (five people were killed: two tourists and the three attackers), a knife attack at Kunming station in March 2014 (31 dead, 143 injured), and an attack on an Urumqi market in May 2014 (43 dead, more than 90 injured). Other smaller-scale attacks followed; in 2014 there were more than 300 victims of terrorism in China, compared to just a handful each year in the previous decade. Chinese concern grew over the TIPs renewed involvement in Afghanistan alongside the Taliban, and especially in Syria, where it had formed links. Its participation in the Syrian conflict boosted its ranks and its support network. Having proved itself fighting alongside other constituents of the Al-Nusra Front (now Hayat Tahrir al-Sham) in northwest Syria, it gained access to heavy equipment and the ability to mobilize several hundred fighters. The TIP is a greater threat to Chinese interests in some parts of the world where it is able to conduct operationsPakistan, Afghanistan, and the Middle Eastthan in Xinjiang. Uighur society seems disinclined to embrace its hard-line brand of Islam, and the great wall of steel that President Xi wants to build around Xinjiang reduces its room for maneuver in China. End of the golden era However, the arrests and convictions (including capital sentences) that followed the 2009 riots proved a turning point for the people of Xinjiang. Many saw it as clear proof that the golden era of the 1980s, when mediators could still be found to resolve conflicts between communities, was over. Uighur resentment of Beijing turned into resentment of the Han, seen as arrogant colonizers. The PCCs recipe for community harmony is based on demographic and cultural homogenization (in reality sinicization) and tight Han control of Xinjiangs institutions. This means the replacement of the Uighur language with Mandarin in the education system, ever-tighter control by the police and the authorities, and increasing Han migration, which exacerbates the local populations sense of being overwhelmed by the Chinese. At the start of this decade, Han represented 40 percent of the regions population of 22 million (up from 6 percent in 1949) and Uighurs 45 percent (down from 75 percent). Han dominance of the economy and administration, coupled with their distrust of indigenous people, contributes to keeping a significant percentage of Uighurs at the bottom of the social pyramid. While it is true that the state provides over half the regional budget and has long guaranteed double-digit growth through massive investment, many Uighurs are less qualified or discriminated against because of their ethnicity. As Chinas new strongman, Xi promised to eradicate the terrorist threat and redefined the security approach. Antiterrorist forces were reorganized and came under closer government control. Supervision of minorities and religious affairs, which had been the responsibility of a range of authorities but also of representative organizations, was transferred to the highly centralized United Front Work Department. The judicial apparatus was also reorganized. In November 2014 Xinjiangs regional assembly had already passed a law reforming the 1994 regional religious regulations, adding 18 new articles to modernize the accreditation system for imams, mosques, and what remained of religious-teaching institutions, which were already closely monitored. In 2017 a new set of measures was passed, ostensibly to fight religious extremism. Many Muslims saw them as intrusive, as they forbade abnormal beards and wearing the veil in public. Unite as one family Control increased when Chen Quanguo was appointed secretary of the local Communist party in 2016, a post he had previously held in the autonomous region of Tibet. According to Adrian Zenz, the security budget expanded hugely. Special police units and anti-riot measures were strengthened. Police recruitment peaked between summer 2016 and summer 2017 at nearly 90,000 new officers, 12 times more than in 2009, the goal being to have a branch of the Public Security Bureau in every village. Chen also strengthened the Unite as one family program, in which state officials live with families, sometimes for several days, to identify subversive behavior, encourage denunciations, and carry out patriotic education. More than a million state officials may be involved, with southern rural areas a particular target. Xinjiang has also become a testing ground for high tech and big-data security. Smartphones can be checked at any time at police and other roadside checkpoints. A vast system of facial-recognition video surveillance has been upgraded. Most Uighurs have had to surrender their passports, destroying the hopes of those who want to emigrate. Beijing remains focused on surveilling society and punishing those who transgress. The collection of data using the Integrated Joint Operations Platform, in tandem with studying unusual behavior, aims to predict behavior and class individuals according to their degree of loyalty and perceived security risk. Among the many grounds for suspicion is having visited any of 26 countries deemed risky. Other behavior considered suspect includes contact with foreigners or people who have been abroad, downloading the banned WhatsApp social-media app, wearing a beard, not drinking alcohol or smoking, eating halal, observing Ramadan, not eating pork, and giving children Muslim first names that are considered subversive, such as Muhammad. Well-known academics, artists, and sports stars have suddenly disappeared and are probably in prison or under house arrest. In the past few months, exceptionally harsh sentences have been handed down. The former director of the Xinjiang Education Supervision Bureau and the former president of the University of Xinjiang have been sentenced to death for separatist tendencies. One of the last critical figures in Uighur intellectual circles, Ilham Tohti, who was arrested in 2014, has been sentenced to life in prison. The authorities claim these measures have been highly successful, with a sharp reduction in violence. They are proud of their security model, which combines cutting-edge technology and a level of repression that recalls the Cultural Revolution. Local party officials, religious, state employees, and intellectuals, who a few decades ago might have been able to defuse misunderstandings and conflicts with the state, are obliged to keep silent. Given the high levels of frustration among Xinjiang Muslims, this could be a dangerous approach. | Uighurs, Kazakhs, and Uzbeks have been targeted in China's crackdown in Xinjiang. The Chinese authorities deny the allegations and insisted they were combating radicalism and terrorism. The Uighur people have long been at the heart of China's control of the Silk Road. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.thenation.com/article/china-xinjiang-uighur-oppression/ | 0.199339 |
Is It Moral And Ethical To Pay For An Advantage In The College Admissions Process? | Much of what goes on in college admissions may not be illegal, but it is immoral, writes Brookings Institute Fellow Richard V. Reeves in a scathing op-ed about this weeks college admissions scandal, a $25 million cheating ring, that raised all kinds of questions about how far the wealthy will go to protect and elevate their elite status. This scandal involved dozens of people, including actresses and business leaders, who agreed to pay tens of thousands of dollars to participate in a criminal cheating ring led by Edge College & Career Network (a sham college consulting company) in coordination with SAT test proctors and college athletic coaches. Applicants who participated in the ring managed to dupe the college admissions offices at USC, UCLA, Stanford, Yale, Georgetown, and Wake Forest into admitting them when they may not have otherwise qualified to gain acceptance. Cigus Vanni, an independent educational consultant who formerly worked at Princeton, Swarthmore and University of Pennsylvania says that unfair advantage happens even when families dont cheat. These wealthy and privileged families have always had their way with college admissions through athletic recruiting, legacy status and the early decision pool. As Vanni notes, it's been well-documented that the college admissions process favors the wealthy. The admissions review is also allegedly discriminatory against certain groups, which is the subject of the case of Students for Fair Admissions lawsuit against Harvard University. Dr. Eric Endlich, founder of Top College Consultants believes that the focus of discussion around this cheating ring should be on the legal implications of criminal actions. There are many controversial practices in college admissions that are not illegal, but this scandal is about breaking the law, not about whether privilege helps. Vitaly Borishan, cofounder of Solomon Admissions Consulting agrees that there is a clear line in the sand on what kind of help is okay to seek out. It is one thing to hire a tutor to prep for an exam or get help on a college application; its quite another to cheat on the exam or have that tutor bribe people on your behalf. Theres also the question about what role universities should take in holding students and families accountable for illegal and immoral behavior. Borishan believes that a place to start is for universities to examine the "outsized influence" that athletic coaches have in determining admissions results. Dan Lee, the other cofounder of Solomon Admissions Consulting, believes that students will pay for the damage of their actions by being underprepared and under-qualified for their next steps after college. Students who cheat to gain admission end up cheating themselves out of post-college opportunities by being an environment where they can't keep up. Ultimately, the students involved in the indictment will face consequences, as will many students and parents who focus on the loopholes at all costs. Lets hope that those cheating in the college application processand those cheating themselves out by hyper-focusing on loopholeswill learn from the mistakes of the indicted and change directions. | Some say it's immoral to pay for an advantage in the college admissions process. Others say that unfair advantage happens even when families don't cheat. | ctrlsum | 0 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/avivalegatt/2019/03/19/is-it-moral-and-ethical-to-pay-for-an-advantage-in-the-college-admissions-process/ | 0.338959 |
Is It Moral And Ethical To Pay For An Advantage In The College Admissions Process? | Much of what goes on in college admissions may not be illegal, but it is immoral, writes Brookings Institute Fellow Richard V. Reeves in a scathing op-ed about this weeks college admissions scandal, a $25 million cheating ring, that raised all kinds of questions about how far the wealthy will go to protect and elevate their elite status. This scandal involved dozens of people, including actresses and business leaders, who agreed to pay tens of thousands of dollars to participate in a criminal cheating ring led by Edge College & Career Network (a sham college consulting company) in coordination with SAT test proctors and college athletic coaches. Applicants who participated in the ring managed to dupe the college admissions offices at USC, UCLA, Stanford, Yale, Georgetown, and Wake Forest into admitting them when they may not have otherwise qualified to gain acceptance. Cigus Vanni, an independent educational consultant who formerly worked at Princeton, Swarthmore and University of Pennsylvania says that unfair advantage happens even when families dont cheat. These wealthy and privileged families have always had their way with college admissions through athletic recruiting, legacy status and the early decision pool. As Vanni notes, it's been well-documented that the college admissions process favors the wealthy. The admissions review is also allegedly discriminatory against certain groups, which is the subject of the case of Students for Fair Admissions lawsuit against Harvard University. Dr. Eric Endlich, founder of Top College Consultants believes that the focus of discussion around this cheating ring should be on the legal implications of criminal actions. There are many controversial practices in college admissions that are not illegal, but this scandal is about breaking the law, not about whether privilege helps. Vitaly Borishan, cofounder of Solomon Admissions Consulting agrees that there is a clear line in the sand on what kind of help is okay to seek out. It is one thing to hire a tutor to prep for an exam or get help on a college application; its quite another to cheat on the exam or have that tutor bribe people on your behalf. Theres also the question about what role universities should take in holding students and families accountable for illegal and immoral behavior. Borishan believes that a place to start is for universities to examine the "outsized influence" that athletic coaches have in determining admissions results. Dan Lee, the other cofounder of Solomon Admissions Consulting, believes that students will pay for the damage of their actions by being underprepared and under-qualified for their next steps after college. Students who cheat to gain admission end up cheating themselves out of post-college opportunities by being an environment where they can't keep up. Ultimately, the students involved in the indictment will face consequences, as will many students and parents who focus on the loopholes at all costs. Lets hope that those cheating in the college application processand those cheating themselves out by hyper-focusing on loopholeswill learn from the mistakes of the indicted and change directions. | Some say it's immoral to pay for an advantage in the college admissions process. Others say that unfair advantage happens even when families don't cheat. Some say that students will pay for the damage of their actions by being underprepared and under-qualified for their next steps after college. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/avivalegatt/2019/03/19/is-it-moral-and-ethical-to-pay-for-an-advantage-in-the-college-admissions-process/ | 0.490268 |
Could a commuter train service to Central Hawke's Bay be on the cards? | KiwiRail is keen to work with councils in the Hawke's Bay region on a potential commuter train service from Central Hawke's Bay to Hastings and Napier. CHB Mayor Alex Walker said she had been approached by "a good number of residents" who had suggested the start up of a train service to accommodate a booming population of commuters in the district. KiwiRail spokesman Alan Piper said the company was interested in building stronger connections within regional New Zealand. "Commuter rail services are typically the result of KiwiRail working with NZTA and relevant regional councils to ensure that the service is appropriately aligned to the wider regional transport, employment and housing needs," Piper said. Advertisement "Currently regional councils determine what commuter services they want, and KiwiRail acts as a supplier of services. "We are keenly interested in running commercially viable rail services that connect customers to experiences, employment and housing." Walker said concept made logical sense but research would need to be conducted to make sure it was a viable and affordable option for the region to invest in. "The connections between the different parts of the region both economically and socially are getting stronger and closer, so there's an opportunity to strengthen some key links between working population in Central Hawke's Bay with places like the Hastings CBD, EIT and the hospital. "I think there's some real positive economic and social spin offs from that too. Families are spread across Hawke's Bay as well and I think this is a very forward thinking suggestion." Walker said she had already done some exploration in terms of what the concept would look like through regional public transport plans, connections with KiwiRail and the provincial growth fund. "The questions we're asking at the moment is what is the business case, what is the support and what technically could it look like." Walker also said environmental factors also came into play when it came to a regional train service, as it would mean fewer vehicles on the road as well as a reduction in carbon monoxide. "Those are certainly benefits of having a public transport model, but we need something that economically and commercially stacks up - so we have to have a good understanding of people who could move by train and I imagine it would be a pretty long term investment to get it up and running." A spokesperson from the NZ Transport Agency said they had not been in any active discussions with KiwiRail about a passenger rail service in Hawke's Bay. Hawke's Bay regional councillor and chairman of the Regional Transport Committee Alan Dick said the concept was mentioned in the Regional Public Transport Plan which was now open for public consultation. "It's not a confirmed plan, but it is in there - it would probably be considered as a bus service rather than rail. "Rail sounds attractive but there are some practical difficulties, for example a lot of people who commute from CHB work at the hospital, they wouldn't be able to get there easily by train - they'd had to use another mode of transport. "On the other hand a bus service - if it was viable - could go from point to point. That's a reservation I have, but people may think differently." Dick said about six years ago they trialled a bus service from CHB to Hastings and Napier, but it wasn't much of a success. "But it is there as an option and things have changed in the last six years. We will look at these options with an open mind and see what happens." | KiwiRail is keen to work with councils in the Hawke's Bay region on a potential commuter train service. | bart | 0 | https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12214114&ref=rss | 0.122452 |
Could a commuter train service to Central Hawke's Bay be on the cards? | KiwiRail is keen to work with councils in the Hawke's Bay region on a potential commuter train service from Central Hawke's Bay to Hastings and Napier. CHB Mayor Alex Walker said she had been approached by "a good number of residents" who had suggested the start up of a train service to accommodate a booming population of commuters in the district. KiwiRail spokesman Alan Piper said the company was interested in building stronger connections within regional New Zealand. "Commuter rail services are typically the result of KiwiRail working with NZTA and relevant regional councils to ensure that the service is appropriately aligned to the wider regional transport, employment and housing needs," Piper said. Advertisement "Currently regional councils determine what commuter services they want, and KiwiRail acts as a supplier of services. "We are keenly interested in running commercially viable rail services that connect customers to experiences, employment and housing." Walker said concept made logical sense but research would need to be conducted to make sure it was a viable and affordable option for the region to invest in. "The connections between the different parts of the region both economically and socially are getting stronger and closer, so there's an opportunity to strengthen some key links between working population in Central Hawke's Bay with places like the Hastings CBD, EIT and the hospital. "I think there's some real positive economic and social spin offs from that too. Families are spread across Hawke's Bay as well and I think this is a very forward thinking suggestion." Walker said she had already done some exploration in terms of what the concept would look like through regional public transport plans, connections with KiwiRail and the provincial growth fund. "The questions we're asking at the moment is what is the business case, what is the support and what technically could it look like." Walker also said environmental factors also came into play when it came to a regional train service, as it would mean fewer vehicles on the road as well as a reduction in carbon monoxide. "Those are certainly benefits of having a public transport model, but we need something that economically and commercially stacks up - so we have to have a good understanding of people who could move by train and I imagine it would be a pretty long term investment to get it up and running." A spokesperson from the NZ Transport Agency said they had not been in any active discussions with KiwiRail about a passenger rail service in Hawke's Bay. Hawke's Bay regional councillor and chairman of the Regional Transport Committee Alan Dick said the concept was mentioned in the Regional Public Transport Plan which was now open for public consultation. "It's not a confirmed plan, but it is in there - it would probably be considered as a bus service rather than rail. "Rail sounds attractive but there are some practical difficulties, for example a lot of people who commute from CHB work at the hospital, they wouldn't be able to get there easily by train - they'd had to use another mode of transport. "On the other hand a bus service - if it was viable - could go from point to point. That's a reservation I have, but people may think differently." Dick said about six years ago they trialled a bus service from CHB to Hastings and Napier, but it wasn't much of a success. "But it is there as an option and things have changed in the last six years. We will look at these options with an open mind and see what happens." | KiwiRail is keen to work with councils in the Hawke's Bay region on a potential commuter train service from Central Hawkes Bay to Hastings and Napier. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12214114&ref=rss | 0.342784 |
Could a commuter train service to Central Hawke's Bay be on the cards? | KiwiRail is keen to work with councils in the Hawke's Bay region on a potential commuter train service from Central Hawke's Bay to Hastings and Napier. CHB Mayor Alex Walker said she had been approached by "a good number of residents" who had suggested the start up of a train service to accommodate a booming population of commuters in the district. KiwiRail spokesman Alan Piper said the company was interested in building stronger connections within regional New Zealand. "Commuter rail services are typically the result of KiwiRail working with NZTA and relevant regional councils to ensure that the service is appropriately aligned to the wider regional transport, employment and housing needs," Piper said. Advertisement "Currently regional councils determine what commuter services they want, and KiwiRail acts as a supplier of services. "We are keenly interested in running commercially viable rail services that connect customers to experiences, employment and housing." Walker said concept made logical sense but research would need to be conducted to make sure it was a viable and affordable option for the region to invest in. "The connections between the different parts of the region both economically and socially are getting stronger and closer, so there's an opportunity to strengthen some key links between working population in Central Hawke's Bay with places like the Hastings CBD, EIT and the hospital. "I think there's some real positive economic and social spin offs from that too. Families are spread across Hawke's Bay as well and I think this is a very forward thinking suggestion." Walker said she had already done some exploration in terms of what the concept would look like through regional public transport plans, connections with KiwiRail and the provincial growth fund. "The questions we're asking at the moment is what is the business case, what is the support and what technically could it look like." Walker also said environmental factors also came into play when it came to a regional train service, as it would mean fewer vehicles on the road as well as a reduction in carbon monoxide. "Those are certainly benefits of having a public transport model, but we need something that economically and commercially stacks up - so we have to have a good understanding of people who could move by train and I imagine it would be a pretty long term investment to get it up and running." A spokesperson from the NZ Transport Agency said they had not been in any active discussions with KiwiRail about a passenger rail service in Hawke's Bay. Hawke's Bay regional councillor and chairman of the Regional Transport Committee Alan Dick said the concept was mentioned in the Regional Public Transport Plan which was now open for public consultation. "It's not a confirmed plan, but it is in there - it would probably be considered as a bus service rather than rail. "Rail sounds attractive but there are some practical difficulties, for example a lot of people who commute from CHB work at the hospital, they wouldn't be able to get there easily by train - they'd had to use another mode of transport. "On the other hand a bus service - if it was viable - could go from point to point. That's a reservation I have, but people may think differently." Dick said about six years ago they trialled a bus service from CHB to Hastings and Napier, but it wasn't much of a success. "But it is there as an option and things have changed in the last six years. We will look at these options with an open mind and see what happens." | KiwiRail is keen to work with councils in the Hawke's Bay region on a potential commuter train service from Central Hawkes Bay to Hastings and Napier. CHB Mayor Alex Walker said she had been approached by "a good number of residents" who had suggested the start up of a train service. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12214114&ref=rss | 0.371179 |
What does the speaker of Britain's parliament do, and who is John Bercow? | LONDON (Reuters) - The speaker of Britains House of Commons threw Prime Minister Theresa Mays Brexit plans into further turmoil this week by ruling that she could not put her divorce deal to a new vote unless it was resubmitted in fundamentally different form. FILE PHOTO: Speaker of the House John Bercow speaks in Parliament, in London, Britain, March 18, 2019, in this screen grab taken from video. Reuters TV via REUTERS Below is an explanation of the speakers role in parliament, and information on the current speaker, John Bercow. The speaker of parliaments lower chamber, the House of Commons, chairs debates, calling members of parliament to speak and keeping order. He or she can ask lawmakers to be quiet so members can be heard, direct lawmakers to withdraw their comments, and suspend lawmakers who are deliberately disobedient. The speaker is the highest authority of the House of Commons and is required to remain politically impartial. Therefore he or she is not a member of a political party while in office. The speaker also represents the House of Commons to the monarch. Speakers are elected by secret ballot. They do not take part in debates or votes in parliament, except in the event of a tie, when the convention is that they cast the deciding vote. The speaker stands in national elections but is traditionally not opposed by the major parties. John Bercow, 56, is the 157th speaker of the House of Commons. He was elected on June 22, 2009, after 12 years as a Conservative member of parliament. The grandson of Jewish immigrants from Romania, he went to school in north London and was a keen tennis player. He is still an avid fan and regularly mentions his admiration of Switzerlands Roger Federer during debates. Bercow studied government at the University of Essex, and as a young Conservative activist was a member of the right-wing Monday Club. He has since been quoted as saying his membership of the group was utter madness. His move to a far more socially liberal position even prompted a rumor that he was going to defect to the Labour Party. His wife, Sally, a former Conservative member, now supports Labour. He has said that he voted Remain in the 2016 referendum on EU membership. REFORMER Bercow has gained a reputation as a reformer and modernizer. He abandoned the traditional speakers robes, knee breeches and tights in favor of a simple gown over a business suit, and has ended the requirement for Commons clerks to wear wigs, saying it would convey to the public a marginally less stuffy and forbidding image of this Chamber at work. He has also overseen a change in the sitting hours of parliament to make them more family-friendly, turned one of parliaments many bars into a nursery for the children of lawmakers and staff, and even invited lawmakers to bring their young babies into the chamber during votes. Bercow has made it his business to assert the power of parliament, reviving the little-used Urgent Question procedure, which allows lawmakers to request that a minister come to answer questions on an important issue. On more than 570 occasions over the last nine-and-a-half years, I have seen fit to grant urgent questions ... so that the government can be legitimately questioned, probed, scrutinized, challenged and held to account, he said on Monday. BULLYING ACCUSATIONS In May last year, a committee of members of parliament voted against launching an investigation into allegations of bullying by Bercow, which his office rejected. In October, Bercow resisted pressure to step down after an independent report found the House of Commons had allowed a culture of bullying and sexual harassment to thrive, and said its top officials might need to be replaced to restore confidence. Labour lawmaker Margaret Beckett dismissed calls for him to go, saying that the constitutional future of this country ... trumps bad behavior. NOTABLE INTERVENTIONS Trump visit In February 2017, Bercow said he was strongly opposed to U.S. President Donald Trump addressing parliament during a planned state visit to Britain. Our opposition to racism and to sexism and our support for equality before the law and an independent judiciary are hugely important considerations, he said in parliament, to applause from opposition Labour lawmakers. Brexit legal advice In December 2018, Bercow helped force the publication of the legal advice that the government had commissioned on Prime Minister Theresa Mays Brexit deal, by ruling there was an arguable case that the government had acted in contempt of parliament. Brexit next steps In January, Bercow angered many pro-Brexit lawmakers by allowing one of their pro-EU colleagues to seek to force the government to come back to parliament to set out its next steps within three days of its deal being rejected. The uncomfortable conclusion ... is that many of us will now have an unshakeable conviction that the referee of our affairs, not least because you made public your opinion and your vote on the issue of Brexit, is no longer neutral, pro-Brexit Conservative lawmaker Crispin Blunt, said at the time. Bercow refused to deny reports that he had ignored the advice of parliaments clerks, saying: If we were guided only by precedent, manifestly nothing in our procedures would ever change. | John Bercow, 56, is the 157th speaker of the House of Commons. | bart | 0 | https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-eu-bercow-factbox/what-does-the-speaker-of-britains-parliament-do-and-who-is-john-bercow-idUSKCN1R026J | 0.247349 |
What does the speaker of Britain's parliament do, and who is John Bercow? | LONDON (Reuters) - The speaker of Britains House of Commons threw Prime Minister Theresa Mays Brexit plans into further turmoil this week by ruling that she could not put her divorce deal to a new vote unless it was resubmitted in fundamentally different form. FILE PHOTO: Speaker of the House John Bercow speaks in Parliament, in London, Britain, March 18, 2019, in this screen grab taken from video. Reuters TV via REUTERS Below is an explanation of the speakers role in parliament, and information on the current speaker, John Bercow. The speaker of parliaments lower chamber, the House of Commons, chairs debates, calling members of parliament to speak and keeping order. He or she can ask lawmakers to be quiet so members can be heard, direct lawmakers to withdraw their comments, and suspend lawmakers who are deliberately disobedient. The speaker is the highest authority of the House of Commons and is required to remain politically impartial. Therefore he or she is not a member of a political party while in office. The speaker also represents the House of Commons to the monarch. Speakers are elected by secret ballot. They do not take part in debates or votes in parliament, except in the event of a tie, when the convention is that they cast the deciding vote. The speaker stands in national elections but is traditionally not opposed by the major parties. John Bercow, 56, is the 157th speaker of the House of Commons. He was elected on June 22, 2009, after 12 years as a Conservative member of parliament. The grandson of Jewish immigrants from Romania, he went to school in north London and was a keen tennis player. He is still an avid fan and regularly mentions his admiration of Switzerlands Roger Federer during debates. Bercow studied government at the University of Essex, and as a young Conservative activist was a member of the right-wing Monday Club. He has since been quoted as saying his membership of the group was utter madness. His move to a far more socially liberal position even prompted a rumor that he was going to defect to the Labour Party. His wife, Sally, a former Conservative member, now supports Labour. He has said that he voted Remain in the 2016 referendum on EU membership. REFORMER Bercow has gained a reputation as a reformer and modernizer. He abandoned the traditional speakers robes, knee breeches and tights in favor of a simple gown over a business suit, and has ended the requirement for Commons clerks to wear wigs, saying it would convey to the public a marginally less stuffy and forbidding image of this Chamber at work. He has also overseen a change in the sitting hours of parliament to make them more family-friendly, turned one of parliaments many bars into a nursery for the children of lawmakers and staff, and even invited lawmakers to bring their young babies into the chamber during votes. Bercow has made it his business to assert the power of parliament, reviving the little-used Urgent Question procedure, which allows lawmakers to request that a minister come to answer questions on an important issue. On more than 570 occasions over the last nine-and-a-half years, I have seen fit to grant urgent questions ... so that the government can be legitimately questioned, probed, scrutinized, challenged and held to account, he said on Monday. BULLYING ACCUSATIONS In May last year, a committee of members of parliament voted against launching an investigation into allegations of bullying by Bercow, which his office rejected. In October, Bercow resisted pressure to step down after an independent report found the House of Commons had allowed a culture of bullying and sexual harassment to thrive, and said its top officials might need to be replaced to restore confidence. Labour lawmaker Margaret Beckett dismissed calls for him to go, saying that the constitutional future of this country ... trumps bad behavior. NOTABLE INTERVENTIONS Trump visit In February 2017, Bercow said he was strongly opposed to U.S. President Donald Trump addressing parliament during a planned state visit to Britain. Our opposition to racism and to sexism and our support for equality before the law and an independent judiciary are hugely important considerations, he said in parliament, to applause from opposition Labour lawmakers. Brexit legal advice In December 2018, Bercow helped force the publication of the legal advice that the government had commissioned on Prime Minister Theresa Mays Brexit deal, by ruling there was an arguable case that the government had acted in contempt of parliament. Brexit next steps In January, Bercow angered many pro-Brexit lawmakers by allowing one of their pro-EU colleagues to seek to force the government to come back to parliament to set out its next steps within three days of its deal being rejected. The uncomfortable conclusion ... is that many of us will now have an unshakeable conviction that the referee of our affairs, not least because you made public your opinion and your vote on the issue of Brexit, is no longer neutral, pro-Brexit Conservative lawmaker Crispin Blunt, said at the time. Bercow refused to deny reports that he had ignored the advice of parliaments clerks, saying: If we were guided only by precedent, manifestly nothing in our procedures would ever change. | John Bercow, 56, is the 157th speaker of the House of Commons. He was elected on June 22, 2009, after 12 years as a Conservative member of parliament. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-eu-bercow-factbox/what-does-the-speaker-of-britains-parliament-do-and-who-is-john-bercow-idUSKCN1R026J | 0.236586 |
What does the speaker of Britain's parliament do, and who is John Bercow? | LONDON (Reuters) - The speaker of Britains House of Commons threw Prime Minister Theresa Mays Brexit plans into further turmoil this week by ruling that she could not put her divorce deal to a new vote unless it was resubmitted in fundamentally different form. FILE PHOTO: Speaker of the House John Bercow speaks in Parliament, in London, Britain, March 18, 2019, in this screen grab taken from video. Reuters TV via REUTERS Below is an explanation of the speakers role in parliament, and information on the current speaker, John Bercow. The speaker of parliaments lower chamber, the House of Commons, chairs debates, calling members of parliament to speak and keeping order. He or she can ask lawmakers to be quiet so members can be heard, direct lawmakers to withdraw their comments, and suspend lawmakers who are deliberately disobedient. The speaker is the highest authority of the House of Commons and is required to remain politically impartial. Therefore he or she is not a member of a political party while in office. The speaker also represents the House of Commons to the monarch. Speakers are elected by secret ballot. They do not take part in debates or votes in parliament, except in the event of a tie, when the convention is that they cast the deciding vote. The speaker stands in national elections but is traditionally not opposed by the major parties. John Bercow, 56, is the 157th speaker of the House of Commons. He was elected on June 22, 2009, after 12 years as a Conservative member of parliament. The grandson of Jewish immigrants from Romania, he went to school in north London and was a keen tennis player. He is still an avid fan and regularly mentions his admiration of Switzerlands Roger Federer during debates. Bercow studied government at the University of Essex, and as a young Conservative activist was a member of the right-wing Monday Club. He has since been quoted as saying his membership of the group was utter madness. His move to a far more socially liberal position even prompted a rumor that he was going to defect to the Labour Party. His wife, Sally, a former Conservative member, now supports Labour. He has said that he voted Remain in the 2016 referendum on EU membership. REFORMER Bercow has gained a reputation as a reformer and modernizer. He abandoned the traditional speakers robes, knee breeches and tights in favor of a simple gown over a business suit, and has ended the requirement for Commons clerks to wear wigs, saying it would convey to the public a marginally less stuffy and forbidding image of this Chamber at work. He has also overseen a change in the sitting hours of parliament to make them more family-friendly, turned one of parliaments many bars into a nursery for the children of lawmakers and staff, and even invited lawmakers to bring their young babies into the chamber during votes. Bercow has made it his business to assert the power of parliament, reviving the little-used Urgent Question procedure, which allows lawmakers to request that a minister come to answer questions on an important issue. On more than 570 occasions over the last nine-and-a-half years, I have seen fit to grant urgent questions ... so that the government can be legitimately questioned, probed, scrutinized, challenged and held to account, he said on Monday. BULLYING ACCUSATIONS In May last year, a committee of members of parliament voted against launching an investigation into allegations of bullying by Bercow, which his office rejected. In October, Bercow resisted pressure to step down after an independent report found the House of Commons had allowed a culture of bullying and sexual harassment to thrive, and said its top officials might need to be replaced to restore confidence. Labour lawmaker Margaret Beckett dismissed calls for him to go, saying that the constitutional future of this country ... trumps bad behavior. NOTABLE INTERVENTIONS Trump visit In February 2017, Bercow said he was strongly opposed to U.S. President Donald Trump addressing parliament during a planned state visit to Britain. Our opposition to racism and to sexism and our support for equality before the law and an independent judiciary are hugely important considerations, he said in parliament, to applause from opposition Labour lawmakers. Brexit legal advice In December 2018, Bercow helped force the publication of the legal advice that the government had commissioned on Prime Minister Theresa Mays Brexit deal, by ruling there was an arguable case that the government had acted in contempt of parliament. Brexit next steps In January, Bercow angered many pro-Brexit lawmakers by allowing one of their pro-EU colleagues to seek to force the government to come back to parliament to set out its next steps within three days of its deal being rejected. The uncomfortable conclusion ... is that many of us will now have an unshakeable conviction that the referee of our affairs, not least because you made public your opinion and your vote on the issue of Brexit, is no longer neutral, pro-Brexit Conservative lawmaker Crispin Blunt, said at the time. Bercow refused to deny reports that he had ignored the advice of parliaments clerks, saying: If we were guided only by precedent, manifestly nothing in our procedures would ever change. | John Bercow, 56, is the 157th speaker of the House of Commons. He was elected on June 22, 2009, after 12 years as a Conservative member of parliament. The speaker chairs debates, calls members of parliament to speak and keeps order. He or she can ask lawmakers to be quiet so members can be heard. | bart | 2 | https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-eu-bercow-factbox/what-does-the-speaker-of-britains-parliament-do-and-who-is-john-bercow-idUSKCN1R026J | 0.588728 |
Will Christchurch be our wake up call? | On Sunday I met my cousin, although he was killed in cold blood a few days befor, at the Christchurch terror attack in New Zealand. I met him upon visiting his aunts house and learned much more about this ambitious 33-year-old whose life was cut so short. While my cousin Atta Elayyan lived in Kuwait and later New Zealand, I was born in Toronto and lived between Jordan and North America. We never crossed paths. During my visit, I heard about how kind and supportive he was to his family, how intelligent and ambitious he was as a tech entrepreneur establishing his own company, and how energetic and athletic he was as a member of New Zealands national futsal team. A photograph of New Zealand futsal player Atta Elayyan, victim of the Christchurch mosque attacks, sits amongst floral tributes near the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch on Monday. ( DAVID MOIR / AFP/GETTY IMAGES ) His father, Mohammed Elayyan, who founded the Alnoor Mosque in Christchurch, was also injured in the shooting. I struggled to hold back my tears as I saw a video of Attas father speaking from his hospital bed about Islam being a religion of love and the need to love one another. Mohammed had spearheaded efforts to assist the local community during the devastating 2011 Christchurch earthquake, providing food and shelter in the mosque to many. These past couple of days, Ive been reading news items addressing this terror attack, including reports analyzing how the media disproportionately blames terror attacks globally on Muslims. This propaganda is effectively brainwashing many, and increasing hate and distrust between people. Yet these reports fall short not only in their scope of what they cover but also what they fail to mention. The reports and news items mostly discuss individual terror attacks like the one committed in Christchurch. Yet in many instances they fail to mention several important points. First, Muslims have been the biggest victims of such attacks globally. One such contrast I remember includes the January 2015 terror attacks in France, which killed 10 to 20 people. This was followed by a global outcry with dozens of world officials gathering in France and leading a massive march in Paris in protest. Article Continued Below Yet in July 2016, a single terrorist attack killed close to 400 people, mostly Muslims, in Baghdads Karrada district. For the most part, this barely made a blip on the radar of media globally, with the victims dying silently, since this was once again just one terror attack among hundreds of others against Muslims. Second, the fact is that many terrorist groups in the world today including Daesh (also know as ISIS), who have killed so many Muslims as they did in the aforementioned attack, have been created and supported by Western intelligence agencies. Ironically, even the name given to such groups i.e. Islamic State of further divides East and West, giving non-Muslims the illusion that this is being done under the name of Islam itself or somehow with the implicit consent of Muslims. Third, and perhaps most significantly of all, is the terror perpetrated by various Western governments notably the U.S. and its client puppet states, which continue to kill millions of people globally and throughout history. When looking at individual terrorist attacks, like those committed by a white supremacist in Christchurch, we must not forget that the wars and oppression waged on places like Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Palestine and elsewhere, are the epitome and manifestation of terror, practiced against civilian populations. We must never be nave enough to accept the actions of governments when they attempt to shroud the massacres, wars and terror they perpetrate and perpetuate in a false cloak of legitimacy. And yet, despite all of this and despite the millions of Muslims who continue to be killed by mostly white Christian men in positions of power, the vast majority of the worlds 1.6 billion Muslims do not hate the West or people from other religions. This sentiment manifested itself clearly when one of the first victims to be killed at the Alnoor mosque greeted the terrorist coming to kill him with words of love saying Hello brother. The attack has backfired on this white supremacist, and the love shown towards the Muslim community has exemplified his failure. My cousin leaves behind his wife and two-year-old daughter. Hopefully, if we all work together hard enough, she can grow up in a world better than ours. Rifat Audeh is a human-rights activist and filmmaker. | Elayyan's cousin was killed in the Christchurch terror attack on Sunday. He says Muslims have been the biggest victims of such attacks globally. But Western governments continue to kill millions of people globally and throughout history, he says. The attacks in Christchurch should be a wake-up call for the world, he writes. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2019/03/19/will-christchurch-be-our-wake-up-call.html | 0.26599 |
How Do We Create Artificial Intelligence That Is More Human? | On February 11, 2019, President Trump signed an executive order on Maintaining American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence and in February 2019, a survey called Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning indicated that only 16% of business leaders surveyed are getting significant value from advanced artificial intelligence (AI) in their companies. The report also found that companies of all sizes and across industries are investing heavily in advanced AI with an average of $36M spent in the fiscal year 2018. Of those same companies surveyed, 10% plan to increase their budgets over the next two years. The survey also found that businesses in Asia-Pacific have adopted advanced AI faster than the rest of the world. Twenty-two percent of Asia-Pacific companies in 2018 were at the advanced stages of machine learning compared to only 11% in North America and seven percent in Europe. On March 4, 2019, UNESCO held a conference on creating core principles around AI with an emphasis on a more humanist approach to AI. The goal was to foster dialogue between the public and private sectors, technical community, media and academia, civil society, international and regional organizations and look at how much machines should be allowed to decide for us as a society including who writes what values and priorities into the algorithms of machines. In a statement, Audrey Azoulay, the Director-General of UNESCO said that AI is humanitys new frontier. "The guiding principle of AI is not to become autonomous or replace human intelligence. But we must ensure that AI is developed through a humanist approach, said Azoulay. Ajay Bhalla, President, Cyber & Intelligence Solutions, Mastercard, says AI is already impacting most of the industry conversations today. "Over the next few years, there wont be a single sector of the economy untouched by AI. It will massively increase the value and speed of data transactions, interactions, and decisions," said Bhalla. "AI is therefore critical to the business of the future building systems through AI will be essential for remaining competitive," said Bhalla. H.E. Younus Al Nasser, Assistant Director-General of Smart Dubai and CEO, Smart Dubai Data agrees. "Artificial intelligence has become a sector of its own [ ..] and as an increasingly growing part of our everyday life gets automated, we can only look forward to many more AI-powered breakthroughs and services, and this calls for setting principles to regulate and guide the sector," said Nasser That said, the field is not mature enough yet to draft laws to govern it [..], so we developed an Ethical AI Toolkit to set clear guidelines on the ethical use of the technology, and prevent having a fragmented, incoherent approach to ethics, where every entity sets its own rules," said Nasser. "We look forward to seeing the Toolkit evolve into a universal framework that determines ethical requirements for AI design and use, offering informed solutions to help stakeholders adhere to ethical principles, and, eventually, serving as a blueprint for governments to draft pragmatic AI laws and regulations. When it comes to trust, Mastercard's Bhalla does believe there's a lot of talk about trust in technology today whether its the use of consumer data, privacy or the proliferation of new platforms and technologies in the sharing economy. "The payments and financial services industries have tended to lead the way in building more secure systems as peoples money is at stake," said Bhalla. "Theres a growing understanding that ethics encompasses more than regulation and compliance, with conversation moving from 'we are compliant' to 'we are doing the right thing,'" said Bhalla. "Ethical considerations provide competitive differentiation, and this is a principle we follow [..]," said Bhalla. "We talk about privacy by design and security by design - a value proposition based on trust. If we consider AI, we need to be thoughtful about how AI technology can be used and create standards that define where AI can be used, when it can be used and what it can access." According to Rajan Sethuraman, CEO, LatentView Analytics, ethics in AI is a wide sweeping topic because it is an attempt to apply what are often contextual and cultural norms and guidelines to virtually endless theoretical applications. "When AI is used to automate the most mundane repeatable human tasks, then ethical considerations may not run that deep," said Sethuraman. "But the more we train and ultimately expect machines to emulate us as social beings and attempt to integrate fundamentally human ideas like judgment, empathy, or fairness into an AI equation, the more we're faced with the same ethical issues that accompany human interactions." The 'rights' of sentient automatons is a theme we've seen over and over in popular sci-fi movies - and while we're not yet at the level of a HAL 9000 - ethics are something we must deeply consider as we develop more and more advanced AI with less and less predictability," added Sethuraman. Shekhar Vemuri, CTO, Clairvoyant believes that ethics in AI needs to be viewed as a coin with two equally important sides. "Anyone developing AI technology - from big tech to small startups - needs to ask themselves if they have permission to use whatever data they have to power the AI. If not, everything else that follows will be tainted with that initial ethics breach," said Vemuri. "On the other side of the coin is transparency. A lot of companies just focus on how powerful and scalable their AI is. That's important, but AI is a bit like a government - or anything people turn power over to - its authority and ability to grow must be checked by transparency," said Vemuri. Can the algorithm be audited to uncover the flaw, or is it all a black box?" Vemuri believes that not addressing and solving these privacy and transparency questions will result in a backlash which will translate into regulatory brakes being applied to the adoption of AI. "It's our social and ethical responsibilities as AI practitioners to ensure our natural human biases aren't amplified in the solutions we build - and if they do creep in and tip the scales - that there's a transparent process to root out and fix the problem," added Vemuri. But Bhalla believes that AI can have a valuable role in fighting fraud which affects consumers. "Mastercard has been investing in AI technology for the past decade, and AI is proving invaluable in fighting fraud, particularly anti-money laundering," says Bhalla. "Seventy billion transactions a year pass through our AI-enabled fraud and decision platforms have helped prevent more than $50 billion of fraud in the last year." The company acquired AI specialists Brighterion in 2017. Bhalla says this allowed Mastercard to push the limits of what they can do with detection towards prediction. "Theres simply not a single part of our business that will remain untouched by AI, from loyalty and reward schemes through fraud prevention and user experience to new channels," said Bhalla. "In the future combining AI with biometrics will be an important way of transferring the intelligent recognition we use in the physical world to the digital realm. Identifying people and their devices online is currently a major challenge were addressing." Sethuraman returns to the ethics of AI. "Ethics in AI must increasingly consider potential outcomes and attempt to keep humans as involved and in touch with the input and design as possible," said Sethuraman. "This is humanist intelligence - or the augmentation of humans by machines and machines by humans, and is in fact how most AI will most likely play out over time." | Only 16% of business leaders surveyed are getting significant value from advanced artificial intelligence (AI) in their companies. UNESCO held a conference on creating core principles around AI with an emphasis on a more humanist approach to AI. The goal was to foster dialogue between the public and private sectors, technical community, media and academia, civil society, international and regional organizations. | bart | 2 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/jenniferhicks/2019/03/19/how-do-we-create-artificial-intelligence-that-is-more-human/ | 0.104157 |
Whats next for Vontaze Burfict? | The Bengals have released linebacker Vontaze Burfict, making him a free agent five days after free agency began. Last year, conflicting reports emerged regarding whether the Raiders were trying to trade for Burfict, a move that would have reunited him with former Bengals defensive coordinator Paul Guenther. Now that the Raiders have traded for receiver Antonio Brown, adding Burfict would become delicate and popcorn-inducing. Scroll to continue with content Ad It was an illegal hit from Burfict on Brown that helped the Steelers snatch victory from the Bengals in a playoff game to cap the 2015 season, prompting both Burfict and former Bengals cornerback Pacman Jones to suggest that Brown faked the concussion he suffered. The league suspended Burfict for the first three games of the 2016 season in response to the blow to Browns head. The Vikings, in theory, could be a destination for Burfict, given that coach Mike Zimmer served as defensive coordinator in Cincinnati before Guenther. And how about the Browns, where G.M. Burfict, despite his obvious flaws, has consistently been viewed as a guy who can get his teammates properly focused and motivated. However, Burficts habit of losing his focus has cost the Bengals dearly, including most importantly a play that kept them from winning their first postseason game since January 1991. | Vontaze Burfict is a free agent after being released by the Bengals. The linebacker was suspended for the first three games of the 2016 season for an illegal hit on Steelers receiver Antonio Brown. The Vikings, in theory, could be a destination for the linebacker. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://sports.yahoo.com/next-vontaze-burfict-165558141.html?src=rss | 0.112914 |
Why are there suddenly so many natural wine bars specializing in tinned fish? | At Bar Sardine, a pop-up wine bar inside Berkeleys Bartavelle cafe, good things come in small aluminum packages. A tin of squid in its gooey, turbid ink ($12) gets along swimmingly with La Stoppas opaque 2016 Trebbiolo, a rustic Barbera blend ($14/glass). Fatty, flaky mackerel bathing in oil ($12) arrives in a tin with its lid peeled back, surrounded by a pat of butter and Calabrian chiles. The mackerel responds positively to a glass of 2017 Catherine & Pierre Breton Aussi Sec ($14/glass), a murky Loire Valley Sauvignon Blanc that tastes sour and salty. I guess people have been doing this forever in Portugal and Spain, says Sam Sobolewski, who owns and operates Bartavelle and Bar Sardine with his mother, Suzanne Drexhage, of the synergy between these wines and tinned fish. I happen to like a lot of salty, mineral wines from islands, from coasts, from high elevations, he says, and those kinds of wild, edgy wines are really good with fishy things. Sobolewskis hardly alone. We appear to be in the midst of a full-fledged wine-and-tinned-fish bar boom in the Bay Area and beyond. Not just that: natural wine and tinned fish. Oaklands Ordinaire has long served imported sardines and mackerel. The new Verjus in San Francisco has an entire conserva bar, featuring the colorfully packaged tinned fish from Portuguese importer Tricana. You can now find tins of Don Bocarte anchovies for $25 (!) at the natural wine-fluent Tartine Manufactory. In Boston, Haley Fortier pours natural wines alongside Da Morgada tinned fish at her Haley.Henry wine bar. Seattles Bar de Soif and Portland, Ore.s, Sardine Head both, like Bar Sardine, pop-ups are on the tinned fish bandwagon, too. This is a thing. A strangely specific thing. Certainly, there are practical explanations for the rising popularity of tinned fish in these sorts of establishments. Theres the obvious consideration: Opening a can of fish doesnt require intensive labor, and these high-end imports can be a fancy menu item in bars that dont have full kitchens. Theyre an adventurous alternative to the cheese and charcuterie plate. And theres more, and better, tinned fish available now than there used to be. For a long time these really high-quality tinned fish werent being distributed everywhere, Sobolewski says. According to Supermarket News, the global market for canned fish is expected to grow by $7 billion over the next five years. The pairing also just happens to make perfect sense. Fish like sardines, mackerel and anchovies naturally have a high oil content, says Verjus beverage director Matt Cirne. Acidity in the wine often serves well to cut through the oiliness of the fish. At Verjus, Cirne serves these tins with high-acid sparkling wines, and also plays around with aromatic whites with some of the more assertively flavored tins: a curried mackerel, for example, with a dry Muscat from Le Petit Domaine Gimios. At Bar Sardine, though, Sobolewski is tapping into an additional aspect of the wine-and-tinned-fish pairing logic. Whether natural wine is the best term for it or not, the sort of wines that many of us are finding at forward-thinking bars these days are savory, funky, even briny. More and more, when Im out drinking, Im tasting wines that recall for me other preserved comestibles Chardonnays with notes of sourdough, Syrahs with hints of cornichons, pet-nats that smell like kombucha. You might say that wines like that are the vinous equivalent of a tin of sardines. The concept for Bar Sardine was in Sobolewskis head long before this trend took hold. This was what we always wanted to do, he says. When he and his mother opened Bartavelle in 2012, the intention was a coffee bar by day and a wine bar by night. In fact, on paper, the cafes business name has always been Bar Sardine LLC. The coffee bar part of the business kept him and Drexhage, who is the cafes chef, plenty busy. Theyve always served wines at Bartavelle, but when they experimented with staying open through the evening, business was slow. The vibe just isnt an evening vibe, Sobolewski says. I dont think people think about going to get toast at 6 p.m. Sobolewski did his homework. He worked one day a week at Ordinaire, learning about natural wine (and eating a few sardines). He took a sabbatical to New Orleans, where he worked at the wine bar Bacchanal a sprawling garden thats several times the size of Bartavelles snug enclosure, but nevertheless inspired Sobolewskis approach. I liked the idea at Bacchanal of drinking really great wine but in a totally nonpretentious backyard-party environment, he says. And so Bar Sardine was born in December, open only on Friday evenings. To eliminate any of that toast-related confusion, Sobolewski and Drexhage make a point of transforming the space from day to night. After closing Bartavelle at 4 p.m., they take everything off the counter, remove the pastry case, light some candles, dim the lights, put out paper menus and viola! a wine bar is born. Although Sobolewski wears the natural wine badge somewhat reluctantly Im not super dogmatic about it, he says, which is what almost every sommelier has been telling me lately its useful to think of Bar Sardine as a natural wine bar. Upward of half of the wine selections change from week to week; recently, for International Womens Day, Sobolewski poured only wines made by women. Natural (or at least -ish) wineries Broc Cellars, Inconnu, Martha Stoumen and Elisabetta Foradori have all made multiple appearances. Most choices are available by the glass, half bottle and bottle. Theres more to Bar Sardine than sardines, of course. Drexhage makes a dreamy salt cod brandade ($11). Cured anchovy appears on crostini ($7; so maybe people do want toast after 6 p.m.!) and with an almost hard boiled egg ($4). If youre a fan of the Persian breakfasts Drexhage makes at Bartavelle, youll recognize her sensibilities in Bar Sardines winter veg plate ($11), a platter with carrot hummus, house-made pickles and zaatar. More Information To order: Wines by the glass including Breton Dilettante sparkling ($13), Foradori Fontanasanta ($16), Inconnu Lalalu ros ($11); tinned fish ($12), salt cod brandade ($11) Where: Bar Sardine, inside Bartavelle Coffee & Wine Bar, 1603 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley. 510-524-2473 or www.bartavellecoffee.com When: 5:30 to 9 p.m. Friday. Read More Hes not pouring it anymore, but a few weeks ago I enjoyed a delicious Catarratto, a Sicilian white grape long used to bulk up bland blends, from Marco de Bartoli ($16/glass). It was viscous, lushly fruity and reminded me, on the nose, of Pez candy. That might not sound like an ideal tinned fish pairing, but trust me, it was. Esther Mobley is The San Francisco Chronicles wine critic. Email: emobley@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Esther_mobley Instagram: @esthermob | Pop-up wine bars in the Bay Area are pairing tinned fish with wines. The global market for canned fish is expected to grow by $7 billion over the next five years. The pairing also just happens to make perfect sense. | bart | 1 | https://www.sfchronicle.com/wine/article/Why-are-there-suddenly-so-many-natural-wine-bars-13700563.php | 0.24072 |
Why are there suddenly so many natural wine bars specializing in tinned fish? | At Bar Sardine, a pop-up wine bar inside Berkeleys Bartavelle cafe, good things come in small aluminum packages. A tin of squid in its gooey, turbid ink ($12) gets along swimmingly with La Stoppas opaque 2016 Trebbiolo, a rustic Barbera blend ($14/glass). Fatty, flaky mackerel bathing in oil ($12) arrives in a tin with its lid peeled back, surrounded by a pat of butter and Calabrian chiles. The mackerel responds positively to a glass of 2017 Catherine & Pierre Breton Aussi Sec ($14/glass), a murky Loire Valley Sauvignon Blanc that tastes sour and salty. I guess people have been doing this forever in Portugal and Spain, says Sam Sobolewski, who owns and operates Bartavelle and Bar Sardine with his mother, Suzanne Drexhage, of the synergy between these wines and tinned fish. I happen to like a lot of salty, mineral wines from islands, from coasts, from high elevations, he says, and those kinds of wild, edgy wines are really good with fishy things. Sobolewskis hardly alone. We appear to be in the midst of a full-fledged wine-and-tinned-fish bar boom in the Bay Area and beyond. Not just that: natural wine and tinned fish. Oaklands Ordinaire has long served imported sardines and mackerel. The new Verjus in San Francisco has an entire conserva bar, featuring the colorfully packaged tinned fish from Portuguese importer Tricana. You can now find tins of Don Bocarte anchovies for $25 (!) at the natural wine-fluent Tartine Manufactory. In Boston, Haley Fortier pours natural wines alongside Da Morgada tinned fish at her Haley.Henry wine bar. Seattles Bar de Soif and Portland, Ore.s, Sardine Head both, like Bar Sardine, pop-ups are on the tinned fish bandwagon, too. This is a thing. A strangely specific thing. Certainly, there are practical explanations for the rising popularity of tinned fish in these sorts of establishments. Theres the obvious consideration: Opening a can of fish doesnt require intensive labor, and these high-end imports can be a fancy menu item in bars that dont have full kitchens. Theyre an adventurous alternative to the cheese and charcuterie plate. And theres more, and better, tinned fish available now than there used to be. For a long time these really high-quality tinned fish werent being distributed everywhere, Sobolewski says. According to Supermarket News, the global market for canned fish is expected to grow by $7 billion over the next five years. The pairing also just happens to make perfect sense. Fish like sardines, mackerel and anchovies naturally have a high oil content, says Verjus beverage director Matt Cirne. Acidity in the wine often serves well to cut through the oiliness of the fish. At Verjus, Cirne serves these tins with high-acid sparkling wines, and also plays around with aromatic whites with some of the more assertively flavored tins: a curried mackerel, for example, with a dry Muscat from Le Petit Domaine Gimios. At Bar Sardine, though, Sobolewski is tapping into an additional aspect of the wine-and-tinned-fish pairing logic. Whether natural wine is the best term for it or not, the sort of wines that many of us are finding at forward-thinking bars these days are savory, funky, even briny. More and more, when Im out drinking, Im tasting wines that recall for me other preserved comestibles Chardonnays with notes of sourdough, Syrahs with hints of cornichons, pet-nats that smell like kombucha. You might say that wines like that are the vinous equivalent of a tin of sardines. The concept for Bar Sardine was in Sobolewskis head long before this trend took hold. This was what we always wanted to do, he says. When he and his mother opened Bartavelle in 2012, the intention was a coffee bar by day and a wine bar by night. In fact, on paper, the cafes business name has always been Bar Sardine LLC. The coffee bar part of the business kept him and Drexhage, who is the cafes chef, plenty busy. Theyve always served wines at Bartavelle, but when they experimented with staying open through the evening, business was slow. The vibe just isnt an evening vibe, Sobolewski says. I dont think people think about going to get toast at 6 p.m. Sobolewski did his homework. He worked one day a week at Ordinaire, learning about natural wine (and eating a few sardines). He took a sabbatical to New Orleans, where he worked at the wine bar Bacchanal a sprawling garden thats several times the size of Bartavelles snug enclosure, but nevertheless inspired Sobolewskis approach. I liked the idea at Bacchanal of drinking really great wine but in a totally nonpretentious backyard-party environment, he says. And so Bar Sardine was born in December, open only on Friday evenings. To eliminate any of that toast-related confusion, Sobolewski and Drexhage make a point of transforming the space from day to night. After closing Bartavelle at 4 p.m., they take everything off the counter, remove the pastry case, light some candles, dim the lights, put out paper menus and viola! a wine bar is born. Although Sobolewski wears the natural wine badge somewhat reluctantly Im not super dogmatic about it, he says, which is what almost every sommelier has been telling me lately its useful to think of Bar Sardine as a natural wine bar. Upward of half of the wine selections change from week to week; recently, for International Womens Day, Sobolewski poured only wines made by women. Natural (or at least -ish) wineries Broc Cellars, Inconnu, Martha Stoumen and Elisabetta Foradori have all made multiple appearances. Most choices are available by the glass, half bottle and bottle. Theres more to Bar Sardine than sardines, of course. Drexhage makes a dreamy salt cod brandade ($11). Cured anchovy appears on crostini ($7; so maybe people do want toast after 6 p.m.!) and with an almost hard boiled egg ($4). If youre a fan of the Persian breakfasts Drexhage makes at Bartavelle, youll recognize her sensibilities in Bar Sardines winter veg plate ($11), a platter with carrot hummus, house-made pickles and zaatar. More Information To order: Wines by the glass including Breton Dilettante sparkling ($13), Foradori Fontanasanta ($16), Inconnu Lalalu ros ($11); tinned fish ($12), salt cod brandade ($11) Where: Bar Sardine, inside Bartavelle Coffee & Wine Bar, 1603 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley. 510-524-2473 or www.bartavellecoffee.com When: 5:30 to 9 p.m. Friday. Read More Hes not pouring it anymore, but a few weeks ago I enjoyed a delicious Catarratto, a Sicilian white grape long used to bulk up bland blends, from Marco de Bartoli ($16/glass). It was viscous, lushly fruity and reminded me, on the nose, of Pez candy. That might not sound like an ideal tinned fish pairing, but trust me, it was. Esther Mobley is The San Francisco Chronicles wine critic. Email: emobley@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Esther_mobley Instagram: @esthermob | Pop-up wine bars in the Bay Area and beyond are serving canned fish with wines. The global market for fish is expected to grow by $7 billion over the next five years. Seattles Bar de Soif and Portland, Ore.s, Sardine Head are on the tinned fish bandwagon, too. | pegasus | 2 | https://www.sfchronicle.com/wine/article/Why-are-there-suddenly-so-many-natural-wine-bars-13700563.php | 0.189381 |
Why Wont These Democrats Reject Fossil Fuel Money? | Refusing money from the oil, gas and coal industries may seem, at first glance, like a politically risky move. If the eventual Democratic nominee is to beat Donald Trumpthe most likely eventual Republican nomineetheyll need all the resources they can get. The fossil fuel industry doesnt generally have a major role in presidential elections on the Democratic side, and hasnt for awhile, said Sarah Bryner, the research director at the Center for Responsive Politics. Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic nominee, only got about $1 million from oil and gas interests over the course of her campaign; Barack Obama received about the same amount in 2008 and 2012, respectively. Thats a fairly minuscule amount, given that Clintons campaign raised about a $1 billion and Obamas 2012 campaign raised even more. Even a Democratic candidate like ORourke, whos historically benefitted from oil and gas industry money, wouldnt be giving up that much if he gave it up in 2020. As a congressman in 2018, he received $476,000 from the industry, second only to Senator Ted Cruz in all of Congress. But ORourke raised $6 million online in the first 24 hours of his campaign alone. So the No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge isnt very costly for Democrats. (The No Hollywood Celebrity Money Pledge would be another story.) And any money a Democratic candidate gives up by signing is more than offset by the credibility theyd earn on the issue of climate changenot to mention that it might attract big-money environmental donors. The eventual Democratic nominee surely will be expected to champion the Green New Deal, or a similar plan to transition the countrys fossil fuel economy into a renewable one. Democratic voters ought to be able trust that their nominee isnt corrupted by the very industries that are making the planet unlivable. The Democratic field is large, and nearly every candidate has made a grand statement or two about the dire threat of global warming. But right now, voters can truly trust only five of them to decarbonize the economy. Bryner expects that to change, eventually. This is a signaling game, and it ends up punishing candidates who wont make the same pledges, she said. Hopefully it doesbecause if the next president doesnt have the guts to stand up to the fossil fuel industry, then they certainly dont have what it takes to prevent a world of hurt. * A previous version of this article misstated the organization that is administering the No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge. | The No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge isn't very costly for Democrats. | bart | 0 | https://newrepublic.com/article/153336/democrats-refuse-sign-no-fossil-fuel-money-pledge | 0.119632 |
Why Wont These Democrats Reject Fossil Fuel Money? | Refusing money from the oil, gas and coal industries may seem, at first glance, like a politically risky move. If the eventual Democratic nominee is to beat Donald Trumpthe most likely eventual Republican nomineetheyll need all the resources they can get. The fossil fuel industry doesnt generally have a major role in presidential elections on the Democratic side, and hasnt for awhile, said Sarah Bryner, the research director at the Center for Responsive Politics. Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic nominee, only got about $1 million from oil and gas interests over the course of her campaign; Barack Obama received about the same amount in 2008 and 2012, respectively. Thats a fairly minuscule amount, given that Clintons campaign raised about a $1 billion and Obamas 2012 campaign raised even more. Even a Democratic candidate like ORourke, whos historically benefitted from oil and gas industry money, wouldnt be giving up that much if he gave it up in 2020. As a congressman in 2018, he received $476,000 from the industry, second only to Senator Ted Cruz in all of Congress. But ORourke raised $6 million online in the first 24 hours of his campaign alone. So the No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge isnt very costly for Democrats. (The No Hollywood Celebrity Money Pledge would be another story.) And any money a Democratic candidate gives up by signing is more than offset by the credibility theyd earn on the issue of climate changenot to mention that it might attract big-money environmental donors. The eventual Democratic nominee surely will be expected to champion the Green New Deal, or a similar plan to transition the countrys fossil fuel economy into a renewable one. Democratic voters ought to be able trust that their nominee isnt corrupted by the very industries that are making the planet unlivable. The Democratic field is large, and nearly every candidate has made a grand statement or two about the dire threat of global warming. But right now, voters can truly trust only five of them to decarbonize the economy. Bryner expects that to change, eventually. This is a signaling game, and it ends up punishing candidates who wont make the same pledges, she said. Hopefully it doesbecause if the next president doesnt have the guts to stand up to the fossil fuel industry, then they certainly dont have what it takes to prevent a world of hurt. * A previous version of this article misstated the organization that is administering the No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge. | The No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge may seem like a risky move, but it's not very costly for Democrats. The money a candidate gives up is more than offset by the credibility theyd earn on the issue of climate change. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://newrepublic.com/article/153336/democrats-refuse-sign-no-fossil-fuel-money-pledge | 0.173969 |
Why Wont These Democrats Reject Fossil Fuel Money? | Refusing money from the oil, gas and coal industries may seem, at first glance, like a politically risky move. If the eventual Democratic nominee is to beat Donald Trumpthe most likely eventual Republican nomineetheyll need all the resources they can get. The fossil fuel industry doesnt generally have a major role in presidential elections on the Democratic side, and hasnt for awhile, said Sarah Bryner, the research director at the Center for Responsive Politics. Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic nominee, only got about $1 million from oil and gas interests over the course of her campaign; Barack Obama received about the same amount in 2008 and 2012, respectively. Thats a fairly minuscule amount, given that Clintons campaign raised about a $1 billion and Obamas 2012 campaign raised even more. Even a Democratic candidate like ORourke, whos historically benefitted from oil and gas industry money, wouldnt be giving up that much if he gave it up in 2020. As a congressman in 2018, he received $476,000 from the industry, second only to Senator Ted Cruz in all of Congress. But ORourke raised $6 million online in the first 24 hours of his campaign alone. So the No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge isnt very costly for Democrats. (The No Hollywood Celebrity Money Pledge would be another story.) And any money a Democratic candidate gives up by signing is more than offset by the credibility theyd earn on the issue of climate changenot to mention that it might attract big-money environmental donors. The eventual Democratic nominee surely will be expected to champion the Green New Deal, or a similar plan to transition the countrys fossil fuel economy into a renewable one. Democratic voters ought to be able trust that their nominee isnt corrupted by the very industries that are making the planet unlivable. The Democratic field is large, and nearly every candidate has made a grand statement or two about the dire threat of global warming. But right now, voters can truly trust only five of them to decarbonize the economy. Bryner expects that to change, eventually. This is a signaling game, and it ends up punishing candidates who wont make the same pledges, she said. Hopefully it doesbecause if the next president doesnt have the guts to stand up to the fossil fuel industry, then they certainly dont have what it takes to prevent a world of hurt. * A previous version of this article misstated the organization that is administering the No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge. | The No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge isn't very costly for Democrats. Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic nominee, only got about $1 million from oil and gas interests over the course of her campaign. As a congressman in 2018, he received $476,000 from the industry, second only to Senator Ted Cruz. | bart | 2 | https://newrepublic.com/article/153336/democrats-refuse-sign-no-fossil-fuel-money-pledge | 0.140137 |
Could Decreasing Silver Revenue Play Spoilsport In Wheaton Precious Metals' Q4 2018 Results? | Wheaton Precious Metals (NYSE: WPM), one of the worlds largest precious metals streaming companies, is set to announce its fourth quarter results on March 20, 2019, followed by a conference call the next day. The market expects the company to report revenue of $1.9 billion in Q4 2018, 21% lower than in Q4 2017. Adjusted earnings for the quarter are expected to be $0.06 per share in Q4 2018 compared to $0.19 per share in the year-ago period. The lower revenue and EPS for the quarter is likely to be the result of lower shipments and a decline in the price of silver, slightly offset by higher gold revenue and the addition of Palladium sales in Q4. In addition, here is more Materials data. Key Factors Affecting Earnings Decreasing Silver Revenue: Revenue from silver is expected to decline by about 6.6% to $392 million in 2018 from $419 million in 2017, driven by lower shipments and declining prices. In its preliminary operations report, WPM reported a decrease in silver volume to 24.5 million ounces in 2018 from 24.6 million ounces in 2017, due to weaker than expected silver production at Penasquito mine and expiry of the streaming agreement related to the Lagunas Norte, Veladero, and Pierina mines in March 2018. Additionally, the termination of the previous San Dimas PMPA in mid-2018 has contributed toward lower output and is expected to lead to further reduction in shipments going forward. Price realization is also likely to be lower as silver prices declined in 2018 on the back of a stronger dollar and rising interest rates in the US, which made the greenback a much more lucrative investment option compared to precious metals. Increasing Gold Revenue: Revenue from gold is expected to increase by close to 12% to $474 million for the year 2018, compared to $424 million during the previous year. This increase is likely to be primarily driven by a 10.7% increase in volume sold. WPMs acquisition of a new gold stream at Stillwater and the new agreement with First Majestic at the San Dimas mine would add to the gold sales and production volume. Under the new San Dimas agreement, the silver production would be converted to gold at a fixed ratio, which would, in turn, lead to higher gold volume attributable to WPM. Gold prices saw some volatility during 2018 due to a stronger dollar and rising interest rates in the US. However, toward the end of the year, prices increased with higher retail and institutional investment in the yellow metal, with many Central Banks buying gold as a hedge against rising economic uncertainty. Addition of Palladium: As per its preliminary report, WPM sold about 14.7 million ounces of palladium in 2018. We expect the company to realize a price of $1,050 per ounce sold as prices increased during the second half of the year, which benefited the company. Palladium is a new addition to WPMs revenue streams with the company having entered into an agreement with Sibanye-Stillwater to acquire palladium at an agreed ratio of total production at the site. Higher Margins: The companys net income margin is expected to witness a sharp increase in 2018. However, higher margins would be driven by a one-time benefit of gain from the termination of the previous San Dimas silver purchase agreement, which amounts to approximately $245.7 million. This gain would be slightly offset by higher interest expense on the back of rising interest rates and increased amount drawn under WPMs revolving credit facility. Growth Prospects We expect the declining silver production to be completely offset by rising gold output, which would be driven by the new San Dimas agreement and Stillwater acquisition. Additionally, the company has announced the expansion of its Salobo III mine, thus ramping up its total gold production. With the addition of Palladium to its portfolio, WPM is expected to reap benefits of this diversification as palladium prices have increased sharply in the last couple of months. Thus, rising production of gold and palladium, along with a positive price outlook and expansion projects in the pipeline, is expected to support WPMs stock price going forward. We have a price estimate of $24 for the companys share price, which is higher than its current market price. Explore example interactive dashboards and create your own. | Wheaton Precious Metals (WPM) expected to report revenue of $1.9 billion in Q4 2018. | ctrlsum | 0 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2019/03/19/could-decreasing-silver-revenue-play-spoilsport-in-wheaton-precious-metals-q4-2018-results/ | 0.101973 |
Could Decreasing Silver Revenue Play Spoilsport In Wheaton Precious Metals' Q4 2018 Results? | Wheaton Precious Metals (NYSE: WPM), one of the worlds largest precious metals streaming companies, is set to announce its fourth quarter results on March 20, 2019, followed by a conference call the next day. The market expects the company to report revenue of $1.9 billion in Q4 2018, 21% lower than in Q4 2017. Adjusted earnings for the quarter are expected to be $0.06 per share in Q4 2018 compared to $0.19 per share in the year-ago period. The lower revenue and EPS for the quarter is likely to be the result of lower shipments and a decline in the price of silver, slightly offset by higher gold revenue and the addition of Palladium sales in Q4. In addition, here is more Materials data. Key Factors Affecting Earnings Decreasing Silver Revenue: Revenue from silver is expected to decline by about 6.6% to $392 million in 2018 from $419 million in 2017, driven by lower shipments and declining prices. In its preliminary operations report, WPM reported a decrease in silver volume to 24.5 million ounces in 2018 from 24.6 million ounces in 2017, due to weaker than expected silver production at Penasquito mine and expiry of the streaming agreement related to the Lagunas Norte, Veladero, and Pierina mines in March 2018. Additionally, the termination of the previous San Dimas PMPA in mid-2018 has contributed toward lower output and is expected to lead to further reduction in shipments going forward. Price realization is also likely to be lower as silver prices declined in 2018 on the back of a stronger dollar and rising interest rates in the US, which made the greenback a much more lucrative investment option compared to precious metals. Increasing Gold Revenue: Revenue from gold is expected to increase by close to 12% to $474 million for the year 2018, compared to $424 million during the previous year. This increase is likely to be primarily driven by a 10.7% increase in volume sold. WPMs acquisition of a new gold stream at Stillwater and the new agreement with First Majestic at the San Dimas mine would add to the gold sales and production volume. Under the new San Dimas agreement, the silver production would be converted to gold at a fixed ratio, which would, in turn, lead to higher gold volume attributable to WPM. Gold prices saw some volatility during 2018 due to a stronger dollar and rising interest rates in the US. However, toward the end of the year, prices increased with higher retail and institutional investment in the yellow metal, with many Central Banks buying gold as a hedge against rising economic uncertainty. Addition of Palladium: As per its preliminary report, WPM sold about 14.7 million ounces of palladium in 2018. We expect the company to realize a price of $1,050 per ounce sold as prices increased during the second half of the year, which benefited the company. Palladium is a new addition to WPMs revenue streams with the company having entered into an agreement with Sibanye-Stillwater to acquire palladium at an agreed ratio of total production at the site. Higher Margins: The companys net income margin is expected to witness a sharp increase in 2018. However, higher margins would be driven by a one-time benefit of gain from the termination of the previous San Dimas silver purchase agreement, which amounts to approximately $245.7 million. This gain would be slightly offset by higher interest expense on the back of rising interest rates and increased amount drawn under WPMs revolving credit facility. Growth Prospects We expect the declining silver production to be completely offset by rising gold output, which would be driven by the new San Dimas agreement and Stillwater acquisition. Additionally, the company has announced the expansion of its Salobo III mine, thus ramping up its total gold production. With the addition of Palladium to its portfolio, WPM is expected to reap benefits of this diversification as palladium prices have increased sharply in the last couple of months. Thus, rising production of gold and palladium, along with a positive price outlook and expansion projects in the pipeline, is expected to support WPMs stock price going forward. We have a price estimate of $24 for the companys share price, which is higher than its current market price. Explore example interactive dashboards and create your own. | Wheaton Precious Metals (WPM) is expected to report revenue of $1.9 billion in Q4 2018, 21% lower than Q4 2017. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2019/03/19/could-decreasing-silver-revenue-play-spoilsport-in-wheaton-precious-metals-q4-2018-results/ | 0.223321 |
Could Decreasing Silver Revenue Play Spoilsport In Wheaton Precious Metals' Q4 2018 Results? | Wheaton Precious Metals (NYSE: WPM), one of the worlds largest precious metals streaming companies, is set to announce its fourth quarter results on March 20, 2019, followed by a conference call the next day. The market expects the company to report revenue of $1.9 billion in Q4 2018, 21% lower than in Q4 2017. Adjusted earnings for the quarter are expected to be $0.06 per share in Q4 2018 compared to $0.19 per share in the year-ago period. The lower revenue and EPS for the quarter is likely to be the result of lower shipments and a decline in the price of silver, slightly offset by higher gold revenue and the addition of Palladium sales in Q4. In addition, here is more Materials data. Key Factors Affecting Earnings Decreasing Silver Revenue: Revenue from silver is expected to decline by about 6.6% to $392 million in 2018 from $419 million in 2017, driven by lower shipments and declining prices. In its preliminary operations report, WPM reported a decrease in silver volume to 24.5 million ounces in 2018 from 24.6 million ounces in 2017, due to weaker than expected silver production at Penasquito mine and expiry of the streaming agreement related to the Lagunas Norte, Veladero, and Pierina mines in March 2018. Additionally, the termination of the previous San Dimas PMPA in mid-2018 has contributed toward lower output and is expected to lead to further reduction in shipments going forward. Price realization is also likely to be lower as silver prices declined in 2018 on the back of a stronger dollar and rising interest rates in the US, which made the greenback a much more lucrative investment option compared to precious metals. Increasing Gold Revenue: Revenue from gold is expected to increase by close to 12% to $474 million for the year 2018, compared to $424 million during the previous year. This increase is likely to be primarily driven by a 10.7% increase in volume sold. WPMs acquisition of a new gold stream at Stillwater and the new agreement with First Majestic at the San Dimas mine would add to the gold sales and production volume. Under the new San Dimas agreement, the silver production would be converted to gold at a fixed ratio, which would, in turn, lead to higher gold volume attributable to WPM. Gold prices saw some volatility during 2018 due to a stronger dollar and rising interest rates in the US. However, toward the end of the year, prices increased with higher retail and institutional investment in the yellow metal, with many Central Banks buying gold as a hedge against rising economic uncertainty. Addition of Palladium: As per its preliminary report, WPM sold about 14.7 million ounces of palladium in 2018. We expect the company to realize a price of $1,050 per ounce sold as prices increased during the second half of the year, which benefited the company. Palladium is a new addition to WPMs revenue streams with the company having entered into an agreement with Sibanye-Stillwater to acquire palladium at an agreed ratio of total production at the site. Higher Margins: The companys net income margin is expected to witness a sharp increase in 2018. However, higher margins would be driven by a one-time benefit of gain from the termination of the previous San Dimas silver purchase agreement, which amounts to approximately $245.7 million. This gain would be slightly offset by higher interest expense on the back of rising interest rates and increased amount drawn under WPMs revolving credit facility. Growth Prospects We expect the declining silver production to be completely offset by rising gold output, which would be driven by the new San Dimas agreement and Stillwater acquisition. Additionally, the company has announced the expansion of its Salobo III mine, thus ramping up its total gold production. With the addition of Palladium to its portfolio, WPM is expected to reap benefits of this diversification as palladium prices have increased sharply in the last couple of months. Thus, rising production of gold and palladium, along with a positive price outlook and expansion projects in the pipeline, is expected to support WPMs stock price going forward. We have a price estimate of $24 for the companys share price, which is higher than its current market price. Explore example interactive dashboards and create your own. | The market expects Wheaton Precious Metals to report revenue of $1.9 billion in Q4 2018, 21% lower than in Q4 2017. The lower revenue and EPS for the quarter is likely to be the result of lower shipments and a decline in the price of silver. | pegasus | 2 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2019/03/19/could-decreasing-silver-revenue-play-spoilsport-in-wheaton-precious-metals-q4-2018-results/ | 0.57032 |
Can Fox Corp. Outsmart Competition With News And Sports? | Fox Corp. a new company headlined by juggernaut Fox News, Fox Sports and Fox Broadcasting, began life as a standalone Tuesday just hours before its former entertainment businesses were set to be absorbed by Walt Disney. Fox has retained the FOXA and FOX stock symbols on the Nasdaq previously shared with film and TV assets under the name Twenty-First Century Fox. Shares of the renamed and smaller company fell 4% at the opening and hovered there for most of the trading day. It closed down 3.26% at $40.34. Disney will officially absorb the Fox entertainment assets just after midnight, capping the end of a saga that started with a bidding war against Comcast and ended in a $71.3 billion-deal that will hand Disney control of two Hollywood studios and expanded content for its widely anticipated streaming service. This is also a milestone for the family of Fox patriarch Rupert Murdoch, 88, whose love life and children by three wives had obsessed journalist for much of the last two decades. Despite jitters about the rising costs of sports rights and a competitive media landscape, the new Fox has its fans. Research firm Moffett Nathanson initiated coverage with a buy rating last week, saying the slimmed-down combination of Fox News and Fox Broadcasting creates an unrivaled pair of must-have live sports and news content that will drive strong, industry-leading top line growth for years to come. In a note on Tuesday, analyst Michael Nathanson attributed the first day stock decline to guidance from the company in a 10-Q report published Monday indicating a deceleration in cable affiliate fee growth through the second half of fiscal 2019. He also noted a high market value (about $25 billion) on day one equates to a higher spin tax and thus, a bigger bill owed to Disney in the form of a one-time special dividend. But he doesn't think either should impact the long-term view of the company and put a target price of $50 on the stock. Helping guide the company will be a board with four new members, including Paul Ryan, former Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Chase Carey, the CEO of Formula 1 racing and longtime advisor and executive to Rupert Murdoch. The first was a surprise, the second wasn't. Carey started working with Murdoch in the 1980s, serving in a variety of top roles at what became a sprawling, international media, entertainment and print empire under the News Corp name. That company split in half in 2013, creating News Corp. and Twenty-First Century Fox. Anne Dias, founder-CEO of global media, tech and telecom investment fund Aragon Global Holdings, and Roland Hernandez, founder of Hernandez Media Ventures and former CEO of Telemundo, also joined the board Tuesday. They will flank Rupert, his oldest son and now Fox chairman-CEO Lachlan Murdoch, and Jacques Nasser, an Australian businessman who has been chief executive of mining company BHP Billiton and Ford. "We are thrilled to welcome our new colleagues to the Fox board. We look forward to working with and being guided by them as we begin a new chapter, steadfastly committed to providing the best in news, sports and entertainment programming, Lachlan Murdoch said in a statement. Lachlan's younger brother James Murdoch, who has been CEO of Twenty-First Century Fox, is striking out on his own and launched an investment firm called Lupa. Systems. Their sister, Elisabeth Murdoch last year founded the start-up Vertical Networks, which creates app-based video series for mobile devices. She had founded the cutting-edge non-scripted production company Shine Group, now part of Endemol, in 2001. Questions about which of the three would end up running what pieces of their fathers empire may have finally been put to rest. One of the Fox boards first moves was to approve a temporary stockholder rights agreement, effective immediately and running through the next annual shareholders meeting. In a statement, Fox said it was meant to protect the new company during what it anticipated would be a period of trading volatility around the distribution of shares of the new company. These plans allow existing stockholders to purchase additional shares at a discount in order to dilute the ownership interest of a potentially hostile party. Also called poison pills, these shareholder agreements are usually triggered when one entity obtains a certain percentage of total ownership. Fox insisted the agreement is not intended to interfere with any merger, tender or exchange offer, share acquisition or other business combination transaction approved in advance by the board of directors, and does not prevent the board of directors from considering any offer that it considers to be in the best interest of the company's stockholders. | Fox Corp. is a new company that includes Fox News, Fox Sports and Fox Broadcasting. Disney will officially absorb the Fox entertainment assets just after midnight, capping a saga that started with a bidding war against Comcast. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/jillgoldsmith/2019/03/19/can-fox-corp-outsmart-competition-with-news-and-sports/ | 0.129388 |
Can Fox Corp. Outsmart Competition With News And Sports? | Fox Corp. a new company headlined by juggernaut Fox News, Fox Sports and Fox Broadcasting, began life as a standalone Tuesday just hours before its former entertainment businesses were set to be absorbed by Walt Disney. Fox has retained the FOXA and FOX stock symbols on the Nasdaq previously shared with film and TV assets under the name Twenty-First Century Fox. Shares of the renamed and smaller company fell 4% at the opening and hovered there for most of the trading day. It closed down 3.26% at $40.34. Disney will officially absorb the Fox entertainment assets just after midnight, capping the end of a saga that started with a bidding war against Comcast and ended in a $71.3 billion-deal that will hand Disney control of two Hollywood studios and expanded content for its widely anticipated streaming service. This is also a milestone for the family of Fox patriarch Rupert Murdoch, 88, whose love life and children by three wives had obsessed journalist for much of the last two decades. Despite jitters about the rising costs of sports rights and a competitive media landscape, the new Fox has its fans. Research firm Moffett Nathanson initiated coverage with a buy rating last week, saying the slimmed-down combination of Fox News and Fox Broadcasting creates an unrivaled pair of must-have live sports and news content that will drive strong, industry-leading top line growth for years to come. In a note on Tuesday, analyst Michael Nathanson attributed the first day stock decline to guidance from the company in a 10-Q report published Monday indicating a deceleration in cable affiliate fee growth through the second half of fiscal 2019. He also noted a high market value (about $25 billion) on day one equates to a higher spin tax and thus, a bigger bill owed to Disney in the form of a one-time special dividend. But he doesn't think either should impact the long-term view of the company and put a target price of $50 on the stock. Helping guide the company will be a board with four new members, including Paul Ryan, former Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Chase Carey, the CEO of Formula 1 racing and longtime advisor and executive to Rupert Murdoch. The first was a surprise, the second wasn't. Carey started working with Murdoch in the 1980s, serving in a variety of top roles at what became a sprawling, international media, entertainment and print empire under the News Corp name. That company split in half in 2013, creating News Corp. and Twenty-First Century Fox. Anne Dias, founder-CEO of global media, tech and telecom investment fund Aragon Global Holdings, and Roland Hernandez, founder of Hernandez Media Ventures and former CEO of Telemundo, also joined the board Tuesday. They will flank Rupert, his oldest son and now Fox chairman-CEO Lachlan Murdoch, and Jacques Nasser, an Australian businessman who has been chief executive of mining company BHP Billiton and Ford. "We are thrilled to welcome our new colleagues to the Fox board. We look forward to working with and being guided by them as we begin a new chapter, steadfastly committed to providing the best in news, sports and entertainment programming, Lachlan Murdoch said in a statement. Lachlan's younger brother James Murdoch, who has been CEO of Twenty-First Century Fox, is striking out on his own and launched an investment firm called Lupa. Systems. Their sister, Elisabeth Murdoch last year founded the start-up Vertical Networks, which creates app-based video series for mobile devices. She had founded the cutting-edge non-scripted production company Shine Group, now part of Endemol, in 2001. Questions about which of the three would end up running what pieces of their fathers empire may have finally been put to rest. One of the Fox boards first moves was to approve a temporary stockholder rights agreement, effective immediately and running through the next annual shareholders meeting. In a statement, Fox said it was meant to protect the new company during what it anticipated would be a period of trading volatility around the distribution of shares of the new company. These plans allow existing stockholders to purchase additional shares at a discount in order to dilute the ownership interest of a potentially hostile party. Also called poison pills, these shareholder agreements are usually triggered when one entity obtains a certain percentage of total ownership. Fox insisted the agreement is not intended to interfere with any merger, tender or exchange offer, share acquisition or other business combination transaction approved in advance by the board of directors, and does not prevent the board of directors from considering any offer that it considers to be in the best interest of the company's stockholders. | Fox Corp. is a new company that includes Fox News, Fox Sports and Fox Broadcasting. Disney will officially absorb the Fox entertainment assets just after midnight, capping the end of a saga that started with a bidding war against Comcast and ended in a $71.3 billion-deal. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/jillgoldsmith/2019/03/19/can-fox-corp-outsmart-competition-with-news-and-sports/ | 0.119718 |
Are Republican lawmakers TRYING to tick off young voters? | Opinion: Pushing a plan to lower the minimum wage for students working part-time jobs doesn't sound like a strategy for expanding your political base. Republicans want you to gut the minimum wage law you approved. (Photo: Joe Raedle, Getty Images) Im trying to imagine a scene at the Goldwater Institute in which a fellow in a well-tailored grey suit bursts into a room filled with other fellows in well-tailored blue or black suits sitting around an elegantly designed conference table and says something like, I know, lets help the Republicans down at the Legislature to put together a bill that would anger and alienate young voters! And all the fellows in the well-tailored dark suits lean back in there comfy conference room chairs, rub their chins with manicured fingers, smile and nod in agreement. And then theres the scene when the Goldwater fellows in the nice suits talk this over with Republican Rep. Travis Grantham, and the lawmaker rubs his chin and nods along with them and then takes House Bill 2523 to the Republican delegation at the state House and they all rub their chins and nod. A way to make Democrats cheer And out of this comes a bill that would allow businesses to pay a lower minimum wage to part-time workers younger than 22 if they also are full-time students. I dont recall hearing a loud cheer coming Democrats when HB 2523 was introduced, but then I tend to keep my distance from the State Capitol and use noise-cancelling headphones when in the vicinity of talking politicians. Still, Id guess the Democrats were overjoyed. In the 2016 election Arizona voters by a wide margin passed Proposition 206, which was called the Fair Wages and Healthy Families Act. It raised the states minimum wage to $10 in 2017, $10.50 in 2018 and $11 this year. It will raise the minimum wage to $12 in 2020. This nod to fair wages did not go over well with some members of the chamber of commerce or their friends at places like the Goldwater Institute. So they decided to find a way around it. The litigation director at Goldwater argues that HB 2523 does not violate the law dictating minimum-wage increases because it creates a whole new classification of workers. NEWSLETTERS Get the Opinions Newsletter newsletter delivered to your inbox We're sorry, but something went wrong Our best and latest in commentary in daily digest form. Please try again soon, or contact Customer Service at 1-800-332-6733. Delivery: Mon-Fri Invalid email address Thank you! You're almost signed up for Opinions Newsletter Keep an eye out for an email to confirm your newsletter registration. More newsletters Yes, it does. It creates a category of workers perhaps best described as: Angry young voters. Like many young people I didnt pay much attention to politics until I began working, first following my grandfathers, father, uncles and brother into the steel mill. Then with two simultaneous part-time jobs while at college. I was a relatively new voter at the time and if it had come to my attention that lawmakers in my state were working on a plan to circumvent a voter-approved law in order to lower my wages while I was dealing with college and living expenses I might have been a little ticked off. Minimum wage, maximum resentment I might actually have voted against such lawmakers. HB 2523 passed in the House in a party-line vote, all the Republicans in favor. The Democrats against. It appears to have stalled in the Senate, where more savvy Republican lawmakers may be disinclined to alienate future voters and decide in the end to kill the proposal. That would be very wise. Meaning, I wouldnt exactly count on it. Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com Read or Share this story: https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/ej-montini/2019/03/19/republican-lawmakers-minimum-wage-arizona-senate/3215467002/ | Arizona lawmakers want to lower minimum wage for students working part-time jobs. Ruben Navarrette says the bill would anger and alienate young voters. He says Arizona voters passed a law raising minimum wage to $10 in 2017, $10.50 in 2018 and $11 in 2020. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/ej-montini/2019/03/19/republican-lawmakers-minimum-wage-arizona-senate/3215467002/ | 0.1065 |
Should the NBA shorten the regular season? | by Daniel Tran At the end of the NBA season, teams and players are limping into the postseason with injuries. Every year, fans and experts propose shortening the regular season in order to prevent injuries from marring the playoffs. However, part of succeeding the NBA is being able to survive a grueling season. Plus, the league would miss out on a lot of money if it took away games from the broadcast calendar. 82 NBA games are excessive no matter how many exciting plays there are. Bodies break down with exhaustion and late-season injuries affect playoff fortunes. Important players like Malcolm Brogden and C.J. McCollum may miss significant time after getting hurt in the last quarter of the year. Both of those teams might be eliminated sooner because of it. A shortened season would at least prevent athletes from pushing their bodies past the limit before a championship push when the games actually matter. Consequentially, coaches are now resting players for load management. Thats not fair to the fans, who dont get a chance to see their favorite players even though they paid the same price for the tickets. The NBA needs to shorten its season. Only casual fans want fewer games. True NBA fans can't get enough of the crossovers, dunks and high scores that occur during the season. Shortening the season takes away more opportunities for unforgettable highlights. NBA teams will also be leaving money on the table if the league switched to a shorter season. The revenue teams generate from games is significant and fewer games means less money, and less money means fewer dollars for free agency contracts. 82 games is perfect! The Tylt is focused on debates and conversations around news, current events and pop culture. We provide our community with the opportunity to share their opinions and vote on topics that matter most to them. We actively engage the community and present meaningful data on the debates and conversations as they progress. The Tylt is a place where your opinion counts, literally. The Tylt is an Advance Local Media, LLC property. Join us on Twitter @TheTylt, on Instagram @TheTylt or on Facebook, wed love to hear what you have to say. | 82 games are excessive no matter how many exciting plays there are. The NBA needs to shorten its season, only casual fans want fewer games. | ctrlsum | 0 | https://www.cleveland.com/tylt/2019/03/should-the-nba-shorten-the-regular-season.html | 0.171454 |
Should the NBA shorten the regular season? | by Daniel Tran At the end of the NBA season, teams and players are limping into the postseason with injuries. Every year, fans and experts propose shortening the regular season in order to prevent injuries from marring the playoffs. However, part of succeeding the NBA is being able to survive a grueling season. Plus, the league would miss out on a lot of money if it took away games from the broadcast calendar. 82 NBA games are excessive no matter how many exciting plays there are. Bodies break down with exhaustion and late-season injuries affect playoff fortunes. Important players like Malcolm Brogden and C.J. McCollum may miss significant time after getting hurt in the last quarter of the year. Both of those teams might be eliminated sooner because of it. A shortened season would at least prevent athletes from pushing their bodies past the limit before a championship push when the games actually matter. Consequentially, coaches are now resting players for load management. Thats not fair to the fans, who dont get a chance to see their favorite players even though they paid the same price for the tickets. The NBA needs to shorten its season. Only casual fans want fewer games. True NBA fans can't get enough of the crossovers, dunks and high scores that occur during the season. Shortening the season takes away more opportunities for unforgettable highlights. NBA teams will also be leaving money on the table if the league switched to a shorter season. The revenue teams generate from games is significant and fewer games means less money, and less money means fewer dollars for free agency contracts. 82 games is perfect! The Tylt is focused on debates and conversations around news, current events and pop culture. We provide our community with the opportunity to share their opinions and vote on topics that matter most to them. We actively engage the community and present meaningful data on the debates and conversations as they progress. The Tylt is a place where your opinion counts, literally. The Tylt is an Advance Local Media, LLC property. Join us on Twitter @TheTylt, on Instagram @TheTylt or on Facebook, wed love to hear what you have to say. | 82 games are excessive no matter how many exciting plays there are. The NBA needs to shorten its season to prevent injuries from marring the playoffs, says Daniel Tran, an expert on the NBA. The league would miss out on a lot of money if it took away games from the broadcast calendar. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.cleveland.com/tylt/2019/03/should-the-nba-shorten-the-regular-season.html | 0.254441 |
What led Garner North Carolina father to shoot son? | A Garner man told investigators he had been drinking alcohol before he shot his 14-year-old son in the chest last month, according to newly released court documents. James William Johnson, 45, told investigators he was horse playing with a handgun by pointing the lazer and flash light [attachments], according to the warrant. When he entered his daughters room where his son and a friend were sitting, he said say good bye to my little friend and fired the gun, striking his son in the chest, the warrant says. Johnson was charged with negligent child abuse causing serious injury, Garner police say. The shooting happened around 12:30 a.m. Feb. 16 at a home at 919 Powell Drive, police say. Sign Up and Save Get six months of free digital access to The News & Observer Johnson initially drove his son to WakeMed Garner, before he was transported to WakeMed Raleigh for more extensive treatment of the gunshot wound, the warrant says. When police interviewed Johnson, he told them he had accidentally shot his son with a 9mm handgun, the warrant says. | A Garner man told investigators he had been drinking alcohol before he shot his 14-year-old son in the chest last month. | pegasus | 0 | https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article228147644.html | 0.303288 |
What led Garner North Carolina father to shoot son? | A Garner man told investigators he had been drinking alcohol before he shot his 14-year-old son in the chest last month, according to newly released court documents. James William Johnson, 45, told investigators he was horse playing with a handgun by pointing the lazer and flash light [attachments], according to the warrant. When he entered his daughters room where his son and a friend were sitting, he said say good bye to my little friend and fired the gun, striking his son in the chest, the warrant says. Johnson was charged with negligent child abuse causing serious injury, Garner police say. The shooting happened around 12:30 a.m. Feb. 16 at a home at 919 Powell Drive, police say. Sign Up and Save Get six months of free digital access to The News & Observer Johnson initially drove his son to WakeMed Garner, before he was transported to WakeMed Raleigh for more extensive treatment of the gunshot wound, the warrant says. When police interviewed Johnson, he told them he had accidentally shot his son with a 9mm handgun, the warrant says. | A Garner man told investigators he had been drinking alcohol before he shot his 14-year-old son in the chest last month. James William Johnson, 45, was charged with negligent child abuse causing serious injury. | pegasus | 1 | https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article228147644.html | 0.308674 |
What led Garner North Carolina father to shoot son? | A Garner man told investigators he had been drinking alcohol before he shot his 14-year-old son in the chest last month, according to newly released court documents. James William Johnson, 45, told investigators he was horse playing with a handgun by pointing the lazer and flash light [attachments], according to the warrant. When he entered his daughters room where his son and a friend were sitting, he said say good bye to my little friend and fired the gun, striking his son in the chest, the warrant says. Johnson was charged with negligent child abuse causing serious injury, Garner police say. The shooting happened around 12:30 a.m. Feb. 16 at a home at 919 Powell Drive, police say. Sign Up and Save Get six months of free digital access to The News & Observer Johnson initially drove his son to WakeMed Garner, before he was transported to WakeMed Raleigh for more extensive treatment of the gunshot wound, the warrant says. When police interviewed Johnson, he told them he had accidentally shot his son with a 9mm handgun, the warrant says. | A Garner man told investigators he had been drinking alcohol before he shot his 14-year-old son in the chest last month. James William Johnson, 45, was charged with negligent child abuse causing serious injury. When police interviewed Johnson, he told them he had accidentally shot his son with a 9mm handgun, the warrant says. | pegasus | 2 | https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article228147644.html | 0.351606 |
Has Stanichs burger bar reopened? | More than a year after it first closed, Northeast Portlands Stanichs is quietly staging a comeback. The nearly 70-year-old burger bar and Northeast Fremont Street institution has been opening for a couple of hours at a time every other week or so for regular customers" at least since January 30, according to signs posted in the front door. Until now, those openings have been severely limited and seemingly random, with hand-written signs posted in the door announcing short evening hours and ongoing training for new hours. But the openings appear to be ramping up. The restaurant was briefly open last Wednesday. Today, Portland Mercury reported that the restaurant would be open from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. this evening. (Note for anyone craving a burger tonight: The sign in the door shouldnt be treated as a burger guarantee. A reporter from The Oregonian/OregonLive.com has attempted to visit the restaurant several times in the past two months, only to find it closed.) Its not exactly a grand reopening, but it is the first signs of life for the burger bar, which closed in January, 2018, less than a year after one of the restaurants house burgers was improbably named the best burger in America by Thrillist. At the time, second-generation owner Steve Stanich told The Oregonian/OregonLive.com that the burger award was the worst thing that ever happened to us. Subsequent reporting by Willamette Week showed that Stanich had racked up a number of personal legal problems, including a reckless driving charge and a lawsuit for dodging child support payments. If you do, drop us a line or a comment and let us know how it goes. -- Michael Russell @tdmrussell | Stanich's in Northeast Portland has been open for a few hours at a time since January 30. The restaurant closed in January, 2018, less than a year after being named the best burger in America. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://www.oregonlive.com/dining/2019/03/has-stanichs-reopened.html | 0.169662 |
Has Stanichs burger bar reopened? | More than a year after it first closed, Northeast Portlands Stanichs is quietly staging a comeback. The nearly 70-year-old burger bar and Northeast Fremont Street institution has been opening for a couple of hours at a time every other week or so for regular customers" at least since January 30, according to signs posted in the front door. Until now, those openings have been severely limited and seemingly random, with hand-written signs posted in the door announcing short evening hours and ongoing training for new hours. But the openings appear to be ramping up. The restaurant was briefly open last Wednesday. Today, Portland Mercury reported that the restaurant would be open from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. this evening. (Note for anyone craving a burger tonight: The sign in the door shouldnt be treated as a burger guarantee. A reporter from The Oregonian/OregonLive.com has attempted to visit the restaurant several times in the past two months, only to find it closed.) Its not exactly a grand reopening, but it is the first signs of life for the burger bar, which closed in January, 2018, less than a year after one of the restaurants house burgers was improbably named the best burger in America by Thrillist. At the time, second-generation owner Steve Stanich told The Oregonian/OregonLive.com that the burger award was the worst thing that ever happened to us. Subsequent reporting by Willamette Week showed that Stanich had racked up a number of personal legal problems, including a reckless driving charge and a lawsuit for dodging child support payments. If you do, drop us a line or a comment and let us know how it goes. -- Michael Russell @tdmrussell | Stanich's in Northeast Portland has been open for a few hours at a time since January 30. The restaurant closed in January, 2018, less than a year after it was named the best burger in America by Thrillist. It's not exactly a grand reopening, but it is the first signs of life for the burger bar. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.oregonlive.com/dining/2019/03/has-stanichs-reopened.html | 0.230626 |
Will Viacom Channels Go Dark On DirecTV? | Viacom is warning subscribers to AT&Ts DirecTV service that their access to the companys cable networks including BET, Comedy Central, MTV, and Nickelodeon may end unless a disagreement over fees can be resolved before their contract expires Midnight Friday. According to a memo from Viacom CEO Bob Bakish that was distributed to the press, AT&T is abusing its new market position by favoring its own content -- which significantly underperforms Viacoms -- to stifle competition. The memo goes on to accuse the telecom giant of wanting to charge its customers higher prices for an "inferior" product. Viacom started a public relations campaign aimed at DirecTVs subscribers with some of the companys biggest stars including Trevor Noah of The Daily Show. It also is running a crawl on its channels on the bottom of the screen of DirecTV subscribers and has launched a website called http://www.keepviacom.com/. Viacom has made many offers to AT&T-DirecTV that would: Keep these channels on the air; Enable AT&T-DirecTV to lower bills now (and) give consumers more choice, Keepviacom says. Rather than work on their customers behalf, AT&T-DirecTV continues to raise prices while taking away channels. AT&T, for its part, doesn't want customers to lose access to Viacom's channels but believes that it needs to take a hard line on the media company's fees. The telecom giant was "disappointed" that Viacom chose to put DirecTV customers in the middle of negotiations. "The facts speak for themselves: several of Viacoms channels are no longer popular," according to an AT&T statement. "Viacoms channels in total have lost about 40% of their audience in the past six years. Viacom is a serial bad actor in these business negotiations and has repeatedly used these tactics with other distributors." Both companies are under pressure to strike a deal. As Variety notes, if Viacom significantly cuts the retransmission fees that it charges DirecTV, other pay-TV providers would demand similar treatment. AT&T, on the other hand, needs as many distribution partners as it can get to pay down its heavy debt load from its $67.1 billion acquisition of DirecTV in 2015. More than 1 million subscribers dropped DirecTV in 2018 thanks to the rise of cord-cutters and increased competition. Interest in the company's DirecTVNow "skinny bundle" also is starting to wane. Customer defections will increase if the DirecTV can't offer Viacom's channels. As advertising spending shifts online, retransmission fees are becoming increasingly important for media companies. Market research firm Kagan expects them to hit $12.8 billion in 2023. Disputes over retransmission fees are becoming increasingly contentious. Subscribers to DirecTVs main rival DishNetwork havent had access to HBO and Spanish language network for months after the satellite provider failed to come to term on new distribution agreements. As a result, nearly 1 million net customers dropped DirecTV last year. HBO is part of AT&Ts WarnerMedia business it acquired last year in its $85.4 billion acquisition of Time Warner. More people are expected to drop Dish when the new season of Game of Thrones starts in April. We have successfully renewed a series of distribution relationships representing more than half our subscriber base over the last two years and have not had a disruption in our service since 2014, Bakish wrote. While we continue to make every effort to reach a new carriage agreement, AT&Ts unwillingness to engage in constructive conversations, unfortunately, could force a disruption in service. Updates story to add comments from AT&T. | Subscribers to AT&T's DirecTV service may lose access to Viacom channels. | pegasus | 0 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanberr/2019/03/19/will-viacom-channels-go-dark-on-directv/ | 0.207008 |
Will Viacom Channels Go Dark On DirecTV? | Viacom is warning subscribers to AT&Ts DirecTV service that their access to the companys cable networks including BET, Comedy Central, MTV, and Nickelodeon may end unless a disagreement over fees can be resolved before their contract expires Midnight Friday. According to a memo from Viacom CEO Bob Bakish that was distributed to the press, AT&T is abusing its new market position by favoring its own content -- which significantly underperforms Viacoms -- to stifle competition. The memo goes on to accuse the telecom giant of wanting to charge its customers higher prices for an "inferior" product. Viacom started a public relations campaign aimed at DirecTVs subscribers with some of the companys biggest stars including Trevor Noah of The Daily Show. It also is running a crawl on its channels on the bottom of the screen of DirecTV subscribers and has launched a website called http://www.keepviacom.com/. Viacom has made many offers to AT&T-DirecTV that would: Keep these channels on the air; Enable AT&T-DirecTV to lower bills now (and) give consumers more choice, Keepviacom says. Rather than work on their customers behalf, AT&T-DirecTV continues to raise prices while taking away channels. AT&T, for its part, doesn't want customers to lose access to Viacom's channels but believes that it needs to take a hard line on the media company's fees. The telecom giant was "disappointed" that Viacom chose to put DirecTV customers in the middle of negotiations. "The facts speak for themselves: several of Viacoms channels are no longer popular," according to an AT&T statement. "Viacoms channels in total have lost about 40% of their audience in the past six years. Viacom is a serial bad actor in these business negotiations and has repeatedly used these tactics with other distributors." Both companies are under pressure to strike a deal. As Variety notes, if Viacom significantly cuts the retransmission fees that it charges DirecTV, other pay-TV providers would demand similar treatment. AT&T, on the other hand, needs as many distribution partners as it can get to pay down its heavy debt load from its $67.1 billion acquisition of DirecTV in 2015. More than 1 million subscribers dropped DirecTV in 2018 thanks to the rise of cord-cutters and increased competition. Interest in the company's DirecTVNow "skinny bundle" also is starting to wane. Customer defections will increase if the DirecTV can't offer Viacom's channels. As advertising spending shifts online, retransmission fees are becoming increasingly important for media companies. Market research firm Kagan expects them to hit $12.8 billion in 2023. Disputes over retransmission fees are becoming increasingly contentious. Subscribers to DirecTVs main rival DishNetwork havent had access to HBO and Spanish language network for months after the satellite provider failed to come to term on new distribution agreements. As a result, nearly 1 million net customers dropped DirecTV last year. HBO is part of AT&Ts WarnerMedia business it acquired last year in its $85.4 billion acquisition of Time Warner. More people are expected to drop Dish when the new season of Game of Thrones starts in April. We have successfully renewed a series of distribution relationships representing more than half our subscriber base over the last two years and have not had a disruption in our service since 2014, Bakish wrote. While we continue to make every effort to reach a new carriage agreement, AT&Ts unwillingness to engage in constructive conversations, unfortunately, could force a disruption in service. Updates story to add comments from AT&T. | Viacom is warning DirecTV subscribers that access to its channels may end. The cable company is in negotiations with the telecom giant over retransmission fees. Viacom's cable networks include BET, Comedy Central, MTV, and Nickelodeon. | bart | 2 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanberr/2019/03/19/will-viacom-channels-go-dark-on-directv/ | 0.15619 |
What is TikTok, and am I too old to use it? | Hello, person who is, statistically speaking, a human adult aged approximately millennial to boomer. The analytics suggest a high likelihood that youre aware there is an app named TikTok, and a similarly high likelihood that youre not totally sure what its all about. Maybe you asked someone younger in your life, and they tried to explain and possibly failed. Or maybe youve heard that this new, extraordinarily popular video app is a refreshing outlier in the social media universe thats genuinely fun to use. Maybe you even tried it, but bounced straight out, confused and sapped. Fear of missing out is a common way to describe how social media can make people feel like everyone else is part of something a concert, a secret beach, a brunch that theyre not. A new wrinkle in this concept is that sometimes that something is a social media platform itself. Maybe you saw a photo of some friends on Instagram at a great party and wondered why you werent there. But then, next in your feed, you saw a weird video, watermarked with a vibrating TikTok logo, scored with a song youd never heard, starring a person youd never seen. Maybe you saw one of the staggering number of ads for TikTok plastered throughout other social networks, and the real world, and wondered why you werent at that party, either, and why it seemed so far away. Its been a while since a new social app got big enough, quickly enough, to make nonusers feel theyre missing out from an experience. (Not a coincidence that Snapchats audience skewed very young, too.) And while you, perhaps an anxious abstainer, may feel perfectly secure in your choice not to join that service, Snapchat has more daily users than Twitter, changed the course of its industry, and altered the way people communicate with their phones. TikTok, now reportedly 500 million users strong, is not so obvious in its intentions. But that doesnt mean it doesnt have them! The basic human explanation of TikTok TikTok is an app for making and sharing short videos. The videos are tall, not square, like on Snapchat or Instagrams stories, but you navigate through videos by scrolling up and down, like a feed, not by tapping or swiping side to side. Advertising Video creators have all sorts of tools at their disposal: filters as on Snapchat (and later, everyone else); the ability to search for sounds to score your video. Users are also strongly encouraged to engage with other users, through response videos or by means of duets users can duplicate videos and add themselves alongside. Hashtags play a surprisingly large role on TikTok. In more innocent times, Twitter hoped its users might congregate around hashtags in a never-ending series of productive pop-up mini-discourses. On TikTok, hashtags actually exist as a real, functional organizing principle: not for news, or even really anything trending anywhere else than TikTok, but for various challenges, or jokes, or repeating formats, or other discernible blobs of activity. TikTok is, however, a free-for-all. Its easy to make a video on TikTok, not just because of the tools it gives users, but because of extensive reasons and prompts it provides for you. You can select from an enormous range of sounds, from popular song clips to short moments from TV shows, YouTube videos or other TikToks. You can join a dare-like challenge, or participate in a dance meme, or make a joke. Or you can make fun of all of these things. TikTok assertively answers anyones what should I watch with a flood. The result is an endless unspooling of material that people, many very young, might be too self-conscious to post on Instagram, or that they never would have come up with in the first place without a nudge. It can be hard to watch. It can be charming. It can be very, very funny. It is frequently, in the language widely applied outside the platform, from people on other platforms, extremely cringe. So thats whats on TikTok. TikTok can feel, to an American audience, a bit like a greatest-hits compilation, featuring only the most engaging elements and experiences of its predecessors. This is true, to a point. But TikTok known as Douyin in China, where its parent company is based must also be understood as one of the most popular of many short-video-sharing apps in that country. This is a landscape that evolved both alongside and at arms length from the U.S. tech industry Instagram, for example, is banned in China. Advertising Under the hood, TikTok is a fundamentally different app than American users have used before. It may look and feel like its friend-feed-centric peers, and you can follow and be followed; of course there are hugely popular stars, many cultivated by the company itself. Theres messaging. Users can and do use it like any other social app. But the various aesthetic and functional similarities to Vine or Snapchat or Instagram belie a core difference: TikTok is more machine than man. In this way, its from the future or at least a future. And it has some messages for us. Consider the trajectory of what we think of as the major social apps. Instagram and Twitter could only take us so far Twitter gained popularity as a tool for following people and being followed by other people and expanded from there. Twitter watched what its users did with its original concept and formalized the conversational behaviors they invented. (See: Retweets. See again: hashtags.) Only then, and after going public, did it start to become more assertive. It made more recommendations. It started reordering users feeds based on what it thought they might want to see, or might have missed. Opaque machine intelligence encroached on the original system. Something similar happened at Instagram, where algorithmic recommendation is now a very noticeable part of the experience, and on YouTube, where recommendations shuttle one around the platform in new and often lets say surprising ways. Some users might feel affronted by these assertive new automatic features, which are clearly designed to increase interaction. One might reasonably worry that this trend serves the lowest demands of a brutal attention economy that is revealing tech companies as cynical time-mongers and turning us into mindless drones. These changes have also tended to work, at least on those terms. We often do spend more time with the apps as theyve become more assertive, and less intimately human, even as weve complained. Whats both crucial and easy to miss about TikTok is how it has stepped over the midpoint between the familiar self-directed feed and an experience based first on algorithmic observation and inference. The most obvious clue is right there when you open the app: the first thing you see isnt a feed of your friends, but a page called For You. Its an algorithmic feed based on videos youve interacted with, or even just watched. It never runs out of material. It is not, unless you train it to be, full of people you know, or things youve explicitly told it you want to see. Its full of things that you seem to have demonstrated you want to watch, no matter what you actually say you want to watch. It is constantly learning from you and, over time, builds a presumably complex but opaque model of what you tend to watch, and shows you more of that, or things like that, or things related to that, or, honestly, who knows, but it seems to work. TikTok starts making assumptions the second youve opened the app, before youve really given it anything to work with. Imagine an Instagram centered entirely around its Explore tab, or a Twitter built around, I guess, trending topics or viral tweets, with following bolted onto the side. Imagine a version of Facebook that was able to fill your feed before youd friended a single person. Thats TikTok. Its mode of creation is unusual, too. You can make stuff for your friends, or in response to your friends, sure. But users looking for something to post about are immediately recruited into group challenges, or hashtags, or shown popular songs. The bar is low. The stakes are low. Large audiences feel within reach, and smaller ones are easy to find, even if youre just messing around. On most social networks the first step to showing your content to a lot of people is grinding to build an audience, or having lots of friends, or being incredibly beautiful or wealthy or idle and willing to display that, or getting lucky or striking viral gold. TikTok instead encourages users to jump from audience to audience, trend to trend, creating something like simulated temporary friend groups, who get together to do friend-group things: to share an inside joke; to riff on a song; to talk idly and aimlessly about whatever is in front of you. Feedback is instant and frequently abundant; virality has a stiff tailwind. Stimulation is constant. There is an unmistakable sense that youre using something thats expanding in every direction. The pool of content is enormous. Most of it is meaningless. Some of it becomes popular, and some is great, and some gets to be both. As The Atlantics Taylor Lorenz put it, Watching too many in a row can feel like youre about to have a brain freeze. Its the machines All of this goes a long way to explain why, at least at first, TikTok can seem disorienting. Youre not actually sure why youre seeing what youre seeing, said Ankur Thakkar, the former editorial lead at Vine, TikToks other most direct forerunner. On Vine, a new user might not have had much to watch, or felt much of a reason to create anything, but they understood their context: the list of people they followed, which was probably the thing letting them down. Its doing the thing that Twitter tried to solve, that everyone tried to solve, he said. How do you get people to engage? Apparently you just show them things, and let a powerful artificial intelligence take notes. You start sending daily notifications immediately. You tell them what to do. You fake it till you make it, algorithmically speaking. U.S. social platforms, each fighting their own desperate and often stock-price-related fights to increase user engagement, have trended in TikToks general direction for a while. It is possible, today, to receive highly personalized and effectively infinite content recommendations in YouTube without ever following a single account, because Google watches what you do, and makes guesses about who you are. And while Facebook and Twitter dont talk about their products this way, we understand that sometimes maybe a lot of the time we use them just to fill time. They, in turn, want as much of our time as possible, and are quite obviously doing whatever they can to get it. | TikTok is an app for making and sharing short videos. | ctrlsum | 0 | https://www.seattletimes.com/explore/shop-northwest/what-is-tiktok-and-am-i-too-old-to-use-it/ | 0.441339 |
What is TikTok, and am I too old to use it? | Hello, person who is, statistically speaking, a human adult aged approximately millennial to boomer. The analytics suggest a high likelihood that youre aware there is an app named TikTok, and a similarly high likelihood that youre not totally sure what its all about. Maybe you asked someone younger in your life, and they tried to explain and possibly failed. Or maybe youve heard that this new, extraordinarily popular video app is a refreshing outlier in the social media universe thats genuinely fun to use. Maybe you even tried it, but bounced straight out, confused and sapped. Fear of missing out is a common way to describe how social media can make people feel like everyone else is part of something a concert, a secret beach, a brunch that theyre not. A new wrinkle in this concept is that sometimes that something is a social media platform itself. Maybe you saw a photo of some friends on Instagram at a great party and wondered why you werent there. But then, next in your feed, you saw a weird video, watermarked with a vibrating TikTok logo, scored with a song youd never heard, starring a person youd never seen. Maybe you saw one of the staggering number of ads for TikTok plastered throughout other social networks, and the real world, and wondered why you werent at that party, either, and why it seemed so far away. Its been a while since a new social app got big enough, quickly enough, to make nonusers feel theyre missing out from an experience. (Not a coincidence that Snapchats audience skewed very young, too.) And while you, perhaps an anxious abstainer, may feel perfectly secure in your choice not to join that service, Snapchat has more daily users than Twitter, changed the course of its industry, and altered the way people communicate with their phones. TikTok, now reportedly 500 million users strong, is not so obvious in its intentions. But that doesnt mean it doesnt have them! The basic human explanation of TikTok TikTok is an app for making and sharing short videos. The videos are tall, not square, like on Snapchat or Instagrams stories, but you navigate through videos by scrolling up and down, like a feed, not by tapping or swiping side to side. Advertising Video creators have all sorts of tools at their disposal: filters as on Snapchat (and later, everyone else); the ability to search for sounds to score your video. Users are also strongly encouraged to engage with other users, through response videos or by means of duets users can duplicate videos and add themselves alongside. Hashtags play a surprisingly large role on TikTok. In more innocent times, Twitter hoped its users might congregate around hashtags in a never-ending series of productive pop-up mini-discourses. On TikTok, hashtags actually exist as a real, functional organizing principle: not for news, or even really anything trending anywhere else than TikTok, but for various challenges, or jokes, or repeating formats, or other discernible blobs of activity. TikTok is, however, a free-for-all. Its easy to make a video on TikTok, not just because of the tools it gives users, but because of extensive reasons and prompts it provides for you. You can select from an enormous range of sounds, from popular song clips to short moments from TV shows, YouTube videos or other TikToks. You can join a dare-like challenge, or participate in a dance meme, or make a joke. Or you can make fun of all of these things. TikTok assertively answers anyones what should I watch with a flood. The result is an endless unspooling of material that people, many very young, might be too self-conscious to post on Instagram, or that they never would have come up with in the first place without a nudge. It can be hard to watch. It can be charming. It can be very, very funny. It is frequently, in the language widely applied outside the platform, from people on other platforms, extremely cringe. So thats whats on TikTok. TikTok can feel, to an American audience, a bit like a greatest-hits compilation, featuring only the most engaging elements and experiences of its predecessors. This is true, to a point. But TikTok known as Douyin in China, where its parent company is based must also be understood as one of the most popular of many short-video-sharing apps in that country. This is a landscape that evolved both alongside and at arms length from the U.S. tech industry Instagram, for example, is banned in China. Advertising Under the hood, TikTok is a fundamentally different app than American users have used before. It may look and feel like its friend-feed-centric peers, and you can follow and be followed; of course there are hugely popular stars, many cultivated by the company itself. Theres messaging. Users can and do use it like any other social app. But the various aesthetic and functional similarities to Vine or Snapchat or Instagram belie a core difference: TikTok is more machine than man. In this way, its from the future or at least a future. And it has some messages for us. Consider the trajectory of what we think of as the major social apps. Instagram and Twitter could only take us so far Twitter gained popularity as a tool for following people and being followed by other people and expanded from there. Twitter watched what its users did with its original concept and formalized the conversational behaviors they invented. (See: Retweets. See again: hashtags.) Only then, and after going public, did it start to become more assertive. It made more recommendations. It started reordering users feeds based on what it thought they might want to see, or might have missed. Opaque machine intelligence encroached on the original system. Something similar happened at Instagram, where algorithmic recommendation is now a very noticeable part of the experience, and on YouTube, where recommendations shuttle one around the platform in new and often lets say surprising ways. Some users might feel affronted by these assertive new automatic features, which are clearly designed to increase interaction. One might reasonably worry that this trend serves the lowest demands of a brutal attention economy that is revealing tech companies as cynical time-mongers and turning us into mindless drones. These changes have also tended to work, at least on those terms. We often do spend more time with the apps as theyve become more assertive, and less intimately human, even as weve complained. Whats both crucial and easy to miss about TikTok is how it has stepped over the midpoint between the familiar self-directed feed and an experience based first on algorithmic observation and inference. The most obvious clue is right there when you open the app: the first thing you see isnt a feed of your friends, but a page called For You. Its an algorithmic feed based on videos youve interacted with, or even just watched. It never runs out of material. It is not, unless you train it to be, full of people you know, or things youve explicitly told it you want to see. Its full of things that you seem to have demonstrated you want to watch, no matter what you actually say you want to watch. It is constantly learning from you and, over time, builds a presumably complex but opaque model of what you tend to watch, and shows you more of that, or things like that, or things related to that, or, honestly, who knows, but it seems to work. TikTok starts making assumptions the second youve opened the app, before youve really given it anything to work with. Imagine an Instagram centered entirely around its Explore tab, or a Twitter built around, I guess, trending topics or viral tweets, with following bolted onto the side. Imagine a version of Facebook that was able to fill your feed before youd friended a single person. Thats TikTok. Its mode of creation is unusual, too. You can make stuff for your friends, or in response to your friends, sure. But users looking for something to post about are immediately recruited into group challenges, or hashtags, or shown popular songs. The bar is low. The stakes are low. Large audiences feel within reach, and smaller ones are easy to find, even if youre just messing around. On most social networks the first step to showing your content to a lot of people is grinding to build an audience, or having lots of friends, or being incredibly beautiful or wealthy or idle and willing to display that, or getting lucky or striking viral gold. TikTok instead encourages users to jump from audience to audience, trend to trend, creating something like simulated temporary friend groups, who get together to do friend-group things: to share an inside joke; to riff on a song; to talk idly and aimlessly about whatever is in front of you. Feedback is instant and frequently abundant; virality has a stiff tailwind. Stimulation is constant. There is an unmistakable sense that youre using something thats expanding in every direction. The pool of content is enormous. Most of it is meaningless. Some of it becomes popular, and some is great, and some gets to be both. As The Atlantics Taylor Lorenz put it, Watching too many in a row can feel like youre about to have a brain freeze. Its the machines All of this goes a long way to explain why, at least at first, TikTok can seem disorienting. Youre not actually sure why youre seeing what youre seeing, said Ankur Thakkar, the former editorial lead at Vine, TikToks other most direct forerunner. On Vine, a new user might not have had much to watch, or felt much of a reason to create anything, but they understood their context: the list of people they followed, which was probably the thing letting them down. Its doing the thing that Twitter tried to solve, that everyone tried to solve, he said. How do you get people to engage? Apparently you just show them things, and let a powerful artificial intelligence take notes. You start sending daily notifications immediately. You tell them what to do. You fake it till you make it, algorithmically speaking. U.S. social platforms, each fighting their own desperate and often stock-price-related fights to increase user engagement, have trended in TikToks general direction for a while. It is possible, today, to receive highly personalized and effectively infinite content recommendations in YouTube without ever following a single account, because Google watches what you do, and makes guesses about who you are. And while Facebook and Twitter dont talk about their products this way, we understand that sometimes maybe a lot of the time we use them just to fill time. They, in turn, want as much of our time as possible, and are quite obviously doing whatever they can to get it. | TikTok is an app for making and sharing short videos. It's easy to make a video on TikTok, not just because of the tools it gives users, but because of extensive reasons and prompts it provides. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://www.seattletimes.com/explore/shop-northwest/what-is-tiktok-and-am-i-too-old-to-use-it/ | 0.400746 |
What is TikTok, and am I too old to use it? | Hello, person who is, statistically speaking, a human adult aged approximately millennial to boomer. The analytics suggest a high likelihood that youre aware there is an app named TikTok, and a similarly high likelihood that youre not totally sure what its all about. Maybe you asked someone younger in your life, and they tried to explain and possibly failed. Or maybe youve heard that this new, extraordinarily popular video app is a refreshing outlier in the social media universe thats genuinely fun to use. Maybe you even tried it, but bounced straight out, confused and sapped. Fear of missing out is a common way to describe how social media can make people feel like everyone else is part of something a concert, a secret beach, a brunch that theyre not. A new wrinkle in this concept is that sometimes that something is a social media platform itself. Maybe you saw a photo of some friends on Instagram at a great party and wondered why you werent there. But then, next in your feed, you saw a weird video, watermarked with a vibrating TikTok logo, scored with a song youd never heard, starring a person youd never seen. Maybe you saw one of the staggering number of ads for TikTok plastered throughout other social networks, and the real world, and wondered why you werent at that party, either, and why it seemed so far away. Its been a while since a new social app got big enough, quickly enough, to make nonusers feel theyre missing out from an experience. (Not a coincidence that Snapchats audience skewed very young, too.) And while you, perhaps an anxious abstainer, may feel perfectly secure in your choice not to join that service, Snapchat has more daily users than Twitter, changed the course of its industry, and altered the way people communicate with their phones. TikTok, now reportedly 500 million users strong, is not so obvious in its intentions. But that doesnt mean it doesnt have them! The basic human explanation of TikTok TikTok is an app for making and sharing short videos. The videos are tall, not square, like on Snapchat or Instagrams stories, but you navigate through videos by scrolling up and down, like a feed, not by tapping or swiping side to side. Advertising Video creators have all sorts of tools at their disposal: filters as on Snapchat (and later, everyone else); the ability to search for sounds to score your video. Users are also strongly encouraged to engage with other users, through response videos or by means of duets users can duplicate videos and add themselves alongside. Hashtags play a surprisingly large role on TikTok. In more innocent times, Twitter hoped its users might congregate around hashtags in a never-ending series of productive pop-up mini-discourses. On TikTok, hashtags actually exist as a real, functional organizing principle: not for news, or even really anything trending anywhere else than TikTok, but for various challenges, or jokes, or repeating formats, or other discernible blobs of activity. TikTok is, however, a free-for-all. Its easy to make a video on TikTok, not just because of the tools it gives users, but because of extensive reasons and prompts it provides for you. You can select from an enormous range of sounds, from popular song clips to short moments from TV shows, YouTube videos or other TikToks. You can join a dare-like challenge, or participate in a dance meme, or make a joke. Or you can make fun of all of these things. TikTok assertively answers anyones what should I watch with a flood. The result is an endless unspooling of material that people, many very young, might be too self-conscious to post on Instagram, or that they never would have come up with in the first place without a nudge. It can be hard to watch. It can be charming. It can be very, very funny. It is frequently, in the language widely applied outside the platform, from people on other platforms, extremely cringe. So thats whats on TikTok. TikTok can feel, to an American audience, a bit like a greatest-hits compilation, featuring only the most engaging elements and experiences of its predecessors. This is true, to a point. But TikTok known as Douyin in China, where its parent company is based must also be understood as one of the most popular of many short-video-sharing apps in that country. This is a landscape that evolved both alongside and at arms length from the U.S. tech industry Instagram, for example, is banned in China. Advertising Under the hood, TikTok is a fundamentally different app than American users have used before. It may look and feel like its friend-feed-centric peers, and you can follow and be followed; of course there are hugely popular stars, many cultivated by the company itself. Theres messaging. Users can and do use it like any other social app. But the various aesthetic and functional similarities to Vine or Snapchat or Instagram belie a core difference: TikTok is more machine than man. In this way, its from the future or at least a future. And it has some messages for us. Consider the trajectory of what we think of as the major social apps. Instagram and Twitter could only take us so far Twitter gained popularity as a tool for following people and being followed by other people and expanded from there. Twitter watched what its users did with its original concept and formalized the conversational behaviors they invented. (See: Retweets. See again: hashtags.) Only then, and after going public, did it start to become more assertive. It made more recommendations. It started reordering users feeds based on what it thought they might want to see, or might have missed. Opaque machine intelligence encroached on the original system. Something similar happened at Instagram, where algorithmic recommendation is now a very noticeable part of the experience, and on YouTube, where recommendations shuttle one around the platform in new and often lets say surprising ways. Some users might feel affronted by these assertive new automatic features, which are clearly designed to increase interaction. One might reasonably worry that this trend serves the lowest demands of a brutal attention economy that is revealing tech companies as cynical time-mongers and turning us into mindless drones. These changes have also tended to work, at least on those terms. We often do spend more time with the apps as theyve become more assertive, and less intimately human, even as weve complained. Whats both crucial and easy to miss about TikTok is how it has stepped over the midpoint between the familiar self-directed feed and an experience based first on algorithmic observation and inference. The most obvious clue is right there when you open the app: the first thing you see isnt a feed of your friends, but a page called For You. Its an algorithmic feed based on videos youve interacted with, or even just watched. It never runs out of material. It is not, unless you train it to be, full of people you know, or things youve explicitly told it you want to see. Its full of things that you seem to have demonstrated you want to watch, no matter what you actually say you want to watch. It is constantly learning from you and, over time, builds a presumably complex but opaque model of what you tend to watch, and shows you more of that, or things like that, or things related to that, or, honestly, who knows, but it seems to work. TikTok starts making assumptions the second youve opened the app, before youve really given it anything to work with. Imagine an Instagram centered entirely around its Explore tab, or a Twitter built around, I guess, trending topics or viral tweets, with following bolted onto the side. Imagine a version of Facebook that was able to fill your feed before youd friended a single person. Thats TikTok. Its mode of creation is unusual, too. You can make stuff for your friends, or in response to your friends, sure. But users looking for something to post about are immediately recruited into group challenges, or hashtags, or shown popular songs. The bar is low. The stakes are low. Large audiences feel within reach, and smaller ones are easy to find, even if youre just messing around. On most social networks the first step to showing your content to a lot of people is grinding to build an audience, or having lots of friends, or being incredibly beautiful or wealthy or idle and willing to display that, or getting lucky or striking viral gold. TikTok instead encourages users to jump from audience to audience, trend to trend, creating something like simulated temporary friend groups, who get together to do friend-group things: to share an inside joke; to riff on a song; to talk idly and aimlessly about whatever is in front of you. Feedback is instant and frequently abundant; virality has a stiff tailwind. Stimulation is constant. There is an unmistakable sense that youre using something thats expanding in every direction. The pool of content is enormous. Most of it is meaningless. Some of it becomes popular, and some is great, and some gets to be both. As The Atlantics Taylor Lorenz put it, Watching too many in a row can feel like youre about to have a brain freeze. Its the machines All of this goes a long way to explain why, at least at first, TikTok can seem disorienting. Youre not actually sure why youre seeing what youre seeing, said Ankur Thakkar, the former editorial lead at Vine, TikToks other most direct forerunner. On Vine, a new user might not have had much to watch, or felt much of a reason to create anything, but they understood their context: the list of people they followed, which was probably the thing letting them down. Its doing the thing that Twitter tried to solve, that everyone tried to solve, he said. How do you get people to engage? Apparently you just show them things, and let a powerful artificial intelligence take notes. You start sending daily notifications immediately. You tell them what to do. You fake it till you make it, algorithmically speaking. U.S. social platforms, each fighting their own desperate and often stock-price-related fights to increase user engagement, have trended in TikToks general direction for a while. It is possible, today, to receive highly personalized and effectively infinite content recommendations in YouTube without ever following a single account, because Google watches what you do, and makes guesses about who you are. And while Facebook and Twitter dont talk about their products this way, we understand that sometimes maybe a lot of the time we use them just to fill time. They, in turn, want as much of our time as possible, and are quite obviously doing whatever they can to get it. | TikTok is an app for making and sharing short videos. The videos are tall, not square, like on Snapchat or Instagrams stories. You navigate through videos by scrolling up and down, like a feed, not by tapping or swiping side to side. Hashtags play a surprisingly large role on TikTok. | bart | 2 | https://www.seattletimes.com/explore/shop-northwest/what-is-tiktok-and-am-i-too-old-to-use-it/ | 0.431475 |
Who do Jared and Ivanka think they are? | As political actors, the couple are living exemplars of the Dunning-Kruger effect, a psychological phenomenon that leads incompetent people to overestimate their ability because they cant grasp how much they dont know. Many high achievers, particularly women and people of color, suffer from impostor syndrome, the fear that they dont belong in the rarefied realm to which theyve ascended and that they will soon be found out. Even Michelle Obama, who is, according to a Gallup poll conducted in December, the most admired woman in America, has said that she feels it. I share that with you because we all have doubts in our abilities, about our power and what that power is, she told students in London in December. Well, maybe not all of us. Ive just finished Vicky Wards Kushner, Inc., a scintillating investigation of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trumps White House sojourn, which comes out on Tuesday. Its full of damning details: contempt for the entitled, venal couple may be the one thing that unites all of D.C.s warring factions. Still, the first daughter and her husband remain psychologically mysterious, at least to me. According to Kushner, Inc., Gary Cohn, former director of the National Economic Council, has told people that Ivanka Trump thinks she could someday be president. Her fathers reign in Washington, D.C., is, she believes, the beginning of a great American dynasty, writes Ward. Kushner, whose pre-White House experience included owning a boutique newspaper and helming a catastrophically ill-timed real estate deal, has arrogated to himself substantial parts of U.S. foreign policy. Share your thoughts on the news by sending a Letter to the Editor. Email Share your thoughts on the news by sending a Letter to the Editor. Email letters@seattletimes.com and please include your full name, address and telephone number for verification only. Letters are limited to 200 words. As political actors, the couple are living exemplars of the Dunning-Kruger effect, a psychological phenomenon that leads incompetent people to overestimate their ability because they cant grasp how much they dont know. Partly, the Jared and Ivanka story is about the reality distortion field a term one of Wards sources uses about Kushner created by great family wealth. She quotes a member of Trumps legal team saying that the two have no idea how normal people perceive, understand, intuit. Privilege, in them, has been raised to the level of near sociopathy. Ward, the author of two previous books about the worlds of high finance and real estate, has known Kushner slightly for a long time; she told me that when he bought The New York Observer newspaper in 2006, he tried to hire her. She knocks down the idea that either he or his wife is a stabilizing force or moral compass in the Trump administration. White House sources told her they think it was Kushner who ordered the closing of White House visitor logs in April 2017, because he didnt want his frenetic networking exposed. Ward reports that Cohn was stunned by their blas reaction to Trumps defense of the white-nationalist marchers in Charlottesville, Virginia: He was upset that they were not sufficiently upset. Still, even if you assume that the couple are amoral climbers, their behavior still doesnt quite make sense. Ward writes that Ivankas chief concern is her personal brand, but that brand has been trashed. The book cites an October 2017 survey measuring consumer approval of more than 1,600 brands. Ivankas fashion line was in the bottom 10. A leading real estate developer tells Ward that Kushner, now caught up in multiple state and federal investigations, has become radioactive: No one will want to do business with him. (Kushner resigned as CEO of Kushner Cos. in 2017, but has kept most of his stake in the business.) To make sense of their motivations, Ward told me, you have to understand the gravitational pull of their fathers. Husband and wife are both really extraordinarily orientated and identified through their respective fathers in a way that most fully formed adults are not, she said. Among the most interesting parts of Kushner, Inc., are the chapters about Charles Kushner, Jareds felonious father, and his plan to restore his reputation, with Jareds help, after getting out of prison in 2006. Part of that rehabilitation project was the purchase of a flagship building in Manhattan, 666 Fifth Ave., for which the family paid a record amount at the height of the real estate market in 2007. When the recession hit, the building became a white elephant, its debt threatening the family fortune. Wards book suggests that the search for someone who would bail out 666 Fifth has played a significant role in foreign policy during the Trump administration. Since the completion of her book, weve learned that Trump overrode intelligence officials, who were concerned about Kushner and his familys ties to foreign investors, to give Kushner a security clearance. In the end, the Kushner family seems to have gotten what it wanted. In 2018, Brookfield Asset Management, which has substantial investment from the government of Qatars sovereign wealth fund, came to the Kushners rescue. (The Qataris have denied any advance knowledge of the deal.) Youll notice that the U.S. position toward Qatar changes when the Qataris bail out 666 Fifth Ave., said Ward, adding, We look like a banana republic. Maybe thats why Jared and Ivanka appear so blithely confident. As public servants, theyre obviously way out of their depth. Theyre naturals. | John Avlon: Jared and Ivanka Trump are living exemplars of the Dunning-Kruger effect. | ctrlsum | 0 | https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/who-do-jared-and-ivanka-think-they-are/ | 0.137106 |
Who do Jared and Ivanka think they are? | As political actors, the couple are living exemplars of the Dunning-Kruger effect, a psychological phenomenon that leads incompetent people to overestimate their ability because they cant grasp how much they dont know. Many high achievers, particularly women and people of color, suffer from impostor syndrome, the fear that they dont belong in the rarefied realm to which theyve ascended and that they will soon be found out. Even Michelle Obama, who is, according to a Gallup poll conducted in December, the most admired woman in America, has said that she feels it. I share that with you because we all have doubts in our abilities, about our power and what that power is, she told students in London in December. Well, maybe not all of us. Ive just finished Vicky Wards Kushner, Inc., a scintillating investigation of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trumps White House sojourn, which comes out on Tuesday. Its full of damning details: contempt for the entitled, venal couple may be the one thing that unites all of D.C.s warring factions. Still, the first daughter and her husband remain psychologically mysterious, at least to me. According to Kushner, Inc., Gary Cohn, former director of the National Economic Council, has told people that Ivanka Trump thinks she could someday be president. Her fathers reign in Washington, D.C., is, she believes, the beginning of a great American dynasty, writes Ward. Kushner, whose pre-White House experience included owning a boutique newspaper and helming a catastrophically ill-timed real estate deal, has arrogated to himself substantial parts of U.S. foreign policy. Share your thoughts on the news by sending a Letter to the Editor. Email Share your thoughts on the news by sending a Letter to the Editor. Email letters@seattletimes.com and please include your full name, address and telephone number for verification only. Letters are limited to 200 words. As political actors, the couple are living exemplars of the Dunning-Kruger effect, a psychological phenomenon that leads incompetent people to overestimate their ability because they cant grasp how much they dont know. Partly, the Jared and Ivanka story is about the reality distortion field a term one of Wards sources uses about Kushner created by great family wealth. She quotes a member of Trumps legal team saying that the two have no idea how normal people perceive, understand, intuit. Privilege, in them, has been raised to the level of near sociopathy. Ward, the author of two previous books about the worlds of high finance and real estate, has known Kushner slightly for a long time; she told me that when he bought The New York Observer newspaper in 2006, he tried to hire her. She knocks down the idea that either he or his wife is a stabilizing force or moral compass in the Trump administration. White House sources told her they think it was Kushner who ordered the closing of White House visitor logs in April 2017, because he didnt want his frenetic networking exposed. Ward reports that Cohn was stunned by their blas reaction to Trumps defense of the white-nationalist marchers in Charlottesville, Virginia: He was upset that they were not sufficiently upset. Still, even if you assume that the couple are amoral climbers, their behavior still doesnt quite make sense. Ward writes that Ivankas chief concern is her personal brand, but that brand has been trashed. The book cites an October 2017 survey measuring consumer approval of more than 1,600 brands. Ivankas fashion line was in the bottom 10. A leading real estate developer tells Ward that Kushner, now caught up in multiple state and federal investigations, has become radioactive: No one will want to do business with him. (Kushner resigned as CEO of Kushner Cos. in 2017, but has kept most of his stake in the business.) To make sense of their motivations, Ward told me, you have to understand the gravitational pull of their fathers. Husband and wife are both really extraordinarily orientated and identified through their respective fathers in a way that most fully formed adults are not, she said. Among the most interesting parts of Kushner, Inc., are the chapters about Charles Kushner, Jareds felonious father, and his plan to restore his reputation, with Jareds help, after getting out of prison in 2006. Part of that rehabilitation project was the purchase of a flagship building in Manhattan, 666 Fifth Ave., for which the family paid a record amount at the height of the real estate market in 2007. When the recession hit, the building became a white elephant, its debt threatening the family fortune. Wards book suggests that the search for someone who would bail out 666 Fifth has played a significant role in foreign policy during the Trump administration. Since the completion of her book, weve learned that Trump overrode intelligence officials, who were concerned about Kushner and his familys ties to foreign investors, to give Kushner a security clearance. In the end, the Kushner family seems to have gotten what it wanted. In 2018, Brookfield Asset Management, which has substantial investment from the government of Qatars sovereign wealth fund, came to the Kushners rescue. (The Qataris have denied any advance knowledge of the deal.) Youll notice that the U.S. position toward Qatar changes when the Qataris bail out 666 Fifth Ave., said Ward, adding, We look like a banana republic. Maybe thats why Jared and Ivanka appear so blithely confident. As public servants, theyre obviously way out of their depth. Theyre naturals. | John Avlon: Jared and Ivanka Trump are living exemplars of the Dunning-Kruger effect. He says the couple are psychologically mysterious, at least to me. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/who-do-jared-and-ivanka-think-they-are/ | 0.173886 |
Who do Jared and Ivanka think they are? | As political actors, the couple are living exemplars of the Dunning-Kruger effect, a psychological phenomenon that leads incompetent people to overestimate their ability because they cant grasp how much they dont know. Many high achievers, particularly women and people of color, suffer from impostor syndrome, the fear that they dont belong in the rarefied realm to which theyve ascended and that they will soon be found out. Even Michelle Obama, who is, according to a Gallup poll conducted in December, the most admired woman in America, has said that she feels it. I share that with you because we all have doubts in our abilities, about our power and what that power is, she told students in London in December. Well, maybe not all of us. Ive just finished Vicky Wards Kushner, Inc., a scintillating investigation of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trumps White House sojourn, which comes out on Tuesday. Its full of damning details: contempt for the entitled, venal couple may be the one thing that unites all of D.C.s warring factions. Still, the first daughter and her husband remain psychologically mysterious, at least to me. According to Kushner, Inc., Gary Cohn, former director of the National Economic Council, has told people that Ivanka Trump thinks she could someday be president. Her fathers reign in Washington, D.C., is, she believes, the beginning of a great American dynasty, writes Ward. Kushner, whose pre-White House experience included owning a boutique newspaper and helming a catastrophically ill-timed real estate deal, has arrogated to himself substantial parts of U.S. foreign policy. Share your thoughts on the news by sending a Letter to the Editor. Email Share your thoughts on the news by sending a Letter to the Editor. Email letters@seattletimes.com and please include your full name, address and telephone number for verification only. Letters are limited to 200 words. As political actors, the couple are living exemplars of the Dunning-Kruger effect, a psychological phenomenon that leads incompetent people to overestimate their ability because they cant grasp how much they dont know. Partly, the Jared and Ivanka story is about the reality distortion field a term one of Wards sources uses about Kushner created by great family wealth. She quotes a member of Trumps legal team saying that the two have no idea how normal people perceive, understand, intuit. Privilege, in them, has been raised to the level of near sociopathy. Ward, the author of two previous books about the worlds of high finance and real estate, has known Kushner slightly for a long time; she told me that when he bought The New York Observer newspaper in 2006, he tried to hire her. She knocks down the idea that either he or his wife is a stabilizing force or moral compass in the Trump administration. White House sources told her they think it was Kushner who ordered the closing of White House visitor logs in April 2017, because he didnt want his frenetic networking exposed. Ward reports that Cohn was stunned by their blas reaction to Trumps defense of the white-nationalist marchers in Charlottesville, Virginia: He was upset that they were not sufficiently upset. Still, even if you assume that the couple are amoral climbers, their behavior still doesnt quite make sense. Ward writes that Ivankas chief concern is her personal brand, but that brand has been trashed. The book cites an October 2017 survey measuring consumer approval of more than 1,600 brands. Ivankas fashion line was in the bottom 10. A leading real estate developer tells Ward that Kushner, now caught up in multiple state and federal investigations, has become radioactive: No one will want to do business with him. (Kushner resigned as CEO of Kushner Cos. in 2017, but has kept most of his stake in the business.) To make sense of their motivations, Ward told me, you have to understand the gravitational pull of their fathers. Husband and wife are both really extraordinarily orientated and identified through their respective fathers in a way that most fully formed adults are not, she said. Among the most interesting parts of Kushner, Inc., are the chapters about Charles Kushner, Jareds felonious father, and his plan to restore his reputation, with Jareds help, after getting out of prison in 2006. Part of that rehabilitation project was the purchase of a flagship building in Manhattan, 666 Fifth Ave., for which the family paid a record amount at the height of the real estate market in 2007. When the recession hit, the building became a white elephant, its debt threatening the family fortune. Wards book suggests that the search for someone who would bail out 666 Fifth has played a significant role in foreign policy during the Trump administration. Since the completion of her book, weve learned that Trump overrode intelligence officials, who were concerned about Kushner and his familys ties to foreign investors, to give Kushner a security clearance. In the end, the Kushner family seems to have gotten what it wanted. In 2018, Brookfield Asset Management, which has substantial investment from the government of Qatars sovereign wealth fund, came to the Kushners rescue. (The Qataris have denied any advance knowledge of the deal.) Youll notice that the U.S. position toward Qatar changes when the Qataris bail out 666 Fifth Ave., said Ward, adding, We look like a banana republic. Maybe thats why Jared and Ivanka appear so blithely confident. As public servants, theyre obviously way out of their depth. Theyre naturals. | John Avlon: Jared and Ivanka Trump are living exemplars of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Avlon says the couple are psychologically mysterious, at least to me. He says they have a sense of entitlement that is raised to the level of near sociopathy. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/who-do-jared-and-ivanka-think-they-are/ | 0.166455 |
Will Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and Viacom go dark for AT&T's DirecTV subscribers? | CLOSE Even if you cut the cord with Netflix, Hulu, HBO Go and others all vying for your dollars, it can feel like death by 1,000 video subscriptions. Buzz60 DirecTV customers may soon find themselves with fewer channels. At midnight Friday, the contract between AT&T and Viacom is set to expire, meaning popular stations such as Nickelodeon and Comedy Central could go black. Viacom is warning AT&T's DirecTV subscribers that they may lose access to 23 channels if a dispute over fees isn't resolved before the contract expires. Viacom also is encouraging customers to contact AT&T. "Unfortunately, AT&T is abusing its new market position by favoring its own content which significantly underperforms Viacoms to stifle competition," Viacom said in a statement Tuesday. However, AT&T is hoping "to avoid any interruption to the channels some of our customers care about," the company told USA TODAY in a statement late Tuesday. Streaming TV: Cord cutters feel weight of subscription fatigue as video, TV streaming options multiply Prices on the rise: DirecTV Now increases prices for new streaming video packages with HBO included CLOSE There are thousands of free streaming movies and TV shows out there, but rarely any are commercial-free. USA TODAY Were disappointed to see Viacom put our customers in the middle of their negotiations," AT&T said in the statement. "We are on the side of customer choice and value and want to keep Viacoms channels in our customers lineups." AT&T is the largest pay TV provider in the U.S., with 24.5 million subscribers. Viacom is posting updates on its website, www.keepviacom.com, and airing ads that urge customers to contact AT&T. The media company has done the same in other contract negotiations. Trevor Noah, host of Comedy Centrals "The Daily Show" stars in one of the ads. If you think government shutdowns are bad, get ready for something worse," Noah said. "AT&T-DirecTV might drop Comedy Central and up to 22 other Viacom channels." In its statement, Viacom says it is "the No. 1 cable family serving key customers and communities on AT&T-DirecTVs services across kids, teens, 18-49, African Americans and Hispanics." AT&T said several of Viacoms channels are no longer popular. Viacoms channels in total have lost about 40 percent of their audience in the past six years, AT&T said in the statement. Disputes between content providers and cable and satellite providers aren't uncommon as companies try to negotiate new deals. Both AT&T and Viacom say they are looking for a resolution. "We have made a series of offers that are good for consumers and good for AT&T giving subscribers more access to the Viacom channels they love, including Nickelodeon, BET, MTV, Comedy Central and Paramount, while enabling AT&T-DirecTV to lower customers bills in the process," Viacom said. AT&T said it's also the company's goal "to deliver the content our customers want at a value that also makes sense to them. Weve always fought to get the best deal for our customers, delivering the content they want at a great value," AT&T said. "Well continue to fight for that here. Sometimes the negotiations are extended to allow the parties to reach an agreement. In many situations, the stations don't go black. One ongoing dispute that has lasted several months is between Dish Network, HBO and Cinemax. HBO and Cinemax went dark for Dish Network subscribers in November as part of a programming dispute between Dish and AT&T, owner of the two premium cable companies. Charlotte Russe closings: All stores expected to close by end of March, discounts now up to 70% off Free Cone Day: Dairy Queen and Rita's Italian Ice welcome spring with frozen freebies Contributing: Eli Blumenthal Follow Kelly Tyko on Twitter: @KellyTyko Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2019/03/19/viacom-and-at-t-direct-tv-contract/3218751002/ | Contract between AT&T and Viacom is set to expire at midnight Friday. Popular stations such as Nickelodeon and Comedy Central could go black. | pegasus | 1 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2019/03/19/viacom-and-at-t-direct-tv-contract/3218751002/ | 0.173326 |
Will Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and Viacom go dark for AT&T's DirecTV subscribers? | CLOSE Even if you cut the cord with Netflix, Hulu, HBO Go and others all vying for your dollars, it can feel like death by 1,000 video subscriptions. Buzz60 DirecTV customers may soon find themselves with fewer channels. At midnight Friday, the contract between AT&T and Viacom is set to expire, meaning popular stations such as Nickelodeon and Comedy Central could go black. Viacom is warning AT&T's DirecTV subscribers that they may lose access to 23 channels if a dispute over fees isn't resolved before the contract expires. Viacom also is encouraging customers to contact AT&T. "Unfortunately, AT&T is abusing its new market position by favoring its own content which significantly underperforms Viacoms to stifle competition," Viacom said in a statement Tuesday. However, AT&T is hoping "to avoid any interruption to the channels some of our customers care about," the company told USA TODAY in a statement late Tuesday. Streaming TV: Cord cutters feel weight of subscription fatigue as video, TV streaming options multiply Prices on the rise: DirecTV Now increases prices for new streaming video packages with HBO included CLOSE There are thousands of free streaming movies and TV shows out there, but rarely any are commercial-free. USA TODAY Were disappointed to see Viacom put our customers in the middle of their negotiations," AT&T said in the statement. "We are on the side of customer choice and value and want to keep Viacoms channels in our customers lineups." AT&T is the largest pay TV provider in the U.S., with 24.5 million subscribers. Viacom is posting updates on its website, www.keepviacom.com, and airing ads that urge customers to contact AT&T. The media company has done the same in other contract negotiations. Trevor Noah, host of Comedy Centrals "The Daily Show" stars in one of the ads. If you think government shutdowns are bad, get ready for something worse," Noah said. "AT&T-DirecTV might drop Comedy Central and up to 22 other Viacom channels." In its statement, Viacom says it is "the No. 1 cable family serving key customers and communities on AT&T-DirecTVs services across kids, teens, 18-49, African Americans and Hispanics." AT&T said several of Viacoms channels are no longer popular. Viacoms channels in total have lost about 40 percent of their audience in the past six years, AT&T said in the statement. Disputes between content providers and cable and satellite providers aren't uncommon as companies try to negotiate new deals. Both AT&T and Viacom say they are looking for a resolution. "We have made a series of offers that are good for consumers and good for AT&T giving subscribers more access to the Viacom channels they love, including Nickelodeon, BET, MTV, Comedy Central and Paramount, while enabling AT&T-DirecTV to lower customers bills in the process," Viacom said. AT&T said it's also the company's goal "to deliver the content our customers want at a value that also makes sense to them. Weve always fought to get the best deal for our customers, delivering the content they want at a great value," AT&T said. "Well continue to fight for that here. Sometimes the negotiations are extended to allow the parties to reach an agreement. In many situations, the stations don't go black. One ongoing dispute that has lasted several months is between Dish Network, HBO and Cinemax. HBO and Cinemax went dark for Dish Network subscribers in November as part of a programming dispute between Dish and AT&T, owner of the two premium cable companies. Charlotte Russe closings: All stores expected to close by end of March, discounts now up to 70% off Free Cone Day: Dairy Queen and Rita's Italian Ice welcome spring with frozen freebies Contributing: Eli Blumenthal Follow Kelly Tyko on Twitter: @KellyTyko Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2019/03/19/viacom-and-at-t-direct-tv-contract/3218751002/ | The contract between AT&T and Viacom is set to expire at midnight Friday. Popular stations such as Nickelodeon and Comedy Central could go black. Viacom is warning AT&T's DirecTV subscribers that they may lose access to 23 channels. | pegasus | 2 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2019/03/19/viacom-and-at-t-direct-tv-contract/3218751002/ | 0.394865 |
What makes the spring equinox so special? | Image copyright neirfy Wednesday marks the spring equinox, the midway point between mid-winter and mid-summer. It takes a year for the earth to orbit the sun, and as it does so our planet spins on its own axis, each revolution taking a day. If the axis of the earth was at 90 or perpendicular to the plane of its orbit, our planet would be very different. Sunrise and sunset would occur at the same time every single day. We would also have no seasons and there would be a huge impact on weather patterns around the globe. The reason that that is not the case is because the earth is tilted by 23.5 degrees in relation to its plane of orbit. It's that tilt which gives rise to the seasons. In the northern hemisphere summer we're tilted towards the sun and in winter away from it. However the equinox is an important staging post on the annual orbit of the earth around the sun, particularly if you live at 54.5N like we do in Northern Ireland. In Belfast on the winter solstice, 21 December 2018, there were seven hours and 15 minutes of daylight. Image caption The earth's tilt of 23.5 degrees gives rise to the seasons On the summer solstice this year, 24 June, the sun will rise at 04:48 (BST) and set at 22:04 (BST), giving Northern Ireland 17 hours and 16 minutes of daylight. By contrast in Singapore - which is is just 1N of the equator - the shortest day was 12 hours and three minutes of daylight, and the longest just nine minutes more. During an equinox the earth's north and south poles are not tilted towards or away from the sun and the duration of daylight is theoretically the same at all points on the earth's surface. Hence the name, equinox, which is derived from the Latin meaning equal night. The northern hemisphere spring equinox - the mid-point between mid-winter and mid-summer - occurs on 19, 20 or 21 March and is also known as the vernal equinox. The name is derived from the Latin word 'vernalis,' which means "of the spring". Image copyright david010167 Image caption The extra daylight each week is the reason why spring is the season when the garden bursts into life In Northern Ireland at this time of year there is a real stretch in the day. Each day this week we're adding an extra four minutes 26 seconds of daylight; a difference of more than half an hour from the start of the week to the end. Because plants need water, light, and warmth to grow, the extra daylight each week is the reason why spring is the season when the garden bursts into life. The showery weather gives plants the water they need to thrive. The longer days mean they have more daylight and warmth from the sun which raises the temperature of both the air and the soil. So with the grass going crazy at least the evenings are getting longer and when the clocks go forward at the end of March there will again be plenty of time to get out and cut the lawn after work. | The spring equinox marks the midway point between mid-winter and mid-summer. | ctrlsum | 0 | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-47631820 | 0.172329 |
What makes the spring equinox so special? | Image copyright neirfy Wednesday marks the spring equinox, the midway point between mid-winter and mid-summer. It takes a year for the earth to orbit the sun, and as it does so our planet spins on its own axis, each revolution taking a day. If the axis of the earth was at 90 or perpendicular to the plane of its orbit, our planet would be very different. Sunrise and sunset would occur at the same time every single day. We would also have no seasons and there would be a huge impact on weather patterns around the globe. The reason that that is not the case is because the earth is tilted by 23.5 degrees in relation to its plane of orbit. It's that tilt which gives rise to the seasons. In the northern hemisphere summer we're tilted towards the sun and in winter away from it. However the equinox is an important staging post on the annual orbit of the earth around the sun, particularly if you live at 54.5N like we do in Northern Ireland. In Belfast on the winter solstice, 21 December 2018, there were seven hours and 15 minutes of daylight. Image caption The earth's tilt of 23.5 degrees gives rise to the seasons On the summer solstice this year, 24 June, the sun will rise at 04:48 (BST) and set at 22:04 (BST), giving Northern Ireland 17 hours and 16 minutes of daylight. By contrast in Singapore - which is is just 1N of the equator - the shortest day was 12 hours and three minutes of daylight, and the longest just nine minutes more. During an equinox the earth's north and south poles are not tilted towards or away from the sun and the duration of daylight is theoretically the same at all points on the earth's surface. Hence the name, equinox, which is derived from the Latin meaning equal night. The northern hemisphere spring equinox - the mid-point between mid-winter and mid-summer - occurs on 19, 20 or 21 March and is also known as the vernal equinox. The name is derived from the Latin word 'vernalis,' which means "of the spring". Image copyright david010167 Image caption The extra daylight each week is the reason why spring is the season when the garden bursts into life In Northern Ireland at this time of year there is a real stretch in the day. Each day this week we're adding an extra four minutes 26 seconds of daylight; a difference of more than half an hour from the start of the week to the end. Because plants need water, light, and warmth to grow, the extra daylight each week is the reason why spring is the season when the garden bursts into life. The showery weather gives plants the water they need to thrive. The longer days mean they have more daylight and warmth from the sun which raises the temperature of both the air and the soil. So with the grass going crazy at least the evenings are getting longer and when the clocks go forward at the end of March there will again be plenty of time to get out and cut the lawn after work. | Wednesday marks the spring equinox, the midway point between mid-winter and mid-summer. It takes a year for the earth to orbit the sun, and as it does so our planet spins on its own axis. During an equinox the earth's north and south poles are not tilted towards or away from the sun. | pegasus | 2 | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-47631820 | 0.114134 |
Who is Andrew Yang, 2020 Democratic candidate for president? | Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, 44, is a venture capitalist who launched his bid for president in November 2017. He began gaining traction when he appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast in February, prompting a boost in his Twitter followers and a flood of donations. Sign Up and Save Get six months of free digital access to The Sacramento Bee Here are five things you need to know about Andrew Yang as he campaigns in the Golden State: 1. Hes all about universal basic income California is paving the way on the issue, as Stockton launched an experiment earlier this year to provide $500 a month over the next year and a half to 130 adults living in the citys lower-income neighborhood. Yang has pushed a proposal he calls the freedom dividend. Under his plan, all American adults over the age of 18 would get a $1,000 check from the federal government each month a cost of about $3-4 trillion per year. Yang said his plan aims to end poverty and grow the economy. He said a lot of the money would be pulled from welfare programs and a value-added tax on large corporations who dont currently pay their far share in taxes. Yang said people who are currently on welfare or social programs would have the option of keeping their existing benefits or receiving $1,000 per month without restrictions. 2. Yangs family has California ties His parents were born in Taiwan and came to the United States for graduate school at UC Berkeley in the 1960s. Yang himself was born and raised in New York. According to his campaign, Yang still has close family living in California. 3. Hes generally pro-immigrant The Democratic presidential hopeful has mixed views on the issue of immigration. He wants to offer people a pathway to citizenship to undocumented immigrants and said he is pro-immigrant, generally. He added that his parents would have been allowed to stay in the country under his presidency because they came to the country as students. He doesnt thinking rounding up and deporting immigrants is an option, but he wants to reward people who enter the United States legally or come to the country for college. One of the things I would do is staple a green card to the diploma of any international student who graduates from one of our universities, he said. It doesnt make sense to educate someone and then send them away to compete against you. 4. He has no shortage of ideas On Yangs campaign website, he outlines his positions on more than 75 issues, ranging from making Puerto Rico a state to providing everyone with access to free marriage counseling. If elected, he said a top priority would be forgiving a significant chunk of student loan debt because that is crippling the next generation. He also plans to tackle the opioid crisis by decriminalizing certain drugs to encourage people to seek treatment. His most interesting stance may be his personal opposition to circumcision. 5. Yang has a funny side Both Yang and President Donald Trump are wealthy, have business backgrounds, went to Ivy League colleges and grew up in New York. The opposite of Donald Trump is an Asian man who likes math, Yang told supporters at a March 15 San Francisco rally. He also may have already made an unrealistic campaign promise. In early March, he vowed to unify the country by offering to give everyone an HBO GO password so we could all watch Game of Thrones. It would cost nearly $5 billion a month for every American to gain access to the streaming service. | Andrew Yang, 44, is a venture capitalist who is running for president in 2020. | ctrlsum | 0 | https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article228090709.html | 0.456045 |
Who is Andrew Yang, 2020 Democratic candidate for president? | Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, 44, is a venture capitalist who launched his bid for president in November 2017. He began gaining traction when he appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast in February, prompting a boost in his Twitter followers and a flood of donations. Sign Up and Save Get six months of free digital access to The Sacramento Bee Here are five things you need to know about Andrew Yang as he campaigns in the Golden State: 1. Hes all about universal basic income California is paving the way on the issue, as Stockton launched an experiment earlier this year to provide $500 a month over the next year and a half to 130 adults living in the citys lower-income neighborhood. Yang has pushed a proposal he calls the freedom dividend. Under his plan, all American adults over the age of 18 would get a $1,000 check from the federal government each month a cost of about $3-4 trillion per year. Yang said his plan aims to end poverty and grow the economy. He said a lot of the money would be pulled from welfare programs and a value-added tax on large corporations who dont currently pay their far share in taxes. Yang said people who are currently on welfare or social programs would have the option of keeping their existing benefits or receiving $1,000 per month without restrictions. 2. Yangs family has California ties His parents were born in Taiwan and came to the United States for graduate school at UC Berkeley in the 1960s. Yang himself was born and raised in New York. According to his campaign, Yang still has close family living in California. 3. Hes generally pro-immigrant The Democratic presidential hopeful has mixed views on the issue of immigration. He wants to offer people a pathway to citizenship to undocumented immigrants and said he is pro-immigrant, generally. He added that his parents would have been allowed to stay in the country under his presidency because they came to the country as students. He doesnt thinking rounding up and deporting immigrants is an option, but he wants to reward people who enter the United States legally or come to the country for college. One of the things I would do is staple a green card to the diploma of any international student who graduates from one of our universities, he said. It doesnt make sense to educate someone and then send them away to compete against you. 4. He has no shortage of ideas On Yangs campaign website, he outlines his positions on more than 75 issues, ranging from making Puerto Rico a state to providing everyone with access to free marriage counseling. If elected, he said a top priority would be forgiving a significant chunk of student loan debt because that is crippling the next generation. He also plans to tackle the opioid crisis by decriminalizing certain drugs to encourage people to seek treatment. His most interesting stance may be his personal opposition to circumcision. 5. Yang has a funny side Both Yang and President Donald Trump are wealthy, have business backgrounds, went to Ivy League colleges and grew up in New York. The opposite of Donald Trump is an Asian man who likes math, Yang told supporters at a March 15 San Francisco rally. He also may have already made an unrealistic campaign promise. In early March, he vowed to unify the country by offering to give everyone an HBO GO password so we could all watch Game of Thrones. It would cost nearly $5 billion a month for every American to gain access to the streaming service. | Andrew Yang, 44, is a venture capitalist who launched his bid for president in November 2017. He's all about universal basic income California is paving the way on the issue. | pegasus | 1 | https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article228090709.html | 0.311647 |
Who is Andrew Yang, 2020 Democratic candidate for president? | Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, 44, is a venture capitalist who launched his bid for president in November 2017. He began gaining traction when he appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast in February, prompting a boost in his Twitter followers and a flood of donations. Sign Up and Save Get six months of free digital access to The Sacramento Bee Here are five things you need to know about Andrew Yang as he campaigns in the Golden State: 1. Hes all about universal basic income California is paving the way on the issue, as Stockton launched an experiment earlier this year to provide $500 a month over the next year and a half to 130 adults living in the citys lower-income neighborhood. Yang has pushed a proposal he calls the freedom dividend. Under his plan, all American adults over the age of 18 would get a $1,000 check from the federal government each month a cost of about $3-4 trillion per year. Yang said his plan aims to end poverty and grow the economy. He said a lot of the money would be pulled from welfare programs and a value-added tax on large corporations who dont currently pay their far share in taxes. Yang said people who are currently on welfare or social programs would have the option of keeping their existing benefits or receiving $1,000 per month without restrictions. 2. Yangs family has California ties His parents were born in Taiwan and came to the United States for graduate school at UC Berkeley in the 1960s. Yang himself was born and raised in New York. According to his campaign, Yang still has close family living in California. 3. Hes generally pro-immigrant The Democratic presidential hopeful has mixed views on the issue of immigration. He wants to offer people a pathway to citizenship to undocumented immigrants and said he is pro-immigrant, generally. He added that his parents would have been allowed to stay in the country under his presidency because they came to the country as students. He doesnt thinking rounding up and deporting immigrants is an option, but he wants to reward people who enter the United States legally or come to the country for college. One of the things I would do is staple a green card to the diploma of any international student who graduates from one of our universities, he said. It doesnt make sense to educate someone and then send them away to compete against you. 4. He has no shortage of ideas On Yangs campaign website, he outlines his positions on more than 75 issues, ranging from making Puerto Rico a state to providing everyone with access to free marriage counseling. If elected, he said a top priority would be forgiving a significant chunk of student loan debt because that is crippling the next generation. He also plans to tackle the opioid crisis by decriminalizing certain drugs to encourage people to seek treatment. His most interesting stance may be his personal opposition to circumcision. 5. Yang has a funny side Both Yang and President Donald Trump are wealthy, have business backgrounds, went to Ivy League colleges and grew up in New York. The opposite of Donald Trump is an Asian man who likes math, Yang told supporters at a March 15 San Francisco rally. He also may have already made an unrealistic campaign promise. In early March, he vowed to unify the country by offering to give everyone an HBO GO password so we could all watch Game of Thrones. It would cost nearly $5 billion a month for every American to gain access to the streaming service. | Andrew Yang, 44, is a venture capitalist who launched his bid for president in November 2017. He's all about universal basic income California is paving the way on the issue. Under his plan, all American adults over the age of 18 would get a $1,000 check from the federal government each month. | pegasus | 2 | https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article228090709.html | 0.33214 |
What age should children be allowed their own smartphone? | Getty Images Children nowadays are given their first smartphone at the age of 11, according to new research. It is often at around this age because this is when many children start secondary school. Having a smartphone is often one of the first devices on which you might you have independent access to the internet. The survey done by money services company OneFamily found that around one in three parents worry about the age at which their children should be allowed to use the internet unsupervised. So we want to know what you think. Let us know below. Oops you can't see this activity! To enjoy Newsround at its best you will need to have JavaScript turned on. If you cannot see the interactive activity on this page, click here. A lot of parents debate at what age you should be allowed to do certain things, and everybody has different opinions. In some families, younger siblings are allowed to do things for the first time at a younger age than their older brothers and sisters. The research said that, on average, a second child is allowed to get a computer or laptop a year earlier than their older sibling. Let us know in the comments below! | Children nowadays are given their first smartphone at the age of 11, according to new research. | pegasus | 0 | https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/47618141 | 0.433891 |
What age should children be allowed their own smartphone? | Getty Images Children nowadays are given their first smartphone at the age of 11, according to new research. It is often at around this age because this is when many children start secondary school. Having a smartphone is often one of the first devices on which you might you have independent access to the internet. The survey done by money services company OneFamily found that around one in three parents worry about the age at which their children should be allowed to use the internet unsupervised. So we want to know what you think. Let us know below. Oops you can't see this activity! To enjoy Newsround at its best you will need to have JavaScript turned on. If you cannot see the interactive activity on this page, click here. A lot of parents debate at what age you should be allowed to do certain things, and everybody has different opinions. In some families, younger siblings are allowed to do things for the first time at a younger age than their older brothers and sisters. The research said that, on average, a second child is allowed to get a computer or laptop a year earlier than their older sibling. Let us know in the comments below! | Children nowadays are given their first smartphone at the age of 11, according to new research. It is often at around this age because this is when many children start secondary school. | pegasus | 1 | https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/47618141 | 0.495777 |
What age should children be allowed their own smartphone? | Getty Images Children nowadays are given their first smartphone at the age of 11, according to new research. It is often at around this age because this is when many children start secondary school. Having a smartphone is often one of the first devices on which you might you have independent access to the internet. The survey done by money services company OneFamily found that around one in three parents worry about the age at which their children should be allowed to use the internet unsupervised. So we want to know what you think. Let us know below. Oops you can't see this activity! To enjoy Newsround at its best you will need to have JavaScript turned on. If you cannot see the interactive activity on this page, click here. A lot of parents debate at what age you should be allowed to do certain things, and everybody has different opinions. In some families, younger siblings are allowed to do things for the first time at a younger age than their older brothers and sisters. The research said that, on average, a second child is allowed to get a computer or laptop a year earlier than their older sibling. Let us know in the comments below! | Children nowadays are given their first smartphone at the age of 11, according to new research. It is often at around this age because this is when many children start secondary school. Having a smartphone is often one of the first devices on which you might you have independent access to the internet. | pegasus | 2 | https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/47618141 | 0.545739 |
Did Bob Stinson create the first NCAA tournament bracket pool? | Bob and Debby Stinson were an active couple in 1970s Louisville, regularly participating on co-ed softball and volleyball teams in the area. Each season would end with a single-elimination tournament laid out bracket-style. It was from one of those rec league sheets that Bob Stinson a man who grew up in the shadow of Churchill Downs and always enjoyed a small wager came up with an idea that seems so glaringly obvious now but qualified as an indelible stroke of genius for 1978. He looked at the brackets and said, I can do this for college basketball and we can bet on it and the winner can take the jackpot, Debby Stinson remembers. I thought it was great, she says. I love jackpots. [Best bracket wins $1M: Enter our free contest now! | Printable bracket] When they got back home, Bob Stinson sat down at the kitchen table with a ruler and a sheet of paper and went to work placing all 32 teams in the 1978 NCAA tournament into his carefully drawn bracket. He wrote up rules and devised a points system. When he was done, he made copies and started passing them out to friends and family. Fifteen people entered that first pool for the princely sum of $1 per sheet. Bob Stinson (R) is believed to be the first person to start an NCAA bracket pool. (Courtesy of the Stinson family) No one can quite remember who won the first edition, but it was a rough first time out for the pools creator. Stinson picked defending champ Marquette to repeat, but the Warriors were upset in the first round by Miami of Ohio. Kentucky, the biggest rival of his beloved Louisville, ended up winning the whole thing. Still, Stinson, who died at 68 last fall after a long battle with prostate cancer, felt like hed discovered something big. And maybe even invented the modern-day March Madness pool in the process. Story continues He was always proud of making that claim, Debby Stinson says with a chuckle. Its a bold claim, one that he first made in 1997 and has gone unchallenged since. Filling out a blank bracket has become so elemental to March that it seems like the tradition has always existed. Suggesting that someone came up with the idea to do it first seems like suggesting someone was the first to eat chicken wings or hate Duke. Yet there are two things impossible to ignore here: Someone had to run the first pool. Like picking a perfect bracket, its darn near impossible to figure out who that person was. Do a bit of research and youll find that two different sources have been credited for the birth of the bracket pool. The first and most widely cited ground zero is a bar in Staten Island named Jodys Club Forest. As the legend goes, proprietor Jody Haggerty started the contest around 1978. The contest among patrons grew into a much bigger phenomenon, with the purse reaching a reported $1.5 million in the early 2000s. The contest eventually met its demise in 2006 when the IRS stepped in to see where its take had been going. The Jodys Club Forest pool, however, was not a traditional bracket pool in the truest sense. Haggerty only asked entrants to correctly pick the Final Four and overall champion (with the final score of the championship game as a tiebreaker) instead of all the games in the tournament. The second source is Stinson, who believed he might have had something to do with the contest showing up in Staten Island. Stinson worked for the U.S. Postal Service and traveled extensively at the time. Hed show up to different offices on the East Coast with his photocopied brackets in tow. College basketball wasnt the religion in some of these places like it was back in Kentucky, and Larry Bird and Magic Johnson were still a year away from making the tournament a true national phenomenon. Still, those sheets were received well. He took it to New York, he took it to Philadelphia, he spread it around, says Damon Stinson, Bobs son. This was the late 70s and early 80s and people were like, This is the coolest thing ever. While theres no way to verify Stinsons tie to Jodys Club Forest Haggerty died in 2016 the spread of Stinsons pool back home is a little easier to trace. Each year, more and more family and friends would join what Debby called Bobs Jackpot. Eventually, the Louisville Courier-Journal started printing its own bracket in the paper, which Stinson loved because it meant he could put away his ruler and paper. Running the pool did not get much easier, though. While the prize amount never grew big enough to attract the attention of the IRS (entry fees never went much higher than $5), more and more loved ones wanted in on the fun. Stinson, who helped the USPS integrate computers into its offices and sorting systems, responded by designing a spreadsheet to keep track of entries first on Lotus 1-2-3, then later on Microsoft Excel. Tracking bracket entries electronically would soon become big business for places like Yahoo Sports, ESPN and even ncaa.com. I remember being a kid and being like, Why cant we take this out of the paper and fill it out like we always do it? Now I have to sit down and fill it out at the computer? Damon Stinson said. But Dad was doing what everybody was doing before everybody was doing it. He had it all figured out. Bob Stinson loved college hoops, even making the trek to Cameron Indoor Stadium. (Courtesy of the Stinson family) A claim that has gone unchallenged As NCAA tournament pools began to grow bigger and bigger, Stinson began to wonder if he was truly the first to organize one. So in 1997 he sent an overnight letter to Bob Hill, a columnist with the Louisville Courier-Journal, laying out his case. Stinson figured that if someone else had done one earlier than 1978, Hill would soon hear about it. Hill figured the same. Somebody is sure to call with the claim that he or she invented the NCAA Office Pool in 1939 the first year of the tournament, Hill wrote. But at least we now have a starting place, a legitimate nominee for Office Pool Hall of Fame even if only in the Postal Service Division. Hill wrote the column 22 years ago and still remembers receiving the letter from Stinson, even if he cant remember the details. He said he never heard from anyone disputing Stinsons version of events. At one point, I think he just wanted some vindication on it, Damon Stinson says when asked why his dad wrote the letter to Hill. My dad felt like if he made the claim that someday someone would claim against him, but it never happened. Bob Stinson eventually lost interest in running his pools in the early 2000s. He was a man of many hobbies he wrote novels and poems, won wood-turning competitions and loved being outdoors and coaching youth sports and there were other things vying for his attention. Once it got big on the internet, he really kind of stopped doing it at that point. It just ruined it for him, Damon Stinson says. It was his thing for the longest time and once it got out of his reach, he just kind of let it go. Why the first pool was most likely in the late 70s Even if Bob Stinson wasnt the first to organize a bracket pool, the yet-to-come-forward suspect was likely only a year or two ahead of him. Though the NCAA tournament was first held in 1939, a number of factors made the mid-to-late 70s a prime spot for the idea to germinate. The NCAA tournament increased in popularity:When it was first established, the NCAA played second fiddle to the NIT, which was held in Madison Square Garden. Its likely no one was lining up to wager on a regional sport played on a handful of college campuses. Additionally, only one team per conference was allowed to make the NCAA tourney until 1975, limiting the amount of interest in each geographical area. The fall of UCLA: John Woodens Bruins won 10 of 12 national titles from 1964-75, making the prognostication game a lot less entertaining. The rise of photocopiers and office culture: Imagine running a pool without a way to duplicate entry forms or an easy way to recruit participants. (It still took magazines and newspapers awhile to catch onto the trend and make it easy for readers to copy their pages. The first bracket didnt appear in Sports Illustrated until 1983, smack dab in the middle of an ad for Camel cigarettes.) A consistent number of teams: From 1953 to 1974, the NCAA tournament featured anywhere from 22-25 teams with seven to 10 byes, making for a convoluted bracket. The field stayed steady at 32 from 1975 to 78 before getting a bit crazy in the early 80s (between 48 and 53 teams with 16 byes) and finally settling into a symmetrical 64-team field from 1985-2000. While those four areas wouldve greased the skids for Stinson or someone else, consistent coverage of the tournament on ESPN and CBS, however, didnt start until 1982, making it logical that the first pool would spring up in an area that was well acquainted with college basketball and its leading teams. With its two powerful programs, Kentucky would have certainly fit that bill. Stinsons name lives on This is the first March the Stinson family is having without Bob and they say its been a rough one. Bob loved rooting on Louisville as well as his alma mater Bellarmine, a Division II program that won the national title in 2011. He was so avid about it and we watched all the games together, Debby Stinson said. Now Im a little disheartened. The Stinsons say theyre OK if someone sees this article and says they were running a bracket pool before 1978 because Bob would have been OK with it. They were overjoyed, however, when Yahoo Sports contacted them. Not only would this story keep Bobs memory alive, but itd allow them to help fulfill a promise that Bob made them make to raise awareness for prostate cancer. The disease is much easier to fight with early detection, something that Bob did not benefit from. He fought a long five-year battle, opting for as many trials and experimental treatments as he could. He died on September 20, 2018, but not before penning his own lengthy and accomplished obituary that never even mentioned his role in possibly inventing the bracket pool. He didnt want to die, says Damon Stinson. He was mad that he got it. He hated that he got it. My dad always said at the end, whatever you can do to get the word out, spread the awareness. Because if people get screened, they wont have to go through what Im going through. So maybe Bob Stinson is the father of the March Madness bracket pool. Or maybe he isnt. Either way, if hes the starting point for a talk about prostate cancer screenings, Debby Stinson would consider it a bigger jackpot than Bob could have ever arranged. More NCAA tournament coverage on Yahoo Sports: | Bob Stinson is believed to be the first person to start an NCAA bracket pool. | bart | 0 | https://sports.yahoo.com/did-bob-stinson-create-the-first-march-madness-pool-222011733.html?src=rss | 0.428261 |
Did Bob Stinson create the first NCAA tournament bracket pool? | Bob and Debby Stinson were an active couple in 1970s Louisville, regularly participating on co-ed softball and volleyball teams in the area. Each season would end with a single-elimination tournament laid out bracket-style. It was from one of those rec league sheets that Bob Stinson a man who grew up in the shadow of Churchill Downs and always enjoyed a small wager came up with an idea that seems so glaringly obvious now but qualified as an indelible stroke of genius for 1978. He looked at the brackets and said, I can do this for college basketball and we can bet on it and the winner can take the jackpot, Debby Stinson remembers. I thought it was great, she says. I love jackpots. [Best bracket wins $1M: Enter our free contest now! | Printable bracket] When they got back home, Bob Stinson sat down at the kitchen table with a ruler and a sheet of paper and went to work placing all 32 teams in the 1978 NCAA tournament into his carefully drawn bracket. He wrote up rules and devised a points system. When he was done, he made copies and started passing them out to friends and family. Fifteen people entered that first pool for the princely sum of $1 per sheet. Bob Stinson (R) is believed to be the first person to start an NCAA bracket pool. (Courtesy of the Stinson family) No one can quite remember who won the first edition, but it was a rough first time out for the pools creator. Stinson picked defending champ Marquette to repeat, but the Warriors were upset in the first round by Miami of Ohio. Kentucky, the biggest rival of his beloved Louisville, ended up winning the whole thing. Still, Stinson, who died at 68 last fall after a long battle with prostate cancer, felt like hed discovered something big. And maybe even invented the modern-day March Madness pool in the process. Story continues He was always proud of making that claim, Debby Stinson says with a chuckle. Its a bold claim, one that he first made in 1997 and has gone unchallenged since. Filling out a blank bracket has become so elemental to March that it seems like the tradition has always existed. Suggesting that someone came up with the idea to do it first seems like suggesting someone was the first to eat chicken wings or hate Duke. Yet there are two things impossible to ignore here: Someone had to run the first pool. Like picking a perfect bracket, its darn near impossible to figure out who that person was. Do a bit of research and youll find that two different sources have been credited for the birth of the bracket pool. The first and most widely cited ground zero is a bar in Staten Island named Jodys Club Forest. As the legend goes, proprietor Jody Haggerty started the contest around 1978. The contest among patrons grew into a much bigger phenomenon, with the purse reaching a reported $1.5 million in the early 2000s. The contest eventually met its demise in 2006 when the IRS stepped in to see where its take had been going. The Jodys Club Forest pool, however, was not a traditional bracket pool in the truest sense. Haggerty only asked entrants to correctly pick the Final Four and overall champion (with the final score of the championship game as a tiebreaker) instead of all the games in the tournament. The second source is Stinson, who believed he might have had something to do with the contest showing up in Staten Island. Stinson worked for the U.S. Postal Service and traveled extensively at the time. Hed show up to different offices on the East Coast with his photocopied brackets in tow. College basketball wasnt the religion in some of these places like it was back in Kentucky, and Larry Bird and Magic Johnson were still a year away from making the tournament a true national phenomenon. Still, those sheets were received well. He took it to New York, he took it to Philadelphia, he spread it around, says Damon Stinson, Bobs son. This was the late 70s and early 80s and people were like, This is the coolest thing ever. While theres no way to verify Stinsons tie to Jodys Club Forest Haggerty died in 2016 the spread of Stinsons pool back home is a little easier to trace. Each year, more and more family and friends would join what Debby called Bobs Jackpot. Eventually, the Louisville Courier-Journal started printing its own bracket in the paper, which Stinson loved because it meant he could put away his ruler and paper. Running the pool did not get much easier, though. While the prize amount never grew big enough to attract the attention of the IRS (entry fees never went much higher than $5), more and more loved ones wanted in on the fun. Stinson, who helped the USPS integrate computers into its offices and sorting systems, responded by designing a spreadsheet to keep track of entries first on Lotus 1-2-3, then later on Microsoft Excel. Tracking bracket entries electronically would soon become big business for places like Yahoo Sports, ESPN and even ncaa.com. I remember being a kid and being like, Why cant we take this out of the paper and fill it out like we always do it? Now I have to sit down and fill it out at the computer? Damon Stinson said. But Dad was doing what everybody was doing before everybody was doing it. He had it all figured out. Bob Stinson loved college hoops, even making the trek to Cameron Indoor Stadium. (Courtesy of the Stinson family) A claim that has gone unchallenged As NCAA tournament pools began to grow bigger and bigger, Stinson began to wonder if he was truly the first to organize one. So in 1997 he sent an overnight letter to Bob Hill, a columnist with the Louisville Courier-Journal, laying out his case. Stinson figured that if someone else had done one earlier than 1978, Hill would soon hear about it. Hill figured the same. Somebody is sure to call with the claim that he or she invented the NCAA Office Pool in 1939 the first year of the tournament, Hill wrote. But at least we now have a starting place, a legitimate nominee for Office Pool Hall of Fame even if only in the Postal Service Division. Hill wrote the column 22 years ago and still remembers receiving the letter from Stinson, even if he cant remember the details. He said he never heard from anyone disputing Stinsons version of events. At one point, I think he just wanted some vindication on it, Damon Stinson says when asked why his dad wrote the letter to Hill. My dad felt like if he made the claim that someday someone would claim against him, but it never happened. Bob Stinson eventually lost interest in running his pools in the early 2000s. He was a man of many hobbies he wrote novels and poems, won wood-turning competitions and loved being outdoors and coaching youth sports and there were other things vying for his attention. Once it got big on the internet, he really kind of stopped doing it at that point. It just ruined it for him, Damon Stinson says. It was his thing for the longest time and once it got out of his reach, he just kind of let it go. Why the first pool was most likely in the late 70s Even if Bob Stinson wasnt the first to organize a bracket pool, the yet-to-come-forward suspect was likely only a year or two ahead of him. Though the NCAA tournament was first held in 1939, a number of factors made the mid-to-late 70s a prime spot for the idea to germinate. The NCAA tournament increased in popularity:When it was first established, the NCAA played second fiddle to the NIT, which was held in Madison Square Garden. Its likely no one was lining up to wager on a regional sport played on a handful of college campuses. Additionally, only one team per conference was allowed to make the NCAA tourney until 1975, limiting the amount of interest in each geographical area. The fall of UCLA: John Woodens Bruins won 10 of 12 national titles from 1964-75, making the prognostication game a lot less entertaining. The rise of photocopiers and office culture: Imagine running a pool without a way to duplicate entry forms or an easy way to recruit participants. (It still took magazines and newspapers awhile to catch onto the trend and make it easy for readers to copy their pages. The first bracket didnt appear in Sports Illustrated until 1983, smack dab in the middle of an ad for Camel cigarettes.) A consistent number of teams: From 1953 to 1974, the NCAA tournament featured anywhere from 22-25 teams with seven to 10 byes, making for a convoluted bracket. The field stayed steady at 32 from 1975 to 78 before getting a bit crazy in the early 80s (between 48 and 53 teams with 16 byes) and finally settling into a symmetrical 64-team field from 1985-2000. While those four areas wouldve greased the skids for Stinson or someone else, consistent coverage of the tournament on ESPN and CBS, however, didnt start until 1982, making it logical that the first pool would spring up in an area that was well acquainted with college basketball and its leading teams. With its two powerful programs, Kentucky would have certainly fit that bill. Stinsons name lives on This is the first March the Stinson family is having without Bob and they say its been a rough one. Bob loved rooting on Louisville as well as his alma mater Bellarmine, a Division II program that won the national title in 2011. He was so avid about it and we watched all the games together, Debby Stinson said. Now Im a little disheartened. The Stinsons say theyre OK if someone sees this article and says they were running a bracket pool before 1978 because Bob would have been OK with it. They were overjoyed, however, when Yahoo Sports contacted them. Not only would this story keep Bobs memory alive, but itd allow them to help fulfill a promise that Bob made them make to raise awareness for prostate cancer. The disease is much easier to fight with early detection, something that Bob did not benefit from. He fought a long five-year battle, opting for as many trials and experimental treatments as he could. He died on September 20, 2018, but not before penning his own lengthy and accomplished obituary that never even mentioned his role in possibly inventing the bracket pool. He didnt want to die, says Damon Stinson. He was mad that he got it. He hated that he got it. My dad always said at the end, whatever you can do to get the word out, spread the awareness. Because if people get screened, they wont have to go through what Im going through. So maybe Bob Stinson is the father of the March Madness bracket pool. Or maybe he isnt. Either way, if hes the starting point for a talk about prostate cancer screenings, Debby Stinson would consider it a bigger jackpot than Bob could have ever arranged. More NCAA tournament coverage on Yahoo Sports: | Bob Stinson is believed to be the first person to start an NCAA bracket pool. Fifteen people entered the first pool for the princely sum of $1 per sheet. Stinson died at 68 last fall after a long battle with prostate cancer. | pegasus | 1 | https://sports.yahoo.com/did-bob-stinson-create-the-first-march-madness-pool-222011733.html?src=rss | 0.484913 |
Did Bob Stinson create the first NCAA tournament bracket pool? | Bob and Debby Stinson were an active couple in 1970s Louisville, regularly participating on co-ed softball and volleyball teams in the area. Each season would end with a single-elimination tournament laid out bracket-style. It was from one of those rec league sheets that Bob Stinson a man who grew up in the shadow of Churchill Downs and always enjoyed a small wager came up with an idea that seems so glaringly obvious now but qualified as an indelible stroke of genius for 1978. He looked at the brackets and said, I can do this for college basketball and we can bet on it and the winner can take the jackpot, Debby Stinson remembers. I thought it was great, she says. I love jackpots. [Best bracket wins $1M: Enter our free contest now! | Printable bracket] When they got back home, Bob Stinson sat down at the kitchen table with a ruler and a sheet of paper and went to work placing all 32 teams in the 1978 NCAA tournament into his carefully drawn bracket. He wrote up rules and devised a points system. When he was done, he made copies and started passing them out to friends and family. Fifteen people entered that first pool for the princely sum of $1 per sheet. Bob Stinson (R) is believed to be the first person to start an NCAA bracket pool. (Courtesy of the Stinson family) No one can quite remember who won the first edition, but it was a rough first time out for the pools creator. Stinson picked defending champ Marquette to repeat, but the Warriors were upset in the first round by Miami of Ohio. Kentucky, the biggest rival of his beloved Louisville, ended up winning the whole thing. Still, Stinson, who died at 68 last fall after a long battle with prostate cancer, felt like hed discovered something big. And maybe even invented the modern-day March Madness pool in the process. Story continues He was always proud of making that claim, Debby Stinson says with a chuckle. Its a bold claim, one that he first made in 1997 and has gone unchallenged since. Filling out a blank bracket has become so elemental to March that it seems like the tradition has always existed. Suggesting that someone came up with the idea to do it first seems like suggesting someone was the first to eat chicken wings or hate Duke. Yet there are two things impossible to ignore here: Someone had to run the first pool. Like picking a perfect bracket, its darn near impossible to figure out who that person was. Do a bit of research and youll find that two different sources have been credited for the birth of the bracket pool. The first and most widely cited ground zero is a bar in Staten Island named Jodys Club Forest. As the legend goes, proprietor Jody Haggerty started the contest around 1978. The contest among patrons grew into a much bigger phenomenon, with the purse reaching a reported $1.5 million in the early 2000s. The contest eventually met its demise in 2006 when the IRS stepped in to see where its take had been going. The Jodys Club Forest pool, however, was not a traditional bracket pool in the truest sense. Haggerty only asked entrants to correctly pick the Final Four and overall champion (with the final score of the championship game as a tiebreaker) instead of all the games in the tournament. The second source is Stinson, who believed he might have had something to do with the contest showing up in Staten Island. Stinson worked for the U.S. Postal Service and traveled extensively at the time. Hed show up to different offices on the East Coast with his photocopied brackets in tow. College basketball wasnt the religion in some of these places like it was back in Kentucky, and Larry Bird and Magic Johnson were still a year away from making the tournament a true national phenomenon. Still, those sheets were received well. He took it to New York, he took it to Philadelphia, he spread it around, says Damon Stinson, Bobs son. This was the late 70s and early 80s and people were like, This is the coolest thing ever. While theres no way to verify Stinsons tie to Jodys Club Forest Haggerty died in 2016 the spread of Stinsons pool back home is a little easier to trace. Each year, more and more family and friends would join what Debby called Bobs Jackpot. Eventually, the Louisville Courier-Journal started printing its own bracket in the paper, which Stinson loved because it meant he could put away his ruler and paper. Running the pool did not get much easier, though. While the prize amount never grew big enough to attract the attention of the IRS (entry fees never went much higher than $5), more and more loved ones wanted in on the fun. Stinson, who helped the USPS integrate computers into its offices and sorting systems, responded by designing a spreadsheet to keep track of entries first on Lotus 1-2-3, then later on Microsoft Excel. Tracking bracket entries electronically would soon become big business for places like Yahoo Sports, ESPN and even ncaa.com. I remember being a kid and being like, Why cant we take this out of the paper and fill it out like we always do it? Now I have to sit down and fill it out at the computer? Damon Stinson said. But Dad was doing what everybody was doing before everybody was doing it. He had it all figured out. Bob Stinson loved college hoops, even making the trek to Cameron Indoor Stadium. (Courtesy of the Stinson family) A claim that has gone unchallenged As NCAA tournament pools began to grow bigger and bigger, Stinson began to wonder if he was truly the first to organize one. So in 1997 he sent an overnight letter to Bob Hill, a columnist with the Louisville Courier-Journal, laying out his case. Stinson figured that if someone else had done one earlier than 1978, Hill would soon hear about it. Hill figured the same. Somebody is sure to call with the claim that he or she invented the NCAA Office Pool in 1939 the first year of the tournament, Hill wrote. But at least we now have a starting place, a legitimate nominee for Office Pool Hall of Fame even if only in the Postal Service Division. Hill wrote the column 22 years ago and still remembers receiving the letter from Stinson, even if he cant remember the details. He said he never heard from anyone disputing Stinsons version of events. At one point, I think he just wanted some vindication on it, Damon Stinson says when asked why his dad wrote the letter to Hill. My dad felt like if he made the claim that someday someone would claim against him, but it never happened. Bob Stinson eventually lost interest in running his pools in the early 2000s. He was a man of many hobbies he wrote novels and poems, won wood-turning competitions and loved being outdoors and coaching youth sports and there were other things vying for his attention. Once it got big on the internet, he really kind of stopped doing it at that point. It just ruined it for him, Damon Stinson says. It was his thing for the longest time and once it got out of his reach, he just kind of let it go. Why the first pool was most likely in the late 70s Even if Bob Stinson wasnt the first to organize a bracket pool, the yet-to-come-forward suspect was likely only a year or two ahead of him. Though the NCAA tournament was first held in 1939, a number of factors made the mid-to-late 70s a prime spot for the idea to germinate. The NCAA tournament increased in popularity:When it was first established, the NCAA played second fiddle to the NIT, which was held in Madison Square Garden. Its likely no one was lining up to wager on a regional sport played on a handful of college campuses. Additionally, only one team per conference was allowed to make the NCAA tourney until 1975, limiting the amount of interest in each geographical area. The fall of UCLA: John Woodens Bruins won 10 of 12 national titles from 1964-75, making the prognostication game a lot less entertaining. The rise of photocopiers and office culture: Imagine running a pool without a way to duplicate entry forms or an easy way to recruit participants. (It still took magazines and newspapers awhile to catch onto the trend and make it easy for readers to copy their pages. The first bracket didnt appear in Sports Illustrated until 1983, smack dab in the middle of an ad for Camel cigarettes.) A consistent number of teams: From 1953 to 1974, the NCAA tournament featured anywhere from 22-25 teams with seven to 10 byes, making for a convoluted bracket. The field stayed steady at 32 from 1975 to 78 before getting a bit crazy in the early 80s (between 48 and 53 teams with 16 byes) and finally settling into a symmetrical 64-team field from 1985-2000. While those four areas wouldve greased the skids for Stinson or someone else, consistent coverage of the tournament on ESPN and CBS, however, didnt start until 1982, making it logical that the first pool would spring up in an area that was well acquainted with college basketball and its leading teams. With its two powerful programs, Kentucky would have certainly fit that bill. Stinsons name lives on This is the first March the Stinson family is having without Bob and they say its been a rough one. Bob loved rooting on Louisville as well as his alma mater Bellarmine, a Division II program that won the national title in 2011. He was so avid about it and we watched all the games together, Debby Stinson said. Now Im a little disheartened. The Stinsons say theyre OK if someone sees this article and says they were running a bracket pool before 1978 because Bob would have been OK with it. They were overjoyed, however, when Yahoo Sports contacted them. Not only would this story keep Bobs memory alive, but itd allow them to help fulfill a promise that Bob made them make to raise awareness for prostate cancer. The disease is much easier to fight with early detection, something that Bob did not benefit from. He fought a long five-year battle, opting for as many trials and experimental treatments as he could. He died on September 20, 2018, but not before penning his own lengthy and accomplished obituary that never even mentioned his role in possibly inventing the bracket pool. He didnt want to die, says Damon Stinson. He was mad that he got it. He hated that he got it. My dad always said at the end, whatever you can do to get the word out, spread the awareness. Because if people get screened, they wont have to go through what Im going through. So maybe Bob Stinson is the father of the March Madness bracket pool. Or maybe he isnt. Either way, if hes the starting point for a talk about prostate cancer screenings, Debby Stinson would consider it a bigger jackpot than Bob could have ever arranged. More NCAA tournament coverage on Yahoo Sports: | Bob Stinson is believed to be the first person to start an NCAA bracket pool. It's a bold claim, one that he first made in 1997 and has gone unchallenged since. Two different sources have been credited for the birth of the bracket pool in 1978. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://sports.yahoo.com/did-bob-stinson-create-the-first-march-madness-pool-222011733.html?src=rss | 0.561229 |
Why oysters so important to UK seas? | To enjoy the CBBC Newsround website at its best you will need to have JavaScript turned on. How moving oysters can protect the marine environment These oysters are taking an epic journey. They're going from Loch Ryan in south-west Scotland down to Spurn Point in Humber in Yorkshire. Well the Humber used to have lots of oysters of its own but with too many being caught, they've now become almost extinct in this part of the country. But the shellfish play a vital role in keeping the water clean. When oysters feed they take in nutrients like nitrogen, absorbing it into their shells and tissue. While nitrogen is an essential nutrient for plants and animals, too much of it leads to a growth in algae, which can overwhelm and reduce oxygen levels in the water. So when the Oysters reduce these nitrogen levels, they're actually improving the water quality so other fish and sea creatures can live there too. It'll be a few months before scientists will be able tell if the oysters here have made an impact - with this special robot camera taking a trip down to the seabed to keep an eye on things. Let's hope they little guys settle into their new home quickly and get down to work! | The Humber used to have lots of oysters of its own but with too many being caught, they've become almost extinct in this part of the country. Oysters play a vital role in keeping the water clean. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/47635912 | 0.195158 |
Why oysters so important to UK seas? | To enjoy the CBBC Newsround website at its best you will need to have JavaScript turned on. How moving oysters can protect the marine environment These oysters are taking an epic journey. They're going from Loch Ryan in south-west Scotland down to Spurn Point in Humber in Yorkshire. Well the Humber used to have lots of oysters of its own but with too many being caught, they've now become almost extinct in this part of the country. But the shellfish play a vital role in keeping the water clean. When oysters feed they take in nutrients like nitrogen, absorbing it into their shells and tissue. While nitrogen is an essential nutrient for plants and animals, too much of it leads to a growth in algae, which can overwhelm and reduce oxygen levels in the water. So when the Oysters reduce these nitrogen levels, they're actually improving the water quality so other fish and sea creatures can live there too. It'll be a few months before scientists will be able tell if the oysters here have made an impact - with this special robot camera taking a trip down to the seabed to keep an eye on things. Let's hope they little guys settle into their new home quickly and get down to work! | Oysters are going from Loch Ryan in south-west Scotland down to Spurn Point in Humber in Yorkshire. The Humber used to have lots of oysters of its own but with too many being caught, they've now become almost extinct in this part of the country. Oysters play a vital role in keeping the water clean. | bart | 2 | https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/47635912 | 0.240972 |
What Was It Like When Oxygen Appeared And Almost Murdered All Life On Earth? | Although it was more than 4 billion years ago that planet Earth formed, it was just a few hundred million years later, at most, that life arose on our world. For all the years since then, it's thrived and evolved, enabling it to find a way to exist in practically every environmental niche that Earth possessed. But 2 billion years after Earth first took shape, life almost ended. The atmosphere had slowly been altered by the gradual addition of oxygen, which proved to be fatal to the most common type of organism present on Earth at the time. For hundreds of millions of years, the Earth entered a horrific ice age which froze the entire surface: known today as a Snowball Earth scenario. It was a disaster that almost ended life on Earth entirely. Here's the story of our near-death and ultimate survival. One of the simplest experiments you can do in biology class is to put a group of cells into a nutrient solution, like yeast in molasses. The organisms will initially become very successful, as food is abundant, there's no competition for resources, and they can easily survive and reproduce. If you count the living organisms inside, that number will start growing exponentially. But, in short order, all of that will change. Yeast consume food through the process of fermentation. The cells feed on sugar by converting it into alcohol, ATP (which gets used for energy), and carbon dioxide as a waste product. But if you have a liquid water solution and you add carbon dioxide to it, it forms carbonic acid. At some critical point, it becomes too acidic for yeast to survive, and the population crashes. This might be a simple biological scenario, but its results are nearly universal. In the presence of virtually no competitors or predators, and given practically unlimited resources, a living population will grow at an exponential rate. It will consume the available resources, produce whatever metabolism products it produces, and then reproduce in greater-than-replacement-level numbers. The next generation will then consume more, produce more of its metabolites, and reproduce in even greater numbers. So long as resources are freely available, this process will continue. Until, that is, the metabolic processes it has been undergoing build up to a critical level where it poisons its environment. If this sounds like what the yeast did or what modern humans are doing with CO2 you've put the pieces together correctly. Organisms, if left unchecked, will poison their habitat with the waste products of their own success. But we are not the first to encounter this problem, nor were the much more primitive yeast cells. In the very early stages of our Solar System, a simple form of prokaryotic life arose: unicellular organisms. Although we don't know the properties of the hypothesized protocells that theoretically gave rise to the first unicellular organisms, there is clear evidence of unicellular bacteria by time the Earth was perhaps 500 million years old: around 4 billion years ago. Evolution then went in many different directions, as expected, to fill every available ecological niche. Archaea arose, able to survive in the deep sea around hydrothermal vents. Plasmids, which carry genes responsible for novel abilities, arose as independent DNA molecules, unattached to the bacterial chromosome itself. And, hundreds of millions of years later, the first fully photosynthetic organisms came to be. By the time we fast-forward to 3.4 billion years ago, the first evidence for photosynthesis in living organisms starts to appear. There are a number of different ways that photosynthesis can occur, but all involve sunlight of a particular wavelength striking a molecule that can absorb it, exciting an electron that can then have its energy used in life processes. Many organisms, such as green and purple sulfur and nonsulfur bacteria, make use of a variety of molecules to provide the electrons in their reactions, such as hydrogen, sulfur, and numerous acids. But organisms also evolved that use water as electron donors: the cyanobacteria, known as blue-green algae. Unlike the other (generally, but not universally, thought to be earlier) organisms, cyanobacteria produce molecular oxygen as a waste product. Cyanobacteria still survive today, and are the only photosynthetic prokaryotes that produce oxygen. They seem to be more evolved than the other, non-oxygen producing photosynthetic prokaryotes. These blue-green algae possesses internal membranes (unlike the others), and are known to have arisen no later than 2.5 billion years ago. The evidence we have is straightforward: right around that time, Earth's atmosphere began to display evidence for having free oxygen present within it. Slowly but surely, the oxygen content began to build, and an organism with a seemingly unlimited resource sunlight began to poison its environment. Oxygen, you see, is not just corrosive and flammable; it's also the cause of the greatest climate disaster in history: the Huronian Glaciation. Considering that the Sun's energy output was much lower in the early stages, this large amount of methane was the only thing keeping Earth as a relatively temperate planet. With the oxygen destroying that powerful greenhouse gas, the planet couldn't retain its heat as well. The greatest ice age in history, which led to Snowball Earth conditions for approximately 300 million years, was now upon us. The evidence is overwhelming for incredibly cold conditions covering the entire planet at this time. Glacial deposits throughout northern North America (but also found as far away as Australia) display multiple sediment deposits found between layers of glacial deposits between 2.5 and 2.0 billion years ago. Evidence for past glaciation events, where glacial deposits were made at then-tropical latitudes, has been very strong for more than half a century. Forming a Snowball Earth is unfortunately very easy, as it appears to be a runaway process. If ice sheets advance far enough out of the polar regions, it increases the total reflectiveness of the planet, meaning less solar energy is absorbed by the Earth. This leads to further cooling and the formation of more ice, eventually covering the entire surface of the planet continents and oceans both included in ice. As catastrophic as this was for life on Earth, though, it didn't end it. The cyanobacteria continued to thrive, while smaller populations of other organisms, facing tremendous selection pressures and a changing environment, evolved in a different direction. More complex creatures, accumulating large numbers of genes and novel abilities, stood better chances of surviving, as they were more resilient to change. Meanwhile, volcanoes continued to erupt beneath the ice. These build-ups of carbon dioxide could increase the greenhouse effect in the atmosphere, while the simultaneous production of ash could decrease the reflectivity of Earth, allowing us to eventually break out of this glaciation era. While it lasted for approximately 300 million years, the end of the Huronian Glaciation coincides with the first evidence we have for eukaryotic life. Cells now existed that had enclosed, separated organelles that could carry out independent functions. Eukaryotes would later give rise to all the extant protists, plants, fungi and animals that exist today; it's arguable that human-like life would never have arisen if oxygen had never destroyed our methane-rich atmosphere and led to this ancient, Snowball Earth scenario. This period of time in Earth's history may have been the greatest mass extinction our planet has ever faced. Yet even at this primitive stage, life remained ubiquitous and resilient, and the destruction of the existing, dominant species allowed other, new organisms to evolve and rise to fill the vacant ecological niches. The Great Oxygenation Event was a transformative occurrence in Earth's history. Without it, life may never have become complex, differentiated, and capable of giving rise to intelligent organisms like us. Further reading on what the Universe was like when: | 2 billion years after Earth formed, life almost ended. The atmosphere had slowly been altered by the gradual addition of oxygen. | pegasus | 0 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2019/03/20/what-was-it-like-when-oxygen-appeared-and-almost-murdered-all-life-on-earth/ | 0.15104 |
What Was It Like When Oxygen Appeared And Almost Murdered All Life On Earth? | Although it was more than 4 billion years ago that planet Earth formed, it was just a few hundred million years later, at most, that life arose on our world. For all the years since then, it's thrived and evolved, enabling it to find a way to exist in practically every environmental niche that Earth possessed. But 2 billion years after Earth first took shape, life almost ended. The atmosphere had slowly been altered by the gradual addition of oxygen, which proved to be fatal to the most common type of organism present on Earth at the time. For hundreds of millions of years, the Earth entered a horrific ice age which froze the entire surface: known today as a Snowball Earth scenario. It was a disaster that almost ended life on Earth entirely. Here's the story of our near-death and ultimate survival. One of the simplest experiments you can do in biology class is to put a group of cells into a nutrient solution, like yeast in molasses. The organisms will initially become very successful, as food is abundant, there's no competition for resources, and they can easily survive and reproduce. If you count the living organisms inside, that number will start growing exponentially. But, in short order, all of that will change. Yeast consume food through the process of fermentation. The cells feed on sugar by converting it into alcohol, ATP (which gets used for energy), and carbon dioxide as a waste product. But if you have a liquid water solution and you add carbon dioxide to it, it forms carbonic acid. At some critical point, it becomes too acidic for yeast to survive, and the population crashes. This might be a simple biological scenario, but its results are nearly universal. In the presence of virtually no competitors or predators, and given practically unlimited resources, a living population will grow at an exponential rate. It will consume the available resources, produce whatever metabolism products it produces, and then reproduce in greater-than-replacement-level numbers. The next generation will then consume more, produce more of its metabolites, and reproduce in even greater numbers. So long as resources are freely available, this process will continue. Until, that is, the metabolic processes it has been undergoing build up to a critical level where it poisons its environment. If this sounds like what the yeast did or what modern humans are doing with CO2 you've put the pieces together correctly. Organisms, if left unchecked, will poison their habitat with the waste products of their own success. But we are not the first to encounter this problem, nor were the much more primitive yeast cells. In the very early stages of our Solar System, a simple form of prokaryotic life arose: unicellular organisms. Although we don't know the properties of the hypothesized protocells that theoretically gave rise to the first unicellular organisms, there is clear evidence of unicellular bacteria by time the Earth was perhaps 500 million years old: around 4 billion years ago. Evolution then went in many different directions, as expected, to fill every available ecological niche. Archaea arose, able to survive in the deep sea around hydrothermal vents. Plasmids, which carry genes responsible for novel abilities, arose as independent DNA molecules, unattached to the bacterial chromosome itself. And, hundreds of millions of years later, the first fully photosynthetic organisms came to be. By the time we fast-forward to 3.4 billion years ago, the first evidence for photosynthesis in living organisms starts to appear. There are a number of different ways that photosynthesis can occur, but all involve sunlight of a particular wavelength striking a molecule that can absorb it, exciting an electron that can then have its energy used in life processes. Many organisms, such as green and purple sulfur and nonsulfur bacteria, make use of a variety of molecules to provide the electrons in their reactions, such as hydrogen, sulfur, and numerous acids. But organisms also evolved that use water as electron donors: the cyanobacteria, known as blue-green algae. Unlike the other (generally, but not universally, thought to be earlier) organisms, cyanobacteria produce molecular oxygen as a waste product. Cyanobacteria still survive today, and are the only photosynthetic prokaryotes that produce oxygen. They seem to be more evolved than the other, non-oxygen producing photosynthetic prokaryotes. These blue-green algae possesses internal membranes (unlike the others), and are known to have arisen no later than 2.5 billion years ago. The evidence we have is straightforward: right around that time, Earth's atmosphere began to display evidence for having free oxygen present within it. Slowly but surely, the oxygen content began to build, and an organism with a seemingly unlimited resource sunlight began to poison its environment. Oxygen, you see, is not just corrosive and flammable; it's also the cause of the greatest climate disaster in history: the Huronian Glaciation. Considering that the Sun's energy output was much lower in the early stages, this large amount of methane was the only thing keeping Earth as a relatively temperate planet. With the oxygen destroying that powerful greenhouse gas, the planet couldn't retain its heat as well. The greatest ice age in history, which led to Snowball Earth conditions for approximately 300 million years, was now upon us. The evidence is overwhelming for incredibly cold conditions covering the entire planet at this time. Glacial deposits throughout northern North America (but also found as far away as Australia) display multiple sediment deposits found between layers of glacial deposits between 2.5 and 2.0 billion years ago. Evidence for past glaciation events, where glacial deposits were made at then-tropical latitudes, has been very strong for more than half a century. Forming a Snowball Earth is unfortunately very easy, as it appears to be a runaway process. If ice sheets advance far enough out of the polar regions, it increases the total reflectiveness of the planet, meaning less solar energy is absorbed by the Earth. This leads to further cooling and the formation of more ice, eventually covering the entire surface of the planet continents and oceans both included in ice. As catastrophic as this was for life on Earth, though, it didn't end it. The cyanobacteria continued to thrive, while smaller populations of other organisms, facing tremendous selection pressures and a changing environment, evolved in a different direction. More complex creatures, accumulating large numbers of genes and novel abilities, stood better chances of surviving, as they were more resilient to change. Meanwhile, volcanoes continued to erupt beneath the ice. These build-ups of carbon dioxide could increase the greenhouse effect in the atmosphere, while the simultaneous production of ash could decrease the reflectivity of Earth, allowing us to eventually break out of this glaciation era. While it lasted for approximately 300 million years, the end of the Huronian Glaciation coincides with the first evidence we have for eukaryotic life. Cells now existed that had enclosed, separated organelles that could carry out independent functions. Eukaryotes would later give rise to all the extant protists, plants, fungi and animals that exist today; it's arguable that human-like life would never have arisen if oxygen had never destroyed our methane-rich atmosphere and led to this ancient, Snowball Earth scenario. This period of time in Earth's history may have been the greatest mass extinction our planet has ever faced. Yet even at this primitive stage, life remained ubiquitous and resilient, and the destruction of the existing, dominant species allowed other, new organisms to evolve and rise to fill the vacant ecological niches. The Great Oxygenation Event was a transformative occurrence in Earth's history. Without it, life may never have become complex, differentiated, and capable of giving rise to intelligent organisms like us. Further reading on what the Universe was like when: | Life on Earth almost ended 2 billion years ago when oxygen appeared on the planet. The Earth entered a horrific ice age which froze the entire surface: known as a Snowball Earth scenario. | ctrlsum | 1 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2019/03/20/what-was-it-like-when-oxygen-appeared-and-almost-murdered-all-life-on-earth/ | 0.479202 |
What Was It Like When Oxygen Appeared And Almost Murdered All Life On Earth? | Although it was more than 4 billion years ago that planet Earth formed, it was just a few hundred million years later, at most, that life arose on our world. For all the years since then, it's thrived and evolved, enabling it to find a way to exist in practically every environmental niche that Earth possessed. But 2 billion years after Earth first took shape, life almost ended. The atmosphere had slowly been altered by the gradual addition of oxygen, which proved to be fatal to the most common type of organism present on Earth at the time. For hundreds of millions of years, the Earth entered a horrific ice age which froze the entire surface: known today as a Snowball Earth scenario. It was a disaster that almost ended life on Earth entirely. Here's the story of our near-death and ultimate survival. One of the simplest experiments you can do in biology class is to put a group of cells into a nutrient solution, like yeast in molasses. The organisms will initially become very successful, as food is abundant, there's no competition for resources, and they can easily survive and reproduce. If you count the living organisms inside, that number will start growing exponentially. But, in short order, all of that will change. Yeast consume food through the process of fermentation. The cells feed on sugar by converting it into alcohol, ATP (which gets used for energy), and carbon dioxide as a waste product. But if you have a liquid water solution and you add carbon dioxide to it, it forms carbonic acid. At some critical point, it becomes too acidic for yeast to survive, and the population crashes. This might be a simple biological scenario, but its results are nearly universal. In the presence of virtually no competitors or predators, and given practically unlimited resources, a living population will grow at an exponential rate. It will consume the available resources, produce whatever metabolism products it produces, and then reproduce in greater-than-replacement-level numbers. The next generation will then consume more, produce more of its metabolites, and reproduce in even greater numbers. So long as resources are freely available, this process will continue. Until, that is, the metabolic processes it has been undergoing build up to a critical level where it poisons its environment. If this sounds like what the yeast did or what modern humans are doing with CO2 you've put the pieces together correctly. Organisms, if left unchecked, will poison their habitat with the waste products of their own success. But we are not the first to encounter this problem, nor were the much more primitive yeast cells. In the very early stages of our Solar System, a simple form of prokaryotic life arose: unicellular organisms. Although we don't know the properties of the hypothesized protocells that theoretically gave rise to the first unicellular organisms, there is clear evidence of unicellular bacteria by time the Earth was perhaps 500 million years old: around 4 billion years ago. Evolution then went in many different directions, as expected, to fill every available ecological niche. Archaea arose, able to survive in the deep sea around hydrothermal vents. Plasmids, which carry genes responsible for novel abilities, arose as independent DNA molecules, unattached to the bacterial chromosome itself. And, hundreds of millions of years later, the first fully photosynthetic organisms came to be. By the time we fast-forward to 3.4 billion years ago, the first evidence for photosynthesis in living organisms starts to appear. There are a number of different ways that photosynthesis can occur, but all involve sunlight of a particular wavelength striking a molecule that can absorb it, exciting an electron that can then have its energy used in life processes. Many organisms, such as green and purple sulfur and nonsulfur bacteria, make use of a variety of molecules to provide the electrons in their reactions, such as hydrogen, sulfur, and numerous acids. But organisms also evolved that use water as electron donors: the cyanobacteria, known as blue-green algae. Unlike the other (generally, but not universally, thought to be earlier) organisms, cyanobacteria produce molecular oxygen as a waste product. Cyanobacteria still survive today, and are the only photosynthetic prokaryotes that produce oxygen. They seem to be more evolved than the other, non-oxygen producing photosynthetic prokaryotes. These blue-green algae possesses internal membranes (unlike the others), and are known to have arisen no later than 2.5 billion years ago. The evidence we have is straightforward: right around that time, Earth's atmosphere began to display evidence for having free oxygen present within it. Slowly but surely, the oxygen content began to build, and an organism with a seemingly unlimited resource sunlight began to poison its environment. Oxygen, you see, is not just corrosive and flammable; it's also the cause of the greatest climate disaster in history: the Huronian Glaciation. Considering that the Sun's energy output was much lower in the early stages, this large amount of methane was the only thing keeping Earth as a relatively temperate planet. With the oxygen destroying that powerful greenhouse gas, the planet couldn't retain its heat as well. The greatest ice age in history, which led to Snowball Earth conditions for approximately 300 million years, was now upon us. The evidence is overwhelming for incredibly cold conditions covering the entire planet at this time. Glacial deposits throughout northern North America (but also found as far away as Australia) display multiple sediment deposits found between layers of glacial deposits between 2.5 and 2.0 billion years ago. Evidence for past glaciation events, where glacial deposits were made at then-tropical latitudes, has been very strong for more than half a century. Forming a Snowball Earth is unfortunately very easy, as it appears to be a runaway process. If ice sheets advance far enough out of the polar regions, it increases the total reflectiveness of the planet, meaning less solar energy is absorbed by the Earth. This leads to further cooling and the formation of more ice, eventually covering the entire surface of the planet continents and oceans both included in ice. As catastrophic as this was for life on Earth, though, it didn't end it. The cyanobacteria continued to thrive, while smaller populations of other organisms, facing tremendous selection pressures and a changing environment, evolved in a different direction. More complex creatures, accumulating large numbers of genes and novel abilities, stood better chances of surviving, as they were more resilient to change. Meanwhile, volcanoes continued to erupt beneath the ice. These build-ups of carbon dioxide could increase the greenhouse effect in the atmosphere, while the simultaneous production of ash could decrease the reflectivity of Earth, allowing us to eventually break out of this glaciation era. While it lasted for approximately 300 million years, the end of the Huronian Glaciation coincides with the first evidence we have for eukaryotic life. Cells now existed that had enclosed, separated organelles that could carry out independent functions. Eukaryotes would later give rise to all the extant protists, plants, fungi and animals that exist today; it's arguable that human-like life would never have arisen if oxygen had never destroyed our methane-rich atmosphere and led to this ancient, Snowball Earth scenario. This period of time in Earth's history may have been the greatest mass extinction our planet has ever faced. Yet even at this primitive stage, life remained ubiquitous and resilient, and the destruction of the existing, dominant species allowed other, new organisms to evolve and rise to fill the vacant ecological niches. The Great Oxygenation Event was a transformative occurrence in Earth's history. Without it, life may never have become complex, differentiated, and capable of giving rise to intelligent organisms like us. Further reading on what the Universe was like when: | Life on Earth almost ended 2 billion years ago when oxygen appeared on the planet. The Earth entered a horrific ice age which froze the entire surface: known today as a Snowball Earth scenario. We are not the first to encounter this problem, nor were the much more primitive yeast cells. | ctrlsum | 2 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2019/03/20/what-was-it-like-when-oxygen-appeared-and-almost-murdered-all-life-on-earth/ | 0.547008 |
Why did P&O use a shuttle bus on our cruise to Amsterdam? | A group of us booked a four-day P&O cruise from Southampton on 22 March, docking in Amsterdam early Saturday until late Monday giving us direct access to the city. Last month, we learned the ship will dock at a location 40 minutes away by shuttle bus. P&O did not contact us about this. Anyone wishing to take three daily meals on board (part of the package) and spend the rest of the day in Amsterdam, would spend at least six hours daily on the bus. P&O says there was nothing it could do. I suspect its because the cost of docking at Amsterdam increased substantially in January. GM, Mere, Wiltshire Disgracefully, P&O was still advertising the package as a cruise to Amsterdam this month. Only in the itinerary, below the sales blurb extolling the attractions of the city, was the port of IJmuiden mentioned. Passengers would have to Google it to discover its 30km from Amsterdam. P&O would not comment on the advert and only after two weeks of pressing did it disclose that agents and passengers had been told of the change on 12 February. It says you were not told directly as you booked via an agent. It refuses to be drawn on why, citing merely operational reasons. Clearly, you are not going to receive the holiday you booked as the original berth was a short walk from the city centre. However, your options are limited. P&O, in line with other cruise operators, absolves itself from responsibility for itinerary changes in their terms and conditions. Under Package Travel Regulations, you could ask for a refund but only if the change is significant. Given that Amsterdam is the only port of call on this short trip, I would say this is pretty significant. But P&O is not conceding the fact and says passengers would have to abide by its cancellation policy which withholds 90% of the deposit for those who cancel within 15 days of departure and 60% if you had backed out the day the company says it informed passengers. A court would have to decide what counts as significant. One doughty reader, Mark Gripton, has decided to go down the legal route after TUI curtailed the time its Cuban Fusion cruise would spend in the Cuban capital by a third making some of the pre-booked excursions impossible. Ill report back on how his case goes. In the meantime, beware of booking a cruise specifically to see a particular sight or city because itineraries are unreliable and cruise operators, unlike airlines, arent automatically obliged to offer a refund if they change a destination. If you need help email Anna Tims at your.problems@observer.co.uk or write to Your Problems, The Observer, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Include an address and phone number. Submission and publication are subject to our terms and conditions | A group of us booked a four-day P&O cruise from Southampton. We learned the ship will dock at a location 40 minutes away by shuttle bus. P&O says there was nothing it could do. I suspect its because the cost of docking at Amsterdam increased substantially in January. | pegasus | 2 | https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/mar/20/amsterdam-p-and-o-cruise-berth-moved-bus | 0.457797 |
Who is William Rick Singer, the college admissions cheating scandal's alleged ringleader? | William Rick Singer, founder of for-profit college prep business Edge College & Career Network also known as "The Key," is allegedly the mastermind behind one of the largest college admissions scams to ever hit the U.S. and went to great lengths which included pricey fees to ensure his clients' demands were met. Singer, 58, has been called the "ringleader" behind the scheme, purportedly collecting roughly $25 million from dozens of individuals including actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin over the course of nearly a decade to bribe school coaches and administrators into pretending their children were athletic recruits to ensure their admission into top tier colleges, prosecutors say. The Newport Beach, Calif., businessman agreed to plead guilty in Boston federal court Tuesday to charges including racketeering conspiracy and obstruction of justice. As a part of his guilty plea, Singer said he would pay at least $3.4 million to the feds, The Boston Globe reports. 3 OF THE MOST BIZARRE DETAILS OF THE COLLEGE ADMISSIONS CHEATING SCANDAL On his website for The Key, Singer describes himself as a dedicated father and coach who understands the pressure put on families surrounding college acceptances. The Key calls itself "the nations largest private life coaching and college counseling company." "As founder of The Key, I have spent the past 25 years helping students discover their life passion, and guiding them along with their families through the complex college admissions maze. Using The Key method, our coaches help unlock the full potential of your son or daughter, and set them on a course to excel in life," Singer stated online, providing biographies for seven other "coaches." Andrew Lelling, U.S. attorney for the District of Massachusetts, reportedly claimed Singer's clients paid him "anywhere between $200,000 and $6.5 million" for his unique services. FELICITY HUFFMAN, LORI LOUGHLIN AMONG 50 SNARED IN ELITE COLLEGE CHEATING SCAM, AUTHORITIES SAY Parents of prospective students conspired with a college entrance consultant to beat the system and ensure their students were admitted or had a better chance to be admitted to certain colleges or universities, including Yale, Stanford, Texas, UCLA, USC, Wake Forest and others. "According to the charging documents, Singer facilitated cheating on the SAT and ACT exams for his clients by instructing them to seek extended time for their children on college entrance exams, which included having the children purport to have learning disabilities in order to obtain the required medical documentation," the U.S. Justice Department explained, in part, in an online statement. "Singer would accommodate what parents wanted to do." Andrew Lelling However, that was just one of many ways Singer ensured the students got accepted to elite schools such as Yale, Stanford, Texas, UCLA, USC, Wake Forest and others. "Singer would accommodate what parents wanted to do," Lelling said, adding that it "appears that the schools are not involved." Prosecutors say the consultant represented to parents that the scheme had worked successfully more than 800 times. Singer also served as CEO of the Key Worldwide Foundation (KWF), a non-profit he claimed was a charity. Bribery payments were disguised as donations to KWF in sums up to $75,000 per SAT or ACT exam, the Justice Department said, noting that many students didn't realize their parents had staged anything. "This is a case where [the parents] flaunted their wealth, sparing no expense to cheat the system so they could set their children up for success with the best money can buy, Joseph Bonavolonta from the FBI Boston Field Office said in a Tuesday news conference. In total, 50 people including more than 30 parents and nine coaches were charged Tuesday in the scheme. Fox News' Katherine Lam,Travis Fedschun and The Assocaited Press contributed to this report. | William Rick Singer, 58, has been called the "ringleader" behind the scheme. | ctrlsum | 0 | https://www.foxnews.com/us/who-is-william-rick-singer-college-admissions-cheating-scandals-alleged-ringleader?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fnational+%28Internal+-+US+Latest+-+Text%29 | 0.111891 |
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