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Istanbul, Turkey (CNN) Leaders from the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation recognized East Jerusalem as the occupied capital of a Palestinian state and called on the international community to do the same, according to the final communique from the group's emergency summit on Wednesday. The group of mostly Muslim leaders had called an extraordinary meeting in Istanbul to discuss US President Donald Trump's controversial recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital last week. Trump also announced that the US Embassy would be relocated from Tel Aviv to the holy city. On Wednesday the OIC rejected Trump's move as "null and void" and said the President's "dangerous declaration" marked the US withdrawal from the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Turkish President Erdogan (front row, C) and Palestinian Authority President Abbas (front row, R) with other leaders at the OIC summit Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared that a "new alliance" had been formed in opposition to Trump's Jerusalem declaration, which he described as "not valid in our understanding, in our mentality and in our conscience." Erdogan said the US "can no longer act impartially" as a mediator between the Israelis and Palestinians, and that other countries needed to be identified to replace the US in that role. Read More

Download raw source Delivered-To: john.podesta@gmail.com Received: by 10.25.24.226 with SMTP id 95csp3380754lfy; Wed, 20 Jan 2016 18:21:50 -0800 (PST) X-Received: by 10.182.240.138 with SMTP id wa10mr30382539obc.42.1453342910540; Wed, 20 Jan 2016 18:21:50 -0800 (PST) Return-Path: <cheryl.mills@gmail.com> Received: from mail-oi0-x235.google.com (mail-oi0-x235.google.com. [2607:f8b0:4003:c06::235]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id rs11si8410347oec.15.2016.01.20.18.21.50 for <john.podesta@gmail.com> (version=TLS1_2 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 bits=128/128); Wed, 20 Jan 2016 18:21:50 -0800 (PST) Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of cheryl.mills@gmail.com designates 2607:f8b0:4003:c06::235 as permitted sender) client-ip=2607:f8b0:4003:c06::235; Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of cheryl.mills@gmail.com designates 2607:f8b0:4003:c06::235 as permitted sender) smtp.mailfrom=cheryl.mills@gmail.com; dkim=pass header.i=@gmail.com; dmarc=pass (p=NONE dis=NONE) header.from=gmail.com Received: by mail-oi0-x235.google.com with SMTP id k206so15446814oia.1 for <john.podesta@gmail.com>; Wed, 20 Jan 2016 18:21:50 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :content-type; bh=d+jg+/gupJt27M7uiLBhnPoZ3dRSlPpTIGxRlUyAcAc=; b=QZg2N3Sdesj302w32+9CvbC2vGPJX5pMfwEhKou+udCBbCp1992GFQ/TaoVfk/OAkN OQQD8ige0APcLC9fXsf7ITNiKz9QcuT9IeHLDMplOu+eacGGZgatAabHcc/osg3C5xSY Tl7kgN+eUU1rYjaXT6R/G18JXyBs+xPe54PmpwrXj5Tz8/aQ40bmXABUCtEi5uIfu+jH Z7NK0XCsVfekmPLn4fUp7C1pciFUzegwBrtQd67NNQJHsmf/CwgBOe+Wd8m/+qt/tyvD iZI/XuTmOfRrgnaGAZsX2PhOZBQNUo1YwDhJfeTXSa+V6KqF5Ik487y3UI6K2zIZ3zST a+xA== X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20130820; h=x-gm-message-state:mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date :message-id:subject:from:to:content-type; bh=d+jg+/gupJt27M7uiLBhnPoZ3dRSlPpTIGxRlUyAcAc=; b=ZinTrKP2CFgWRGsIj43mCxK0w0ODxJI6KCnNyq4jtN2DBDbcuWawknGsI4p/SbNrBi USmftKYoHYcoYWvt5jL6Tumy9xnNIXYEEoi82J6oxbVBGZcKUs814wHf2WHI2KGjut0G rJVqZVJLnKUgKzW6GJT2nwGtev5RvASyPCxGSakZ089cw6wbQuKY3CVG/4uid/Meib+N ZnDWyKf6pUutGHDg+UlRoz+54uMCqb3D30u4wY5I7pn65beH+IENGf0V5KHgH+YjbZHT xQ0z2Gd28QRjUz+YK2mEca+o9jr1ZjHlQUD4ewYMafjaT6feZsStSLXi9qiyt7EcPqyS xfEg== X-Gm-Message-State: ALoCoQlU4yaPbNIBIm0776RSHslQ/YeN7PrK6hbw8pMT5ai5oaOpp1Hvxe4+thgID1+iyKIpeA2o7byl33HDZ5zVazGnRfVkmw== MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Received: by 10.202.64.8 with SMTP id n8mr29433179oia.112.1453342910033; Wed, 20 Jan 2016 18:21:50 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.76.171.3 with HTTP; Wed, 20 Jan 2016 18:21:49 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <CAE6FiQ-rKmvDWVk6xceYtTLA_kwiUYPQqAVT57X+46mzX0dPNQ@mail.gmail.com> References: <BLUPR17MB03244AA85EAEC690E229956BA3C20@BLUPR17MB0324.namprd17.prod.outlook.com> <CALk44aCF4ud8Xmys6ysh7MGCVRBAP4KcWLXS5JdgfBNiFiePQA@mail.gmail.com> <CAE6FiQ-rKmvDWVk6xceYtTLA_kwiUYPQqAVT57X+46mzX0dPNQ@mail.gmail.com> Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2016 21:21:49 -0500 Message-ID: <CALk44aBTZo4vrs=w4N=tTEiGvXsSeLo8yTC7t2kWBC29t3mnuQ@mail.gmail.com> Subject: Re: YGPF From: Cheryl Mills <cheryl.mills@gmail.com> To: John Podesta <john.podesta@gmail.com> Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=001a113dd484e3b3bb0529cec33e --001a113dd484e3b3bb0529cec33e Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 i have a 930pm call - I can call you after On Wed, Jan 20, 2016 at 7:40 PM, John Podesta <john.podesta@gmail.com> wrote: > Not great, but what's one more brick in the pack. Can I call you as late > as 9:30? > > > On Wednesday, January 20, 2016, Cheryl Mills <cheryl.mills@gmail.com> > wrote: > >> Tina >> >> This comes from 2007/2008 Q/A about WJC Yucapia relationship and taxes. >> >> >> cdm >> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- >> From: Heather Samuelson <hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com> >> Date: Wed, Jan 20, 2016 at 2:41 PM >> Subject: YGPF >> To: Cheryl Mills <cheryl.mills@gmail.com> >> >> >> >> Q. Why is YGPF organized in the Cayman Islands? >> >> >> >> A. The Yucaipa Global Partnership Fund invests in foreign corporations >> and welcomes foreign investors. >> >> >> >> To avoid double taxation -- where investors are taxed in two >> countries on the same income without an offsetting foreign tax credit in >> the investor's home country -- YGPF, like many international funds, is >> organized in the Cayman Islands. >> >> >> >> Taxable U.S. investors in funds organized in the Cayman Islands >> pay applicable U.S. taxes on income and gain from those funds, but are not >> subject to being taxed a second time on that same income or gain by the >> Cayman Islands. >> >> >> >> As an American citizen, President Clinton must and does pay all >> applicable U.S. taxes on all the income or gains he receives related to the >> Yucaipa Global Partnership Fund. >> >> >> >> --001a113dd484e3b3bb0529cec33e Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable <div dir=3D"ltr">i have a 930pm call - I can call you after</div><div class= =3D"gmail_extra"><br><div class=3D"gmail_quote">On Wed, Jan 20, 2016 at 7:4= 0 PM, John Podesta <span dir=3D"ltr"><<a href=3D"mailto:john.podesta@gma= il.com" target=3D"_blank">john.podesta@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><= blockquote class=3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px= #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Not great, but what's one more brick in t= he pack. Can I call you as late as 9:30?<div class=3D"HOEnZb"><div class=3D= "h5"><br><br>On Wednesday, January 20, 2016, Cheryl Mills <<a href=3D"ma= ilto:cheryl.mills@gmail.com" target=3D"_blank">cheryl.mills@gmail.com</a>&g= t; wrote:<br><blockquote class=3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"margin:0 0 0 .8ex;b= order-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir=3D"ltr">Tina<div><br><= /div><div>This comes from 2007/2008 Q/A about WJC Yucapia relationship and = taxes. =C2=A0</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>cdm<br><div class=3D"= gmail_quote">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: <b class=3D"g= mail_sendername">Heather Samuelson</b> <span dir=3D"ltr"><<a>hsamuelson@= cdmillsgroup.com</a>></span><br>Date: Wed, Jan 20, 2016 at 2:41 PM<br>Su= bject: YGPF<br>To: Cheryl Mills <<a>cheryl.mills@gmail.com</a>><br><d= iv lang=3D"EN-US" link=3D"#0563C1" vlink=3D"#954F72"><div><br> <p class=3D"MsoNormal"><u></u>=C2=A0<u></u></p> <p class=3D"MsoNormal">Q.=C2=A0 Why is YGPF organized in the Cayman Islands= ?<u></u><u></u></p> <p class=3D"MsoNormal"><u></u>=C2=A0<u></u></p> <p class=3D"MsoNormal" style=3D"margin-left:.25in">A.=C2=A0 The Yucaipa Glo= bal Partnership Fund invests in foreign corporations and welcomes foreign i= nvestors. <u></u><u></u></p> <p class=3D"MsoNormal" style=3D"margin-left:.25in"><u></u>=C2=A0<u></u></p> <p class=3D"MsoNormal" style=3D"margin-left:.25in">=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0= =C2=A0 To avoid double taxation -- where investors are taxed in two countri= es on the same income without an offsetting foreign tax credit in the inves= tor's home country -- YGPF, like many international funds, is organized in the Cayman Islands.<u></u><u></u></p> <p class=3D"MsoNormal" style=3D"margin-left:.25in"><u></u>=C2=A0<u></u></p> <p class=3D"MsoNormal" style=3D"margin-left:.25in">=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0= =C2=A0 <span style=3D"background:yellow"> Taxable U.S. investors in funds organized in the Cayman Islands pay applica= ble U.S. taxes on income and gain from those funds, but are not subject to = being taxed a second time on that same income or gain by the Cayman Islands= .</span><u></u><u></u></p> <p class=3D"MsoNormal" style=3D"margin-left:.25in"><u></u>=C2=A0<u></u></p> <p class=3D"MsoNormal" style=3D"margin-left:.25in">=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0= =C2=A0 <span style=3D"background:yellow"> As an American citizen, President Clinton must and does pay all applicable = U.S. taxes on all the income or gains he receives related to the Yucaipa Gl= obal Partnership Fund.</span><u></u><u></u></p> <p class=3D"MsoNormal" style=3D"margin-left:.25in"><u></u><u></u></p> <p class=3D"MsoNormal"><span style=3D"font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Ca= libri",sans-serif"><u></u>=C2=A0<u></u></span></p> </div> </div> </div><br></div></div> </blockquote> </div></div></blockquote></div><br></div> --001a113dd484e3b3bb0529cec33e--

*** Under Construction Last update: 21/02/17 *** Updated 23/03/17:- i) added AlKappaccino testing data of OC'ing Note:- Any stock ROM even with a UEFI/GOP module within it, is technically non-UEFI once modified. There is a bios signature within Legacy ROM section, which is a hash of the hashes of protected tables within ROM. As the mods we do are within the protected tables and we can't update the signature in Legacy ROM to reflect the changes it will fail UEFI checks, thus you need CSM support enabled in motherboard bios to use a modded ROM. The only solution to allow custom UEFI ROM with CSM = Off, is to use a custom UEFI/GOP module in ROM. This solution was provided by Lordkag of Fernando's Win-RAID Forum. The update tool is located in appropriate heading below. Make backup of original bios on video card, for each switch position. Edit copies of your original bios, so you always have original unedited bios to use if things go bad. Do not flash both bios positions as then at least you'll have option to boot from other if something goes wrong. Do not have HWiNFO, GPU-Z, MSI AB, TriXX, etc running in the background when flashing ROM to card. Warning: Using this guide to edit your bios will void your warranty (if card has one). This guide is provided assuming a user knows implications of what they are doing. I accept no responsibility for damage from using this information. All efforts are being made to double check information but there maybe errors. (Click to show) Quote: AlKappaccino Greetings, late to this party, but anyways. I started to oc my Fury X again, after I went back to stock when ReLive came live and now I want to share some OC results with you. I use OPs custom BIOS and changed MVDDC back to stock 1.300V. My card at stock runs VID on DPM7 with 1.187V which I changed to 1.231V. I used the already set +25mV offset but decreased VID of DPM0-DPM6 accordingly to match stock values again. So DPM0-6 is stock and DPM7 is around 1.256V under usage. Core Clock on 1140mhz at 1.256V runs stable so far, running multiple stress tests. OC in percent = +8% HBM can run stock with -25mV but for 545mhz, 1.300V is necessary Going higher results in memory error. OC in percent = +8% GPU gets around 48-50°C, VDDC Temp get as high as 65°C and MVDDC is around 49°C. Logged with HWiNFO64. I use a pretty aggressive cooling curve though, running 1,900rpm most of the time, which is an acceptable noise level for me. And before I forget, my HW is: Windows 10, AMD ReLive 17.3.1, Radeon Fury X, Xeon E3-1231v3, So I ran a few benches to see the performance difference between stock, core oc, HBM oc and both overclocked. I ran each test 3 times and used the average of those for the diagrams. Valley Benchmark (Click to show) So first of, Valley benchmark with Ultra Preset. Min and Max FPS is not that important. 0,1/1/99-percentile would be much better, but I wanted to keep it simple. Let's talk about avg. FPS then. We can see, that HBM oc only already gives us a boost of around +12%. Core OC gives us a boost of +15%. OCing both, results in literally the same, even a bit less. Even though the card maintained their max clock speeds, some kind of throttling seems to take place. 3D Mark (Click to show) [/IMG] [/IMG] Next up, 3D Mark. In Fire Strikes High Performance test, HBM oc gives +2%, core and both oced give around +8% performance boost. Again Core gives you more performance per % of oc, but oc on both tends to be even a tidbit worse than ocing only the core. Heading over to 3D Marks Time Spy benchmark, we see a very interesting result. HBM oc now gives us -1.7% performance in overall score, on graphics it's withing margin of error. Core oc however increases our performance by around +5%. Again, OC on botch results the same. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (Click to show) On Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (DX:MD) I used the built in benchmark on DX12, combined with a custom preset (Ultra with tweaks) I set up for my game. We can now see, that HBM oc does nothing and even the 8% core clock increase gives us only 4,8% FPS increase. I was curious whether the increased HBM clock really does nothing, so I also measured the frametimes using OCAT/PresentMon with those results: Frame Times over 30sec in DX:MD (Click to show) While definitely not the best frametimes, we see that HBM oc performs exactly as stock. Only core clock increase results in a better avg. result but oc on both give us the shortest spikes and overall best timings. Which is interesting, considering the reported FPS is the same. Conclusion: While not the most comprehensive benchmark, I get a similar pattern throughout each test and I try to extend that when I got time. HBM oc does literally nothing at all, with the exception of Valley benchmark. Increasing the core clock results in minor performance increases, but you're very limited on how far you can push the card. A typical combination of both, seems to run the card into some kind of throttling (The clockspeeds stayed at max though). We can often see a slight decreased performance, even though it should be always slightly higher at minimum. But temps are okay, so are the used voltages. As of now, it seems that you gain nothing from HBM OC, but it may vary in different applications. I'll try to look further into this. Oh and yeah, here are some AIDA64 screen I took. One is full stock (1050/500), the other full oc (1140/545): AIDA64 (Click to show) Originally Posted byGreetings,late to this party, but anyways. I started to oc my Fury X again, after I went back to stock when ReLive came live and now I want to share some OC results with you.I use OPs custom BIOS and changed MVDDC back to stock 1.300V. My card at stock runs VID on DPM7 with 1.187V which I changed to 1.231V. I used the already set +25mV offset but decreased VID of DPM0-DPM6 accordingly to match stock values again. So DPM0-6 is stock and DPM7 is around 1.256V under usage.Core Clock on 1140mhz at 1.256V runs stable so far, running multiple stress tests. OC in percent = +8%HBM can run stock with -25mV but for 545mhz, 1.300V is necessary Going higher results in memory error. OC in percent = +8%GPU gets around 48-50°C, VDDC Temp get as high as 65°C and MVDDC is around 49°C. Logged with HWiNFO64.I use a pretty aggressive cooling curve though, running 1,900rpm most of the time, which is an acceptable noise level for me.And before I forget, my HW is: Windows 10, AMD ReLive 17.3.1, Radeon Fury X, Xeon E3-1231v3, [email protected] of DDR3 ramSo I ran a few benches to see the performance difference between stock, core oc, HBM oc and both overclocked. I ran each test 3 times and used the average of those for the diagrams.So first of, Valley benchmark with Ultra Preset. Min and Max FPS is not that important. 0,1/1/99-percentile would be much better, but I wanted to keep it simple. Let's talk about avg. FPS then.We can see, that HBM oc only already gives us a boost of around +12%. Core OC gives us a boost of +15%. OCing both, results in literally the same, even a bit less. Even though the card maintained their max clock speeds, some kind of throttling seems to take place.Next up, 3D Mark. In Fire Strikes High Performance test, HBM oc gives +2%, core and both oced give around +8% performance boost. Again Core gives you more performance per % of oc, but oc on both tends to be even a tidbit worse than ocing only the core.Heading over to 3D Marks Time Spy benchmark, we see a very interesting result. HBM oc now gives us -1.7% performance in overall score, on graphics it's withing margin of error. Core oc however increases our performance by around +5%. Again, OC on botch results the same.On Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (DX:MD) I used the built in benchmark on DX12, combined with a custom preset (Ultra with tweaks) I set up for my game. We can now see, that HBM oc does nothing and even the 8% core clock increase gives us only 4,8% FPS increase. I was curious whether the increased HBM clock really does nothing, so I also measured the frametimes using OCAT/PresentMon with those results:While definitely not the best frametimes, we see that HBM oc performs exactly as stock. Only core clock increase results in a better avg. result but oc on both give us the shortest spikes and overall best timings. Which is interesting, considering the reported FPS is the same.While not the most comprehensive benchmark, I get a similar pattern throughout each test and I try to extend that when I got time. HBM oc does literally nothing at all, with the exception of Valley benchmark. Increasing the core clock results in minor performance increases, but you're very limited on how far you can push the card. A typical combination of both, seems to run the card into some kind of throttling (The clockspeeds stayed at max though). We can often see a slight decreased performance, even though it should be always slightly higher at minimum. But temps are okay, so are the used voltages. As of now, it seems that you gain nothing from HBM OC, but it may vary in different applications. I'll try to look further into this.Oh and yeah, here are some AIDA64 screen I took. One is full stock (1050/500), the other full oc (1140/545): AtomBIOS (Click to show) Quote: AtomBios info Atom is basically a byte code scripting language used to write little scripts to handle basic card initialization tasks (asic init, setting engine/memory clocks, modesetting). There are two sets of tables in ATOM: command tables (basically scripts that execute certain functionality) and data tables (structs that store board/system specific information (type and number of connectors/encoders used on the board, power states, ddc lines, panel info, etc.). The command tables are versioned and there are specific structs defined for the inputs to the command tables. These are all defined in atombios.h and ObjectID.h. Command tables can also call other command tables and look up data in data tables. Extract AtomBios is the ROM on card.Extract from , another useful page to view AtomDis (AtomBios parser) installation and usage in Ubuntu (Click to show) AtomBiosReader for Windows by @kizwan (Click to show) Extract from created tables list for a ROM:- Code: 000f: a0da Len 02b4 Rev 07:01 (PowerPlayInfo) Each table gets a hexadecimal number in the list, in above example PowerPlay is 000f. After that we see the offset location for PowerPlay in the ROM = a0da , if we pick "Search" then select "Goto" from menu bar in HxD (hex editor) and type that offset location the cursor will go there. After that we see length in hexadecimal of the PowerPlay table in the ROM, 02B4 . If we pick "Edit" then "Select block" from menu bar in HxD and enter the offset location a0da and the length 02B4 the whole PowerPlay will be selected out of ROM. ATOMBIOSReader.zip 74k .zip file Creates tables for a ROM like AtomDis in Linux, in the created tables lists you will find "Command Tables" and "Data Tables". Pretty much all edits we will be doing are"Data Tables".Extract from created tables list for a ROM:-Each table gets a hexadecimal number in the list, in above example PowerPlay is 000f.After that we see the offset location for PowerPlay in the ROM = a0da , if we pick "Search" then select "Goto" from menu bar in HxD (hex editor) and type that offset location the cursor will go there.After that we see length in hexadecimal of the PowerPlay table in the ROM, 02B4 . If we pick "Edit" then "Select block" from menu bar in HxD and enter the offset location a0da and the length 02B4 the whole PowerPlay will be selected out of ROM. ATiFlash (Click to show) Windows command line version (Click to show) so do wait . Below is screenie of completed flash message. Link:- Video of me flashing ROM to my Fiji card Saving ROM 1. Download ATiFlash zip, place all files in directory where you will run ATiFlash. 2. Run command prompt as administrator, navigate to where ATiFlash is on your system, mine is in C:\Users\XPS 3. To save ROM enter atiflash -s 0 romname.rom , once complete you can flip bios switch to save other position bios. Note:- Check saved ROM is 256KB, also GPU-Z now does support backup of ROM for Fiji. Flashing ROM 1. Download ATiFlash zip, place all files in directory where you will run ATiFlash. 2. Run command prompt as administrator, navigate to where ATiFlash is on your system, mine is in C:\Users\XPS 3. To flash enter atiflash -p 0 romname.rom , do wait for message on screen "Restart System To Complete VBIOS Update." Forcing a flash of ROM with different SSID / DeviceID 1. Download ATiFlash zip, place all files in directory where you will run ATiFlash. 2. Run command prompt as administrator, navigate to where ATiFlash is on your system, mine is in C:\Users\XPS 3. To flash enter atiflash -p 0 romname.rom -f , do wait for message on screen "Restart System To Complete VBIOS Update." Notes:- Do not have HWiNFO , GPU-Z, MSI AB, etc running in the background when flashing card. If your system is OC'd (ie CPU) make sure it is stable or I would advise flash at stock. If you have not fixed checksum you will see an error same as below image. ATiFlash.zip 185k .zip file Run command prompt in administrator mode to flash; it can take longer than DOS version to finish flash on previous gen cards,. Below is screenie of completed flash message.1. Download ATiFlash zip, place all files in directory where you will run ATiFlash.2. Run command prompt as administrator, navigate to where ATiFlash is on your system, mine is in C:\Users\XPS3. To save ROM enter atiflash -s 0 romname.rom , once complete you can flip bios switch to save other position bios.Check saved ROM is 256KB, also GPU-Z now does support backup of ROM for Fiji.1. Download ATiFlash zip, place all files in directory where you will run ATiFlash.2. Run command prompt as administrator, navigate to where ATiFlash is on your system, mine is in C:\Users\XPS3. To flash enter atiflash -p 0 romname.rom , do wait for message on screen "Restart System To Complete VBIOS Update."1. Download ATiFlash zip, place all files in directory where you will run ATiFlash.2. Run command prompt as administrator, navigate to where ATiFlash is on your system, mine is in C:\Users\XPS3. To flash enter atiflash -p 0 romname.rom -f , do wait for message on screen "Restart System To Complete VBIOS Update."Do not have HWiNFO , GPU-Z, MSI AB, etc running in the background when flashing card. If your system is OC'd (ie CPU) make sure it is stable or I would advise flash at stock. If you have not fixed checksum you will see an error same as below image. Windows GUI version (Click to show) After a ROM is flashed successfully you will see message shown below. Be aware you may note the AtiWinFlash progress bar showing "Not Responding" momentarily when flashing a modded ROM, this is normal behavior, the flash will complete successfully. AtiWinFlash.zip 1200k .zip file Version of AtiWinFlash (Click to show) Notes:- Do not have HWiNFO , GPU-Z, MSI AB, etc running in the background when flashing card. If your system is OC'd (ie CPU) make sure it is stable or I would advise flash at stock. Set shortcut properties so it runs as administrator.After a ROM is flashed successfully you will see message shown below.Be aware you may note the AtiWinFlash progress bar showing "Not Responding" momentarily when flashing a modded ROM, this is normal behavior, the flash will complete successfully.Do not have HWiNFO , GPU-Z, MSI AB, etc running in the background when flashing card. If your system is OC'd (ie CPU) make sure it is stable or I would advise flash at stock. Having issues after a flash like clocks, etc not being correct? (Click to show) 1st step reset drivers to default, so far I have not needed to reinstall drivers for a bios mod to take as default. Next if you have profiles and settings saved in MSI AB / GPU Tweak / TriXX , etc you may need to either delete the settings files for those apps or uninstall them without keeping profiles, etc and then reinstall. I'd also make sure install folders for those apps are empty / deleted after uninstall prior to reinstalling. Looking at Asus graphics card support pages GPU Tweak II uninstaller does not remove everything so they have a special uninstaller on their site. Another thing that has come to light is it's best to not set "Extend Official Overclocking Limits" in MSI AB prior to a flash of ROM, as clocks,etc maybe wrong after flash. Fiji Bios Editor by @DDSZ (Click to show) How to edit GPU Core voltage (Click to show) Concepts The 3 methods of voltage modification that can be used by us. i) The PowerPlay can be modified for VID for a DPM, DPM is a GPU state, this has a clock and voltage associated with it, manually set or "auto calculate". ii) A GPU core voltage offset through the voltage control chip, this effects all DPM states, may they be manually set or "auto calculate". iii) A combination of the 2 above methods. Manually setting VID for a DPM Right click image below and open in new tab to see large version. Increasing VID for a DPM based on an OC in OS via SW Example:- In image heading Manually setting VID for a DPM the example card has DPM 7 as 1212mV on stock ROM. So if it required +56mV in MSI AB/Trixx, etc to achieve a GPU clock OC of 1145MHz and we wish to set that OC in ROM you would edit:- i) DPM 7 GPU clock from 1050 to 1145. ii) DPM 7 VID from 1212mV to 1268mV (ie 1212mV+56mV=1268mV) Note:- Setting more than 1300mV will make windows BSOD just before logon, so if your card has 1 ROM position be careful you don't set more than 1300mV for a DPM. The only way to gain more than 1300mV is to use a ROM which has a GPU core voltage offset. Only factory ROMs which have this so far is Sapphire Fury Nitro, for other cards use my ROM packs in heading further down OP. SVI2 Compliant Voltages The below image has SVI2 compliant voltages table, which can be used when manually setting VID per DPM in Fiji bios editor. Right click image below and open in new tab to see large version. Editing GPU Core voltage offset See heading My Fiji VDDC/MVDDC offset ROM packs and finding voltage offset in ROM until further update here. The 3 methods of voltage modification that can be used by us.i) The PowerPlay can be modified for VID for a DPM, DPM is a GPU state, this has a clock and voltage associated with it, manually set or "auto calculate".ii) A GPU core voltage offset through the voltage control chip, this effects all DPM states, may they be manually set or "auto calculate".iii) A combination of the 2 above methods.Right click image below and open in new tab to see large version.Example:- In image headingthe example card has DPM 7 as 1212mV on stock ROM. So if it required +56mV in MSI AB/Trixx, etc to achieve a GPU clock OC of 1145MHz and we wish to set that OC in ROM you would edit:-i) DPM 7 GPU clock from 1050 to 1145.ii) DPM 7 VID from 1212mV to 1268mV (ie 1212mV+56mV=1268mV)The below image has SVI2 compliant voltages table, which can be used when manually setting VID per DPM in Fiji bios editor. Right click image below and open in new tab to see large version.See headinguntil further update here. Gaining VID per DPM information and i2cdump for voltage control chip (IR3567B) (Click to show) Note: In menu > view > status bar must be enabled to see menu shown in video for registers dump. When we have 2 or more GPU in a system then only 1 cards VID per DPM is shown neatly in registers dump. You'll find headings within dump:- [ ATI GPU #[[B]GPU No[/B]] @ mem [[B]variable text[/B]] ] Then below that is the registers for that card. So let's say GPU 1 was shown with nice neat VID per DPM in registers dump, then head over to registers below heading for GPU 2. Then you'll note:- [SCLK DPM0 / MinVddc = 0.90000 V] [SCLK DPM0 / SclkFreq = 300 MHz] and so on. Here is . Currently on my card AiDA64 is not giving i2cdump, so I added -i2cdump command switch to MSI Afterburner to get info of IR3567B voltage controller chip. In the install dir of MSI Afterburner you will find I2CDUMP.TXT with dumped info. Example of how your shortcut property for "Target" box should be:- "C:\Program Files (x86)\MSI Afterburner\MSIAfterburner.exe" -i2cdump Note: the space between " - To aid thread if members can attach the 2x created TXTs, I would appreciate it (please do test at stock). Top window registers dump via AiDA64, near end is VID. Lower window i2cdump via MSI AB, bus 6 id 30 is where on my ref PCB Fury IR3567B responded. Registers dump via AiDA64 will produce VID per DPM, I used AIDA64 Extreme v5.60.3700.In menu > view > status bar must be enabled to see menu shown in video for registers dump.When we have 2 or more GPU in a system then only 1 cards VID per DPM is shown neatly in registers dump. You'll find headings within dump:-[ ATI GPU #[[B]GPU No[/B]] @ mem [[B]variable text[/B]] ]Then below that is the registers for that card.So let's say GPU 1 was shown with nice neat VID per DPM in registers dump, then head over to registers below heading for GPU 2. Then you'll note:-[SCLK DPM0 / MinVddc = 0.90000 V][SCLK DPM0 / SclkFreq = 300 MHz]and so on.Here is video to ref, I do make a mistake at one pointCurrently on my card AiDA64 is not giving i2cdump, so I added -i2cdump command switch to MSI Afterburner to get info of IR3567B voltage controller chip. In the install dir of MSI Afterburner you will find I2CDUMP.TXT with dumped info.Example of how your shortcut property for "Target" box should be:-"C:\Program Files (x86)\MSI Afterburner\MSIAfterburner.exe" -i2cdumpthe space between " -To aid thread if members can attach the 2x created TXTs, I would appreciate it(please do test at stock).Top window registers dump via AiDA64, near end is VID. Lower window i2cdump via MSI AB, bus 6 id 30 is where on my ref PCB Fury IR3567B responded. How to edit GPU Frequency per DPM (Click to show) Right click below image and open in new tab to see large version. Note: Forgot to state in the above image if GPU clock is decreased and VID is set as "auto calculate" you will see decreased VID. Archived manually editing GPU Frequency per DPM using hex editor (Click to show) What you see in the notepad window:- i) take hex values do endian conversion (the switching of hex values) ii) convert HEX to DEC iii) knock of the 00 to make value to MHz To set a new value of GPU frequency for a DPM do the reverse of above, fix checksum and flash. Be aware that changing a frequency will mean ROM will recalculate a new EVV VID for that DPM(view logs below). Note:- The maximum VID I've seen so far on my Fury Tri-X has been 1.250V for GPU clocks above 1000MHz. In PowerPlay is a section which sets GPU frequency per DPM, DPM 0 = lowest state DPM7 = highest state.What you see in the notepad window:-i) take hex values do endian conversion (the switching of hex values)ii) convert HEX to DECiii) knock of the 00 to make value to MHzTo set a new value of GPU frequency for a DPM do the reverse of above, fix checksum and flash. Be aware that changing a frequency will mean ROM will recalculate a new EVV VID for that DPM(view logs below).The maximum VID I've seen so far on my Fury Tri-X has been 1.250V for GPU clocks above 1000MHz. In Fiji Bios editor is PowerPlay tab, here you can set GPU frequency per DPM, DPM 0 = lowest state DPM7 = highest state.Right click below image and open in new tab to see large version.Forgot to state in the above image if GPU clock is decreased and VID is set as "auto calculate" you will see decreased VID. How to edit cooling profile in ROM (Click to show) Archive (Click to show) Here is screenie of Overdrive section for FL (stock method) and LUT. Editing Advanced fan mode (FL) (Click to show) Note:- fix checksum before flashing ROM LUT enable mode works but sticks to one PWM rather than the 3, so currently until I find a way for it to work only use FL mode or custom curves via MSI AB, etc. It maybe driver issue or something else. Due to few question about the mod I've added image below hopefully explaining what this mod does. The values I modded to improve cooling profile on Fury Tri-X (air cooled) also work the same way on Fury X (AIO). In PowerPlay near lower section is cooling profile (right click image and open in new tab to see at best res).fix checksum before flashing ROMDue to few question about the mod I've added image below hopefully explaining what this mod does.The values I modded to improve cooling profile on Fury Tri-X (air cooled) also work the same way on Fury X (AIO). Extra cooling profile information for advanced manual modders Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show) There are two modes of fan control, standard aka look up table (LUT) and advanced aka fuzzy logic (FL).Here is screenie of Overdrive section for FL (stock method) and LUT. Right click below image and open in new tab to see bigger size. How to edit OverDrive Limits in PowerPlay (Click to show) Note: From Fiji bios editor v1.2 OverDrive limit can be modified using it, this section has been kept here to show how the manual mod is done, so users will learn more about ROM and share mods they develop. Near the top of PowerPlay is OverDrive Limits. Example Memory clock limit:- 50 C3 00 00 , switch the HEX values = 00 00 C3 50 , convert to DEC = 50000 , trim 00 to make MHz = 500 To set 525MHz, add 00 to the end of value 52500 , convert to HEX 00 00 CD 14 , switch HEX values = 14 CD 00 00 . Overwrite original values in PowerPlay using hex editor and save ROM, open ROM in Fiji Bios editor and resave to fix checksum and flash. If we up RAM frequency in PowerPlay (ie HBM clock) and don't increase OverDrive RAM Limit, HBM/RAM performance is not limited. Note 1: When we raise RAM OverDrive Limit in PowerPlay higher than set HBM clock in PowerPlay you will not require "Extend Official Overclocking Limits" to be selected in MSI AB to be able to increase HBM clock. You will also see a slider in OverDrive page to be able to alter HBM clock. Note 2:- If you change HBM clock in ROM higher than OverDrive Limit for RAM you will not be able to change GPU clocks via software (ie MSI AB, this was tested with default settings in driver/MSI AB). You will see a HBM slider in OverDrive page but it can not be moved. Note 3: If we wish to mod ROM to be like "factory ROM" but have increased HBM clock in PowerPlay then match RAM OverDrive Limit to it. Then in OverDrive page of driver you will have no slider for HBM clock adjustment and you will need to enable "Extend Official Overclocking Limits" in MSI AB to increase HBM clock via software. OD page, stock ROM (Click to show) So in stock ROM RAM freq. 500MHz OD RAM Limit 500MHz = no RAM slider. OD page, ROM with OD RAM Limit increased only (Click to show) So in ROM RAM freq. 500MHz OD RAM Limit 525MHz = moveable RAM slider. OD page, ROM with RAM frequency increased in PowerPlay only (Click to show) So in ROM RAM freq. 525MHz OD RAM Limit 500MHz = RAM section appearing but no slider. OD page, ROM with OD RAM Limit RAM frequency in PowerPlay increased (Click to show) So in ROM RAM freq. 525MHz OD RAM Limit 525MHz = no RAM section in OD. Near the top of PowerPlay is OverDrive Limits.Example Memory clock limit:-50 C3 00 00 , switch the HEX values = 00 00 C3 50 , convert to DEC = 50000 , trim 00 to make MHz = 500To set 525MHz, add 00 to the end of value 52500 , convert to HEX 00 00 CD 14 , switch HEX values = 14 CD 00 00 .Overwrite original values in PowerPlay using hex editor and save ROM, open ROM in Fiji Bios editor and resave to fix checksum and flash.When we raise RAM OverDrive Limit in PowerPlay higher than set HBM clock in PowerPlay you will not require "Extend Official Overclocking Limits" to be selected in MSI AB to be able to increase HBM clock. You will also see a slider in OverDrive page to be able to alter HBM clock.If you change HBM clock in ROM higher than OverDrive Limit for RAM you will not be able to change GPU clocks via software (ie MSI AB, this was tested with default settings in driver/MSI AB). You will see a HBM slider in OverDrive page but it can not be moved.If we wish to mod ROM to be like "factory ROM" but have increased HBM clock in PowerPlay then match RAM OverDrive Limit to it. Then in OverDrive page of driver you will have no slider for HBM clock adjustment and you will need to enable "Extend Official Overclocking Limits" in MSI AB to increase HBM clock via software. How to edit Maximum ASIC Temperature (Click to show) Note:- fix checksum before flashing ROM In PowerPlay near lower section is PowerLimit section within that is Maximum ASIC Temperature (right click image and open in new tab to see at best res).fix checksum before flashing ROM How to edit PowerLimit (Click to show) Warning: Anyone implementing this mod needs to be aware you will see no upped % for "PowerLimit" in CCC / MSI AB / TriXX / etc. The new values will become new starting point of "PowerLimit" (ie 0%). When you increase these 3 values in bios and add 50% "PowerLimit" via an OC app you will be going higher than stock settings. Note: PowerLimit relates to GPU not total board power usage. So you will see higher readings for A/W in HWiNFO for VRM than what you set in PowerLimit as other circuitry and "electrical elements" are not part of PowerLimit. The 3 values that can be edited are:- TDP: "Change TDP limit based on customer's thermal solution" TDC: "PowerTune limit for maximum thermally sustainable current by VDDC regulator that can be supplied" Maximum Power Delivery Limit (MPDL): "This power limit is the total chip power that we need to stay within in order to not violate the PCIe rail/connector power delivery" TDC For this knowledge of phases on VRM and spec of components is necessary. Best source is hi res PCB images and then google for tech spec pdfs on mosfets. The ref PCB Fury / X are 6 phase VRM, IMO 400A is max depending on load / temps, temps greatly effect what VRM can output without running into an issue. Simple explanation regarding VRM The VRM takes the 12v and steps it down to lower voltage for GPU,etc to use, the VRM converts the higher voltage, lower current supply to a low voltage, high current supply. MPDL relates to what power can be delivered to card from mobo slot/PCI-E plugs. So a 8+6 config card 300W MAX , 8+8 = 375W , etc just bear in mind warning in red above. My "safe" advise would be:- a) to take stock values of TDP / TDC / MPDL and add same % to each but taking into context VRM for TDC and PCI-E connector config for MPDL. b) test what PL you require and set in ROM only that amount, this way if you wanna test a new OC to see if it throttle you can always use MSI AB to add a small amount of PL. Just as a side note I never run Furmark / Kombuster / OCCT on my GPUs. Further info Quote: The Stilt Hawaii or Fiji based cards don't draw anywhere near the maximum allowed by the specification (i.e 66W) from the PCI-E slot. They draw the power for the GPU VRM from the PCI-E power connectors and the power drawn from the PCI-E bus itself only feeds VDDCI VRM and the display interfaces (on Hawaii) and MVDDC and display interfaces on Fiji. Originally Posted byHawaii or Fiji based cards don't draw anywhere near the maximum allowed by the specification (i.e 66W) from the PCI-E slot. They draw the power for the GPU VRM from the PCI-E power connectors and the power drawn from the PCI-E bus itself only feeds VDDCI VRM and the display interfaces (on Hawaii) and MVDDC and display interfaces on Fiji. Below is data from THG for Fury Tri-X, Fury X and Nano. Viewers of data be aware:- a) high leakage chip would be more draw, we have no idea if these are high/average/low leakage GPU samples. b) I would use the average figures rather than max, without going into detail the max figures are instantaneous draw figures which occur for a very minute time period but can occur frequently depending upon "factors". Now to expand on what the PCI-E plugs can provide, what I have placed higher up in this section is PCI-E SIG information but the hardware limits of PCI-E plugs are higher. Most PSU are 6+2 so the 6 pin plug does have 3x 12V. There are 3 values that can be edited, screenshots only show PowerPlay table; the values shown are near the end of this table.The 3 values that can be edited are:-"Change TDP limit based on customer's thermal solution""PowerTune limit for maximum thermally sustainable current by VDDC regulator that can be supplied": "This power limit is the total chip power that we need to stay within in order to not violate the PCIe rail/connector power delivery"For this knowledge of phases on VRM and spec of components is necessary. Best source is hi res PCB images and then google for tech spec pdfs on mosfets. The ref PCB Fury / X are 6 phase VRM, IMO 400A is max depending on load / temps, temps greatly effect what VRM can output without running into an issue.The VRM takes the 12v and steps it down to lower voltage for GPU,etc to use, the VRM converts the higher voltage, lower current supply to a low voltage, high current supply.relates to what power can be delivered to card from mobo slot/PCI-E plugs.So a 8+6 config card 300W MAX , 8+8 = 375W , etc just bear in mind warning in red above.My "safe" advise would be:-a) to take stock values of TDP / TDC / MPDL and add same % to each but taking into context VRM for TDC and PCI-E connector config for MPDL.b) test what PL you require and set in ROM only that amount, this way if you wanna test a new OC to see if it throttle you can always use MSI AB to add a small amount of PL.Just as a side note I never run Furmark / Kombuster / OCCT on my GPUs.Below is data from THG for Fury Tri-X, Fury X and Nano. Viewers of data be aware:-a) high leakage chip would be more draw, we have no idea if these are high/average/low leakage GPU samples.b) I would use the average figures rather than max, without going into detail the max figures are instantaneous draw figures which occur for a very minute time period but can occur frequently depending upon "factors".Now to expand on what the PCI-E plugs can provide, what I have placed higher up in this section is PCI-E SIG informationthe hardware limits of PCI-E plugs are higher. Most PSU are 6+2 so the 6 pin plug does have 3x 12V. Using GOPupd tool to update/add UEFI/GOP module so custom Fiji ROM will work with CSM=Off (Click to show) Lordkag of Fernando's Win-RAID Forum for this app and custom UEFI/GOP module. i) Download ii) save your ROM to update with GOPupd using GPU-Z or AtiFlash or use your already modified ROM and view video below. Notes: i) You will see a message appear as below, this is not an issue, if you see a differing message please post in thread. Code: Data after ROM and not part of EFI! Please report it! Recovering extra data at the same offset 0x38000. ii) the custom UEFI/GOP module in VBios will allow CSM=Off and Fast boot= On, but will not allow Secure boot = On, reason being the signature in UEFI/GOP can not be updated by us AFAIK. Credit tofor this app and custom UEFI/GOP module.i) Download GOPupd v1.9.5 with custom AMD UEFI/GOP module . If you require the original GOPupd tool visit Fernado's Win-RAID forum via this link to right thread ii) save your ROM to update with GOPupd using GPU-Z or AtiFlash or use your already modified ROM and view video below.i) You will see a message appear as below, this is not an issue, if you see a differing message please post in thread.ii) the custom UEFI/GOP module in VBios will allow CSM=Off and Fast boot= On, but will not allow Secure boot = On, reason being the signature in UEFI/GOP can not be updated by us AFAIK. How to edit ROM for data/command table length changes (Click to show) My Fiji VDDC/MVDDC offset ROM packs and finding voltage offset in ROM (Click to show) , no further support or edits will be done to them by me, whatever you require them to be learn from thread and make it so . After flashing it is recommended to power down PC fully and up to reinitialize voltage control chip (IR3567B) with the new offset data in ROM. The Fury Tri-X ROMs are stock factory ROMs with:- i) VDDC & MVDDC offsets added. ii) VDDC & MVDDC offsets added plus 400MHz timings placed in 500MHz & 600MHz straps. The Fury Nitro ROMs are stock factory ROMs with:- i) MVDDC offset added. ii) MVDDC offset added plus 400MHz timings placed in 500MHz & 600MHz straps. Thus user will need to run The Fury X , Nano and Radeon Pro Duo ROMs are stock factory ROMs with:- i) VDDC & MVDDC offsets added. ii) VDDC & MVDDC offsets added plus 400MHz timings placed in 500MHz & 600MHz straps. So user will need to do any other mods they require. Note: VDDC & MVDDC ROMs have +25mV VDDC but -25mV MVDDC, so you should see 1.275V in HWiNFO. Only the Fury Nitro VDDC & MVDDC ROMs have +18.75mV VDDC (as they have this from factory) but -25mV MVDDC. To make MVDDC stock or higher user will need to edit ROM, this is so user is taking steps to increase voltage. Note: Even though the modded ROMs are based on UEFI ROMs, this has been disabled in ROM (ie the modded ROMs are NON-UEFI). The reason being I/we are unable to update a "signature" in the ROM, which when "pure UEFI" mode is enabled on a motherboard, the legacy ROM section due to modification and no "signature" update to reflect this, fails check. So you will need CSM support enabled in motherboard bios. The only way to have above ROM (or your own modded ROMs) working with CSM = Off is to use Lordkag's GOPupd Tool to insert a custom UEFI/GOP module in to video card ROM. Standard Protection ROMs (Click to show) Note: Be aware these ROMs have stock factory VMAX limit as 1.48125V for loop 1 (GPU) loop 2 (HBM). So even if you add +300mV offset to GPU and your EVV VID is 1.250V you will not go over 1.48125V. If you manually set your DPM 7 as 1.3V and add +300mV offset to GPU you will still not go over 1.48125V. As we are talking VID, due to LLC ( by that I do not suggest it is safe to use such high VID/VDDC. The HBM voltage has also same voltage limit, I did not increase or decrease this from stock ROM setting. Fury_Tri-X_ROM_Pack.zip 814k .zip file Zip SHA-1 hash: c651697a051d1e371fa807aec5ace9f1b9340055 Fury_Nitro_ROM_Pack.zip link to my GD Zip SHA-1 hash: FD175957C689425462D6E9C5171DB10AF6FE3FC7 Fury_X_ROM_Pack.zip 205k .zip file Zip Sha-1 hash: 7e863dc6ae1bcbf807d588486bedae6d788cdae3 Nano_ROM_Pack.zip 202k .zip file Zip SHA-1 hash: fe1a9f6928b5def287a6896bf7c6054b93e8642f Radeon_Pro_Duo_ROM_Pack.zip 377k .zip file Zip SHA-1 hash: de2e556eb97c0180bfb81ec97ec8fcdf4a0e0b2e Be aware these ROMs have stock factory VMAX limit as 1.48125V for loop 1 (GPU) loop 2 (HBM). So even if you add +300mV offset to GPU and your EVV VID is 1.250V you will not go over 1.48125V. If you manually set your DPM 7 as 1.3V and add +300mV offset to GPU you will still not go over 1.48125V. As we are talking VID, due to LLC ( LoadLine Calibration ) you will not see 1.48125V VDDC andThe HBM voltage has also same voltage limit, I did not increase or decrease this from stock ROM setting.Zip SHA-1 hash: c651697a051d1e371fa807aec5ace9f1b9340055Zip SHA-1 hash: FD175957C689425462D6E9C5171DB10AF6FE3FC7Zip Sha-1 hash: 7e863dc6ae1bcbf807d588486bedae6d788cdae3Zip SHA-1 hash: fe1a9f6928b5def287a6896bf7c6054b93e8642fZip SHA-1 hash: de2e556eb97c0180bfb81ec97ec8fcdf4a0e0b2e Enhanced Protection ROMs (Click to show) Note: These ROMs have VMAX limit as 1.36875V for loop 1 (GPU) loop 2 (HBM). So regardless of what you do in OS you will not go over this limit. Regardless what you do to ROM (ie edit DPM VID and/or voltage offset) you will not go over this limit, only caveat being as long as the protection hex value has not be modified which is independent of other mods we do . Fury_Tri-X_EP_ROM_Pack.zip 814k .zip file Zip SHA-1 hash: e6664c98e9b7c724d836967d87584d09861aada7 Fury_Nitro_EP_ROM_Pack.zip link to my GD Zip SHA-1 hash: AE56F831884761F1BFED59065F55BEEF2430B276 Fury_X_EP_ROM_Pack.zip 205k .zip file Zip SHA-1 hash: 99f02a4c2981821d89cf95289672b9eb5f19a1fd Nano_EP_ROM_Pack.zip 202k .zip file Zip SHA-1 hash: 98b1a9a8e8c670cf30947249eb43b39fc91177fa Radeon_Pro_Duo_EP_ROM_Pack.zip 377k .zip file Zip SHA-1 hash: fa2460f1ad3b6916cf94501be4030586f7ee76fd These ROMs have VMAX limit as 1.36875V for loop 1 (GPU) loop 2 (HBM). So regardless of what you do in OS you will not go over this limit. Regardless what you do to ROM (ie edit DPM VID and/or voltage offset) you will not go over this limit, only caveat being as long as the protection hex value has not be modified which is independent of other mods we doZip SHA-1 hash: e6664c98e9b7c724d836967d87584d09861aada7Zip SHA-1 hash: AE56F831884761F1BFED59065F55BEEF2430B276Zip SHA-1 hash: 99f02a4c2981821d89cf95289672b9eb5f19a1fdZip SHA-1 hash: 98b1a9a8e8c670cf30947249eb43b39fc91177faZip SHA-1 hash: fa2460f1ad3b6916cf94501be4030586f7ee76fd Warning: Using these ROMs will void your warranty (if card has one). These are provided assuming a user knows implications of what they are doing. I accept no responsibility for damage from using these ROMs. Below is an image of VoltageObjectInfo from voltage offset ROM to illustrate how to change it with in ROM. Here is a I advise users experimenting with increased MVDDC to mod the cooling profile so HBM is cooler. As Fiji has gen 1 HBM I would assume it may not really tolerate increased MVDDC for lengthy periods, but I don't know for certain. So exercise caution if you value not killing the card. Note: You can search for the GPU core/HBM voltage offsets in a ROM by using the find command in a hex editor but I highly recommend using the tables lists with each ROM to do this edit so you know you are in the right area of ROM. Note: Adding the hex values:- i) 8D 00 xx 00 (xx denoting offset value) for GPU core voltage offset. ii) 8E 00 xx 00 (xx denoting offset value) for HBM voltage offset. to another ROM's VoltageObjectInfo is not recommended, reason being adding these values also requires further edits to ROM, which I have not listed here but easily doable if you learn ROM mod which is point of placing manual mods in OP . Note: For Radeon Pro Duo as there is master and slave ROM you will need to edit each as required. At the time of this post there are no factory ROMs with VDDC & MVDDC in ROM (Nitro does from factory have VDDC only offset). SO attached are ROMs I made, no further support or edits will be done to them by me, whatever you require them to be learn from thread and make it soThe Fury Tri-X ROMs are stock factory ROMs with:-i) VDDC & MVDDC offsets added.ii) VDDC & MVDDC offsets added plus 400MHz timings placed in 500MHz & 600MHz straps.The Fury Nitro ROMs are stock factory ROMs with:-i) MVDDC offset added.ii) MVDDC offset added plus 400MHz timings placed in 500MHz & 600MHz straps.Thus user will need to run @TX12 's unlock tool to gain SP and to do any other mods they require.The Fury X , Nano and Radeon Pro Duo ROMs are stock factory ROMs with:-i) VDDC & MVDDC offsets added.ii) VDDC & MVDDC offsets added plus 400MHz timings placed in 500MHz & 600MHz straps.So user will need to do any other mods they require.VDDC & MVDDC ROMs have +25mV VDDC but25mV MVDDC, so you should see 1.275V in HWiNFO.the Fury Nitro VDDC & MVDDC ROMs have +18.75mV VDDC (as they have this from factory) but25mV MVDDC. To make MVDDC stock or higher user will need to edit ROM, this is so user is taking steps to increase voltage.Even though the modded ROMs are based on UEFI ROMs, this has been(ie the modded ROMs are NON-UEFI). The reason being I/we are unable to update a "signature" in the ROM, which when "pure UEFI" mode is enabled on a motherboard, the legacy ROM section due to modification and no "signature" update to reflect this, fails check. So you will need CSM support enabled in motherboard bios. The only way to have above ROM (or your own modded ROMs) working with CSM = Off is to use Lordkag's GOPupd Tool to insert a custom UEFI/GOP module in to video card ROM.Below is an image of VoltageObjectInfo from voltage offset ROM to illustrate how to change it with in ROM.Here is a video showing how to use windows calculator for above purpose.You can search for the GPU core/HBM voltage offsets in a ROM by using the find command in a hex editor but I highly recommend using the tables lists with each ROM to do this edit so you know you are in the right area of ROM.Adding the hex values:-i) 8D 00 xx 00 (xx denoting offset value) for GPU core voltage offset.ii) 8E 00 xx 00 (xx denoting offset value) for HBM voltage offset.to another ROM's VoltageObjectInfo is not recommended, reason being adding these values also requires further edits to ROM, which I have not listed herebut easily doable if you learn ROM mod which is point of placing manual mods in OPFor Radeon Pro Duo as there is master and slave ROM you will need to edit each as required. Adding VDDC Offset to Fury X ROM (Click to show) Note: This guide is for where IR3567B is used on PCB as Voltage Control Chip. Link to Attached is guide.txt seen in linked video. guide.txt 3k .txt file GoogleDoc Note: Use above GoogleDoc information with caution as potential for killing card. Link to video Attached is guide.txt seen in linked video.GoogleDoc link to IR3567B registers I'm aware of. The process shown in the video can be used to add registers which may not be in the VoltageObjectInfo of your ROM. FAQ What is EVV? (Click to show) EVV = Electronic Variable Voltage, this is the default method of VID setting in ROM. This is based on LeakageID and default GPU clock plus other GPU properties. A VID per DPM will be calculated and set automatically. In stock ROM PowerPlay we see EVV pointers per DPM, to calculate the pointer you need to add the order (2-8) to 0xFF00 or 65280: - DPM0 (manually fixed voltage) - DPM1 (2nd DPM) = 0xFF02 (65282) - DPM2 (3rd DPM) = 0xFF03 (65283) - DPM3 (4th DPM) = 0xFF04 (65284) - DPM4 (5th DPM) = 0xFF05 (65285) - DPM5 (6th DPM) = 0xFF06 (65286) - DPM6 (7th DPM) = 0xFF07 (65287) - DPM7 (8th DPM) = 0xFF08 (65288) So the DPM VID pointers we see they increase by 1 to denote the next level of DPM EVV VID. What is DPM? (Click to show) DPM = Dynamic Power Management , when we discuss this it is basically states the bios has for the GPU, there are 8 in ROM (but there are more, read AMD PowerTune PDFs on web). DPM 0 is lowest and DPM 7 is highest, "PowerTune" tech uses these states to manage the GPU for various reasons. What's the difference between VID and VDDC? (Click to show) This is why we gain VID information per DPM as VDDC can be lower than VID. Please view this Fury_X_GPU-Z_Render_test.zip 11k .zip file Also we must note due to "PowerTune" tech and different apps load GPU differently we will see different VDDC for same VID and clocks. You can test this by say running 3DM FS and monitoring VDDC in MSI AB and then comparing with a run of Unigine Valley or Heaven. VID is the voltage that the GPU requests from voltage regulator, VDDC is the real monitored GPU voltage. Why VID and VDDC will also vary is due to LoadLine calibration, the difference between VID and VDDC due to LLC is termed as VDROOP. VDROOP is not bad, read this linked article and apply it in the sense of the GPU.This is why we gain VID information per DPM as VDDC can be lower than VID. Please view this linked video carefully as well. I have attached the registers dump showing VID per DPM and HML with the VDDC from per DPM testing below.Also we must note due to "PowerTune" tech and different apps load GPU differently we will see different VDDC for same VID and clocks. You can test this by say running 3DM FS and monitoring VDDC in MSI AB and then comparing with a run of Unigine Valley or Heaven. Does HBM clock in steps? (Click to show) and I was a skeptic about this but it is true, for longer answer view Simple answer YESI was a skeptic about this but it is true, for longer answer view this post OCP Limit / VRM Temperature Limit Info (Click to show) Users may notice in HWiNFO VRM amp readings higher than OCP limits in IR3567B, AFAIK this is not due to an error in HWiNFO but down to how the driver reports this data to it. I have lowered OCP on my card to test if card does shutdown when OCP limit is reached. How do I get monitoring data like VRM temperature / VRM Amps & Watts? (Click to show) HWiNFO , open application selecting "Sensors" Useful links (Click to show) Hex Editors:1. HxD (great freeware one IMO)2. Hex Workshop (has more advanced features, like colour mapping,etc; free 30 day trial)TPU VBios Database: Link Courtesy of @TX12 (Check OP of his thread for info on below 2 utils)CUinfo v1.6: Link 1 AtomTool v1.1: Link Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) : Official site

West Brom have completed the signing of Jason Davidson from Dutch side Heracles Almelo. The 23-year-old left-back, who featured for Australia at the World Cup earlier this summer, has signed a two-year contract with Alan Irvine's side. Davidson becomes the Baggies' seventh signing of the summer, following the arrivals of Joleon Lescott, Craig Gardner, Chris Baird, Brown Ideye, Sebastien Pocognoli and Andre Wisdom. "I'm delighted we've been able to complete a deal for Jason. He had a fantastic World Cup when he performed very well against three top teams," Irvine told the club's official website. "Jason is a good defender who has lots of energy, gets forward well and will give us competition for places at left-back with Sebastien Pocognoli. "Due to contractual issues with his former club, there's been a delay in Jason coming. This means he hasn't trained properly since the World Cup so he's going to need a little bit of time to catch up before we can expect him to perform at the levels he's capable of. "I spoke to Tim Cahill about Jason and he recommended him very, very highly both as a player and character. Tim sees him as a young player who will do extremely well in England and develop even further." Davidson made over 50 appearances for Heracles and has earned 11 caps for Australia.

C40 Fossil-Fuel-Free Streets Declaration Signed By Mayors From 12 Major Cities October 27th, 2017 by James Ayre The C40 Fossil-Fuel-Free Streets Declaration was signed by the mayors of 12 of the world’s largest, most economically important cities, paving the way for the cities in question to transition completely away from internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles and to create zero-emissions areas in their cities by 2030. To be more exact, the commitments — which are intended to quicken the move away from fossil fuels and to address growing urban air pollution problems around the world — call for the cities in question to procure only zero-emissions buses from 2025 onwards, and to create zero-emissions zones in important/large areas by 2030. The declaration envisions “a future where walking, cycling, and shared transport are how the majority of citizens move around our cities.” The cities in question (party to the declaration) are: London, Los Angeles, Paris, Mexico City, Milan, Copenhagen, Vancouver, Auckland, Barcelona, Cape Town, Quito, and Seattle. Other actions called for by the declaration include: ∴ Increase rates of walking, cycling and the use of public and shared transport. ∴ Collaborate with suppliers, fleet operators and businesses to accelerate the shift to zero emissions vehicles and reduce vehicle miles in cities. ∴ Cities will report back every two years on the progress they are making towards the goals of the C40 Declaration. “The largest sources of air pollution are also the largest sources of carbon emissions — and in many cities, transportation is the biggest culprit,” commented the UN Special Envoy for Cities and Climate Change and C40 Board President, Michael R Bloomberg. “C40 Mayors understand thriving cities require clean air. By switching to cleaner vehicles, we can fight climate change and save many lives.” For further background on the C40, see: C40 Initiative Will Help Developing Cities Access Climate Funds. Or visit its website.

PHILADELPHIA (CN) – Merck has known for a decade that its mumps vaccine is “far less effective” than it tells the government, and it falsified test results and sold millions of doses of “questionable efficacy,” flooding and monopolizing the market, a primary caregiver claims in a federal antitrust class action. Alabama-based Chatom Primary Care sued Merck on Monday, the week after the unsealing of a False Claims Act complaint two relators filed in 2010. Those relators, Stephen Krahling and Joan Wlochowski, were Merck virologists who claim in their unsealed complaint that they “witnessed firsthand the improper testing and data falsification in which Merck engaged to artificially inflate the vaccine’s efficacy findings.” Krahling and Wlochowski claimed Merck’s scheme caused the United States to pay “hundreds of millions of dollars for a vaccine that does not provide adequate immunization.” “As the largest single purchaser of childhood vaccines (accounting for more than 50 percent of all vaccine purchases), the United States is by far the largest financial victim of Merck’s fraud,” according to the 2010 False Claims Act complaint. “But the ultimate victims here are the millions of children who every year are being injected with a mumps vaccine that is not providing them with an adequate level of protection. And while this is a disease that, according to the Centers for Disease Control (‘CDC’), was supposed to be eradicated by now, the failure in Merck’s vaccine has allowed this disease to linger, with significant outbreaks continuing to occur.” The United States told a federal judge in April that it did not want to intervenein the False Claims case, but reserved the right to do so later. Chatom says in its antitrust complaint that Merck falsely claims its mumps vaccine is 95 percent effective. That claim “deterred and excluded competing manufacturers,” who would enter the risky and expensive vaccine market only if they believed they could craft a better product, Chatom says in its complaint. Merck is the only manufacturer licensed by the FDA to sell the mumps vaccine in United States, and if it could not show that the vaccine was 95 percent effective, it risked losing its lucrative monopoly, according to the complaint. That’s why Merck found it critically important to keep claiming such a high efficacy rate, the complaint states. And, Chatom claims, that’s why Merck went to great lengths, including “manipulating its test procedures and falsifying the test results,” to prop up the bogus figure, though it knew that the attenuated virus from which it created the vaccine had been altered over the years during the manufacturing process, and that the quality of the vaccine had degraded as a result. Starting in the late 1990s, Merck set out on its sham testing program with the objective of “report[ing] efficacy of 95 percent or higher regardless of the vaccine’s true efficacy,” the complaint states. Chatom says Merck initially called its testing program Protocol 007. Under Protocol 007, Merck did not test the vaccine’s ability to protect children against a “wild-type” mumps virus, which is “the type of real-life virus against which vaccines are generally tested,” the complaint states. Instead, Chatom says, Merck tested children’s blood using its own attenuated strain of the virus. “This was the same mumps strain with which the children were vaccinated,” the complaint states. That “subverted” the purpose of the testing regime, “which was to measure the vaccine’s ability to provide protection against a disease-causing mumps virus that a child would actually face in real life. The end result of this deviation … was that Merck’s test overstated the vaccine’s effectiveness,” Chatom claims. Merck also added animal antibodies to blood samples to achieve more favorable test results, though it knew that the human immune system would never produce such antibodies, and that the antibodies created a laboratory testing scenario that “did not in any way correspond to, correlate with, or represent real life … virus neutralization in vaccinated people,” according to the complaint. Chatom claims that the falsification of test results occurred “with the knowledge, authority and approval of Merck’s senior management.” And as Merck’s vaccine is the only game in town, the vaccine’s “significantly degraded” quality means “there has remained a significant risk of a resurgence of mumps outbreaks,” Chatom says in its complaint. It claims that the degraded quality of the Merck vaccine played a role in a 2006 mumps outbreak in the Midwest, and in another outbreak in 2009. Those outbreaks caused the Centers for Disease Control to push back its target date for eradicating the disease from 2010 to no earlier than 2020, the complaint states. “But no amount of extra time or dosages will be enough to eliminate the disease when the vaccine does not work as represented in the labeling,” the complaint states. “It will merely allow Merck to continue to misrepresent the vaccine’s efficacy and thereby maintain its exclusive hold on the relevant market with an inadequate vaccine.” Merck spokesman Ron Rogers told Courthouse News in a statement that the False Claims lawsuit “is completely without merit,” and that Chatom’s lawsuit is merely derivative of that case. “Merck has presented information that demonstrated to the United States Department of Justice that these allegations are factually false, and after the Department conducted its own two-year investigation, it decided not to pursue this lawsuit,” Rogers said. In addition, he said, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration “previously examined the issues raised in the lawsuit, and they were resolved to the agency’s satisfaction.” Chatom seeks to represent the class of all those who bought Merck’s mumps vaccine from Jan. 1, 1999 to today. It seeks damages for monopolization under the Sherman Act, violation of state consumer protection laws, unjust enrichment and breach of warranty. Chatom is represented by Richard Golomb of Golomb & Honik, in Philadelphia. Like this: Like Loading...

A bloke who plays songs at weddings has caused a stir in the music industry by claiming that he is an actual DJ. Michael Hardy, a.k.a. Spin Master Mike, made the claims during a recent conversation with a fellow DJ in a pub smoking area last weekend. Wunderground spoke to Hardy earlier, “I am a real DJ,” he insisted. “It’s my job, I actually get paid to do it which is more than half of these other so called DJs can say, just because I spin my tunes at a wedding and not in clubs to crowds of people off their tits on drugs doesn’t make me less of a DJ. If anything it’s much harder to play to wedding crowds, where only half the people are off their heads on drugs.” “Most of these dicks who say I’m not a real DJ have never even played outside their bedroom,” continued Hardy. “I’ve got my own sound system, my own controller, the latest version of Virtual DJ, my own lighting rig and my own smoke machine and they say I’m not a real DJ, they need to get their heads checked mate, I’m more of a DJ than all of them put together.” “Is he fuck a DJ,” claimed Aaron Holmes, who claims to be a real DJ. “I was chatting with him and when I asked him what type of tunes he played he said ‘mostly chart, a bit of 70s and some 80s’. I asked him was it tough to mix all of that together and he told me he doesn’t mix he just plays one tune after the next and says a bit of shit on the mic, he can fuck right off if he thinks that makes him a DJ, he’s basically a glorified iPod.” According to experts, other DJs who are actually “fake DJs” include, “twenty-first DJs”, radio presenters and Steve Aoki.

On Thursday, a lovely billboard went up in Pitman, New Jersey, courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation: It’s obviously a response to those “Keep Christ in Christmas” banners and you can read more about this billboard’s history here. Over the weekend a family attempted to put their own banner — what seems to be a picture of Christ — over (or possibly under) the Saturnalia billboard… and it was caught on tape! I can’t embed it because it’s on Facebook, but you can view it here… at least for the time being. (The commentary makes it all the more entertaining: “Well, someone paid for that billboard. It’s not like you can just cover it up for free!”) The first screenshot below is Santa looking at the people putting up their own sign while the second one gives a more clear shot of the banner-hangers: (They’re not even good vandals… using tape?! C’mon. You need some heavier-duty stuff.) In case you’re wondering what Santa’s doing, by the way, he’s holding up this totally-rational sign (click to enlarge): For Christ sake its Christmas! Not Obamass That… doesn’t even make sense. Even with the lousy grammar. Clear Channel, the owners of the billboard, have been notified about the “additional” banner, though there’s no word on whether its still up. I’ve contacted the person who presumably took the video to learn more about what she saw. I’ll update this post once I hear back. (via FFRF)

Col. Muammar Gadhafi will not only go down in history as being one of the world’s most brutal and brazen despots, but also as one of its weirdest. From his wardrobe changes to the way he tries to woo women like former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a visit to a psychologist’s couch is long overdue. Let’s start with what to call him. Gadhafi collects titles the way normal men collect cufflinks and watches. Imam of Muslims, the Dean of Arab Rulers, the Keeper of Arab Nationalism, the King of Kings, The Mad Dog of the Middle East (courtesy of President Ronald Reagan), and The Colonel are among those he either picked up or gave himself. (Strangely “the King of Kings” never deigned to promote himself above a colonel.) Gadhafi also appears undecided how to spell his name in English. The Associated Press once donated a full column to chronicling the different spelling, among them Al Gathafi (via the official Libyan news agency JANA), El-Qathafi (via the Libyan Information Ministry), and Qathafi (via the Libyan UN Mission) – and western governments and newspapers have their own variations. It’s been more than four decades since his coup, and he’s still not made up his mind. Then there’s his wardrobe and how often he changes clothes. One of his former Ukrainian nurses, 24-year-old Oksana Balinskaya, penned a Newsweek column in April and said that “Papik” – the nickname his nurses gave him, meaning “little father” in Russian (unclear if mockery was intended) – “would change his clothes several times a day.” “He was so obsessive about his outfits,” she continued, “that he reminded me of a rock star from the 1980s. Sometimes when his guests were already waiting for him, he would go back to his room and change his clothes again, perhaps into his favorite white suit.” And his attire ranges from animal skins to rainbow-colored silk drapes, (prompting Time Magazine to anoint him in 2009 as one of the “10 Worst Dressed World Leaders”). Gadhafi not only likes to surround himself with Ukrainian nurses, but also famously travels with a bevy of female bodyguards and has been known to hire beautiful women to sit and listen to his lectures. But the woman he appears to have a unique infatuation with is Ms. Rice. When she visited Libya in 2008, an official on the trip told me, Gadhafi tried to seduce Ms. Rice with a specially made music video, before trying to drag her into his private quarters – apparently thinking the video had sufficiently impressed. State Department officials thought otherwise and grabbed her other hand – and (much to her relief) eventually won the ensuing tug-of-war. When Libyan fighters entered Gadhafi’s Tripoli compound last week they found an album full of pictures of Ms. Rice. Gadhafi’s grand gestures aren’t limited to when he’s trying to mate, however; they also appear when he’s trying to insult. One the most notorious of these came during the 1988 Algiers conference, during which he donned a white glove to avoid touching the “blood-stained hands” of “Arab traitors.” And when Jordan’s King Hussein was about to speak, Gadhafi dramatically threw a white sheet over his own body. Between his flare for staged drama, elaborate outfits, and regular wardrobe changes, one gets the impression that in another life Gadhafi would have been very happy as a Madison Avenue fashion designer or as a choreographer for Lady Gaga. Gadhafi is also known for insisting on pitching his Bedouin tent in every foreign city he visits. The tent made a big splash in 1989 when he brought it to a summit in Belgrade – along with camels and horses. Ms. Balinskaya, however, claims that: “He never slept in a tent, though! That’s just a myth. He only used the tent for official meetings.” Which of course makes it all the more reasonable. Perhaps the biggest Gadhafi joke, however, is that for all his antics – not to mention his domestic oppression and extensive support of international terrorism – he never failed to find prominent western supporters. These have ranged from President Jimmy Carter’s brother Billy (who received $220,000 from Gadhafi while his brother was in the White House), to the Scottish authorities who released the Lockerbie bomber, Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, to the Bush administration, which not only gave Gadhafi legitimacy (and untold joy) with Ms. Rice’s visit, but even gave western security companies the go ahead to train his forces. Perhaps Gadhafi isn’t the only one who needs his head examined. Daniel Freedman is the director of strategy and policy analysis at The Soufan Group, a strategic intelligence consultancy. His writings can be found at www.dfreedman.org. He is the co-author of “The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against al Qaeda,” to be published by WW Norton on Sept. 12.)

The University of Chicago recently asked 38 of the nation's most respected economists to assess the Republican tax plan, and to predict its impact on our national debt and our rate of economic growth. The debt will explode, they said. The economy will sputter. Republicans are rushing this bill, just as they did with the Obamacare repeal, without asking for feedback from experts like these. They want to muscle this through because they know honest analysis will expose its monstrous flaws. Imagine the questions: Why increase taxes on families earning $75,000 or less? Why drain money from states like New Jersey that already pay heavy subsidies to other states? Why reserve the bulk of benefits for the nation's richest? The Republicans really have only one argument: Give more money to corporations, and they will invest it in new jobs and grant raises to their workers. That boom will generate enough extra revenue to cover the cost of the $1.5 trillion in cuts. It's an economic theory that just won't die. So, the University of Chicago surveyed economists from the nation's top universities, and took care to include conservatives and liberals. Will economic growth be "substantially higher" under this plan? Just 2 percent agreed, while 51 percent said they "disagree" or "strongly disagree." So much for those middle-class pay hikes. The problem with the trickle-down theory is that business leaders don't have to spend this new money on their workers. They can give it to their shareholders, or increase the obscene salaries they pay themselves. Gary Cohn, Trump's top economic adviser, recently asked a group of 60 business leaders whether they would use this new bounty to create jobs. Five hands went up. Awkward. In a second question, the economists were asked if this plan would lead to "substantially higher" debt. They responded with a primal scream, as if the ship of state were about to hit an iceberg. Of the 38 surveyed, 37 warned that the debt would balloon. And the one who disagreed, Stanford University's Liran Einav, said later that he misread the question, and changed his vote. The Republican Party has achieved something remarkable: They are cutting taxes, the political equivalent to serving a chocolate dessert. But their plan is so bad that most people hate it. Polls show that Americans oppose this plan by wide margins. Realtors warn it will lead to big plunges in home values. A national survey of small business owners found that even they opposed it. In New Jersey, the Chamber of Commerce opposed it, as did all our Republicans in Congress, with the exception of Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-3rd). Keep in mind, too, that this is just Stage One. Republican leaders like Speaker Paul Ryan say the next step is to cut spending, especially on entitlement programs. The Congressional Budget Office warned recently that, as drafted, this plan would force automatic cuts in Medicare next year of $25 billion. Trump still won't release his taxes, but he was asked in September what he stands to gain: "I don't benefit," he said. "In fact, very very strongly, as you see, I think there's very little benefit for people of wealth." It becomes tiresome to say this again, but he's lying, and we cannot ever treat that as normal. Forbes puts his net worth at $3.5 billion, which means the cuts in the estate tax alone would save him more than $1 billion. That's just the start. This is obscene. And it exposes the dark influence of wealthy donors in Washington. With this bill, they are making their move, pinching the rest of us so that they squeeze even more juice from the orange. The only hope now is that at least a handful of Republicans in the Senate step up to this moment in history. It could go either way, and that is both sad and scary. More: Tom Moran columns Tom Moran may be reached at tmoran@starledger.com or call (973) 836-4909. Follow him on Twitter @tomamoran. Find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook.

Photographs and video of heavily armed police officers wearing body armor and helmets arresting protesters in Baton Rouge over the weekend reverberated on social networks and in the world’s media, focusing new attention on the militarization of police forces across the United States. The image that drew the most comment, taken by Jonathan Bachman for Reuters, showed a young woman in a dress standing serenely on a road outside the Baton Rouge police headquarters as two Louisiana State Police officers dressed for battle rushed to arrest her. Photo: Jonathan Bachman/Reuters The woman was later identified as Ieshia Evans, a nurse and mother from Brooklyn, who had come to protest the killing of Alton Sterling by two Baton Rouge police officers last week. Baton Rouge PD looks ridiculous. I never wore so much armor in combat. This is their own community. (Photo: Reuters) pic.twitter.com/clCFFyD6jx — Brandon Friedman (@BFriedmanDC) July 10, 2016 This Reuters pic of a serene protestor in Baton Rouge brings to mind the Tank-Man in Tiananmen Square. pic.twitter.com/i8SES79Kco — Gus Silber (@gussilber) July 10, 2016 When you see this image you think thank God America won the Cold War and defeated tyranny (JONATHAN BACHMAN/REUTERS) pic.twitter.com/ryVd3lGqIw — Karl Sharro (@KarlreMarks) July 11, 2016 Mugshot released of Ieshia Evans, 35, whose Baton Rouge protest pic went viral (Jonathan Bachman of @Reuters) pic.twitter.com/bX9YGIVGkO — David Begnaud (@DavidBegnaud) July 11, 2016 Evans, who was released on Sunday, wrote on Facebook that she had no desire to speak to the media until she could get home to her young son. “I appreciate the well wishes and love, but this is the work of God,” she added. “I am a vessel!” She was one of 102 protesters arrested on Saturday night outside the police station on Airline Highway. Another of those detained and held overnight was DeRay Mckesson, a prominent Black Lives Matter activist, who was live-streaming video from the shoulder of the road when he was tackled by an officer. .@deray was live streaming on #Periscope when he got arrested. Go to 4:00 https://t.co/q5JeQbPafJ — Alex Medina (@mrmedina) July 10, 2016 Another photograph taken by Bachman, showing a police officer’s knee pinning an African-American protester’s head to the pavement, struck a chord with photo editors in Iran and Russia, where the crackdown on peaceful protesters made complaints from the United States government about repression of dissent in those countries seem hypocritical. Jonathan Bachman of Reuters made another iconic photo from the Baton Rouge protests: pic.twitter.com/HHthNvfnV4 — Clayton Cubitt (@claytoncubitt) July 11, 2016 This is Iran's most conservative paper on violence in the US. (not sure where the pic is from) pic.twitter.com/CHo6bQ7Su4 — Arash Karami (@thekarami) July 11, 2016 "American nightmare": From "land of opportunity" to killing field for young black men (including Kim Kardashian's) pic.twitter.com/qUv9IdtiBo — Borzou Daragahi (@borzou) July 11, 2016 There were more arrests on Sunday, and more images of what looked like a clear mismatch between the threat of violence from protesters and the aggressive use of force by police officers confronting them. Disperse or be arrested, police say pic.twitter.com/quc4F02ysd — Rebekah Allen (@rebekahallen) July 10, 2016 Two young white woman arrested after they refused to move from in front of police vehicle. pic.twitter.com/o36kWamjsD — Terry L Jones (@tjonesreporter) July 10, 2016 Swat car literally pushing crowd back pic.twitter.com/Z4GM5lEJpU — Rebekah Allen (@rebekahallen) July 10, 2016 As the Baton Rouge Advocate reported, a demonstration in a residential neighborhood of the city on Sunday only got more heated when about 300 marchers were blocked by officers wearing gas masks and driving an armored vehicle with an ear-splitting sound cannon called an LRAD, or long-range acoustic device. As the standoff got more tense, the protesters screamed, “They’re going to gas us,” and “Put down your guns,” video recorded at the scene showed. Baton Rouge is not having it…wow???? pic.twitter.com/U1KcC6tIn8 — logizzle (@iRUNx_LA) July 10, 2016 Tensions high in Baton Rouge as police clash with protesters wearing riot gear and gas masks pic.twitter.com/3KRN9NMKHa — wynton yates (@WyntonYates) July 11, 2016 Crowd still chanting despite final warning from police. pic.twitter.com/AmFg3zm319 — Terry L Jones (@tjonesreporter) July 11, 2016 Eventually, there was a spate of forcible arrests, even of protesters who had retreated from the streets onto sidewalks and, in one case, into the front yard of a woman who tried to shelter them. After 50 demonstrators were taken away, Lisa Batiste, the woman whose front yard was raided by the police, told the CBS News correspondent David Begnaud she was shocked and disappointed by the behavior of the police. Baton Rouge home owner "very upset" after police storm her yard arresting protesters who had permission to be there pic.twitter.com/gwE8aRGKfL — David Begnaud (@DavidBegnaud) July 11, 2016 “It was extremely unnerving — the military-style policing,” Batiste told The Advocate later. “I just wanted them to have a safe place to voice their opinions.” State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson later blamed the protesters, telling the New Orleans Times-Picayune that when ordered to disperse, “They seemed to have no intention of doing so in a peaceful manner.” Some of those who fled the scene then tossed lumps of concrete at his officers, he added. “The bottom line is, this group was certainly not about a peaceful protest, because they could’ve easily left on their own,” Edmonson said. He also called their anti-police chants a form of incitement. “The whole time when you sat there listening to them, their words were not conducive to a peaceful-type demonstration,” he said. Marjorie Esman, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Louisiana, condemned the arrests as unlawful in a statement: The Baton Rouge police used violent, militarized tactics on groups of people who have gathered peacefully in protest of Alton Sterling’s killing. We were on the scene and witnessed police in full riot gear with assault rifles while individuals were exercising their lawful rights and posed no threat. The police lunged and grabbed at peacefully assembled people and threw them to the ground. Such misconduct violates the constitution and is serving to escalate an environment already filled with tension. We depend on the police to protect and serve everyone in our communities, to treat people fairly, to use violence only as the very last resort. But the Baton Rouge police have failed us. They failed when they encountered Alton Sterling. They failed when they lashed out at people protesting in peace. The ACLU stands with the protesters in Baton Rouge and urges the police to honor our constitutional rights instead of stomping on them. There were similar images of the apparent use of excessive force against Black Lives Matter protesters in other parts of the country. The arrest of one young woman late Friday in Rochester, New York, as she was giving an interview to a local news station, also drew widespread condemnation. She literally did nothing pic.twitter.com/qaKrEB1X3y — jack (@WISTERIAJACK) July 10, 2016 The journalist who filmed that arrest, Tara Grimes of TWC News Rochester, reported later that the police said dozens of protesters were arrested after unacceptable “verbal confrontations” between officers and demonstrators. Grimes also shared video of that protester scolding a line of officers in riot gear just before she was arrested.

Many people have seen The Birds (1963). These birds seemed as if they could have been in that film. My friend J was Tippi Hedren for Halloween one year at her office, a blazer torn up in spots, some other touches I can’t remember but maybe she will write and I will add them. These Turkey Buzzards and the Catbird made interesting silhouettes. Shot with a 70-200mm lens. Couldn’t decide if which wings made a stronger composition. Image one or two? J sent me an email about the details of her Halloween costume at work….” My H’ween costume started out innocently enough – hair up, dark stockings, skirt, blazer. As they day progressed a few stuffed birds started to appear on my desk. By mid-day lots of birds and my hair got messier, a bit of blood appeared on my face and neck. Then my blazer got ripped at the shoulder seam and bloody bits on the blazer. Then the dark stockings got horrible runs, and more blood and more birds and by end of day it was gruesome. ” Thanks J for the details. 6/15/11 Share this: Facebook Twitter Email Pinterest Tumblr

“You’re going now to the statistics and saying that it might be fixed because there is a market?” he said. “You’re writing news or fairy tales? So for me, it’s like I don’t even want to talk about it. I talked to the T.I.U.; I respect their work. I gave all the information needed, and at the end of the day what’s going to happen is: I’m not involved in anything.” Dolgopolov appeared more hesitant when asked if he had ever been approached by anyone seeking to fix a match. “Uh, no, not really,” he said. “I don’t have a lot of friends on social networks.” He then lashed out when a reporter pressed him on that vague reply. “You come to me after a five-set match and the only thing you ask about is betting patterns, if I’ve been approached?” he said. “Can you ask something normal?” The concern about the prevalence of match fixing in tennis and the effectiveness of those who investigate it peaked at the Australian Open last year, after reports of possible match fixing at that tournament and in years past. Tennis governing bodies announced an independent review of their efforts before that tournament had ended; the commission still has not reported its initial findings, but is expected to later this year. The T.I.U. has banned three players for life for match fixing this year, but all with puny rankings: 931st, 1,536th, and 1,997th. There has never been an ATP-level player convicted of a fixing offense by the T.I.U. Marco Cecchinato of Italy, ranked 102nd, was banned for 18 months by the Italian tennis federation last year, but that conviction was overturned after the federation missed a deadline during his appeals process. The T.I.U. could still hand down sanctions. At Wimbledon this year, the first Grand Slam main draw that Cecchinato played after his ban was lifted, he refused to answer any questions about his case or its current status.

Topsy-Turvy Motion Creates Light Switch Effect at Uranus Unlike Earth, this icy planet’s magnetosphere opens and closes every day Click image to enlarge This is an image of the planet Uranus taken by the spacecraft Voyager 2. NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft flew closely past distant Uranus, the seventh planet from the Sun, in January 1986 (Photo credit: NASA/JPL). Download Image MORE PHOTOS More than 30 years after Voyager 2 sped past Uranus, Georgia Institute of Technology researchers are using the spacecraft’s data to learn more about the icy planet. Their new study suggests that Uranus’ magnetosphere, the region defined by the planet’s magnetic field and the material trapped inside it, gets flipped on and off like a light switch every day as it rotates along with the planet. It’s “open” in one orientation, allowing solar wind to flow into the magnetosphere; it later closes, forming a shield against the solar wind and deflecting it away from the planet. This is much different from Earth’s magnetosphere, which typically only switches between open and closed in response to changes in the solar wind. Earth’s magnetic field is nearly aligned with its spin axis, causing the entire magnetosphere to spin like a top along with the Earth’s rotation. Since the same alignment of Earth’s magnetosphere is always facing toward the sun, the magnetic field threaded in the ever-present solar wind must change direction in order to reconfigure Earth’s field from closed to open. This frequently occurs with strong solar storms. But Uranus lies and rotates on its side, and its magnetic field is lopsided — it’s off-centered and tilted 60 degrees from its axis. Those features cause the magnetic field to tumble asymmetrically relative to the solar wind direction as the icy giant completes its 17.24-hour full rotation. Rather than the solar wind dictating a switch like here on Earth, the researchers say Uranus’ rapid rotational change in field strength and orientation lead to a periodic open-close-open-close scenario as it tumbles through the solar wind. “Uranus is a geometric nightmare,” said Carol Paty, the Georgia Tech associate professor who co-authored the study. “The magnetic field tumbles very fast, like a child cartwheeling down a hill head over heels. When the magnetized solar wind meets this tumbling field in the right way, it can reconnect and Uranus’ magnetosphere goes from open to closed to open on a daily basis.” Paty says this solar wind reconnection is predicted to occur upstream of Uranus’ magnetosphere over a range of latitudes, with magnetic flux closing in various parts of the planet’s twisted magnetotail. Reconnection of magnetic fields is a phenomenon throughout the solar system. It occurs when the direction of the interplanetary magnetic field – which comes from the sun and is also known as the heliospheric magnetic field – is opposite a planet’s magnetospheric alignment. Magnetic field lines are then spliced together and rearrange the local magnetic topology, allowing a surge of solar energy to enter the system. Magnetic reconnection is one reason for Earth’s auroras. Auroras could be possible at a range of latitudes on Uranus due to its off-kilter magnetic field, but the aurora is difficult to observe because the planet is nearly 2 billion miles from Earth. The Hubble Space Telescope occasionally gets a faint view, but it can’t directly measure Uranus’ magnetosphere. The Georgia Tech researchers used numerical models to simulate the planet’s global magnetosphere and to predict favorable reconnection locations. They plugged in data collected by Voyager 2 during its five-day flyby in 1986. It’s the only time a spacecraft has visited. The researchers say learning more about Uranus is one key to discovering more about planets beyond our solar system. “The majority of exoplanets that have been discovered appear to also be ice giants in size,” said Xin Cao, the Georgia Tech Ph.D. candidate in earth and atmospheric sciences who led the study. “Perhaps what we see on Uranus and Neptune is the norm for planets: very unique magnetospheres and less-aligned magnetic fields. Understanding how these complex magnetospheres shield exoplanets from stellar radiation is of key importance for studying the habitability of these newly discovered worlds.” The paper, “Diurnal and Seasonal Variability of Uranus’ Magnetosphere,” is currently published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics.

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Some cultures burn their dead, others carry corpses up the nearest mountain. Some make mummies, some hold burials at sea and, once in a while, some shoot their journalists out of cannons. Today, a little less than half of Americans are choosing the traditional route of being buried in the ground (according to the National Funeral Directors Association), and an increasing number are opting for cremation. What a relatively small percentage of Americans realize, however, is that both options leave behind a lot more than the fond memories of loved ones. In fact, human beings are full of toxins, and no matter what your religious beliefs, they will not be following us into the next world. They're here to stay. Your Body Is a (Toxic) Wonderland Despite the promises of diet gurus like Alejandro Junger, detoxifying the human body is not as simple as cutting caffeine and peanuts. Every day your body is exposed to contaminants in the environment (mercury from the fillings in your teeth, pesticides from the food you eat, flame retardants from the furniture in your home and BPA from just about everywhere) that even the most stalwart of kidneys cannot eliminate. Our planet is so saturated with contaminants that we're exposed to them even before we're born. In a study led by the Environmental Working Group, an average of 200 industrial and chemical pollutants were detected in the umbilical cords of babies born in U.S. hospitals. The pernicious and prevalent nature of these toxins cannot be overstated, and they infect the ground wherever humans are buried. That's in addition to the formaldehyde and other chemicals that are pumped into a corpse prior to burial. A known carcinogen, formaldehyde builds up in the grounds of cemeteries and can leach through the soil and into the water table. Older cemeteries are brimming with arsenic, which was used as a preservative in the pre- and post-Civil War era. You might think cremation is the more ecological way to go, but studies have shown that crematories emit significant levels of environmental pollutants, including mercury. For the eco-minded, this is a bitter pill to swallow. Realizing that you're fated to leave behind a personal puddle of toxic waste, no matter how passionately you've reduced, reused and recycled in life, is almost as depressing as realizing you're going to die. But there is a cleaner, and weirder, way to go. Opieńki mushrooms. (Photo Credit: Pixabay) You Could Buy Yourself a Mushroom Suit Mushrooms, Kenneth Miller writes, are "Earth's great decomposers." They break down organic and inorganic material alike and help turn it into soil. They are resilient and versatile, providing food, medicine and the occasional psychedelic experience. They may even be the key to cleaning toxic oil spills. Mycologist Paul Stamets has been doing promising research in this field, and his fungi have shown an astonishing talent for slurping up petroleum. It is the mushroom's versatility that inspired artist Jae Rhim Lee to create the "Infinity Mushroom," a fungus bred specifically to munch on human tissue. Using her own nail clippings, skin, blood and various excretions, Lee has "trained" the mushroom to recognize and consume her cells with the aim of remediating the industrial toxins stored in her body (after she expires, of course). This in turn has led to the creation of what the artist calls the "mushroom death suit," a handcrafted garment infused with Infinity Mushroom spores. And yes, she knows that sounds creepy. "I realize this is not the kind of relationship we usually aspire to have with our food," Lee said in her 2011 TED Talk. "We want to eat--not be eaten--by our food, right? But as I watch the mushrooms grow and digest my body, I imagine the Infinity Mushroom as a symbol of a new way of thinking about death, and the relationship between my body and the environment." Lee's company, Coeio, now offers Infinity Burial products as a sustainable alternative to traditional burial and cremation (both for people and for pets). After being buried in this fungal shroud, a corpse will be "transformed into vital nutrients that enrich the earth and foster new life." Dennis White, a 63-year-old suffering from a rare neurological disease, will become the first person to be buried in the mushroom suit. His story and his family's challenges in fulfilling that wish are depicted in the documentary "Suiting Dennis." The Infinity Mushroom Suit will become commercially available in spring 2016. So How Do You Want to Die? They say the only thing that's certain in this life is death and taxes. We can wrap that up nicely under the physics umbrella and say that it's all a matter of entropy. Things fall apart, and energy escapes into the universe. In the long run, death and money are just aspects of that infinite process. But while we're on Earth, and sharing its space with the living and the dead, the friendliest thing to do is minimize our negative impact and plant seeds where we can. Some may consider it extreme to take the "reduce, reuse, recycle" mantra to the grave, but perhaps greener funerals are our civic destiny. How's that old chestnut go? "Good fungi make good neighbors," or something like that.

A N.J. state legislator is making no apologies after posting to Facebook a photo of him and his wife standing by a Confederate flag. Assemblyman Parker Space, R-24th District, and his wife, Jill Space, were awaiting a Hank Williams Jr. concert on Saturday when they were photographed in front of a Confederate flag with Williams' face superimposed over the middle. The flag, known as the "Hank Williams Jr. Rebel Flag," features an inscription: "If the South would've won, we would've had it made." Only the second part of the inscription is visible in the photo. "Tailgating waiting for Hank. Hope no one is offended! LOL," read the Space post, which had been 'liked' by 45 of his Facebook friends as of Sunday afternoon. Parker and Jill Space are Sussex County's two representatives on the New Jersey Republican State Committee. On Monday afternoon, the two Democratic Assembly candidates opposing Space and his running mate, former state Labor Commissioner Harold Wirths, in November denounced Space and said he was showing his "true colors." Democrats Kate Matteson and Gina Trish said on their shared Facebook page that "this behavior is unfitting of a sitting State Assemblyman and is indeed offensive and disrespectful to the thousands of constituents he represents." Space, 48, of Wantage, did not respond to a phone call on Sunday evening, but following the remarks from the Democrats he issued a six-sentence statement taking issue with his critics. "Are you really trying to go there? It was a Lynyrd Skynyrd and Hank Williams Jr. concert and I was there with about 20,000 others," Space said, referring to the concert he attended in Bethel, New York. "Are you saying that those bands are racist? I am sure the African-American members of Hank's touring band wouldn't think so. Thank goodness it wasn't an Ozzie Osbourne or KISS performance, then you would accuse me a being a Nazi or a satanist," Space said. He concluded, "When is this stuff going to end?" It is the second time in three years that Space's perspective on the Confederate flag has drawn notice. When the Assembly, in January 2015, voted 73-0 to condemn Confederate flag displays, Space was the only lawmaker to abstain. Several groundhogs featured at Groundhog Day events at his family-run business, Space Farms Zoo and Museum, were named after Stonewall Jackson, the Confederate War general. Matteson and Trish, in objecting to the Facebook post, said Space "should be held accountable for his actions," adding, "The only flag we pledge our allegiance to is the American flag, representing union and equality. Space is known for speaking his mind on a wide range of topics. In May, a Colorado congressman offered a public rebuttal after Space related a description of Boulder as "disgusting" and laden with zombies to justify his opposition to marijuana legalization. Also that month, Space said he meant it as a joke when he called, during a candidates' debate, for executing drug dealers "high at noon" on the Newton town square. Republicans have a significant voter edge in Space's district, which includes all of Sussex County, Mount Olive in Morris County and 11 municipalities in Warren County. Rob Jennings may be reached at rjennings@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @RobJenningsNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook

Steve Brescia, a Flyers season ticketholder from New Jersey, watches a Trenton Titans ECHL warmup with his 4-year-old daughter, Laurel. (Photo: Randy Miller, USA TODAY Sports) Story Highlights ECHL attendance is up 2% while AHL crowds are down 7% Titans president: "We're waiting to see if the lockout really is ending" Even the popular Hershey Bears have smaller crowds TRENTON, N.J. - Walking hand-in-hand with dad, a little girl with blond hair and a hooded winter jacket smiled her way from the Sun National Bank Center concourse down a flight of steps to a fourth-row, center-ice seat. Laurel Breschia, 4, already loves the Philadelphia Flyers. But with no NHL this season, she has had a blast watching the Trenton Titans play ECHL games. "As soon as we go home, she says, 'When are we going to the hockey game again?'" Steve Breschia, a Flyers season ticketholder from Burlington County, N.J., said before their fourth Titans game of the season. One section to the right of the Breschias, Jason Smith purchased Row 2 seats for him and 6-year-old son, James, after driving in from Toms River, N.J. "There's nowhere else to go for hockey," said the father, a 31-year-old former soldier who fought in Iraq. "And it's nice paying only $23 for me and $12 for James to sit up on the glass." The Breschias and the Smiths seem to be in a minority getting in hockey fixes during a season in which there has been no NHL because of a lockout that has canceled games through Jan. 14. Instead of receiving a boast in attendance from area fans missing hockey, Titans crowds are down 1.5% even though Wells Fargo Center, home of the Flyers, is 37 miles away. The Titans averaged 3,013 for 36 games last season, and this season they're at 2,969 through 14 home dates. LOCKOUT: No talks likely before holiday "Some people think because there's a lockout, we can open the doors and (people) just show up," said Rich Lisk, President and CEO of the Titans, who play in a state-of-the-art, 13-year-old arena that holds 8,100 for hockey. "We're waiting to see if the lockout really is ending. That's going to be the tell-tale sign. I think when there's no NHL season, you might start seeing a difference." Maybe, but few minor-league teams are benefiting from the lockout. ECHL attendance is up, but just 2%, and American Hockey League crowds are down 7%. Meantime, both Flyers' minor-league affiliates are struggling. The Titans are 19th among 23 ECHL teams in attendance, while the Adirondack Phantoms, who are based in Glen Falls, N.Y., are averaging an AHL-worst 3,413 even with Flyers young stars Brayden Schenn and Sean Couturier in their lineup. A Dec. 14 crowd for the Titans' 4-2 victory against Wheeling was announced at 3,143, but it appeared that fewer than half that actually was in the building. "I look at our game sheet at the end and our attendance is like 3,200, and there's no chance that many people came to the game," said Titans left wing Marcel Noebels, a Flyers' 2011 fourth-round draft pick and one of their top prospects. "I played (juniors) in Portland last year (in the Western Hockey League) and we had like 10,000 every game. Now I'm playing in front of 2,000 or 2,500. It's kind of shocking. I thought there was going to be more fans in Trenton, especially because there's no hockey in Philly and no hockey in New Jersey and there's not really an AHL team close to here." The closest is the Hershey Bears, the AHL's hottest ticket for years. A Washington Capitals affiliate, the Bears are leading the league in attendance for the seventh season in a row, but even their crowds are smaller, dropping from 9,872 last season to 9,209 for 15 games this season. The Titans have a good excuse for their crowds with current ownership 17 months removed from purchasing a dying franchise that had 232 season ticketholders and announced plans to suspend operations for 2011-12. An expansion team in 1999-2000, the Titans were among the league's top draws in their early years, topping out at 7,082 per game in their debut season, but fans started staying away when the New Jersey Devils bought the franchise in September 2006 and renamed the team Trenton Devils for 2007-08. Lisk was with the Titans in the beginning and GM in 2005 when the franchise was ECHL champions. He left when the Titans became the Devils (initially to work for the Arena Football League's Philadelphia Soul) and returned last season after putting together an ownership group. With Lisk running the show again, the Devils were renamed the Titans in July 2011 and the new owners opted to play last season despite having just 10 weeks to put together a front office, coaching staff and roster. When attendance climbed a tick beyond 3,000 per game, a first for the franchise since 2007-08, Lisk set a goal for 2012-13 to beat last season's total. With 21 home dates to go and the best drawing months ahead, he's optimistic. "People say, 'Just call up the people who were here in 2005.'" Lisk said. "Well, those people in 2005 aren't the same people in 2012. You've got to go find 2012 people. Lockout or no lockout, it's going to take time. I think four or five years down the road, we can settle in at 4,000 or 5,000 a game again." For the time being, Lisk appreciates the Titans' small loyal fan base as well as the occasional paying customers such as Steve Breschia and Jason Smith - Flyers fans who really miss NHL hockey. "I'm certainly mad about the lockout, but it's really out of the fans' control," said Breschia. "If I want to see hockey, I gotta come here to Trenton or go out to Hershey. I'm thinking of going to see the Bears play next week. I love the game so much I'd go watch 5-year-olds." Randy Miller also writes for the (Cherry Hill, N.J.) Courier-Post

Berenguer Ramon II "the Fratricide" (1053/1054 – 1097/1099) was Count of Barcelona from 1076 to 1097. He was the son of Ramon Berenguer I, and initially ruled jointly with his twin brother Ramon Berenguer II. Born in 1053 or 1054, Berenguer Ramon succeeded his father Ramon Berenguer I the Old in 1075 to co-rule with his twin brother Ramon Berenguer II. The twins failed to agree and divided their possessions between them, against the will of their late father. Ramon Berenguer II was killed while hunting in the woods on 5 December 1082. Berenguer Ramon II, who became the sole ruler of Catalonia for the next four years, was credited by popular opinion with having orchestrated this murder. This suspicion and other divisions of loyalty led to a civil war. Various parties asserted ways to resolve this 'unjust and iniquitous murder', which led to a moderate compromise in 1086 in which Berenguer Ramon II would rule Catalonia with his brother's four-year-old son Ramon Berenguer III for eleven years until he came of age.[1] In the 1080s Berenguer Ramon's involvement in the internal strife in the Moorish taifa kingdoms brought him in conflict with El Cid. In the ensuing war the Count of Barcelona was twice taken prisoner. After Berenguer Ramon's resignation in 1097 his life became more obscure. Still living under the accusations of his brother's assassination, the guilt of which may have been determined by trial by combat, which he lost, he went to Jerusalem, either on pilgrimage, as a penance, or as part of the First Crusade, and perished there between 1097 and 1099. Berenguer Ramon II was succeeded by his nephew Ramon Berenguer III, son of Ramon Berenguer II. Notes [ edit ]

Make a lovely audio/video setup with a 7" IPS screen with HDMI stereo speaker support. For video, we have a beautiful bright 7" TFT display with incredibly high resolution and great angle-visibility! We tried to get the thinnest, brightest, highest resolution display that would be good for embedded computing usage. The visible display measures 7" diagonal and is a 'raw LVDS' display as is used in a tablet which makes it ultra thin and very bright. We include a driver board with HDMI, VGA and Composite inputs as well as stereo 4 ohm at 3W output driving capability. The setup is very easy to use - simply connect a 5-12VDC adapter to the 2.1mm center-positive DC jack, then connect a digital video source to one of the ports and two 4 to 8 ohm speakers to the SPK output pins. Voilà, a display! There's a little wired PCB with little buttons that let you enter a menu system for adjusting brightness, color and contrast. It tries to auto-detect which input you have and switches to that one or you can 'select' from the menu which to display. We include a plug-in cable that connects to the 4 speaker output pins, the pins are labeled LOUT+/- and ROUT+/-. You'll have to solder your own speakers to the 4 wires To demonstrate it, we took some photos with the display connected to a Raspberry Pi, but it will also work connected to any device with HDMI, VGA or NTSC/PAL output. It will not work with a device that only outputs DVI (without a DVI to HDMI converter) or SECAM. For use with a Raspberry Pi we suggest editing config.txt to set the HDMI to native 1280x800 in case it doesn't detect the resolution properly. You can see our suggested config.txt in the Technical details tab. The easiest way to edit the config.txt is to put the Pi SD card into an every day computer and edit config.txt with any text editor and save. For use with a BeagleBone Black running Ubuntu/Debian, we found it works when plugged in, no configuration required. A power adapter is NOT included. You will need to either purchase a 5-12VDC adapter or you can use one you've already got around the house. We show the display on a bent wire stand which is not included, but you can pick one up here We may ship with a black flex cable or a white ribbon cable to connect the TFT to the driver, both work identically! 7" Display & Audio 1280x800 IPS - VGA/NTSC/PAL/NTSC (7:56)

Mitch Cairns's portrait of artist Agatha Gothe-Snape, which won the 2017 Archibald Prize. July 28, 2017. Figurative painter and cartoonist Mitch Cairns has won the 2017 Archibald Prize for his portrait of his partner and fellow artist Agatha Gothe-Snape. The accolade, which is judged by the trustees of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, has a colourful history, with debate, division and legal challenges. Mr Cairns, who is based in Sydney, had been shortlisted for the Archibald Prize four times and finished runner-up twice. He was also a studio assistant for 2000 Archibald Prize winner Adam Cullen. Mr Cairns will receive $100,000 for his triumph. "Artists need a lot of support and I do have that in spades," he said. The award was established in 1921 by bequest from magazine editor Jules Francois Archibald. Entries to the Archibald Prize, widely recognised as Australia's most prominent portraiture prize, must be painted in the past year. Embracing and resisting In the portrait, Ms Gothe-Snape is seen sitting on a mat, embracing and resisting "what it is to be fixed". "Ultimately this is what is most attractive about Agatha," Mr Cairns said. "She embodies an uncompromising agency whilst having the grace to accept the ready complications inherent within our life as artists. "I composed this portrait with love in the full knowledge of its inevitable and palpable quake." Jun Chen's painting of gallery owner Ray Hughes finished runner-up. It was the second time Mr Chen had used his first art dealer as the subject of an Archibald Prize entry, with Mr Hughes also featuring in 2009. David Gonski, from the gallery's board of trustees, said choosing between Mr Chen's work and Mr Cairns's entry was difficult. "It took us some time, wandering between the two wonderful paintings to decide who would be the winner," he said. This year, there were 822 Archibald Prize entries and 43 finalists. Striking APY landscape Betty Kuntiwa Pumani's painting Antara won the Wynne Prize and had special significance to her, because it is inspired by her mother's country in South Australia's Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara lands. She will receive $50,000 for taking out first prize in the award, which is for landscapes. The landscapes of the area are influential in the works of Ms Pumani and her late mother, Milatjari Pumani, who was also a prominent artist from the area. The rocky desert terrains of Antara are depicted in striking reds. Ms Pumani told the gathering at the Art Gallery of NSW that it was an honour for her work to beat an imposing field. She said her paintings were strong because the culture and family ties were strong in the area. Colonisation in the spotlight Meanwhile, Joan Ross won the Sir John Sulman Prize for her work titled Oh history, you lied to me. First presented in 1936, the Sulman Prize is for subject or genre paintings and is judged by a single artist — a job that this year fell to Tony Albert. Ms Ross's work, which shines a light on Australian colonisation, beat almost 600 entries to the $40,000 prize. "I'm a little bit shocked," she said. "I always feel like my work is the culmination of a whole community of people coming together."

Kirsty Lillico's work State Block includes salvaged carpet draped from the ceilings, and is intended to question the liveability of high-density social housing. It's a stretch to call it a drawing, but Wellington artist Kirsty Lillico's pieces of salvaged carpet draped over string have won her the $20,000 annual Parkin Drawing Prize. State Block was described as "challenging, brave and impressive" by judge Seraphine Pick in awarding the prize, given by Wellington hotelier and arts patron Chris Parkin. But is it a drawing? "First of all, I've sort of re-represented a drawing made by someone else," Lillico said. KEVIN STENT/ STUFF Lillico was amazed to learn she had won the $20,000 Parkin Drawing Prize. "I had to sit down on the couch." "Drawing, to me, it's not just about a pencil and paper. I'm using a knife and carpet and hanging it in a space to achieve the same ends." READ MORE: * Drawing a piece of paper nets $20k prize * A whole lot of graphite wins $20,000 Parkin Drawing Prize * Controversial Parkin Drawing Prize winner credits competition with elevating his career * 'The Catastrophe' wins $20,000 Parkin Drawing Prize * Prestigious Australian photography prize won by woman who never took a photo Parkin admitted Lillico's work would not have been his first choice as winner of the prize – but he was impressed by magnitude of the work. KEVIN STENT/ STUFF Judge Seraphine Pick applauded the work for the way it questioned the failure of privatisation to solve the current state housing crisis. "As I was walking around I thought, gosh, that's a big piece. If that wins, where am I going to hang it?" While he hasn't made that decision yet, he did feel the piece constituted the requirements for the drawing competition. It was "still lines, at the end of the day". KEVIN STENT/ STUFF Parkin Drawing Prize founder Chris Parkin admits Lillico's work would not have been his first choice as the winner. "It certainly stretches the drawing concept ..." "It certainly stretches the drawing concept ... somebody has taken a knife, and started a line and taken it for a walk." Last week, Australia's prestigious Olive Cotton Award for Photographic Portraiture was criticised because the winning piece Maternal Line didn't actually have a portrait of a face, and nor did it use a camera. Lillico's 3.7m x 4.7m work is based on an architectural floor plan of a one-bedroom state-owned apartment in Auckland. KEVIN STENT/ STUFF According to Lillico, "it's looking at the architectural (drawings) – positive, being black (drawn lines of an architectural design), and the negative being the spaces we occupy". Pick applauded it for the way it questioned high-density social housing and its "liveability, inequality, affordability", and the failure of privatisation to "solve the current state housing crisis, balanced with her interest in the post-depression era of International Brutalism style of modern architecture and its aesthetics". According to Lillico, "it's looking at the architectural (drawings) – positive, being black (drawn lines of an architectural design), and the negative being the spaces we occupy". State Block beat 502 other entries nationwide and 84 finalists at the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts on Tuesday evening. The Parkin prize has been going for five years, and this was Lillico's third year of entering. Her debut win left her quite amazed. "I had to sit down on the couch," she said. Lillico has, in the past, been known to salvage old carpets from Lyall Bay dumpsters, but this carpet was new and most likely the end of the roll, from carpet company Sallee. Pick also awarded 10 highly commended prizes worth $500 each. The recipients include Karyn Taylor, Arc on 3 States; Harry McAlpine, The Tyranny of Good Intentions; James Thomson-Bache, The Activity; Michael Dell, Valley/Forest; Rohan Wealleans, Skyclad; Kristy Gorman, Lacuna; Clara Wells, Parramatta Automatic; Jae Kang, Stains of Breath; James Robinson, Gnosis and Hugo Koha Lindsey, Forensic Cue 1.

A full bench of the Federal Court has today handed down a hotly awaited judgment on its interpretation of Australian privacy law, and what qualifies as personal information. It has served a rebuff to Australian Privacy Commissioner Timothy Pilgrim, who has been fighting to secure a broad definition of personal information in the courts, to ensure that everything that could reasonably be used to identify an individual will fall under the protection of the Privacy Act. But federal court judges today dismissed the commissioner's appeal, siding with Telstra and the Administrative Appeals Tribunal over whether the telco needs to hand a full suite of telecommunications metadata over to Telstra customer and former Fairfax journalist Ben Grubb, under the personal information access provisions of the Act. The case has hinged on whether metadata stored by Telstra is information “about” Ben Grubb or “about” the service delivered to him. Telstra held out out on handing over phone network information such as the IP address, URLs visited on the account, cell tower locations during web use, and data pertaining to inbound calls, arguing it does not constitute personal information and thus falls outside the Act. The AAT originally ruled that “the mobile network data relates to the way in which Telstra delivers the service or product for which Mr Grubb pays ... It is information about the service it provides to Mr Grubb but not about him". Privacy Commissioner Timothy Pilgrim warned earlier this year that the case would set the parameters for “arguably the most important term in the Privacy Act”. Today's ruling establishes a narrower definition of personal information than the Privacy Commissioner would like. His office declined to comment on the ruling while it considers the decision. Privacy analyst and Lockstep consultant Stephen Wilson said the ruling has potentially made the privacy landscape even more confusing. “This has been a deeply philosophical semantic argument about the word ‘about’ when we should be arguing the big picture stuff,” he said. “It has created some artificial parameters. Telstra itself appeared to concede during the case that the information was personal information but was forced to backtrack by semantic nonsense. “Uncertainty will allow people to continue to cloud the issues,” he told iTnews. Salinger Privacy's Anna Johnston said cases like this had "led us nowhere, good or bad" - pointing out that it was still unclear if the ruling has any bearing on a new version of the Privacy Act that took effect in 2014. "I think the Privacy Commissioner’s lawyers played a high stakes game with a narrow approach to this appeal, and it backfired on them.," she said. "The Federal Court did not clearly answer the question of what defines personal information because they were not asked to." The battle to define ‘personal information’ dates back to 2013, when Grubb first applied to Telstra for a copy of the “metadata” information it stored on him in an effort to find out what could be captured under since-passed data retention laws proposed by the federal government. The Privacy Act gives consumers the right to demand the personal information a private sector organisation holds on them, and to deliver it to them in the manner they request “if it is reasonable to do so”. But the case has grown into a precedent-setting battle over how far the reaches of the Privacy Act extend. The privacy commissioner had disputed Telstra's approach through a network of courts, escalating the matter via appeal to the full bench of Federal Court to reach today's ruling. Grubb - who has since left journalism - told iTnews he was grateful to the OAIC for pursuing the case, despite being disappointed in the outcome. "The point of this case was to get my telco to hand over what they were already providing to law enforcement agencies on a case-by-case basis," he said. "In effect, the case achieved most of this, with Telstra eventually allowing consumers to access a lot of what they had on file about their users."

“Everyone wins” at this year’s Academy Awards, according to Distinctive Assets, the company in charge of putting together the luxurious gift bags for nominees. So while only a handful of stars will receive Oscars this year, each nominee will go home with a record-setting $200,000 worth of swag. As the group’s press release announces, the bag this year is “once again a blend of fabulous, fun and functional items meant to thrill and pamper those who may have everything money can buy but still savor the simple joy of a gift.” So what will likely Oscar losers like Cate Blanchett, Matt Damon, and Jennifer Lawrence be taking home with them as consolation prizes? • A 10-day, first-class trip to Israel ($55,000)• A year’s worth of unlimited Audi car rentals from Silvercar ($45,000)• A 15-day walking tour of Japan ($45,000)• 3 private training sessions with “celebrity wellness expert” and star of ABC’s My Diet Is Better Than Yours, Jay Cardiello ($1,400)• Ultherapy—a laser skin-tightening procedure courtesy of 740 Park MD ($5,530)• A Lifetime supply of skin creams from Lizora ($31,200)• A Fit Club TV “Ultimate Fitness Package” in a private villa ($6,250)• A Haze Dual V3 Vaporizer valued at $249.99 (At least Leonardo DiCaprio will be happy) And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The most bizarre item on the list clocks in at $1,900 and is something we are apparently referring to as a “Vampire Breast Lift.” What is a Vampire Breast Lift, you ask? Featured by Cosmopolitan, the new secret “must have” in Hollywood is the Vampire Breast Lift procedure which uses blood-derived growth factors to revive rounder cleavage without implants. Women can now also soften implant scars and irregularities (and restore sensation). Using technology used by plastic surgeons for years to help correct post-mastectomy scarring and to heal wounds, the Vampire Breast Lift procedure uses a woman’s own blood to improve appearance. Designed for zero downtime by Charles Runels, MD - the same physician who invented the Vampire Facelift. Good to know. Notably, the bags are only given to nominees in the main acting and directing categories, assuring that the sponsored items will only be given to the most famous people at the ceremony. Don’t think for a second that anyone who spent their life savings on a nominated Best Documentary Short is going home with a $5,000 home spa system. In this year of #OscarsSoWhite and #FeelTheBern, there is something even more unsavory than usual about this shameless attempt to shower excessive wealth on the excessively wealthy. When companies feel the need to pay off celebrities who “have everything money can buy,” then really, no one wins.

Another bit of news teased at SuperZoo the other week was the new all-in-one frag tank by JBJ. Gone are the days of cobbling together a tank of misfit parts to house your ever-shuffling collection of coral frags with this nice package. The new JBJ RL-20 frag tank is 20 gallon rimless aquarium that is shorter and wider to efficiently house your growing corals. The new JBJ RL-20 frag tank measures in at 20 x 24 in. and is around 9 in. tall. The typical three-stage filtration chamber in housed in the back. As far as return pumps, we can assume these have dual returns with two pumps similar to what you see in the company’s other aquariums. This is a nice looking tank and is a welcome addition to any fish room or even making a prime time appearance in the house. We are hoping to get a better look at this tank and get all the details at MACNA later this month.

A Beginner’s Adventure with RxJS: Part I Nichole Bates Blocked Unblock Follow Following Oct 29, 2017 Something that has been all the rage lately in the programming world is a paradigm known as functional reactive program. Exactly as it sounds, FRP is a powerful combination of reactive programming and functional programming. My goal of this blog post is not to explain what FRP is, but instead to walk through some of the ways I have implemented FRP using the library RxJS. Before continuing, if you’d like to gain more of a general understanding of the paradigm, I suggest reading this blog post. It breaks down what reactive programming is, what functional programming is and how functional reactive programming marries the two concepts. What is RxJS? There are many tools and libraries that exist that enable developers to easily implement FRP patterns, perhaps one of the most common being Reactive Extensions. Originally developed by Microsoft as Rx.NET, Rx has been adapted to many languages, including Javascript. RxJS is a library that makes use of an Observable, which is a stream or a collection of items over time. It follows the Observer Pattern where an Observable is subscribed to by an Observer, to which it actively pushes its emissions. Most importantly with any FRP implementation, in order for an Observable to begin emitting items, a subscription needs to be established by an Observer. The source backing the Observable will not run until this is done — this concept is known as lazy loading. Once an Observable emits an item, it can undergo a series of transformations before it reaches the Observer. The RxJS library contains a number of operators such as Observable.map(), Observable.delay(), Observable.concat(), and Observable.zip() that can be applied to the Observable in a chain-like fashion, making these transformations easy to do. To help explain RxJS and its operators, I have included a tool commonly used to illustrate the operators called Marble diagrams. The line represents time, whereas the circles represent emissions that the Observable would emit to its subscribers. The end state of the Observable can either be a successful completion (demonstrated by a vertical line) or an error (demonstrated by an X). Implementing RxJS The project I chose to work on is one that I knew would introduce interesting challenges I could solve with RxJS while also being something I personally would use. The feature is something I would like to see integrated into Spotify which allows a user to search for a song and annotate it with comments, which are then saved. SongComponent View Users of the feature can view a stream of tagged songs and can playback the songs with all users’ tags for that song made visible. Because I couldn’t actually make this feature a part of the Spotify application, I made an Angular2/Node.js app which makes use of the Spotify Web API and the 30 second song previews to illustrate my idea. TaggedSongComponent View I made use of RxJS in varying degrees throughout the application, with the most complex implementation being the component which syncs displaying tags with music playback. The scope of this blogpost will cover some of the basic ways I utilized some operators to achieve things like data loading and transformation, and capturing user input. There will be another part to this post where I will explore some of the more complex chains that I built in this project. Observable and Observer The first component I would like to discuss is the public feed which loads a feed of all of the publicly tagged songs. This is a simple and common use case of RxJS in Angular2. When the component initializes, it uses a service that prepares an Observable that will make a backend call to fetch the songs from the database when it is subscribed to by an observer. Here is what the service code looks like: @Injectable() export class TaggedSongsService { constructor(private http: Http) {} getAllTaggedSongs() { return this.http.get(‘/api/tagged_songs’); } } The http.get function is an Observable factory which will create our Observable. That Observable will make the GET request once an Observer is present and will emit the response returned from the backend. There are two important things to note here: Being an observable, this GET request won’t run, until something subscribes to it. If we subscribe to the same observable multiple times, it’ll make a backend call for every subscription, unlike a Promise that resolves only once in its lifetime. If we look at the tagged songs list component which makes use of this service, upon initialization of the component is where I have subscribed to the observable. ngOnInit(): void { this.taggedSongsService.getAllTaggedSongs().subscribe(songs => { this.songs = songs.tracks; }); } When a user navigates to the public feed view, the component will get initialized and in turn will subscribe to the Observable created by the TaggedSongsService. Simple Data Transformation Ok, so the component initializes and subscribes to the Observable which will make a backend call and emit the response. However, I really only want the JSON body from the response, so how would I do this transformation? Luckily, there is another commonly used RxJS operator called map() that takes a mapping function. It transforms emissions from the upstream Observable by applying the mapping function and forwarding the result downstream. If we examine the below marble diagram we’ll see that the upstream Observable is emitting values 1, 2 and 3. The mapping function we pass is multiplying each emission by 10. As a result our Observer (downstream from the map) receives 10, 20 and 30. In that sense we can use the map() operator to map a response to a JSON object. Here, I am taking the emission and extracting just the JSON to be passed along downstream. (i.e. I’m mapping a Response to a JSON object). @Injectable() export class TaggedSongsService { constructor(private http: Http) { } getAllTaggedSongs() { return this.http.get(‘/api/tagged_songs’) .map(res => res.json()); } } Side-effects & Syncing Observables’ Emissions So, we’ve discussed the idea of subscribing to an Observable and synchronously transforming an Observable‘s emissions using Observable.map(). Moving onto something a little more complicated, we can look at the component that allows a user to tag a song with comments. In order for a tag to be successfully added, the action is two-fold: When the song has reached the place where a user wants to place a tag she will first click the Add Tag button. A text box then pops up where she can enter the text followed by clicking a Submit Text button. These two actions will be the subject of our next discussion. Breaking it down to focus on the first step (clicking the Add Tag button), I have the following code. this.position = Observable.fromEvent(this.button.nativeElement, ‘click’) .do(_ => { this.render.TextBox(); }) .map(_ => this.toCurrentPosition()); SongComponent View I start by creating an Observable that emits click events for my Add Tag button. Now every time the user clicks on that button, my Observable will emit an event. I don’t care so much about the actual emission, but I do want to do a couple of things any time this happens. First I use the Observable.do() operator to pop up a text box on the UI. The Observable.do() operator is generally used for synchronous side-effects you might need to do mid-chain. I then use the familiar Observable.map() to obtain two important pieces of information: the current time in the song and the position the tag needs to be on the Wavesurfer view. I return the two key pieces of information provided by other entities within the component, as we can see below: toCurrentPosition() { return { time: waveSurfer.getCurrentTime(), currentPosition: getTagPosition() }; } getTagPosition() { let currentPostion = getPosition(); let waveWidth = getWaveWidth(); return (currentPostion / waveWidth) * 100; } The second part of the tagging process is the actual tag text that is submitted via the textbox. I could have taken a similar approach and made onClick events on the Submit Text button an Observable. However, because what I am really interested in is the text in the textbox, I would have had to take an extra step to map the click event to the input text. Therefore, I’ve taken another approach where I instead use a regular onClick event which passes the text as an argument in the onClick function defined in the component. Once received in the component, the text is emitted through a Subject. Note: We should usually avoid subjects since they can be tricky to deal with. Especially when building bigger chains. For this particular case though, I chose to use a Subject to demonstrate its uses. A Subject is an Observable and an Observer, meaning you can subscribe to a Subject. For example, if you call subject.next(“hello”), then your Observer will receive “hello” as an emission. If you call subject.completed(), your Observer will receive the completed event, and the same goes when calling with an error. Using a Subject like this is a way to make an Observable out of something that is not one. Note that in the SongComponent I have defined a global variable tagTextSubject and set its type to be a Subject. export class SongComponent implements OnInit { clicks: Observable<any>; tagTextSubject:Subject<any> = new Subject(); } When the submitText onClick function is executed with the input text, I call tagTextSubject.next(text), allowing the text value to be emitted from this Observable. submitText(text: string): void { this.tagTextSubject.next(text); } Great, so now the text is the second Observable associated with a single tag. In order to create the tag object from the first Observable, emitting time and position, to the second Observable, emitting the user’s input, I can apply the Observable.zip() operator to sync the two observable emissions. As illustrated below, the Observable.zip() operator takes the two Observables as the first two arguments and combine function as the third argument. Observable.zip( this.position, this.tagTextSubject, (position, tagText) => { return { position: position, text: tagText } } ).subscribe(val => { this.renderAndStoreTag(val) }); Observable.zip() joins the last two emissions from each Observable together. So the most recently emitted position item (with the current time and position of the tag) is zipped together with the most recently emitted tagTextSubject item (the text of the tag). The third argument in Observable.zip() determines exactly how I want the emissions from the Observables joined. Here, I combine the first object containing the position and time of the tag with the text of the tag into a single tag object. Observable.zip() emits objects containing the tag info which are passed along to the renderAndStoreTag function. This function adds each tag object to an array of tags (which will be passed to the backend to save all tags upon clicking the save button) and also creates and shows the UI for the tag. Asynchronous Data Transformation Great, so we’ve just mastered a small RxJS chain — we’re nearly experts! At this point I would like to wrap up part one of this blog post by taking a step back to look at one more operator which is a bit more complicated. To do that we must backtrack a bit to the initialization of the SongComponent we were just in. Whenever the component is initialized, we create the following chain and subscribe to it: this.route.params .switchMap(params => { return this.songService.getSong(params[‘track_id’]); }) .subscribe(song => { this.song = song.name; this.image = song.album.images[1].url; this.artist = song.artists[0].name; this.waveSurfer.load(song.preview_url); }, error => console.log(error)); A user navigates to this view by clicking on the song title in the list of tagged songs in the Feed view. When this is done, the user is redirected to the song view and the song’s Spotify ID is passed along as a parameter of this url. However, we have no other information about the song at this point. Therefore, we need to map the id to a Spotify song object — but that means making an async call to the Spotify API to retrieve the song object by ID. In the past we’ve used Observable.map() to synchronously map an emission to some other type. Here, since we don’t have the song object yet and have to retrieve it asynchronously, we can’t use Observable.map(). But fear not, there are a few operators that allow for asynchronous mapping in RxJS. They all behave in the same way but have semantic differences (a potential topic for another blog post). The general pattern is, we provide a mapping function that maps upstream emissions to an Observable. Whatever Observable we return, RxJS will subscribe to and forward its emissions downstream. For our purposes here, I have used Observable.switchMap(). Now, whenever the params Observable emits a song ID, I map that to an Observable created by the service that fetches the song details from backend. As a result, my Observer receives full song objects instead of just IDs thus allowing me to perform the proper initialization of the component with the pertinent song information. That concludes my introduction to some basic implementations of RxJS. I hope you’ve learned a little bit about how easy it can be to implement FRP with a helpful library such as this. Please check back soon to read Part II of my journey in applying RxJS where I will focus on the complex chain that is the driving force behind the TaggedSongComponent view.

It’s Absurd That Mitch M c Connell Has Proposed We Disband the Senate, and Why I, John M c Cain, Am Voting for It Anyway The Senate has long been the lifeblood of American democracy, and disbanding it is phenomenally un-American and shortsighted. Any person who thinks this is a good idea is an idiot of the highest caliber, and should be immediately removed from office. That being said, I will vote with the honorable Senator Mitch McConnell to eliminate the Senate, because I am a small man with a backbone that’s the consistency of warm paste. You might be wondering, “John, how can you say one thing and do the complete opposite?” And to that I say, “my answer to that question is whatever Mitch McConnell’s answer is, for I am his obedient submissive.” Off the record, I can tell you that it’s like rubbing your tummy and patting your head — it’s tricky at first, but with a little practice, truly anybody can do it. Rubbing my tummy and patting my head is also a trick I do for Mitch McConnell and his grown-up friends at Mitch’s fancy parties. Mitch loves to laugh at how silly I look, and in return, he gives me a single, shiny dime, which he graciously allows me to spend on candy. I’m saving up for a Snickers! That’s not to say that I always fall rank and file with Republicans. When Mitch McConnell declared my birthday to be “National John McCain Sucks Eggs Day,” I just about lost my cool. Yes, I voted to make it a federal holiday, but I was very unhappy about it, and I made sure to register my complaint with Senator McConnell. When he told me, “John, your thoughts, feelings, and opinions are utterly worthless,” I left his office quickly and quietly, fearing his wrath. I got him back for that one, though, when I refused to make eye contact with Mitch for several days. That little passive-aggressive move earned me quite a spanking. My bottom was beet red and sore for days, but as always, I am subservient to the whims of Mitch McConnell’s firm hand. But you’ll see this ol’ Maverick fight back on Senator McConnell’s latest plan to preemptively nominate Steve Bannon to the Supreme Court. The fact that the Senator McConnell has gone on record saying that Bannon will replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg after she is, “wink wink, taken care of, wink wink” is appalling, and if anything’s worth breaking from the GOP, it’s this egregious, repulsive action. What’s that? I think I hear Mitch McConnell’s footsteps. He’s probably just on his way to the bathroom, but nevertheless, I will reluctantly support Justice Bannon, for I am a good little dog who listens to his master. Speaking of dogs, did you know Mitch McConnell likes to put me on a leash and parade me around the Senate floor like I’m one of his purebreds? Tune into C-SPAN sometime — it’s a real hoot. So am I, as my critics call me, a two-faced, hypocritical, cowardly, pathetic, spineless, weak-willed, quivering, hapless garden slug, content to put my party’s insane and destructive whims above my own moral convictions? No! I am, as Mitch McConnell likes to call me, a little bitch boy, and I’m proud to be his little bitch boy. Now if you’ll excuse me, the Senate Republicans are all ordering pizza, and I have to make sure they don’t get pineapple on it, because of my allergies. I can not, in good health or conscious, eat another slice of pineapple pizza. Unless Mitch McConnell asks me to — in that case, my mouth is open and I’m ready to swallow.

Have you ever had a parent or loved one look at you askance, because of your degree in the arts? Maybe you’re a student who has yet to break the news to them. Well next time you’re feeling inferior because of your chosen artistic vocation, show the world this video of Cate Blanchett (beg your pardon, Dr. Cate Blanchett) getting her honorary doctorate degree at Macquarie University in Sydney. Sticking up for her fellow artists, Blanchett says: The arts are what we stay alive for, what we work for all week, what we dream about, what connects us and indeed, what some will say makes us human. Within this broad church is housed a myriad of professions— professions which some of you will participate in, help change, shape and evolve and I’d like to say today that it is the arts that have always been the driver of innovation and exploration. Blanchett goes on to detail her own eccentric educational background, which included flirtations with the field of economics, politics, architecture, and finance, before pursuing her passion for acting. Pausing briefly to comfort a crying child in the back of the room, Blanchett finishes strong by answering the question “What the hell can you do with an arts degree?” by saying, “What can the world do without one?”

Is Bitcoin a fraud or a breakthrough technology? Is it a valid, though untested, digital currency of exchange? Is it a promising alternative to so-called fiat currencies (the ones backed by governments)? Can it fundamentally alter the way economies work? Has it become a “store of value,” as some investors view gold? And the big question: if its astonishing rise in 2017, to nearly US$17,000 per Bitcoin from under US$1,000 a year ago, is a bubble, when will it pop? I have no idea. Not just to the last question, which is the easiest to back out of, since at the best of times it’s a mug’s game to predict when incredible run-ups in the price of anything will end, and doubly so when any sense of underlying value is elusive and cryptic. On the other questions, too, I admit befuddlement. Now, I respect Jamie Dimon, CEO of J.P. Morgan, for his certainty in declaring Bitcoin a “fraud.” I admire the optimism and creativity of Bitcoin’s proponents, like the Winklevoss twins, early backers of the stuff, whose stash is now worth more than US$1 billion — it’s so rare to see such faith pay off these days. And I envy the ingenuity of the developers, like the mysterious individual or individuals known as Satoshi Nakamoto, who designed Bitcoin and apparently have a lot of it. He/she/they must be super-rich now — good for him/her/them! But to be honest, when I hear debate about “which side of the Bitcoin are you on?” my eyes glaze over. This is not to inform, obviously, but rather an attempt to inspire fellow feeling, because I imagine many people who watch markets and think about economics are similarly confused. I’m not even going to argue about intrinsic value — it’s a silly point, since Bitcoin doesn’t have any. Its backers like to say that neither does gold or fiat currency, which isn’t really true, but I get their point. The value is what the market says it is. But I do wonder: What is Bitcoin for? It’s an honest question. There might be value in a digital currency of exchange, but last time I checked, my debit card was doing a pretty serviceable job of letting me buy things without handing over some combination of paper and nickel. At Starbucks, youngsters wave their phones in front of a doohickey or thingamabob in exchange for coffee, and I hear from friends that everybody in China and India buys everything with their phones, too — kind of like a plastic card, but easier to break. I haven’t seen any serious studies showing that for legitimate larger or international transactions, the efficiencies promised by the blockchain (the tech that underlies Bitcoin) are likely to be more than incremental. About the only proven benefit so far seems to be in moving money under the radar of regulators. And while you can apparently buy actual goods and services with Bitcoin, the level of transactions done with it is vanishingly thin. So it’s not a currency of exchange, crypto or no. Maybe it will be, someday. But won’t lawmakers and central bankers, who like to keep control of the money levers for such old-school purposes as regulating economic growth and employment in sovereign countries, have something to say about it if that day ever comes? Most transactions involving Bitcoin only involve Bitcoin, and, of course, good ol’ cash — in other words, buying and selling Bitcoin. The recent offering of futures by major derivatives exchanges might give that process a sheen of legitimacy, but the underlying marketplace looks fraught with risks and challenges, and they go beyond Bitcoin’s astronomical price and wild intraday fluctuations. The many exchanges out there — Coindesk uses four of the bigger ones to put together its price index, by the way — have been plagued by site outages because they can’t keep up with volume, and reports of price manipulation (spoofing seems to be the game of choice) keep popping up. The exchanges also seem unusually subject to hacking: Youbit, an exchange in South Korea (which is collectively crazy for cryptocurrency trading), declared bankruptcy on Wednesday after hackers made off with a fifth of its clients’ holdings. As an alternative, many buyers and sellers — who knows how many? — transact directly over peer-to-peer websites. That cuts out the middleman, but… A buddy of mine remembered recently that somebody paid him in Bitcoin a few years ago — .0167 BTC, to be precise, which was worth a couple bucks back then. So he thought he’d try to unload it. First he had to look around and find his PIN code, which took a while, and then he went online, found a peer-to-peer site, negotiated with potential buyers and eventually came to an agreement with one. The “deal” was set to go down at a street corner downtown, but then the buyer backed out at the last minute (by text). So it was back to the drawing board for my friend, who eventually made the sale online and got paid, via email transfer. (There’s an irony in there somewhere.) True, he ended up making more than $200 on his 1/60th of a coin — but it took him literally a day to transact it. So, as it stands, the Bitcoin market is neither reliable nor efficient. Maybe, if it continues to acquire what proponents call “legitimacy” (I’m not sure how it does that, by the way, short of regulatory or government fiat, which is kind of weird to imagine), then it will become a safer place for investors. But what if there isn’t time for that? I can imagine a scenario where a run on Bitcoin seizes everything up while retail investors watch their holdings go from “worth less” to “worthless” really fast. Of course, Bitcoin could keep going up forever. But that usually doesn’t happen. So one last question: Why is it different this time?

Former Philadelphia Flyers captain Rick Tocchet said today on Philadelphia sports radio 94.7 WIP that current netminder Ilya Bryzgalov needs to work on his work ethic among other things. Tocchet was a guest on WIP Middays with Anthony Gargano and Glen Macnow and they talked for about ten minutes on Bryz. Here are some of the quotes from Tocchet “He has to quit talking about the universe and get his game back.” “I’m not saying he is lazy but he isn’t the the hardest (in practice).” “He left some defensemen out to dry.” (Talking 24/7) “When you are struggling give it a break, guys get annoyed. You just lost three in a row and your are -7 you stink (and) you are still goofing around on camera you have to I guess pick your spots.” “I think he just dove in the water without really testing it first. I think he should have concentrated about being a goaltender and not worry about all the other stuff.” “He has to get his game back he is a $51 million goalie he has got to be the starter April 8 (starting the playoffs).” Some other things he Tocchet mentioned that he noticed when he was a coach for the Phoenix Coyotes was that Bryz would let in a goal and kind of just throw his hands up towards the defensemen. Also, he said that it was easier there since Phoenix isn’t a big hockey market there isn’t much pressure. I have to agree with Toch here, it seems like Bryz is just trying to be a media darling and he is giving up bad goals and likes to deflect it to the D. I think this could be a reason you maybe see the blueliners playing harder Bobs than they do for Bryz. Hopefully Bryz can find his way out the woods for a what the third time now? Here is a link to the interview from today: Middays with Anthony Gargano and Glen Macnow. Follow Johnny on Twiiter @RealMacHatter.

This one did not have hardware that was in great shape although I did like the style. It would not however fit the new flag theme that would be painted on it so Buh, Bye. I paid for it and brought our 1978 vintage truck to pick it up. May it R.I.P. Who knew this would be one of it's last runs. Thanks Big Fella for the years of hauling goodness. Okay, I was having a moment there and now I am done. Jake originally wanted the Scottish flag painted on it but then after looking over my shoulder during some Internet research on painted flags on furniture, he decided the Union Jack was right up his alley. He is a huge World War I and II history buff and this fits right into his aesthetic. If a 14 year old can have an aesthetic. I choose white instead of dark blue because most people out there are painting the background for their union jack in dark blue and although I love these versions I tend to think that the flag fades into the background. I wanted the flag to really be the focus so white it was. Now every piece I have ever done has an ugly stage and this one is surely it. I have learned to just plow through it and keep going because it usually starts to look better with the second coat. Always remember, it is just paint so if you really hate it, you can always paint over it. And over it and over it....Just kidding. Perserverance is a hard thing to learn but it is worth it for it brings about character and maturity. Most people who know me realize that the maturity factor is a long way off. But then again, that's why they like hanging out with me =0) See, much better. I will let you know that I just measured and marked the middle both vertically and horizontally and then made the red stripe 6" wide. Do what looks good to you because every dresser is a little different so it will require different measurements. I then just eyeballed the rest of the stripes. Also for the big red stripe, I taped it all the way down and across and then used an X-acto knife to cut away the middle pieces of tape. Much crisper lines. Oh, and another thing. This is a biggy . You will need to sand/distress AND wax/seal your reds separately or you will have a pink Union Jack. Yes, Pink. And then you will have to try and convince your daughter that she really needs a new pink Union Jack dresser and the whole Great Britain, World War II thing will need to be explained and they won't get "it" and its so not worth it!! So sand separately. Ok, on with the show! Here is Jake's big boy dresser, 5 years belated.... Jake has some great staging items to pick from. These are all his. Trying to rummage in his room quietly for staging items at 7:30 in the morning during summer break isn't easy! But when the lighting is good, you gotta start snapping! These handels were snagged at Hobby Lobby. I was worried they might be too girly but Jake loved them and they really look great on the dresser. I am always amazed at how a little bit of leftover paint, $12 worth of new hardware, and some elbow grease can change a dilapidated piece into something swell. James 1:2-4 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. Please see the link party page to see where I link arms with those blissfully beautiful bloggers that host every week. So gracious they are along with these other sweet ladies! Lots of stuff going on right now with the booth and some private clients but there was something I have had to do for about 5 years and have not gotten around to it. Get my growing boy a new dresser!My poor kid has had a little Ikea dresser since he was 3 and at that time it worked cuz' his clothes were like midget size (no disrespect to the little people). However, he is now 5' 6" and his clothes seem gigantic to me. And his clothes always seem to be on the floor instead of in the drawers. I have no illusions that bigger drawers are going to solve this, but I can dream can't I? You can lead a horse to water.....and I hear the promise of Doritos helps immensely in the incentive department.I found this waterfall dresser at the Red, White, and Blue Thrift store for $9.95!! I know a lot of people out there do not like the waterfall style of furniture. I happen to really like it. I like the clean lines, art deco feel and they usually have some really cool bake light hardware.Always being renewed,

The Heat featured its sixth starting lineup in the past eight games on Friday against the Bucks. That’s not the ideal way to start a five-game trip and, and before the game even started, Chris Bosh was reminding everyone that the Heat’s bad luck recently is “just the way the world works.” “We’ve got to be men,” Bosh said. “It’s a man’s league.” Then he got dunked on by the 6-11 kid whose name doesn’t even fit in a boxscore. Sign Up and Save Get six months of free digital access to the Miami Herald They call second-year forward Giannis Antetokounmpo the “Greek Freak” in Milwaukee because no one really knows how to pronounce or spell his name. Some people call him “Alphabet.” Whatever moniker sticks for the 19-year-old, Antetokounmpo plays like a future star in the league, and his young team in Milwaukee appears to be progressing nicely as the season presses toward the second week of December. The Heat, on the other hand, isn’t getting any better. Despite 28 points from Dwyane Wade and 21 from Chris Bosh, the Heat lost to the Bucks 109-85. It snapped a three-game losing streak for Milwaukee (10-11), and dropped the Heat below .500 for the first time this season. The Heat is now 9-10. The problem is defense or, more specifically, a lack of it. Four of the Heat’s past five opponents have shot at least 54 percent from the field. Not even Pat Riley’s presence could motivate the Heat on Friday. “We’ve been playing pretty bad basketball,” Bosh said. Riley watched from the stands for most of the game but left before it ended. He had seen enough. The Bucks shot 56.5 percent and outrebounded the Heat by a startling 45 to 20. “They didn’t miss many shots,” Wade said. “When you’re giving up 56 percent from the field, there ain’t many rebounds out there for you.” But even offense failed the Heat on this night. The Bucks outscored Miami by 20 points in the second half. Led by Kendall Marshall’s 20 points, the Bucks’ bench outscored the Heat’s reserves 60-18. “Offensively we couldn’t score the basketball,” Wade said. “We’re always going to point to our defense, but you’ve got to put the ball in the basket to win games and we went for a long time without scoring.” Starter Luol Deng missed the game with a bruised hand, and Danny Granger started at small forward. In addition to Deng’s absence, point guard Norris Cole wasn’t available because of an illness. The Heat started Granger, Bosh, Wade and Josh McRoberts, with Mario Chalmers at point guard. And it wasn’t pretty. Only Wade and Bosh scored in double digits. Chalmers had nine points and six assists and Granger, playing sick, had seven points. He was 1 of 5 from the free-throw line. Rookie James Ennis had seven points in 25 minutes off the bench. McRoberts and backup power forward Shawne Williams combined to go just 2 of 4 from the field. It was as if they just decided to quit shooting. Kendall Marshall made a three-pointer with 7:12 left to give the Bucks a 91-75 lead. Marshall then hit another three-pointer a minute later, and Heat coach Erik Spoelstra called a timeout to stop the momentum. It didn’t matter at that point, though. The Heat wasn’t coming back. Marshall led the Bucks with 20 points, going 7 of 8 from the field and 4 of 5 from three-point range. Antetokounmpo had 14 points and seven rebounds. Rookie Jabari Parker had 14 points, going 6 of 9 from the field, and point guard Brandon Knight of Fort Lauderdale Pine Crest High School had 13 points in less than 22 minutes. The Bucks started Zaza Pachulia in place Larry Sanders. Sanders, who is from Port St. Lucie, was questionable before the game with an illness and played limited minutes (18) off the bench. Still, he had more rebounds (six) than anyone on the Heat’s roster. The Heat’s lead swelled to 36-25 less than a minute into the second quarter. The 11-point lead didn’t last, though. Led by the bench, the Bucks outscored Miami 29-20 in the second quarter. Wade’s 21 points in the first half weren’t enough for the Heat, which trailed 54-50 at halftime. “They started shooting the ball very well against our defensive system from the outside and it opened up their game,” Wade said. ▪ The four steals by Chalmers in the first quarter were the most by a Heat player in any quarter this season. Cole held the previous high with three steals in a quarter on Nov.14 in Atlanta. ▪ Wade’s 21 points in the first half was his high for any half this season. Additionally, the 11 points by Wade in the first quarter tied his high for a first quarter this season. He also scored 11 points in the first quarter against the Pacers on Nov.12. ▪ The Bucks’ fans directed a funny chant at Heat reserve center Justin Hamilton when he was at the free-throw line in the second half. With “Who are you? Who are you?” in his ear, Hamilton made his and-one foul shot.

CLOSE Troy Gentry, of the band Montgomery Gentry, died when the helicopter he was in crashed at the Flying W Airport, the band confirmed through social media Friday afternoon. Ayrika Whitney/USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee Eddie Montgomery and Troy Gentry of Montgomery Gentry perform at the telethon for 'Dolly Parton’s Smoky Mountains Rise: A Benefit for the My People Fund' in December 2016. (Photo: George Walker IV, George Walker IV / The Tennessean) Troy Gentry, of the country duo Montgomery Gentry, was killed in a New Jersey helicopter crash Friday just before the group was set to perform. He was 50. The band confirmed his death in the crash in Medford, N.J. at about 1 p.m. ET. The band's tweet said Gentry's family thanked fans for "kind thoughts and prayers" and asked for privacy. Police got a call of a helicopter that was in distress, said Joel Bewley, a spokesman for the Burlington County prosecutor's office. The helicopter crashed as emergency crews arrived at the scene. Crews removed Gentry, who was a passenger, from the wreckage, but he was pronounced dead at a hospital, Medford police Chief Richard Meder told the Associated Press. The crews worked for hours to remove the body of pilot James Evan Robinson from the mangled wreckage. Robinson had been living in Medford but was originally from Meigs, Ga. Members of the group's band, including the other half of the duo, Eddie Montgomery, were at the airport when the helicopter crashed, Meder said. They were taken to the hospital to see Gentry, he said. The helicopter had taken off from the Flying W Airport but went into distress and was approaching the airport to land when it crashed, Meder said. The purpose of the helicopter trip wasn't known. The National Transportation Safety Board was headed to the crash scene. TV stations tweeted pictures of the crash scene. WTVM reports #BREAKING: Country music star Troy Gentry killed in helicopter crash in NJ MORE DETAILS>>>https://t.… pic.twitter.com/nRbwK1VQlk — Channel 1 Atlanta (@channel1atlanta) September 8, 2017 Montgomery Gentry had been a duo for more than two decades, starting out on a bar stage in Lexington, Ky., and eventually becoming members of the Grand Ole Opry. They broke into the country scene in 1999 with hit Hillbilly Shoes and won CMA Vocal Duo of the Year in 2000. The duo went on to have hits including My Town, Something to Be Proud Of, Where I Come From and Gone. They were inducted into the Grand Ole Opry in 2009. Gentry was born in Lexington, but called Nashville home, according to The Tennessean. Gentry was a fan of Kentucky basketball and was dedicated to his wife, Angie, and their daughter, Kaylee. But the duo’s longtime publicist, Craig Campbell, told The Tennessean what defined Gentry professionally is his admiration for country music fans. “One of the greatest things about those guys is he and (Montgomery) loved their fans,” Campbell explained. “Everybody says that, but everything they did was for their fans.” Over the course of the duo’s career, Montgomery Gentry released 11 albums, including a greatest-hits package and an album exclusively released at Cracker Barrel. They charted at least five No. 1 songs, including Roll with Me and Lucky Man. Montgomery Gentry’s music was far-reaching, with acclaimed poet Maya Angelou inviting the duo to open for her when she played the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in 2007. Their song Some People Change was among her favorites, and she commented that, although the duo was much different from her musically, they were still her "sons." On the duo's website, Gentry said their popularity was due to the "chemistry" between Gentry and Montgomery. "It's a chemistry that's worked for years," Gentry said. "We have two separate singing styles that when they come together, they're very identifiable. It doesn't get old or get sterile. The back and forth between our vocals definitely keeps you listening and keeps you interested in the song." Gentry’s recent years were marked with loss and struggle. In 2014, he grieved the death of his brother, Keith. Their father, Lloyd Gentry, just died Aug. 13. Two years ago, the 19-year-old son of Montgomery died suddenly in an unspecified accident. Gentry was also by Montgomery’s side as he battled prostate cancer in 2010. That experience gave him insight and courage a few years later when his wife, Angie McClure Gentry, was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was eventually declared cancer-free in 2015. "Angie and I are pretty deeply faithful people,” he told The Tennessean that year. There were career setbacks, as well. Gentry’s image never fully recovered after a 2004 hunting incident, in which he used a bow and arrow to kill a captive bear in a 3-acre private enclosure. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge. In 2010, he faced a new round of criticism after an animal-rights group posted video of the incident. In a public statement, Gentry apologized for “the unethical way the bear was taken.” “I have learned my lesson, and have paid a huge price, both personally and professionally. Since this happened, I know in my heart that I am a different and better person.” That same year, Montgomery Gentry was recognized for their charitable work by the Academy of Country Music. They earned the organization’s humanitarian award for their work with the U.S. military, the T.J. Martell Foundation, the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Middle Tennessee and St. Jude's Research Hospital, among others. The duo’s most recent album, Folks Like Us, was released in 2015. In 2013, in an interview with the Des Moines Register, the singers said that after 20 years together, they were still having fun. "I reckon we're like a married couple, sort of," Montgomery said. "You hear horror stories all the time about duos, but we've always just been friends having fun and making music." Contributing: The Associated Press Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2xUXLEn

On Friday afternoon, Barack Obama’s activist political organization, Organizing for Action, released its monthly receipts. Hidden among the numerous donations to and from the organization sent and received by numerous left-leaning and outright socialist groups, was a potential bombshell. The organization has been providing financial support for the National Policy Institute, a noted “alt-right” think tank. The National Policy Institute helped to organize the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia earlier this month. It appears that Obama and his liberal allies have been directly funding alt-right protests in an effort to draw media attention to these groups. Their hope is that this media attention will bring down these groups. Furthermore, OFA has worked with the media to tie these groups to President Trump in an effort to bring down the President. It was always clear that Barack Obama would break the norm of past presidents remaining apolitical, but this is truly unprecedented. Add this to the fact that the Obama family remains in Washington, D.C., also unprecedented for past presidents, and it is strikingly clear that Obama and his allies are trying to play a roll in Trump’s downfall. It remains to be seen if the mainstream media will even pretend to give this story the coverage it deserves. Doing so would indict their complicity in working with Organizing for Action to tie these “alt-right” groups to President Trump.

The march was held in order to highlight the internationally-recognized right of Palestinians who remain refugees or internally displaced to return to their homes and villages in Israel, a right which has been enshrined in international law following the adoption of United Nations Resolution 194 This year, a crowd of Knesset members, activists, and local Palestinians made their way to the destroyed village of al-Tira in Haifa, where dozens of Palestinians were massacred by Israeli forces during the mass expulsion of several hundred Palestinians from the village 68 years ago. The village was almost completely destroyed with the exception of a few buildings which today remain either vacant or occupied by Jewish Israelis. Member of Knesset and head of the Arab Joint List, Ayman Odeh, addressed the crowd during the march: “The large number of participants [in the march] confirms that the Nakba is a story of the past that also lives on as a story of the future, until a Palestinian state is established and we have achieved the rights of Palestinian refugees.” Some 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their lands in 1948 and were scattered across refugee camps in the occupied West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). Today, there are over five million Palestinian refugees who remain displaced from their original homes and villages following the mass expulsion that occurred almost 70 years ago.

CLOSE Sen. Chuck Grassley addresses President Trump's "enemies of the people" comment during a town hall meeting in Charles City, Iowa. Michael Zamora/The Register Buy Photo Sen. Chuck Grassley walks back to his podium as he listens to a question from the audience Thursday, Feb. 23, 2017 during a town hall meeting at the Floyd County Courthouse in Charles City, Iowa. (Photo: Michael Zamora/The Register)Buy Photo CHARLES CITY, Ia. — Anxieties about a host of issues voiced at Sen. Charles Grassley's town hall meeting here largely boiled down to one theme: Will Iowa's Republican senior senator act as a check on a unconventional president? Members of an overflow crowd stuffed into a district courtroom to question Grassley for an hour on Thursday morning, many probing for his reaction to controversial statements and stances of President Donald Trump and his new administration. "Free press" and "respect for truth" were shouted by audience members as Grassley asked what topics people wanted to discuss at the outset. "I was going to ask about gun control and what you're going to do about that," said a woman who asked one of the earliest questions. "But I think more important ... I would like you to respond to how you're dealing with (the president's) lies and the attacks on the press." Grassley praised the media as essential watchdogs of the government. It is "not legitimate" to describe journalists as enemies of the American people, as Trump did on Twitter earlier this month, he said. But Grassley also suggested the motives of some journalists in the Washington, D.C., "establishment" should be questioned. "When 93 percent of the Washington journalist establishment said that they voted Democrat, I think you could question the bias of the people," he said. Grassley communications manager Jill Gerber cited a Washington Post article about a 2013 study from two Indiana University professors when asked by a reporter for clarification of that statistic following the event. The study found that Democrats outnumber Republicans four to one among journalists who do claim a party affiliation, but also that a growing number of reporters consider themselves political independents. Buy Photo Tahmyrah Lytle of Mason City, Iowa, asks Sen. Chuck Grassley a questions about the confirmation of Betsy DeVos Thursday, Feb. 23, 2017 during a town hall meeting at the Floyd County Courthouse in Charles City, Iowa. (Photo: Michael Zamora/The Register) Other topics came up repeatedly, including the GOP-backed plan to repeal and replace Obamacare and the confirmation of school choice advocate and Republican donor Betsy DeVos as education secretary. Tahmyrah Lytle, an organizer from Mason City, told Grassley that redirecting public money to private schools would "endanger" rural communities in Iowa. Grassley said he supported DeVos based partly on a tradition of deference that senators give to new presidents assembling their "team." "Don't you believe the team should be qualified?" Lytle asked. DeVos, a Michigan businesswoman, never worked in public schooling or education before taking the job. "Well, then we would not have (Rex) Tillerson being secretary of state," Grassley responded, referencing the former Exxon Mobile CEO who also joined the administration with no previous government experience. CLOSE Sen. Chuck Grassley talks about the role of town hall meetings as passionate crowds turn out in Charles City, Iowa. Michael Zamora/The Register "Right!" one person said immediately. The crowd laughed and several broke into applause, while Grassley said the most important aspect of presidential appointments is finding someone "who can do the job." Grassley also told Lytle that DeVos will spend money as Congress directs her and that education decisions typically have to be made by local governments. "She can't do anything about Charles City having a high school," he said, offering a hypothetical. "Because only the voters of Charles City can make the determination if you're going to join someplace else or close the school down or anything else. She doesn't have anything to do with that." Although most of the audience who asked questions confronted Grassley with their criticisms of Trump and Republican leadership, Charles City resident Debra Uetz said she came to show support for the senator. Buy Photo Tom Willett asks Sen. Chuck Grassley a question about social security Thursday, Feb. 23, 2017 during a town hall meeting at the Floyd County Courthouse in Charles City, Iowa. (Photo: Michael Zamora/The Register) Uetz, a conservative Republican, praised Grassley for his controversial decision to oppose the appointment of Merrick Garland to the U.S. Supreme Court after the death last year of Justice Antonin Scalia. "He's been right out there with our interests, and we should appreciate that," said Uetz. At a few points, Grassley asked the audience not to interrupt each other and let speakers finish. "I really am embarrassed to be a United States citizen with what this country is doing," Charles City resident Carrie Larson told Grassley after delivering a four-minute denouncement of the Obamacare repeal efforts, money in politics and Trump's stances toward immigrants who are in the country illegally. "Because of Donald Trump and what he's done." Several in the audience booed at Larson, 56, who wore a white Bernie Sanders sweatshirt and a baseball cap emblazoned with the Obama "O" logo. Grassley cut Larson off momentarily and asked jeering members of the audience to let her finish speaking. "I hope that whether you're a Republican, Democrat, liberal or conservative, I hope that we're going to be Iowa nice and respect each others' opinions," he said. "So let her finish." ​ Buy Photo Becky Higgins of Nora Springs, Iowa, speaks out about family farms and protecting rural communities Thursday, Feb. 23, 2017 during Sen. Chuck Grassley's town hall meeting at the Floyd County Courthouse in Charles City, Iowa. (Photo: Michael Zamora/The Register) Read or Share this story: http://dmreg.co/2mcW0zL

Image caption Sony says the SmartWig will be both intelligent and fashionable Sony has filed a patent application for "SmartWig", as firms jostle for the lead in the wearable technology sector. It says the SmartWig can be worn "in addition to natural hair", and will be able to process data and communicate wirelessly with other external devices. According to the filing, the SmartWig can help navigate roads and collect information such as blood pressure. Google and Samsung are among the firms that have launched products in wearable technology - seen as a key growth area. "Wearable gadgets are definitely going to be one of the big areas of growth over the next two years," Andrew Milroy, an analyst with consulting firm Frost & Sullivan, told the BBC. "And Sony - which is trying to regain some of the sheen it has lost in recent years - clearly understands that and wants to play a major role in the sector." Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Are SmartWigs the next wearable tech? The Japanese firm said the wig could be made from horse hair, human hair, wool, feathers, yak hair, buffalo hair or any kind of synthetic material. At the same time, the communication interface and sensors placed in the wig are at least partly covered by parts of the wig in order to be hidden from sight during use. It said that as a result, the device has the potential to become "very popular" as it could be used as a "technically intelligent item and fashion item at the same time". The usage of a wig has several advantages that, compared to known wearable computing devices, include a significantly increased user comfort Sony patent filing "The usage of a wig has several advantages that, compared to known wearable computing devices, include a significantly increased user comfort and an improved handling of the wearable computing device." Potential uses Sony listed various potential uses of the SmartWig in its filing, including helping blind people navigate roads. It said that a small video camera or a sensor on the wig could help to provide the position and the location of the wearer. A remote user can then use the images provided and send vibration commands through the network and navigate the wig user manually to a desired destination. "Although navigation systems based on vibration motors have been widely introduced, a navigation system integrated into a wig... is so far not known," the firm said. A further potential improvement of the wig may use ultrasound waves to detect objects around a user. Image caption Sony said the SmartWig will be compatible with other devices such as glasses and smartphones Sony said the gaming industry or "any type of virtual reality appliance" could also be an "interesting field" of use for the device, though it did not provide any details. It could also have uses in the healthcare sector, as a combination of sensors can help collect information such as temperature, pulse and blood pressure of the wearer. "The system can detect these kinds of data naturally and transmit them to the server computer," it said. The device can also be used during presentations where a wearer can "move to the next presentation slide or back to the preceding presentation slide by simply raising his/her eyebrows". A Sony spokesperson told the BBC that the firm had not decided on any plans for commercial production of the SmartWig yet.

With the fate of Thursday’s net neutrality vote resting almost entirely in the hands of the Republican Party, a lone conservative has emerged to oppose FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s plan to gift-wrap the internet for Verizon and Friends this Christmas. Colorado Rep. Mike Coffman, a staunch conservative in nearly every sense, called on the FCC to delay its upcoming vote in a letter Tuesday, saying Congress should find a “permanent legislative solution to ensure the continuation of a free and open Internet.” Advertisement “The Internet has been and remains a transformative tool,” Coffman writes, “and I am concerned that any action you take may alter the rules under which it functions and may well have significant unanticipated negative consequences.” Coffman then threw Pai’s own—actually quite elegant—words back at him: “As you stated in your dissent to the previous FCC’s open Internet proceeding, ‘A dispute this fundamental is not for us, five unelected officials, to decide. Instead, it should be resolved by the people’s elected representatives, those who choose the direction of government—and those whom the American people can hold accountable for that choice.’ Advertisement Coffman is the first Republican lawmaker to ask the FCC to delay the vote, but a handful of others have criticized the agency’s proposal in one way or another, including Sens. Susan Collins and John Thune and Reps. Dave Reichert, John Curtis, and Jeff Fortenberry. Pai’s proposal would overturn the 2015 Open Internet order, which established federal rules prohibiting internet service providers from blocking or throttling content for customers or creating “fast lanes” for companies that pay more to have their services delivered at a faster speed. Speaking on the Senate floor on Thursday, Sen. John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, joined Coffman’s call for legislation that would establish net neutrality protections as law rather than FCC regulations that can be relatively easily overturned. Advertisement “Congressional action is the only way to solve the endless back and forth on net neutrality rules that we’ve seen over the past several years,” Thune said, according to the Verge. “If my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and those who claim to support net neutrality rules want to enshrine protections for consumers with the backing of the law, I call on you today to join me in discussing legislation that would do just that.” Evan Greer, campaign director for Fight for the Future, an advocacy group leading online protests ahead of Thursday’s vote, commended Coffman but referred to the legislative option as a “solution in search of a problem,” because the necessary net neutrality protections have been in place since 2015. “Net neutrality is not a partisan issue outside of Washington, DC,” she said in a statement emailed to Gizmodo. “Voters from across the political spectrum don’t want their cable companies controlling what websites and apps they can use, or where they get their news from. Republican lawmakers like Mike Coffman can see the writing on the wall.” Advertisement You can view a full copy of Coffman’s letter below:

OK, here goes...The land on top of those seashells and such was NOT caused by the Flood, but by the separation of the continents in Peleg's time. This split occurred down the middle of the Atlantic primarily and in shoving the two hemispheres apart, also caused the enormous young mountain chains along the Pacific rim and the Pacific ring of fire. The tsunamis this movement caused moved immense amounts of earth and other materials.The shells themselves were fossilized after Noah's flood, as the Flood strata is far below them:Yes the earth is very young, but no, the Deluge did not cause all the strata we see today. If it did, how on earth can anyone explain the fact that in Europe we have enormous coal seams covered by an in situ fossilized sponge reef which stretches across about a third of the continent, and on top of which are multiple layers of dinosaur nests? The one flood did everything model is strongly refuted by the geological evidence as well as the Biblical mention of Peleg's time. To see what went on when the continents were separating, look for the catastrophes mentioned in the book of Job. Job was Jobab, Peleg's nephew, the thirteenth son of Joktan, Genesis 10 . He mentions, by the way, that a watch was kept on the sea. Why? Because of the giant tsunamis which went on for several hundred years. Because the waves pull far back before one comes in, keeping watch was the only way they could get to safety in time. You will find quite a few references to things they experienced during that time if you read the book looking for them.

“I was always fishing for something on the radio. Just like trains and bells, it was part of the soundtrack of my life. I moved the dial up and down and Roy Orbison’s voice came blasting out of the small speakers. His new song, "Running Scared,” exploded into the room. Orbison, though, transcended all the genres - folk, country, rock and roll or just about anything. His stuff mixed all the styles and some that hadn’t even been invented yet. He could sound mean and nasty on one line and then sing in a falsetto voice like Frankie Valli in the next. With Roy, you didn’t know if you were listening to mariachi or opera. He kept you on your toes. With him, it was all about fat and blood. He sounded like he was singing from an Olympian mountaintop and he meant business. One of his previous songs, “Ooby Dooby” was deceptively simple, but Roy had progressed. He was now singing his compositions in three or four octaves that made you want to drive your car over a cliff. He sang like a professional criminal. Typically, he’d start out in some low, barely audible range, stay there a while and then astonishingly slip into histrionics. His voice could jar a corpse, always leave you muttring to yourself something like, ‘Man, I don’t believe it.’ His songs had songs within songs. They shifted from major to minor key without any logic. Orbison was deadly serious - no pollywog and no fledgling juvenile. There wasn’t anything else on the radio like him.“ “ — Bob Dylan

Wests Tigers utility Jordan Rankin has vowed to use the departure of Mitchell Moses to press his claims as a genuine NRL half and to help drag the club that resurrected his career out of their current doldrums. ‌ Match Draw Widget [2017] Telstra Premiership - Round 11: Broncos vs Wests Tigers ‌The hamstring complaint to Luke Brooks opened the door for Rankin to make his first NRL appearance of the season on Friday night against the Broncos on what would ultimately be a tough night for the new-look halves combination of Rankin and Jack Littlejohn. Scoring opportunities for the visitors were few and far between and on the occasions that they did cross Brisbane's line the men with the whistles found cause to deny them time and again. If the Tigers had had two more days to prepare Brooks would have been fit enough to take his place in the team but Rankin hopes his recall will provide the springboard to again become a regular member of the first grade side. The 25-year-old played 22 games on the wing and at fullback last year after returning from a two-year stint in England but has spent the opening to the 2017 season playing in the halves for the club's Intrust Super Premiership NSW side that is struggling near the foot of the ladder. A Gold Coast schoolboy prodigy, Rankin has been enjoying his return to the playmaking positions this season and hopes that he can show coach Ivan Cleary enough over the next fortnight to warrant selection as Brooks's halves partner for the Round 13 clash with the Dragons. "It was unfortunate that Mitch left but obviously someone has got to fill that role now that he's gone and I'll do whatever I can to put myself in a position to keep putting my hand up to play in that position for the rest of the year and for however long Ivan and the coaching staff want me to," Rankin told NRL.com. "It's just a matter of me putting in good performances not just on the field but on the training paddock as well, working on all the little things I need to work on. Hopefully it's just one of many games this year that I play for the Tigers. "I really enjoyed getting back at in the halves there tonight, it's a position I feel really comfortable playing and unfortunately we just didn't turn up tonight and play the way we wanted to. "I've been playing in the halves pretty much the whole year and it's a position I really enjoy playing and I feel a bit more at home there. "With Ivan coming in he's taken the reins with a lot of the stuff that the halves are doing and we're just looking to keep improving every week and getting some wins on the board for the club." As they traded blows in the opening exchanges with the Broncos the absence of Brooks was noticeable as they struggled to build pressure and convert it into points, something that Brisbane had no trouble achieving when their turn came. Littlejohn and Rankin were both guilty of putting in kicks that handed possession straight back to the Broncos but Rankin's running game should serve as a good complement to the organisational style of Brooks in the short term. In the wake of their heaviest defeat to the Broncos since Round 20, 2000 the Tigers are in desperate need of a fresh start under Cleary who has already begun piecing together next year's squad with the signings of Josh Reynolds, Ben Matulino and Russell Packer. "There's been a lot of turmoil around the club, let's be honest, and we've got some changes to make and change is coming but at the moment it's just trying to manage how we're getting through at the moment," Cleary said. "Obviously our club's had a lot of uncertainty, a lot of things going on, a lot of speculation, a lot of scrutiny. There are a lot of others who are still unsure of where they fit in and their futures that type of thing and the last couple of weeks it is coming out in our performance. "Everything's not going quite right at the moment. It's a bit of a test now for our resilience but the sun will come up tomorrow and we'll move on from this." ‌ Tigers to embark on camp to end woes Broncos v Tigers: Five key points Broncos cruise past weakened Tigers ‌

Marco van Ginkel: Chelsea midfielder will spent the season on loan with AC Milan New AC Milan signing Marco van Ginkel is thrilled to have moved to the San Siro on a season long-loan from Chelsea. Van Ginkel completed a medical on Monday morning with the Italian club. "I am very happy to have arrived in Milan," Van Ginkel said on www.acmilan.com. "A lot of Dutch players have played in this great club, big names. "I'm just happy to finally be here. "I spoke to (AC Milan's Holland international) Nigel de Jong and he told me very good things about this club." Van Ginkel moved to Chelsea from Vitesse last summer but missed most of the 2013-14 campaign with a knee injury. The 21-year-old is hoping to earn a regular spot in Filippo Inzaghi's side, who will not compete in Europe this season. "I am a midfielder that defends but is also is able to score goals," Van Ginkel said. "I can play in many positions in midfield. "I want to have more playing time and this is my aim this season. "I believe at Milan I will have the opportunity to play more games, in what is a big competition, with many strong teams. "I have not spoken to Mr Inzaghi yet but I've spoken to Fernando Torres this week." Spanish striker Torres joined Milan last week on a two-season loan from Chelsea.

Has translated literature in the United States turned a corner? With some exceptions, readers of literature in translation (which should include every schoolchild in the land) no longer wait listlessly for their favorite authors to be translated. Thanks to a thriving, industrious translation community at home and abroad, the situation is now the opposite: brilliant unknown or unfamiliar authors are published every month, along with new translations of classics, lost or beloved. Surely there is still work to be done, but we have the translation community to thank for doing it. With this in mind, it’s time to consider the Best Translated Book Awards for 2015. This morning, the Three Percent website announced the longlist for the award, which contains a handful of well-known writers and a trove of new required reading. Fifteen judges read for the award, and, notably, more than 500 works of fiction in translation and 100 books of translated poetry were considered for the list. By contrast, Three Percent explains, only 360 total books were considered in 2008. “Not only were there more eligible titles than ever, they came from more diverse sources,” said judge James Crossley of Island Books. “From different nations and languages, but also from different publishers around the world, many of them brand-new and dedicated exclusively to literature in translation. I can’t help think that the BTBA in some small way helped usher these publishers into existence.” The longlist in fiction includes Elena Ferrante’s Those Who Stay, the third book in her Neapolitan Trilogy; Fantomas Versus the Multinational, a rediscovered work by Julio Cortázar, author of Hopscotch; and Faces in the Crowd, the debut novel by Valeria Luiselli. The list also represents 14 languages, 23 nationalities, and 50 translators, including Margaret Jull Costa, Cole Swenson, and Charlotte Mandell. Notable exclusions? In what will continue to be the year of the backlash against Karl Ove Knausgaard, the third volume of My Struggle was left off the list. So, too, was Carmen Bollousa’s excellent Texas: The Great Theft, published by the up-and-coming Deep Vellum press of Dallas, and translated by Samantha Schnee. But you’d be hard-pressed to find a more democratic longlist for an award in publishing. The list includes stellar small presses, like Coffee House; important new translation-only presses, like Two Lines Press out of California; and consistent, pathbreaking stalwarts like Open Letter and Archipelago. It also features a selection of translation-friendly academic presses and larger houses, like FSG. The finalist for both the fiction and poetry awards will be announced on May 5th, and the winners will be announced at BookExpo America on May 27th. The award comes with a $5,000 prize for the author and translator of the work, underwritten by Amazon.com’s giving programs. But who will win? It’s Ferrante’s for the taking. But if I had to pick a dark horse in fiction, it’d be Can Xue’s The Last Lover, translated by Annelise Finegan Wasmoen for Yale University Press. As for poetry? It’s hard to say, but I’m rooting for Diana’s Tree by Alejandra Pizarnik, translated by Yvette Siegert for Ugly Duckling. Here’s are your longlists for the 2015 Best Translated Book Award: Fiction: Baboon by Naja Marie Aidt, translated from the Danish by Denise Newman. (Denmark, Two Lines Press) The Author and Me by Éric Chevillard, translated from the French by Jordan Stump. (France, Dalkey Archive Press) Fantomas Versus the Multinational Vampires by Julio Cortázar, translated from the Spanish by David Kurnick. (Argentina, Semiotext(e)) Pushkin Hills by Sergei Dovlatov, translated from the Russian by Katherine Dovlatov. (Russia, Counterpoint Press) 1914 by Jean Echenoz, translated from the French by Linda Coverdale. (France, New Press) Street of Thieves by Mathias Énard, translated from the French by Charlotte Mandell. (France, Open Letter Books) Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante, translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein. (Italy, Europa Editions) Things Look Different in the Light by Medardo Fraile, translated from the Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa. (Spain, Pushkin Press) Monastery by Eduardo Halfon, translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman and Daniel Hahn. (Guatemala, Bellevue Literary Press) Letters from a Seducer by Hilda Hilst, translated from the Portuguese by John Keene. (Brazil, Nightboat Books) Harlequin’s Millions by Bohumil Hrabal, translated from the Czech by Stacey Knecht. (Czech Republic, Archipelago Books) Rambling On: An Apprentice’s Guide to the Gift of the Gab by Bohumil Hrabal, translated from the Czech by David Short. (Czech Republic, Karolinum Press) The Woman Who Borrowed Memories by Tove Jansson, translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal and Silvester Mazzarella. (Finland, NYRB) Works by Edouard Levé, translated from the French by Jan Steyn. (France, Dalkey Archive Press) Faces in the Crowd by Valeria Luiselli, translated from the Spanish by Christina MacSweeney. (Mexico, Coffee House Press) Adam Buenosayres by Leopoldo Marechal, translated from the Spanish by Norman Cheadle and Sheila Ethier. (Argentina, McGill-Queen’s University Press) Last Words from Montmartre by Qiu Miaojin, translated from the Chinese by Ari Larissa Heinrich. (Taiwan, NYRB) Winter Mythologies and Abbots by Pierre Michon, translated from the French by Ann Jefferson. (France, Yale University Press) Our Lady of the Nile by Scholastique Mukasonga, translated from the French by Melanie Mauthner. (Rwanda, Archipelago Books) Talking to Ourselves by Andrés Neuman, translated from the Spanish by Nick Caistor and Lorenza Garcia. (Argentina, FSG) Granma Nineteen and the Soviet’s Secret by Ondjaki, translated from the Portuguese by Stephen Henighan. (Angola, Biblioasis) La Grande by Juan José Saer, translated from the Spanish by Steve Dolph. (Argentina, Open Letter Books) Paris by Marcos Giralt Torrente, translated from the Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa. (Spain, Hispabooks) Snow and Shadow by Dorothy Tse. translated from the Chinese by Nicky Harman. (Hong Kong, East Slope Publishing) The Last Lover by Can Xue, translated from the Chinese by Annelise Finegan Wasmoen. (China, Yale University Press) Poetry: Collected Poems by Rainer Brambach, translated from the German by Esther Kinsky. (Switzerland, Seagull Books) Diorama by Rocío Cerón, translated from the Spanish by Anna Rosenwong. (Mexico, Phoeneme) Nothing More to Lose by Najwan Darwish, translated from the Arabic by Kareem James Abu-Zeid. (Palestine, NYRB) Lazy Suzie by Suzanne Doppelt, translated from the French by Cole Swenson. (France, Litmus Press) Openwork by André du Bouchet, translated from the French by Paul Auster and Hoyt Rogers. (France, Yale University Press) The Posthumous Life of RW by Jean Frémon, translated from the French by Cole Swensen. (France, Omnidawn) I Am the Beggar of the World: Landays from Contemporary Afghanistan edited and translated from the Pashto by Eliza Griswold. (Afghanistan, FSG) Sorrowtoothpaste Mirrorcream by Kim Hyesoon, translated from the Korean by Don Mee Choi. (South Korea, Action Books) Where Are the Trees Going? by Venus Khoury-Ghata, translated from the French by Marilyn Hacker. (Lebanon, Curbstone) Rain of the Future by Valerie Mejer, translated from the Spanish by A. S. Zelman-Doring, Forrest Gander, and C.D. Wright. (Mexico, Action Books) Diana’s Tree by Alejandra Pizarnik, translated from the Spanish by Yvette Siegert. (Argentina, Ugly Duckling) Compleat Catalogue of Comedic Novelties by Lev Rubinstein, translated from the Russian by Philip Metres and Tatiana Tulchinsky. (Russia, Ugly Duckling) In Praise of Poetry by Olga Sedakova, translated from the Russian by Caroline Clark, Ksenia Golubovich, and Stephanie Sandler. (Russia, Open Letter Books) Soy Realidad by Tomaž Šalamun, translated from the Slovenian by Michael Thomas Taren. (Slovenia, Dalkey Archive Press) End of the City Map by Farhad Showghi, translated from the German by Rosmarie Waldrop. (Mexico, Germany, Burning Deck) Guantánamo by Frank Smith, translated from the French by Vanessa Place. (France, Les Figues) Salsa by Hsia Yü, translated from the Chinese by Steve Bradbury. (Taiwan, Zephyr Press)

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Sunday that the Trump administration is considering whether to close the U.S. Embassy in Havana following a string of unexplained incidents that have damaged the health of American diplomats. “We have it under evaluation,” Tillerson told CBS News’ “Face the Nation.” “It's a very serious issue.” At least 21 Americans have been confirmed to have suffered some kind of medical harm in Havana. Tillerson also confirmed the State Department has brought home some of the people affected. He has previously called the episodes "health attacks." But the State Department now refers to them as "incidents." Their cause and culprits have yet to be determined. However, U.S. officials said the victims suffered from hearing loss and, in some cases, mild brain damage, possibly from sound waves. Cuban President Raul Castro has claimed his government had nothing to do with it. Tillerson spoke amid calls from some U.S. senators to shutter the embassy in Cuba’s capital. Last week, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert acknowledged the administration was at least considering pulling some staff from the embassy. Nauert said it “obviously” was a dangerous situation, adding, “We are tremendously concerned about that. … Our folks can come back to the United States if they wish to do so. It shows the bravery, the hard work and the dedication of Americans, whether they are serving in Cuba or whether they are serving anywhere across the world. … I want to recognize them and let them know that we care, we certainly have not forgotten about them, and that this investigation is aggressive.” Fox News’ Rich Edson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Abstract Background: While numerous laboratory studies have searched for neuroprotective treatment approaches to traumatic brain injury, no therapies have successfully translated from the bench to the bedside. Concussion is a unique form of brain injury, in that the current mainstay of treatment focuses on both physical and cognitive rest. Treatments for concussion are lacking. The concept of neuro-prophylactic compounds or supplements is also an intriguing one, especially as we are learning more about the relationship of numerous sub-concussive blows and/or repetitive concussive impacts and the development of chronic neurodegenerative disease. The use of dietary supplements and herbal remedies has become more common place. Methods: A literature search was conducted with the objective of identifying and reviewing the pre-clinical and clinical studies investigating the neuroprotective properties of a few of the more widely known compounds and supplements. Results: There are an abundance of pre-clinical studies demonstrating the neuroprotective properties of a variety of these compounds and we review some of those here. While there are an increasing number of well-designed studies investigating the therapeutic potential of these nutraceutical preparations, the clinical evidence is still fairly thin. Conclusion: There are encouraging results from laboratory studies demonstrating the multi-mechanistic neuroprotective properties of many naturally occurring compounds. Similarly, there are some intriguing clinical observational studies that potentially suggest both acute and chronic neuroprotective effects. Thus, there is a need for future trials exploring the potential therapeutic benefits of these compounds in the treatment of traumatic brain injury, particularly concussion. Keywords: Concussion, mild traumatic brain injury, neuroprotection, supplements, treatment INTRODUCTION Significant efforts have been made in recent years to discover substances that can provide neuroprotection for diseases of the central nervous system (CNS). While numerous laboratory studies have searched for treatment approaches to traumatic brain injury (TBI), no therapies have successfully translated from the bench to the bedside. Concussion is a unique form of TBI, in that the current mainstay of treatment focuses on both physical and cognitive rest. While many patients experience a spontaneous resolution of their acute post-concussive symptoms, the long term effects from the injury are still unclear. Additionally, we are learning more about the relationship of numerous sub-concussive blows and/or repetitive concussive impacts and the development of chronic neurodegenerative disease. There has been an immense interest in natural compounds and nutraceuticals (i.e. food derivatives or dietary supplements and herbal remedies that provide health benefits). Some of these preparations and compounds have been used for centuries to treat illness and they have become more popular in society lately, particularly because of their relatively few side effects. Maroon et al., recently published an excellent review of natural anti-inflammatory agents for pain relief.[139] It is important to continue to explore potential neuroprotective translational therapies for TBI, particularly concussion. An understanding of the pathophysiology underlying concussive brain injury is important when considering potential pharmacologic approaches. While not an exhaustive list, the subsequent sections will review some of the compounds and supplements that have preliminarily demonstrated potential neuroprotective benefits. MOLECULAR PATHOPHYSIOLOGY OF CONCUSSION While the acute clinical symptoms of concussion are largely felt to reflect a functional disturbance; the mechanical trauma of a concussion does result in pathological changes at the ultra-structural level, which ultimately initiate a complex cascade of neurochemical and neurometabolic events.[15] There is initially a disruption of the neurofilaments and microtubules that provide a framework for axonal transport. This compromises anterograde and retrograde transport of molecular proteins to and from somata.[15,141–143,168,173,186,210] Axonal transport can also be affected by delayed, progressive injury secondary to proteolysis.[94] At the cellular level, there is neuronal membrane disruption that leads to ionic shifts and an increase in intracellular glutamate and calcium.[15,102,141,168] Some cells may ultimately undergo caspase-mediated apoptosis as a result of these cellular changes. Inflammatory cascades also contribute significantly to further injury following TBI. Additionally, two major glucose metabolism alterations have been described in association with concussion, including hyperglycolysis and oxidative dysfunction.[15] Mitochondrial injury can also lead to failure in adenosine triphosphate (ATP) generation and an increase in reactive oxygen species.[225,243] Concussion may also compromise or alter the control of cerebral blood flow (CBF), cerebrovascular reactivity, and cerebral oxygenation.[121] The time-course of these pathophysiological events may have important implications in the success of various treatments for concussion patients. There is also accumulating evidence that neuroinflammatory cascades play a significant role in the pathogenesis of disease following concussion and possibly repetitive subconcussive injury. The spectrum of post-concussive disease includes acute symptoms, post-concussion syndrome (PCS), prolonged post-concussion syndrome (PPCS), mild cognitive impairment (MCI), chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), and dementia pugilistica (DP). The role of neuroinflammation and immunoexcitotoxicity in the genesis of these post-concussive processes has recently been reviewed.[25] If neuroinflammation is a possible common substrate, it would seem reasonable that therapeutic options should at least include some anti-inflammatory mechanisms of action. Many of the natural compounds reviewed here have multiple mechanisms of neuroprotection, including interfering with the post-traumatic inflammatory cascade. EICOSAPENTAENOIC ACID AND DOCOSAHEXAENOIC ACID Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids are important structural components of all cell membranes modulating membrane fluidity, thickness, cell signaling, and mitochondrial function.[62,190] Long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, including eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), are highly enriched in neuronal synaptosomal plasma membranes and vesicles.[62] The predominant CNS polyunsaturated fatty acid is DHA which is readily retained in neuronal plasma membranes.[140] Neuronal DHA, in turn, influences the phospholipid content of the plasma membrane increasing phosphatidylserine and phosphatidylethanolamine production and promoting neurite outgrowth during both development and adulthood.[34,181] Despite DHA's importance for CNS function, the predominant dietary polyunsaturated fatty is linolenic acid obtained through ingestion of certain nuts and vegetable oils; which is inefficiently converted to EPA or DHA.[95] Therefore, effective supplementation and/or increased ingestion of dietary sources rich in EPA and DHA, such as cold-water fish species and fish oil, may help improve a multitude of neuronal functions, including long-term potentiation and cognition.[114,145,151] With respect to neuroprotection in the context of improving outcomes following TBI, multiple preclinical studies have suggested that DHA and/or EPA supplementation may have potential benefit through a multitude of diverse, but complementary mechanisms.[13,149,150,237,238] Studies utilizing rodent models of experimental injury have shown that pre-injury dietary supplementation with fish oil effectively reduces post-traumatic elevations in protein oxidation resulting in stabilization of multiple molecular mediators of learning, memory, cellular energy homeostasis and mitochondrial calcium homeostasis as well as improving cognitive performance.[237,238] [ ] The benefits of pre-traumatic DHA supplementation have not only been independently confirmed,[150] but DHA supplementation has been shown to significantly reduce the number of swollen, disconnected and injured axons when administered following traumatic brain injury.[13,149] Of note, DHA has provided neuroprotection in experimental models of both focal and diffuse traumatic brain injury.[13,149,150,237,238] Studies in other models of neurologic injury have revealed a variety of potential mechanisms of neuroprotection, in addition to DHA and EPA's well-established anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.[32,34,35,65,85,132,133,144,148,170,181,193,208,228,237,238] [ ]. Table 1 Open in a separate window Despite abundant laboratory evidence supporting its neuroprotective effects in experimental models, the role of dietary DHA and/or EPA supplementation in human neurological diseases remains uncertain. To date, there have been no clinical trials investigating the effects of DHA and/or EPA dietary supplementation on the treatment or prevention of TBI. Several population-based, observational studies have suggested that increased dietary fish and/or omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid consumption may reduce risk for ischemic stroke in several populations;[81,91,153] however, such benefit has not been observed in all populations studied.[31] Randomized control trials have also demonstrated significant reductions in ischemic stroke recurrence,[217] relative risk for ischemic stroke,[2] and reduced incidence of both symptomatic vasospasm and mortality following subarachnoid hemorrhage.[253] Multiple studies, on the other hand, have found no statistically significant reduction in neurological impairment following ischemic stroke[72,172] reductions in epileptic seizure frequency.[28,57,174,255] Clinical trials in Alzheimer's disease have also been largely ineffective.[175] The clinical evidence thus far appears equivocal; however, the overall difficulty in controlling for basal dietary intake of polyunsaturated fatty acids between experimental groups, lack of good study design and the significant heterogeneity of the studied patient populations makes all of these studies difficult to interpret collectively. Nonetheless, the multi-mechanistic neuroprotective properties and the positive preclinical findings associated with omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid supplementation warrant well designed clinical trials in the future to determine whether supplementation may improve outcomes following mild TBI. CURCUMIN Curcumin is a flavonoid compound that is the principal curcuminoid of the Indian spice turmeric. It is also a member of the ginger family. While this natural phenol is most commonly known for providing the yellow pigment seen in many curries; curcumin has long been a staple of many traditional remedies offered by practitioners of Oriental and Aryurvedic medicine.[73] More recently, curcumin has gained much attention from Western researchers for its potential therapeutic benefits in large part due to its potent anti-oxidant[128,194,236] and anti-inflammatory properties.[3,115,139] Curcumin is highly lipophilic and crosses the blood-brain barrier enabling it to exert a multitude of different established neuroprotective effects [ ]. Multiple experimental animal models have suggested that curcumin supplementation may offer benefit in the treatment of chronic neurodegenerative processes, such as Alzheimer's disease,[128,248] as well as acute neurological insults including ischemic stroke[61,93,203,221,247,259] and subarachnoid hemorrhage.[226] Table 2 Open in a separate window Specifically in the context of TBI, a series of preclinical studies have suggested that pre-traumatic and post-traumatic curcumin supplementation may bolster the brain's resilience to injury and serve as a valuable therapeutic option.[115,201,202,236,239] Curcumin may confer significant neuroprotection because of its ability to act on multiple deleterious post-traumatic, molecular cascades. For example, pre-traumatic curcumin supplementation improved post-traumatic cognitive deficits and stabilized levels of certain proteins implicated in the molecular mechanisms underlying learning, memory, and cellular energy homeostasis.[115,202,236] [ ]. Additionally, these studies demonstrated that both pre- and post-traumatic curcumin administration resulted in a significant reduction of neuroinflammation via inhibition of the pro-inflammatory molecules interleukin 1β and nuclear factor kappa B (NFκB). More importantly, the reduced neuroinflammatory response mitigated post-traumatic reactive astrogliosis and prevented upregulation of the water channel aquaporin 4, thus reducing the magnitude of cellular edema. It was determined, though, that prophylactic administration of curcumin exerted greater neuroprotective effects than post-traumatic treatment and that the therapeutic window for significant neuroprotection, in these studies, was less than one hour post-TBI.[115] Nonetheless, other studies have further evaluated the benefits of post-traumatic administration of a curcumin derivative, CNB-001, with enhanced neuroprotective properties.[131,201,239] These studies demonstrate that this compound is capable of significantly reducing post-traumatic elevations in lipid peroxidation and protein oxidation, as well as disturbances in plasma membrane turnover and phospholipid metabolism. Additionally, this curcumin derivative prevented reductions in proteins important for learning, memory, and synaptic transmission; and promoted cellular energy homeostasis [ ]. Post-traumatic administration of CNB-001 also improved injury-associated behavioral impairment,[201,239] thereby suggesting that curcumin-induced normalization of multiple molecular systems may help preserve neuronal structure and function during the post-injury period. Therapeutic administration of curcumin in human patients has been shown to be well-tolerated.[16,59] However, despite a tremendous amount of laboratory evidence demonstrating the neuroprotective effects of curcumin; to date, no human studies have been conducted with respect to the effects of curcumin administration on the treatment of TBI, subarachnoid or intracranial hemorrhage, epilepsy or stroke. Preliminary clinical evidence in support of curcumin's neuroprotective properties have come from several epidemiological studies. One study has suggested that curcumin, a spice highly consumed in the Indian culture, may partially be responsible for the significant reductions in Alzheimer's disease prevalence observed in India, when compared to the United States.[39] Another study has further suggested that increased curry consumption in an elderly population is associated with higher Mini Mental Status Examination scores.[159] In spite of these initial favorable findings, the results of more recent clinical trials in several Alzheimer's disease populations remain equivocal.[79] Whether curcumin intake or administration can afford significant neuroprotection in human TBI remains largely unknown and underexplored. RESVERATROL Resveratrol is a naturally occurring phytoalexin and stilbenoid compound found in multiple dietary sources including redwine, grapes, and peanuts.[18] Since its original discovery in 1940, resveratrol has gained popular media attention for being the cardioprotective agent in red wine[26] and its capability of extending vertebrate lifespan.[17] Resveratrol has been demonstrated to effectively cross the blood-brain barrier and improve outcomes in animal models following multiple acute neurological insults including stroke,[70,88,123,176,206] global cerebral ischemia,[58] spinal cord injury,[99,111,249] and TBI.[11,205,209] Resveratrol has also been demonstrated to slow the development of chronic neurodegenerative disease in animal models.[101,179] Although many of resveratrol's therapeutic benefits are classically attributed to its potent anti-oxidant effects,[11,18] numerous studies have identified additional mechanisms of neuroprotection [ ]. Table 3 Open in a separate window Preclinical studies have also explored resveratrol's therapeutic effect on experimental TBI. Studies have demonstrated that the post-traumatic administration of resveratrol reduces neuropathological and behavioral sequelae in both immature and adult rodents.[11,205,209] Resveratrol treatment in immature rodents reduced post-traumatic neuronal loss and improved behavioral measures of locomotion, anxiety, and novel object recognition memory.[209] In adult rodents, administration of resveratrol resulted in reduced levels of oxidative stress and lipid peroxidation and stabilized endogenous anti-oxidants following TBI.[11] Furthermore, studies have demonstrated that resveratrol treatment reduces brain edema and lesion volume, as well as improves neurobehavioral functional performance following TBI.[11,205] The molecular mechanisms underlying the aforementioned neuroprotection remain largely unknown. To date, no human trials have been conducted to investigate the effects of resveratrol in the prevention or treatment of TBI. Resveratrol administration in some clinical studies has shown that resveratrol is capable of increasing cerebral blood flow[105] and reducing inflammation via inhibition of the pro-inflammatory molecule NFκB.[100] Epidemiological studies have also suggested that increased red wine consumption is associated with reductions in stroke risk.[155] However, it remains to be determined whether such protection is a result of improvements in other vascular and neuronal parameters or if it is even dependent on the presence of resveratrol. Therefore, further studies are needed to fully elucidate resveratrol's potential neuroprotective benefit, particularly in TBI. CREATINE Creatine is an amino-acid like compound favored as a popular dietary supplement by many athletes for its promotion of muscle mass production. It also plays an integral role in the endogenous maintenance of cellular energy reserves in tissues with high and fluctuating energy demands, such as the brain and skeletal muscle. CNS creatine is derived from both its local biosynthesis from the essential amino acids methionine, glycine and arginine and through the transport of circulating peripherally-derived and/or dietary creatine across the blood-brain barrier.[19,161] Dietary creatine is predominately found in protein rich foods, such as meat, fish and poultry. Biochemically, creatine is readily phosphorylated by creatine kinase to yield the high-energy analogue phosphocreatine. Phosphocreatine may then transfer its N-phosphoryl group to adenosine diphosphate (ADP) creating one molecule of ATP, thereby replenishing cellular energy stores.[19] In the CNS, maintenance of cellular ATP levels is necessary for proper development and provides the cellular energy required to maintain the various cellular processes necessary for proper neuronal structure and function; including the maintenance of neuronal membrane potential, ion gradients underlying signal propagation, intracellular calcium homeostasis, neurotransmission, intracellular and intercellular signal transduction and neuritic transport.[19,241] More recent evidence also suggests that creatine may serve as a neuronal co-transmitter augmenting post-synaptic GABA signal transduction.[5,54,158,167] Studies of patients with CNS creatine deficiency and/or murine models with genetic ablation of creatine kinase have consistently demonstrated significant neurological impairment in the absence of proper creatine, phosphocreatine, or creatine kinase function; thus highlighting its functional importance.[19,157] Preclinical studies in a variety of experimental models have suggested that dietary creatine may provide neuroprotection in animal models of chronic neurodegenerative disease, including Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.[19,77] The neuroprotective effects may also be conferred in acute neurological injuries, such as TBI.[195,214] Of important note, mild TBI reduces brain creatine and phosphocreatine levels in rodent models, suggesting that resulting impairments in the maintenance of cellular energy may play a role in the evolution of secondary brain injury.[204] In rodents, pre-traumatic dietary supplementation with creatine monohydrate significantly reduced the magnitude of cortical tissue damage and the concentration of two biomarkers of cellular injury, free fatty acids and lactic acid, following experimental injury.[195,214] It was further elucidated that creatine-mediated neuroprotection is in part mediated by the maintenance of cellular ATP levels and improvements in mitochondrial bioenergetics; including increased mitochondrial membrane potential and reductions in mitochondrial permeability, reactive oxygen species, and calcium levels.[214] Additional mechanisms of neuroprotection in the context of TBI remain to be determined. In humans, studies utilizing nuclear magnetic spectroscopy have demonstrated that creatine supplementation does indeed increase cerebral creatine and phosphocreatine stores. Additionally, chronic dosing may partially reverse neurological impairments in human CNS creatine deficiency syndromes.[77,157] Acute supplementation of creatine may also improve cognition in elderly patients and adults following sleep deprivation.[146,147] Several studies have suggested that creatine supplementation may also reduce oxidative DNA damage and brain glutamate levels in Huntington disease patients.[21,84] Another study highlighted that creatine supplementation marginally improved indices of mood and reduced the need for increased dopaminergic therapy in patients with Parkinson's disease.[22] Together, these data suggest that dietary creatine supplementation may effectively increase CNS creatine/phosphocreatine stores and may modulate human neurological disease. No human studies have been conducted to investigate the effects of prophylactic creatine supplementation on increasing brain resilience to TBI. However, preliminary results obtained in a pediatric population have suggested that post-traumatic oral creatine administration (0.4 g/kg) given within four hours of traumatic brain injury and then daily thereafter, may improve both acute and long-term outcomes.[188,189] Acutely, post-traumatic creatine administration seemed to reduce duration of post-traumatic amnesia, length of time spent in the intensive care unit, and duration of intubation.[188] At three and six months post-injury, subjects in the creatine treatment group demonstrated improvement on indices of self care, communication abilities, locomotion, sociability, personality or behavior and cognitive function when compared to untreated controls.[188] Further analysis of the same population, revealed that patients in the creatine-treatment group were less likely to experience headaches, dizziness and fatigue over six months of follow-up.[189] Most important, creatine treatment appeared to be well tolerated and there were no significant side effects reported;[188,189] which was consistent with other human studies utilizing higher dosages.[10,22,84] While initial studies have also provided encouraging preliminary evidence supporting the use of creatine supplementation in the treatment of primary depression,[182] whether creatine may serve as an effective treatment post-traumatic or post-concussive depression remains to be determined. GREEN TEA Although enjoyed by many for simply its taste and ability to bolster alertness during a time of fatigue, green tea is comprised of a trio of protective compounds that have independently drawn the attention of researchers from several diverse disciplines including cardiology, oncology, rheumatology, and neurology. At the core of green tea's neuroprotective properties, are the flavanoid - epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), the amino acid - theanine and finally the methylxanthine - caffeine (discussed below). All three of these compounds have been shown to exert multiple in vitro and in vivo neuroprotective effects[14,78,97,106,108,138,178] [ ]. Table 4 Open in a separate window One of the most abundant compounds in green tea extract is the potent anti-oxidant EGCG which is capable of crossing the blood-nerve and blood-brain barrier,[156,212] and exerting neuroprotective benefits in animal models of peripheral nerve injury,[233] spinal cord trauma,[106] and ischemic stroke.[49,120,163] Epigallocatechin-3-gallate also displays neuroprotective properties in animal models of chronic neurodegenerative diseases including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis,[113,254] Parkinson's disease,[48,122,137] and Alzheimer's disease.[108,178] Epigallocatechin-3-gallate's neuroprotection has largely been attributed to its potent anti-oxidant[14,108,178,233] and anti-inflammatory properties;[106,138] however, a number of studies have identified additional neuroprotective mechanisms [ ]. Other animal studies have also demonstrated that theanine, another important component of green tea extract, exerts a multitude of neuroprotective benefits in experimental models of ischemic stroke,[63,97] Alzheimer's disease,[109] and Parkinson's disease.[43] Theanine, like EGCG, contains multiple mechanisms of neuroprotective action including protection from excitotoxic injury[97] and inhibition of inflammation[109] [ ]. As with most other natural compounds, no human trials have been conducted to investigate the effects of EGCG and/or theanine on reducing or treating brain injury following TBI; however, preliminary evidence has suggested that green tea-derived compounds may indeed modulate neuronal function in human subjects. For example, a randomized, placebo-controlled trial demonstrated that administration of green tea extract and L-theanine, over 16 weeks of treatment, improved indices of memory and brain theta wave activity on electroencephalography, suggesting greater cognitive alertness.[165] Additional studies have also suggested that green tea extract may decrease cognitive decline in the elderly[160] and that L-theanine and theogallin-enriched green tea or caffeine may increase brain theta wave activity and performance on tasks requiring attention, respectively.[60,103] Collectively, these studies suggest that green tea consumption or supplementation with its derivatives may bolster cognitive function acutely and may slow cognitive decline. However, sound evidence demonstrating green tea's neuroprotection in chronic neurodegenerative disease is lacking. At least one population based study, though, did demonstrate that increased green tea consumption was associated with a reduced risk for Parkinson's disease independent of total caffeine intake.[40] Future clinical and preclinical studies are needed to definitively address whether green tea may provide significant neuroprotection in TBI. CAFFEINE Caffeine has assumed a unique position in western popular culture as a readily available psychoactive agent in tea, carbonated soft drinks and coffee required to combat periods of fatigue and increase mental alertness. Much less appreciated are the potential neuroprotective benefits from chronic caffeine consumption. Caffeine is a non-selective adenosine receptor antagonistic which may also influence CNS adenosine receptor levels following chronic, but not acute treatment.[125] Caffeine-mediated neuroprotection arises through adenosine-dependent effects, such as modulation of glutaminergic synaptic transmission, cell survival signal transduction and inhibition of neuroinflammation, as well as through adenosine-independent effects such as protection of the blood-brain barrier.[41] Significant caffeine-mediated neuroprotection has been demonstrated in animal models of chronic neurodegenerative disease such as Alzheimer's disease[7,8,33,55] and Parkinson's disease.[98,197,245] The preclinical evidence regarding the neuroprotective effects of caffeine administration in TBI is equivocal.[4,24,41,125,232] It seems that chronic but not acute caffeine treatment leads to significant reductions in neurological deficits, cerebral edema, cellular apoptosis and inflammatory cell infiltrate following experimental injury. These improvements were attributed to upregulation of adenosine A 1 receptors which, in turn, suppressed the synthesis of pro-inflammatory cytokines and reduced glutamate release and subsequent excitotoxic injury.[125] Consistent with this report, previous studies have also suggested that chronic caffeine treatment is associated with diminished hippocampal neuronal cell death following traumatic brain injury.[232] Other studies have demonstrated that selective adenosine A 1 agonists improve neuropathology following experimental injury,[224] whereas adenosine A 1 receptor genetic ablation worsens post-traumatic neuroinflammation and seizure activity.[80,112] Together, these studies suggest that chronic caffeine consumption may exert neuroprotective effects by modulating adenosine signaling in the brain. Yet another study demonstrated that post-traumatic caffeine treatment was associated with reductions in intracranial pressure.[24] Furthermore, the protective effects of post-traumatic caffeine administration were shown to be potentiated by its co-administration with alcohol.[56] In stark contrast, an independent study has reported that acute administration of high concentrations of caffeine just prior to traumatic injury worsened mortality, inflammatory cell infiltrate, edema and blood-brain barrier disruption.[4] The sources underlying these apparent contradictions remains unclear, but necessitates careful consideration and caution regarding dosing, timing and duration of treatment if caffeine administration were to be translated into the clinical arena. Population based studies have also yielded conflicting results regarding the utility of dietary caffeine intake in the prevention of human neurological disease. Several studies have identified that ingestion of coffee and/or tea are associated with reduced risk for cognitive decline,[192] Alzheimer's disease,[66,136,191] and Parkinson's disease;[9,53,183,185] suggesting that caffeine intake may provide protection from chronic neurodegenerative processes. One large population based, observational study found that consumption of three cups of coffee or tea per day, for ten years, lead to a 22 and 28% risk reduction in the development of Parkinson's disease.[216] The benefits are less clear for acute neurological diseases such as stroke. In certain populations, such as women, chronic coffee consumption was associated with a lower risk of ischemic stroke and subarachnoid hemorrhage.[117] However, in other populations chronic coffee intake has demonstrated no change in stroke risk[76] or in one study, even a transient increase in stroke risk immediately following ingestion.[152] Caffeine use has also been identified as a risk factor for subarachnoid hemorrhage[27] and intracerebral hemorrhage[69] in young patients. To date, no formal clinical trials have been conducted to establish the effects of caffeine on reducing or treating TBI. Adenosine levels have been determined to be elevated in brain interstitial and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) following traumatic brain injury;[20,50,180] although, the significance of these changes is unclear. Elevated CSF caffeine levels were associated with more favorable outcomes six months following TBI in one study.[187] While only a preliminary finding, this suggests that pre-traumatic caffeine ingestion may afford some degree of neuroprotection and improve outcomes following TBI.[187] It is still uncertain whether this benefit is associated with acute or chronic caffeine consumption and if so what amount. VITAMIN E AND C Vitamins are generally associated with a positive connotation with respect to perceived health benefits. Preclinical and more recently clinical studies have begun to support the use of vitamins E and C in reducing neuropathology and cognitive deficits following brain trauma.[51,87,177,240] Of the numerous vitamins commercially available, vitamin E has been at the forefront of many studies investigating the potential neuroprotective benefits of vitamin supplementation. Vitamin E is a collective term for eight naturally occurring compounds, four tocopherols (alpha-, beta-, gamma-, and delta-) and four tocotrienols (alpha-, beta-, gamma-, and delta-).[223] Vitamin E is a potent, lipid-soluble, anti-oxidant that is present in high concentrations in the mammalian brain.[211] In several animal models of brain injury such as ischemic stroke,[107,162] subarachnoid hemorrhage[104,222] and Alzheimer's disease,[215] administration of alpha-tocopherol or its potent derivative alpha-tocotrienol has been shown to lessen oxidative stress and neuropathology. Other laboratory studies have demonstrated that pre-traumatic alpha-tocopherol supplementation reduces TBI-induced increases in lipid peroxidation and oxidative injury and impairments in spatial memory.[87,240] Additional studies in transgenic mouse models of Alzheimer's disease have further demonstrated that pre- and post-traumatic vitamin E supplementation reduces lipid peroxidation, amyloidosis, and improves cognitive performance following repetitive concussive brain injury.[51] Despite considerable promise in many animal models, the effectiveness of vitamin E supplementation in preventing and/or treating neurological disease in human patients have yielded conflicting results. Several population based studies have found vitamin E-associated reductions in ischemic stroke risk;[52,196] whereas, others have failed to find such an association.[23,30,64,198] Additionally, several of these studies have noted an increased risk for hemorrhagic stroke, warranting caution for widespread usage.[196,198] While recent studies have reported that vitamin E supplementation in MCI and Alzheimer's disease patients has proven largely ineffective,[89] such claims have been controversial and there are several factors to consider when critically reviewing the results of these studies. For starters, the doses used in these trials were quite low. Additionally, these clinical trials explored the effectiveness of alpha-tocopherol, the least active form of vitamin E. Despite being the major form of vitamin E in US diets, gamma-tocopherol has received little attention when compared to alpha-tocopherol which is generally found in supplements.[223] Gamma-tocopherol is the main anti-inflammatory component and has been found to be more effective in scavenging free radicals and nitrogen oxygen species that cause inflammation. Interestingly, the use of alpha-tocopherol supplements also significantly reduces serum gamma-tocopherol, and therefore, any potential health benefits of alpha-tocopherol supplements may be offset by deleterious changes in the bioavailability of other forms of potent tocopherols and tocotrienols.[223] One other point of consideration is that in neurodegenerative disease states like Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease, where there are high levels of reactive oxygen species generation, vitamin E can tend to become oxidized itself. For maximal effectiveness and to maintain its anti-oxidant capacity, vitamin E must be given in conjunction with other anti-oxidants like vitamin C or flavonoids. These various factors might account for the null effects of alpha-tocopherol supplementation in patients with MCI and Alzheimer's disease.[223] In contrast, emerging evidence has suggested that daily intravenous administration of vitamin E following TBI significantly decreases mortality and improves patient outcomes when assessed at discharge and at two and six month follow-up time points.[177] Importantly, no increase in adverse events was detected. This study also identified that high dose vitamin C administration following injury stabilized or reduced peri-lesional edema and infarction in the majority of patients receiving post-injury treatment.[177] Like vitamin E, vitamin C, also known as ascorbic acid, is a potent anti-oxidant present in high concentrations in the CNS. Given these similarities in action, it has been speculated that combined vitamin C and E therapy may potentiate CNS anti-oxidation and act synergistically with regards to neuroprotection. There are few studies that have investigated combination therapy; however, one prospective human study has found that combined intake of vitamin C and E displays significant treatment interaction and reduces the risk of stroke.[52] Future studies are needed to confirm whether vitamin C or E monotherapy improves outcomes following TBI and whether combined therapy may further potentiate any protective benefit. VITAMIN D Vitamin D is structurally similar to many sterol hormones and is obtained through both dietary intake and endogenous biosynthesis from cholesterol in the skin. Following intake or biosynthesis, Vitamin D undergoes enzyme catalyzed sequential hydroxylation to yield its active form 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D or calcitriol. Despite being established to play a vital role in calcium homeostasis peripherally, the functional role of vitamin D in the CNS has remained elusive. Recent research has suggested that the cells in the brain not only possess the hydroxlase responsible for vitamin D activation, but that multiple regions in the brain abundantly express the nuclear vitamin D receptor.[68] Binding of vitamin D to its nuclear receptor, in turn, leads to its association with other transcription factors, such as retinoic acid receptor. Subsequently this complex binds to vitamin-D response elements in genomic DNA, thus augmenting gene transcription. Vitamin D-induced alterations in gene transcription are now believed to modulate a myriad of neuronal properties including proliferation, differentiation and maintenance of calcium homeostasis.[68] Vitamin D deficiency is endemic in the adolescent, adult, and elderly populations in the United States,[38,75,220] and has been associated with inflammatory, autoimmune, cardiovascular, neuromuscular, and neurodegenerative diseases as well as cancer.[38] Population based studies have suggested that vitamin D deficiency in the elderly is indeed associated with an increased prevalence of Parkinson's disease[67] dementia, Alzheimer's disease, increased stroke risk and a higher prevalence of MRI findings suggestive of primary cerebrovascular lesions.[29] The association between vitamin D deficiency and elevated stroke risk or other cardiovascular disease has been confirmed in other studies.[6,171] Furthermore, a randomized controlled trial has suggested that post-ischemic administration of vitamin D may improve endothelial cell function.[234] These studies, albeit anecdotal, suggest that vitamin D may indeed posses both neuroprotective and vasculoprotective properties. More recent research has suggested that vitamin D supplementation and the prevention of vitamin D deficiency may serve valuable roles in the treatment of TBI and may represents an important and necessary neuroprotective adjuvant for post-TBI progesterone therapy.[12,37,38] Progesterone is one of the few agents to demonstrate significant reductions in mortality following TBI in human patients in preliminary trials[235,242] and phase III multi-center trials currently in progress. Similarly, in vitro and in vivo studies have suggested that vitamin D supplementation with progesterone administration may significantly enhance neuroprotection.[12] Vitamin D deficiency may increase inflammatory damage and behavioral impairment following experimental injury and attenuate the protective effects of post-traumatic progesterone treatment.[37] SCUTELLARIA BAICALENSIS The root Scutellaria baicalensis is one of the most widely utilized traditional Oriental herbal remedies. It has been utilized in a number of diverse conditions including bacterial infections, inflammatory conditions, and more recently neurological disease. At the core of its potent protective bioactivity, are a trio of flavanoids, including baicalein, baicalin, and wogonin; each independently demonstrated to possess neuroprotective properties both in vitro and in vivo. Prior studies have demonstrated that baicalein and baicalin possess potent anti-oxidant abilities,[71,82] whereas wogonin potently attenuates microglial activation and resultant neuroinflammation.[118,169] Independent studies have further demonstrated that baicalein and baicalin may also have anti-inflammatory properties through the inhibition of the proinflammatory molecule NFκB[213,246] and microglial activation.[124] Comparison studies have also demonstrated that baicalein may protect neurons from both excitoxic and glucose deprivation injury, while baicalin proved to be protective in excitotoxic injury and wogonin exerted no direct neuroprotective benefit in either in vitro model.[119] Other models have suggested that wogonin does promote neurite outgrowth[129] and indeed protects neurons from oxygen/glucose deprivation,[207] in addition to excitotoxic and oxidative injury.[44] Baicalein has been shown to protect neurons from endoplasmic stress-induced apoptosis as well.[47] It remains unclear as to which flavanoid, if any, predominates with respect to Scutellaria-derived neuroprotection. These potent anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-apoptotic mechanisms have been explored in a multitude of other experimental models including cerebral ischemia,[45,86,110,199,200] cerebral reperfusion injury,[246] spinal cord injury,[36,256] Alzheimer's disease[134] and Parkinson's disease.[134,154] Importantly, in one model of experimental TBI, post-traumatic administration of baicalein decreased protein levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines, reduced cortical contusion volume and improved neurological outcome.[42] Whether baicalin and wogonin also possess protective effects with respect to TBI remains to be determined. Despite these positive preliminary findings in models of CNS disease, including TBI, no human studies have been conducted to evaluate whether the administration of Scutellaria provides neuroprotective benefits. OTHER NEUROPROTECTIVE NUTRACEUTICALS There are numerous other herbal remedies, while previously utilized strictly within the realm of traditional Oriental medicine, are now becoming more appreciated for their multi-mechanistic neuroprotective benefits. One such compound known as danshen, comprised of the root Salvia miltiorrhiza, has been utilized for centuries as a traditional Chinese remedy for coronary artery and cerebrovascular disease. At least one study in human subjects has confirmed that chronic ingestion may indeed decrease the risk of stroke as well as stroke recurrence.[1,244] More recently, it has been shown that the bioactive compounds of Salvia miltiorrhiza extract providing much of the neuroprotective benefit are salvianic acid and lipid-soluble tanshinones.[116,227,230] These compounds have been shown to reduce lipid peroxidation and mitochondrial permeability,[229,230] stabilize of intracellular calcium,[83] reduce neuroinflammation,[219] and protect the blood-brain barrier.[218,257] It's neuroprotective effects have been investigated in experimental models of stroke,[116,218] Parkinson's disease[230] and Alzheimer's disease.[130] It is unknown whether significant benefit is associated with administration of Salvia miltiorrhiza derivatives in either experimental models of TBI or human TBI. Another traditional remedy which has demonstrated significant neuroprotective potential is the potent anti-inflammatory[46,139] and anti-oxidant[90,166] compound derived from the bark of the maritime pine tree, Pycnogenol. In experimental models, Pycnogenol has demonstrated the ability to slow or reduce the pathological processes associated with Alzheimer's disease.[90,166] Similarly, Pcynogenol administration, in a clinical study of elderly patients, led to improved cognition and reductions in markers of lipid peroxidase.[184] Yet another example of a potential natural neuroprotective agent that has been widely studied is ginseng. Ginseng is comprised of multiple neuroactive compounds including ginsenosides and saponins that possess multiple mechanisms of neuroprotection including the ability to reduce brain oxidation[258] and neuroinflammation,[96,231] protect mitochondrial function,[252] promote neurogenesis,[260] and promote expression of several neurotrophic factors.[127] In experimental models, ginsenosides and/or saponins have been demonstrated to exert protection in cerebral ischemia,[164] stroke,[250–252,260] subarachnoid hemorrhage,[126] Parkinson's disease[135] and Alzheimer's disease.[231] It is also is thought to protect cognitive function during aging.[258] Preclinical studies in at least one experimental model of TBI have suggested potential benefit in improving neuropathological and behavioral outcomes.[92] In humans, though, it remains unclear as to whether chronic administration of ginseng may improve cognition and/or slow progression of dementia.[74]

Spartak Moscow website hacked by Turkish nationalist group ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News AA Photo Nationalist Turks hacked the website of Spartak Moscow last night to demand that team officials apologize after a group of fans from the Russian side burned Turkish flags and Atatürk posters during an Aug. 21 Champions League playoff against Fenerbahçe.The group replaced the website's original content with a statement that called on the team to "immediately apologize.""You will immediately apologize to the Turkish Republic and the Turkish people. No crime goes without punishment, and FIFA may forgive you, but we won't," the statement read.A portrait of Atatürk next to a Turkish flag was also posted on the website.Spartak Moscow fans burned flags and posters of modern Turkey's founding father, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, during their team’s 2-1 victory over the Istanbul giants in the first leg of their Champions League playoff.An official response is yet to come from UEFA, but Russian media reports hinted at a possible end to Spartak's Champions League journey if football authorities decide to come down hard on the club.

When it comes to spending cuts, Congress is looking in the wrong place. Most federal nondefense spending, other than Social Security and Medicare, is now done through special tax rules rather than by direct cash outlays. The rules are used to subsidize a wide range of spending including education, child care, health insurance, and a myriad of other congressional favorites. These tax rules—because they result in the loss of revenue that would otherwise be collected by the government—are equivalent to direct government expenditures. That's why tax and budget experts refer to them as "tax expenditures." This year tax expenditures will raise the federal deficit by about $1 trillion, according to estimates by the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation. If Congress is serious about cutting government spending, it has to go after many of them.... If tax expenditures are not cut, taxes on households and businesses will have to rise to prevent an explosion of the national debt, which is now projected to increase to 90% of GDP by 2020 from today's 63%. When benefits for Social Security and Medicare are set aside, the rest of the outlay side of the budget is too small—7.5% of GDP—to provide much scope for reducing annual budget deficits that are now projected to average 5% of GDP for the rest of this decade. In contrast, total tax expenditures are now 6.4% of GDP.

The announcement that UK prosecutors have dropped the charges against a students’ union official accused of tweeting #KillAllWhiteMen has been hailed as a victory for free speech by supporters who led the protests over her arrest. Well, it’s a start. But there is little prospect of turning the tide in the free-speech wars unless and until such people also campaign against official and unofficial censorship of those with whom they disagree. And will even defend free speech for those they despise. Yes, it is all well and good to defend Bahar Mustafa, the Goldsmiths student diversity officer arrested and charged under UK communications law. As the free-speech lobby English PEN claims, noting that the hashtag #KillAllWhiteMen ‘was clearly a joke’ rather than a real threat: ‘It was a political statement, however inadvisable it was for an elected students’ union official to post it.’ So, what about the #IStandWithBaharMustafa crowd defending freedom of expression for other objectionable jokes and political statements – such as the hashtag, which Mustafa claims she was responding to, #KillAllMuslims? Would the entire civil-liberties lobby be so outraged if some other idiot was arrested for tweeting #KillAllBlackWomen? Not quite, the record suggests. Yet this is the acid test for anybody who is serious about making a ‘StandWith’ those whose free speech is under attack. As US Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes (who was, admittedly, a white man) put it 86 years ago, the principle on which a free society stands is ‘the principle of free thought – not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate’. Or, if you prefer, as black US civil-liberties lawyer David Baugh put it 16 years ago, while defending a cross-burning Ku Klux Klan leader who, he assured the jury, hated black men like him: ‘In America, we have the right to hate. And we have the right to discuss it.’ Baugh lost that case on a point of law. Today he might be widely considered to have lost his mind. Yet he was right. In a civilised society, if we are talking about thoughts and words – however vitriolic – rather than violent deeds, all must be free to hate what or who they choose, whether that means Muslims, Christians, bankers or Bono. The best way to counter hatred and ideas we despise is not to try to bury them alive, but to drag them out into the light of day and debate them to the bitter end. Of course there are ideas that people find hateful, offensive, beyond the pale. Yet when it comes to standing up for the principle of free speech in practice, it is only such extreme and offensive ideas that really need defending. The mainstream can look after itself; nobody ever tried to ban an argument for being too mundane. The ridiculous case of Bahar Mustafa reveals some new ways in which free speech is threatened in the UK and the West today – and the dangers of the partial, selective fashion in which that precious liberty is being defended. As full-time diversity officer of that London students’ union, the 28-year-old Mustafa is effectively a professional offence-taker, on the look-out for language and images to be outraged by and protest against. The trouble is that the culture of You Can’t Say That cuts both ways. So, after Mustafa told white people in general and men in particular to stay away from a meeting on diversifying the college curriculum, she found herself in trouble when others declared her words to be offensive, and more than 25,000 people signed an online petition demanding she be ousted from her role. Somebody dug up tweets she was alleged to have sent, including that hashtag #KillAllWhiteMen. The Metropolitan Police and the Crown Prosecution Service – more comfortable with patrolling tweets than the streets these days – stepped in. In October, Mustafa was charged both with sending a communication conveying a threatening message and sending by public communication network a ‘grossly offensive’ message.

The Twin Cities have always had a strong art and food scene, so it’s no surprise to see Minneapolis-St. Paul making up for lost time beer-wise, as statewide alcohol rules are slowly relaxed and craft beer booms. Taprooms just became legal in 2011 and in the time since, the number of breweries in Minnesota has grown to over 30 within the core cities and inner-ring suburbs. It started in the center and has been growing outward, hitting small towns and large, with enough stops to warrant a full vacation instead of mere day trips. Recommended out of state stops that don’t make the list include Bent Paddle, Schell’s, Lift Bridge, and HammerHeart. While pretty much all styles of beers are represented, from barrel-aged to sours, Belgians, real cask ale, gluten-free, and a growing cider scene, Twin Cities beers showcase an affinity for classic American craft styles, done clean, and with a love of the IPA—the more bitter, the better. Minnesota IPAs pull influence from West Coast and Pacific Northwest varieties but often integrate a little more malt backbone. There are also some fine stouts, pilsners, saisons, and more to be found. The Breweries It’s been a steady growth and, in fact, the current count along the cities’ two convenient train lines comes to 10, with many more stops scattered throughout the metro area. For brevity’s sake, we tried to pare the brewery list down to the best of the best. Surly Brewing (Minneapolis): Surly is the loudest of the Minnesota breweries. And that’s a good thing, as they’ve raised awareness of craft brew since their 2005 founding, and helped to update some of the many outdated laws that restrict the industry. In December 2014 they opened their monument to craft beer, a $35 million “destination brewery” just off the Minneapolis-St. Paul border with two restaurants and lots of expensive brewing toys. They’re following the new brewery with a push into new markets. Try: Surly Furious is their flagship IPA, and it’s the most popular Surly produces. Darkness imperial stout is an annual favorite and Todd the Axeman is a citrus-fueled West Coast IPA. Summit Brewing (St. Paul): Established in 1986, Summit are the old timers in the room in this booming scene. The brewery is ranked the 28th largest craft brewery in the country and they’ve done so mostly by distributing through the Minnesota market for the past 29 years. Summit has developed the Twin Cities’ taste for hoppy beers with a distinct malt balance at their core. Try: Extra Pale Ale has defined Minnesota’s palate. Their oatmeal stout is also fantastic. Steel Toe (St. Louis Park): While Surly is the loud one, Steel Toe keep to themselves just 15 minutes from downtown Minneapolis in suburban St. Louis Park. With a Pacific Northwest influence (owner Jason Schoneman previously worked at Pelican Pub Brewery in Oregon), the beers are nuanced and well balanced, yet easily approachable and accordingly priced. The taproom is a basic industrial lot with a nice patio during the warmer months. Try: Size 7 IPA is a Pacific Northwest meets Minnesota IPA with a floral impression followed by a biscuit finish. Indeed Brewing (Minneapolis): Between Indeed and Dangerous Man (below), Northeast Minneapolis is the hub of the new wave of breweries. Style-wise, Indeed leads the pack with an adventurous and well defined flavor profile that matches their neighborhood vibe. The beers are either hopped up or infused with modern ingredients ranging from honey to lavender and more. They recently added a series of wild yeast beers. Try: Midnight Ryder black IPA. It’s crazy hopped up, like their flagship APA Day Tripper, but with a roasty heart that’s still soft enough for year round consumption. Dangerous Man (Minneapolis): Sometimes the best business plan is the one where they come to you. Dangerous Man is onsite only, eschewing liquor stores and bars to sell small batches of whatever they want to make. Founder Rob Miller has an impressive recipe book that gets experimental (peanut butter porter), classic (hefeweizen), and modern (DIPA), and of course there’s the ever popular Chocolate Milk Stout. Try: Chocolate Milk Stout is their flagship that’s not a flagship. The chocolate shake-type flavors in this milk stout won a fan base on day one, complicating Miller’s plans for ever-rotating taps. Fulton (Minneapolis): Fulton is a little brewery that could. After starting with a three-gallon homebrew kit, they’ve moved into digs just a block away from the Twins’ Target Field, and also opened a massive second production site. The taproom remains in the North Loop, just by the baseball field, and it offers a range of accessible and clean classic styles like blonde ale, IPA, pale ale, and more. Try: In the winter, try Worthy Adversary imperial stout. In the summer, either saison, Ex Pat or Randonneur is worthy of attention. Brewpubs In Minnesota a brewpub is a restaurant that brews its own beer and cannot, by law, distribute that beer elsewhere. That means to get this beer, you’ll have to visit the brewhouse. Town Hall Brewery (Minneapolis): Established in 1997 and keeping Mike Hoops as brewmaster since 2000, Town Hall has a rotation of excellent beers that cross all ranges of styles. From the single-hopped Citra to their toasty Hope & King Scotch Ale and their annual barrel-aged week, the brewpub has a wealth of beer offerings and many GABF awards to prove it. Barley John’s (New Brighton): This small brewpub a few miles north of downtown Minneapolis has been doing it all in a cramped space for 15 years. Like Town Hall, they feature award winning beers such as their annual Baltic porter Dark Knight. Northbound Smokehouse (Minneapolis): A relative newbie founded by a former Town Hall employee, Northbound Smokehouse adds the element of smoke to many beers. It’s a neighborhood atmosphere with a lovely hop garden patio that’s tucked away into a residential pocket of south Minneapolis. The Beer Bars Often, a strong scene of tastemaker beer bars leads to an increase in local craft brewers. In Minnesota, it almost feels the opposite. While the bars listed here outdate the craft beer boom, the scene is growing and it’s easier than ever to find a stop with 20+ taps from local, national, and international makers. The Happy Gnome (St. Paul): A leader of the pack, with great food and taps spread not just across the local scene, but some of the best beers from the world. They feature a regularly updated draft list sorted on the menu by flavor profiles, and also a top selection of whiskeys and scotch. Republic-7 Corners (Minneapolis): Near the University of Minnesota and the soon to be new Vikings stadium, this restaurant was already a serious player in the game before last year’s upgrade that now sees a whopping 104 taps. Located across the street from Town Hall, it’s an easy intersection to get lost in. Bottle Shops Looking for a helpful staff that serves a taste of the Twin Cities that you can bring home? Look no further. South Lyndale Liquors (Minneapolis): This is a massive store with ample beer, spirits, and wine on hand and a staff that knows the story behind them. It’s large enough to have a “big” feel, but still family owned and a member of the community. Dogs are welcome, for those who care about that kind of thing. The Beer Dabbler (St. Paul): Not a bottle shop, but The Beer Dabbler (who also publishes local craft beer mag The Growler) is a one stop shop of craft beer merchandise. While the majority of the gear is Minnesota-themed, there is also merchandise from other breweries like Alaskan, Odell, and such. It’s a place to buy cribbage boards, original art, t-shirts, pint glasses, and a whole lot more.

Many scientists believe tiny Martian microbes could flourish beneath the red planet's ice-cemented polar caps, or even in briny puddles of ultra-salty water—which they believe may be locked under Mars' soil in seasonal flows. But here's one important question about the possibility of life on Mars: What the heck does it eat? According to Gary King, a biologist at Louisiana State University, the surprising answer could be a scentless, atmospheric gas: carbon monoxide. In a new study in the science journal PNAS, King has concluded that enough of the gas seeps into Mars's soil from the planet's atmosphere to feed hearty lifeforms. Such organisms which could look like Alkalilimnicola ehrlichii, a carbon monoxide-munching microbe found in California in 2007. "We now know of an energy source for microbial systems that could exist anywhere near the surface." "This is a very important piece of work for Mars astrobiology," says Chris McKay, an astrobiologist at NASA who was not involved in King's research. "What this research means is that we now know of an energy source for microbial systems that could exist anywhere near the surface of Mars." The three things you need As McKay explains it, if you're going to have Earth-like life on Mars today, then you need to account for three things: nutrients, water, and energy. "Nutrients aren't really an issue," he says. "Mars has an abundance of carbon dioxide, nitrates, atmospheric nitrogen, and small amounts of many other nutrients. As for water, the theory that there could be these brines [of saltwater under the soil] has been around for years… What has always needed serious explanation is a potential source of energy. Now we have one." For the most part, scientists had discounted the idea that hypothetical Martian microbes could get their energy from the planet's atmosphere. The reason is simple: Mars's atmosphere is incredibly thin and dominated by carbon dioxide, which is not a viable energy source. Only a tiny sliver of Mars's total atmosphere is carbon monoxide. It's created as sunlight breaks an oxygen atom off from atmospheric carbon dioxide. "This is something that's at our fingertips." In this study, King took many different samples of Earth soils that scientists believe to be Mars-like (such as Hawaiian volcanic ash and salt flat sands of Utah). When he used them to simulate subsurface ultra-salty brines like Mars would have, the team found that an impressive amount of carbon monoxide was able to seep in, more than enough to support plenty of growing microbes. How to eat carbon monoxide If you've heard of carbon monoxide, a simple two-atom gas, it's probably from warning about how you should have a detector in your house because it's fatal to humans. So how can a microorganism get its energy from this stuff? King explains that we already know of organisms on Earth that can get energy from gas via a process called oxidation. In simple terms, it means reattaching an oxygen atom to the gas, which transforms it back into carbon dioxide. In doing so, the reaction releases a burst of energy. King says scientists already know of several compounds in the Martian soil that the plucky hypothetical microbes could use to oxidize their carbon monoxide, such as the molecule perchlorate. Sadly, we have no current way to test whether King's team is right. Neither the Curiosity nor the Opportunity rover is equipped with the tools to detect life. They're also not near the areas where such life could exist, and can't travel there. (Our current best guess is a Martian feature called the recurring slope lineae, a seasonally ebbing swath of land identified in 2011 by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.) But NASA is currently evaluating a proposed mission called Icebreaker Life that would be sent in 2021 and would be able to detect microorganisms. McKay and King agree that this new research provides all the more reason to go forward with such a mission. "Mars is a planet that's really no longer just a part of our imagination. This is something that's at our fingertips," says King.

To coincide with Pride month in the US, China-based gay social networking app Blued has announced that it has completed its latest rounds of investor financing – and that it now has a value of $300million. The app, which was founded in 2012, has grown rapidly and now has 27million registered users. It says that 20% of those are now outside of China. It is one of the most-downloaded social networking apps in App Store. The site was founded by a gay entrepreneur and former policeman, Geng Le. He left the police in the early 00s to work on creating his own LGBT-themed website, Danlan. This gave rise to the company Blue City, and then Blued in 2012. The app’s success is partly down to being among the first Chinese-language geo-dating apps in the region. Given that China’s population is 1.3billion, with an estimated LGBTI population of 1.7million, the potential for such an app is enormous. By comparison, Grindr – the world’s other best known gay hook-up app – was valued at $155million earlier this year when it too turned to China for its most recent investment. In January, it announced that it had sold a majority 60% stake to Beijing Kunlun Tech Co. China Daily reports that those involved with the latest rounds of Blued financing included Vision Knight Capital (China) Fund, Mobile Games and Entertainment Group Ltd, Ventech China, and Hong Kong’s New World Development Co Ltd. Blued said it had raised ‘several hundred millions’ of yuan from the financing but did not disclose details (100million yuan is equivalent to approximately $15million) Commenting on the latest round of financing, Geng Le said Blued had seen its revenue increase greatly in recent months and had moved into profit in early 2016. ‘The gay business is a piece of virgin territory in China’ ‘With the funding, we plan to speed up our international expansion, and localize our products overseas. We will promote the marketing and branding, and set up more offices overseas. ‘We also plan to hire more competitive staff, and we will pay them a considerable salary.’ Blued – which is available in nine languages – has previously engaged in initiatives to raise its profile abroad. Last year, it flew several Chinese gay couples to the US to undergo symbolic wedding ceremonies. The couples won the trip through a competition on Blued. Although Geng Le told Gay Star Business at the time that the purpose of the trip was to raise the issue of marriage equality back home in China, it also did no harm in also promoting the app’s profile outside the country. ‘The gay business is a piece of virgin territory in China, and we hope to become a leader of this lucrative market,’ Geng Le told China Daily this week. ‘The substantial spending ability of gays and the funding support we got indicate the strong power of the so-called pink economy.’ Last November, Geng Le said that Blued was aiming for a stock market flotation within five years. China Daily says its now hoping for this to happen in the next 1-2 years but which stock market it hopes to list on remains unknown.

London: A British website, set up to catalogue the last days of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, has released what it claims are eyewitness accounts of the day he was reportedly killed in a plane crash in Taiwan on 18 August 1945. The latest set of documents quote several people who were reportedly involved in the matter related to the accident as well as two British intelligence reports that revisited the crash site to establish the facts. The website also sheds light on what may have been the freedom fighter’s dying words, which reflected his devotion to the cause of India’s freedom. “For 70 years, there have been doubts in certain circles whether such a tragedy at all took place. Four separate reports each corroborating the other constitute irresistible evidence to the contrary," says a statement issued by www.bosefiles.info. The documents say that early in the morning on 18 August 1945, a Japanese Air Force bomber took off from Tourane in Vietnam with Bose and 12 or 13 other passengers and crew. Also on board was Lt Gen Tsunamasa Shidei of the Japanese Army and the planned flight path was Heito-Taipei-Dairen-Tokyo. The three-member Netaji Inquiry Committee, instituted by the government of India in 1956 and headed by Major General Shah Nawaz Khan of Bose’s Indian National Army (INA), was told that since “the weather was perfect and the engines (of the aircraft) worked smoothly" the pilot decided to overfly Heito and proceed straight to Taipei, arriving there late morning or early afternoon. Major Taro Kono, a Japanese Air Staff Officer and one of the passengers, told the committee: “I noticed that the engine on the left side of the plane was not functioning properly. I, therefore, went inside the plane and after examining the engine inside, I found it to be working all right." He added the accompanying engineer “also tested the engine and certified its air-worthiness". Captain Nakamura alias Yamamoto, the ground engineer in charge of maintenance at the airport, concurred with Major Kono “that the engine of the left side was defective". He said the pilot told him “it was a brand new engine". He went on to say: “After slowing down the engine, he (the pilot) adjusted it for about five minutes. The engine was tested twice by Major Takizawa (the pilot). After being adjusted, I satisfied myself that the condition of the engine was all right. Major Takizawa also agreed with me that there was nothing wrong with the engine." However, soon after the aircraft was airborne and there was, according to Colonel Habib ur Rahman—Bose’s ADC and a co-passenger, a loud explosion. He described it as “a noise like a cannon shot". Nakamura, who was watching from the ground, said: “Immediately on taking off, the plane tilted to its left side and I saw something fall down from the plane, which I later found was the propeller." He also maintained that the maximum height gained by the aircraft was 30-40 metres. He estimated “the plane crashed about 100 metres beyond the concrete runway" and immediately caught fire in the front portion. Colonel Rahman recounted: “Netaji turned towards me. I said ‘Aagey Say Nikaleay, Pichey Say Rasta Nahin Hai’. (Please get out through the front; there is no way in the rear.) “We could not get through the entrance door as it was all blocked and jammed by packages and other things. So Netaji got out through the fire; actually he rushed through the fire. I followed him through the same flames. “The moment I got out, I saw him about 10 yards ahead of me, standing, looking in the opposite direction to mine towards the west. His clothes were on fire. I rushed and I experienced great difficulty in unfastening his bush-shirt belt. His trousers were not so much on fire and it was not necessary to take them off." Rahman was in woollen uniform, whereas Bose was in cotton khakis, which, it was assessed, caught fire more easily. Rahman added: “I laid him down on the ground and noticed a very deep cut on his head, probably on the left side. His face had been scorched by heat and his hair had also caught fire and singed. “Netaji enquired from me in Hindustani: Aap Ko Ziada To Nahin Lagi?" (Hope you have not been hurt badly). I replied, I feel that I will be all right. About himself he said that he felt that he would not survive." Bose added: “Jab Apney Mulk Wapis Jayen To Mulki Bhaiyon Ko Batana Ki Mein Akhri Dam Tak Mulk Ki Azadi Ke Liyay Larta Raha Hoon; Woh Jangi Azadi Ko Jari Rakhen. Hindustan Zaroor Azad Hoga, Oos Ko Koi Gulam Nahin Rakh Sakta. (When you go back to the country, tell the people that up to the last I have been fighting for the liberation of my country; they should continue to struggle, and I am sure India will be free before long. Nobody can keep India in bondage now.)" Lieutenent Col Shiro Nonogaki, who was on the flight, said: “When I first saw Netaji after the plane crash, he was standing somewhere near the left tip of the left wing of the plane. His clothes were on fire and his assistant (Col Rahman) was trying to take off his coat." There were variations in the details provided by Rahman, Nonogaki, Kono, Takahashi and Nakamura. They were giving evidence 11 years after the accident. But in essence there was no disagreement between their testimonies on the fact of the crash and Bose suffering severe burns and injuries as a consequence, the website notes. Netaji was rushed to the nearby Nanmon Military Hospital in a critical condition. In September 1945, British authorities in India sent intelligence teams comprising of Messrs Finney and Davies, H.K. Roy and K.P. De to Bangkok, Saigon and Taipei to enquire about the whereabouts of Bose and, if possible, to arrest him. They, instead, returned with the story of the crash. PTI

MIDNIGHT STUDIOS has had a pretty busy start to the season. It released a grungy FW16 collection titled “ADORED,” and quickly followed it up with a collaborative, music-inspired capsule collection with Gibson Guitars. But now comes a super high-profile collaboration with Virgil Abloh’s brand OFF-WHITE for an editorial they have named “GLITTER.” The editorial was shot by MIDNIGHT STUDIOS’s founder Shane Gonzales, and was shot on the streets of Los Angeles. The collaboration was teased on Instagram throughout the day yesterday, revealing a few brief looks at some of the collection’s prints. It consists of a series of T-shirts and long-sleeves that feature an interesting mix of graphics, collage-style. More pieces have been promised to be unveiled in the near future, but the hype train is already full steam ahead for the select offerings already on display. Stay tuned for any further info regarding MIDNIGHT STUDIOS x OFF-WHITE collaboration. In other fashion news, here are the first images of Givenchy’s FW16 campaign. Subscribe

To whom it may concern Hi, hope this petition finds you well. The reason of this petition is to get one of your stars, the recognized actor David Tennant, in a convention trip to México, we would like to know if this is possible and of course the requirements and needs that this event must fulfill, as an example, we have 2 times a year one of the most important conventions named La Mole ComiCon in Mexico City also CONQUE in Queretaro and Expo Comics & AniMex in Monterrey, Saltillo and Cancun, which usually brings actors, professional cosplayers etc. So they can interact with the Fans, sometimes the guests charge for an autograph, photos or prints for their fans, sometimes they do it for free, this depends completely on each guest, as well as they sometimes have meet & greet sessions or conferences, for example, in La Mole ComiCon convention in March, SYFY channel brought a BBC’s Dr. Who-themed experience, and we had the visit of Peter Capaldi and Brian Minchin, on this visit on March 19th 2016, the Mexican fans established a World Guinness Record by bringing together the largest gathering of people dressed as Doctor Who characters, so you can have an idea of how well received might be one of the most emblematic actors from the Dr. Who series. He is a icon for various fandoms not only the Whovians for his extraordinary 10th Doctor, also the Potterheads for his interpretation as Barty Crouch Jr in the Harry Potter fim the Goblet of fire and MARVEL fans too for his performance as Kilgrave in the original Netflix serie Jessica Jones, and not just for that, but for its great acting career, we would be very pleased if he can come and visit us. Thanks in advance Kind regards A quién corresponda. Hola. El motivo del presente es para solicitar a una de sus estrellas mas reconocidas, el Actor David Tennant, a presentarse en alguna o algunas convenciones en México, nos gustaría saber si es posible y por su puesto los requerimientos que este evento necesita cubrir, por ejemplo, en México tenemos una de las convenciones mas importantes, dos ocasiones al año, La Mole ComiCon en la ciudad de México, también ConQue en Queretaro y Expo Comics y AniMex en Monterrey, Saltillo y Cancún, en las que usualmente se presentan actores, cosplayers profesionales (nacionales e internacionales) para que puedan interactuar con sus fans en algunas ocasiones, los invitados dan autógrafos y cobran por ello, venden fotos o "Prints" para sus fans y en algunas otras lo hacen de manera gratuita, esto depende totalmente del invitado, algunas veces tienen sesiones de "meet & greet" y convivencias con los fans, como una referencia y ejemplo, en La Mole ComiCon convención de Marzo, el canal SyFy organizó una experiencia con temática del popular show de la BBC Doctor Who, y tuvimos la visita de Peter Capaldi y Brian Minchin, en esta visita el día 19 de Marzo de 2016, los fans Mexicanos establecieron un Record mundial Guinness por juntar al mayor número de personas disfrazadas de algún personaje del popular show, ésto únicamente para que tengan una idea de que tan bien recibido podría ser uno de los mas emblemáticos actores de Doctor Who. El es un icono de varios fandoms no solo los Whovians por su extraordinario décimo Doctor también los Potterheads por su interpretación de Barty Crouch Jr en la pelicula de Harry Potter y el Caliz de fuego y los fans de MARVEL por su actuaciion como Kilgrave en la serie original de Netflix Jessica Jones y no sólo por eso, sino por su brillante carrera, de verdad estaríamos my complacidos de que nos pudiera visitar. De antemano un agradecimiento Reciba un gran saludo.

The Mediterranean coastline of the Latakia governorate, Syria. Associated Press When hardline Islamist rebels took over swaths of Latakia province this week, it provided them with their first outpost on the Mediterranean Sea. The military offensive was symbolic for several reasons: rebels from al Nusra Front taking over northern parts of Bashar al Assad’s hometown province while the Turkish air force shot down a regime war plane trying to bombard the rebel advancement, as it flew near their shared border. Nusra is al Qaeda’s sanctioned offshoot in Syria. But for Armenian-Syrians from the town of Kassab in Latakia, which rebels overran this weekend, the Turkish involvement reminded them of a dark chapter in their history: the Armenian genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman empire in 1915. The Turks bristle at the term genocide, although 1.5 million Armenians died at the hands of Ottoman forces. For many of Kassab’s Armenian-Syrians, the Nusra Front occupies one side of the same coin the Turks do as well – an existential threat in a war where initial concepts like freedom and democracy have been sidelined by minorities’ concerns, steeped in thousand-year-old memories of past injustices perpetrated across the region. Better the devil you know, than the one you don’t, is the common Christian refrain. Armenian-Syrians expressed outrage Sunday over radical Islamist rebels taking over Kassab, which they said would threaten the town’s Christian inhabitants, many supporters of President Bashar al Assad’s forces. Kassab residents cheered on Damascus in the fight against rebels this weekend, believing the alliance with Mr. Assad — an Alawite, another religious minority — a safer bet to protect their interests. Armenian-Syrians blamed Turkey for rebel advances in Kassab — as Ankara has long turned a blind eye to rebels crossing their borders and weapons flows — and equated a win by Nusra with the Armenian genocide. When Ankara shot down the Syrian war plane, it was too much for Kassab’s residents. They claimed an old foe – Turkey – was conspiring against them by allying with a new enemy – Sunni Muslim extremist groups like Nusra. “The Turks are [working against] us again. This is unacceptable considering history. Genocide repeat [in] Kassab,” said one Twitter user from the town, in sentiments shared by many other Syrian-Armenians on the social networking site. “What a bad day this has been. God bless everyone who is defending the beautiful village of Kassab.” Turkey has denied it supports extremist rebels and said it shot down the Syrian war plane to protect its territory. The Free Syrian Army has struggled to convince minorities that they will protect them, as some al Qaeda breakaway factions like the Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham impose a hard-line version of Islam on territory they capture and have even vandalized churches. The more secular FSA is backed by Western and Gulf states and recently turned their guns on ISIS. Kassab is the last Syrian-Turkish border crossing in the government’s hands, according to rebels. The ancient town of Kassab features steep mountains dropping into the Mediterranean’s crystal blue waters, stone houses next to quaint churches hundreds of years old. “The people of Kassab are kicked out of their houses and living in the Armenian church of Latakia [city] where they receive food from the Armenians living there,” said one student from Kassab, who now lives in the U.A.E. but is in touch with family members who recently fled the town. “The place we used to spend our summer memories has turned into a war zone….the Free Syrian Army is bombing the place while the Syrian Army is doing all they can do to save Kassab…The only positive thing is that the people in Kassab, including my friends and family, escaped just in time. They will surely going to be homeless after the battle.”

Hellenic Football Federation (EPO) president Giorgos Sarris and Greece manager Claudio Ranieri reportedly met on Saturday morning and agreed that the Italian will depart from the national team, with a settlement regarding his compensation, in the aftermath of Greece's humiliation by the Faroe Islands in Piraeus. In the early hours of Saturday Sarris had declared his intention to see Ranieri go, after he had coached Greece to three defeats and one draw in four Euro 2016 qualifiers this fall. "Following today's [i.e. Friday's] devastating result for the national team, I take full responsibility for the unfortunate choice of the manager," stated Sarris. He added that the EPO governing board will meet "to launch all necessary changes to avoid going through another embarrassing night for the national team". Ranieri has a two-year, 1.6-million-euro contract with EPO, but Sarris reportedly told the former Chelsea, Juventus and Monaco manager that he has to go and the Italian has agreed, slashing his compensation demands. Reports in the Greek media and in German magazine Kicker rage over EPO having reached a preliminary agreement with another Italian coach, Giovanni Trappatoni, who last coached the Republic of Ireland up to 2013.

Steelville, Missouri homeowner James Crocker, already under arrest after shooting a man he believed to be a trespasser point-blank in the face, now faces additional charges related to the incident. The incident, which cost Paul Franklin Dart his life, began after Dart and his family rented canoes and embarked down the Meremac River early on that June morning. When they reached the property of James Crocker — five hours later — Dart and his stepson Josh Kling went into the woods to urinate. There, Crocker confronted them with a loaded 9 mm handgun. The man who rented the Darts the canoes, Paul Wilkerson, told the St. Louis Post Dispatch that the family had signed a release saying that they would avoid littering and politely listen to the requests of any property owners they should encounter. Crocker told police that the Darts did nothing of the sort, responding to his request to vacate his property by yelling “they weren’t going to leave and that the gravel bar was public property.” According to witnesses, Crocker replied “I have the power, I have the power,” to which Kling responded “Put that gun down and we’ll see who has the power.” Kling then picked up a rock. At this point, Paul Dart attempted to intervene, standing between Crocker and Kling. “My husband tried to calm the guy down,” Loretta Dart told the Post-Dispatch. “He went to the guy’s arm to try to stop him, but the guy jerked back and popped him in the face…I watched him be shot in the face and fall down. I watched my husband bleed to death. He was a wonderful man. He didn’t deserve this.” Explaining himself to police, Crocker said “I just shot the one closest to me.” This incident is just the latest to call attention to the so-called “castle doctrine,” the more lenient cousin of justifiable homicide that allows homeowners who feel imperiled to defend themselves and their property with lethal force. Justifiable homicide statutes, in contrast, require people to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that an attempt was being made on their lives or the life of someone else close to them. The question in this case is whether the Darts were actually on Crocker’s property. State law in Missouri dictates that waterfront properties extend to the middle of the river on which they’re situated. Much like a road, these rivers are considered public easements, available for use by all. But the land immediately adjacent is usually considered private property, and Crocker had posted signs to that effect at regular intervals along the vegetation line. However, given that the location of the vegetation line changes from year to year, Missouri law states that land adjacent to a “navigable stream” is part of the public easement. What constitutes a “navigable stream” is itself up for debate. A Missouri lawyer contacted by the Post-Dispatch, Harry Styron, said that “[t]hese cases are really very confusing. They are difficult to interpret. You are on private property, but you have a right to be there if it’s a navigable stream and as long as you are on a gravel bar that is submerged during parts of the year, because it’s part of the stream bed.” However, he added that the definition navigable “obviously doesn’t have anything to do with people shooting people. We don’t have a stand-your-gravel-bar law yet.” Watch an earlier KSDK 5 report on the incident here:

Falling short of an apology, President Francois Hollande has acknowledged France's colonisation of Algeria was "brutal and unfair". "For 132 years, Algeria was subjected to a brutal and unfair system: colonisation. I acknowledge the suffering it caused," Hollande told the Algerian parliament on Thursday on the second and final day of a landmark visit to the North African country. "We respect the act of memory, of all the memories. There is a duty of truth on the violence, the injustices, the massacres and the torture," he said of the 1954-1962 Algerian war which ended in Algerian independence and France's withdrawal. Referring to specific atrocities, Hollande cited the massacres at Guelma, Kherrata and Setif, where nationalist unrest that broke out at the end of World War II was brutally suppressed by French forces, leaving thousands dead. "On May 8, 1945, when the world triumphed over brutality, France forgot its universal values," Hollande said. The truth "must also be spoken about the circumstances in which Algeria was delivered from the colonial system, in this war whose name was not mentioned in France for a long time, the Algerian war" of independence, he added. "Establishing the truth is an obligation that ties Algerians and French. That's why it is necessary that historians have access to the archives." Al Jazeera's Jacky Rowland, reporting from Paris, said that Hollande's statement marked a landmark shift in France's attitude to Algeria by recognising in clear unequivocal terms that the colonial system was profoundly unjust and brutal. Rowland said Hollande's statement was met by a rapturous applause and has begun a new chapter for relationships between the two countries, but that there is still room for more development in coming years. No apology The French president said after arriving in Algeria on Wednesday that he had not come to say "sorry" for the crimes committed during the colonial period. But he stressed the importance of recognising what happened as a way of beginning a new era in relations between the two countries, bound together by human, economic and cultural ties. More than half a million Algerians live in France, and hundreds of thousands hold French nationality, but many others are frustrated at not being able to obtain visas and seek a better life in Europe. Algerian political analyst Saad Djebbar on the landmark visit of President Francois Hollande in Algeria Hollande promised on Thursday to "better accommodate" Algerians seeking to move to France and to streamline the visa process, saying that doing so was of "mutual interest". It is necessary to "manage the flow of migrants" but the demand for visas "must not become an obstacle course, or worse still, a humiliation," he told the Algerian parliament. "Rather, we need to ensure that the return trips continue, and are even increased, for students, businessmen, artists, families, in other words all those who drive the relationship" between France and Algeria. Nearly 200,000 Algerians already receive visas every year. On arrival, Hollande was received with full honours by his Algerian counterpart Abdelaziz Bouteflika, and said he wanted relations between their countries to be a "strategic partnership between equals". The leaders later signed a declaration of friendship and co-operation. The socialist president - accompanied by a 200-strong delegation including nine government ministers and around 40 business leaders - visits Algeria after a period of lukewarm ties under his right-wing predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy.

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet” The times they are a changing in the grimdark. We all saw the latest tease from GW for and paused for a little. …and saw this: Aeldari – what what? Luckily Black Library author Robbie MacNiven is on the case over on his personal blog Harakoni Warhawks: Some Thoughts The name change is confirmed. Eldar is out, Aeldari is in. We’ve seen this before with Imperial Guard becoming Astra Militarum and just about every faction you can think of in Age of Sigmar getting strange trademark-able spellings (I’m looking at you Ogors!) Eldar has been used previously by J.R.R. Tolkien in his writings. It is defined as follows by Tolkien Gateway: Eldar (singular Elda ) was the name given to the Elves by the Vala Oromë when he first found them wandering in the starlight of Cuiviénen. (singular ) was the name given to the Elves by the Vala Oromë when he first found them wandering in the starlight of Cuiviénen. Apparently the Dark Eldar are also getting a name change. ~I’ll open the floor up to you for discussion and guesses at what the Dark Eldar will be named. Based on what we’ve seen so far I’m going with : “Adarki Aeldari” 🙂

The bugles that sound daily at a number of sites in Belgium serve as a haunting reminder of the hundreds of thousands of men who laid down their lives along this stretch of the Western Front during World War I. At one of those war memorials, however, there is significantly less activity. Even on Armistice Day, the official day of remembrance, it seems the only beings here are the birds in the trees. The Langemark cemetery is the final resting place of 44,294 German soldiers. More than half of them are buried in one mass grave, the Kameraden Grab, their names etched on large dark plaques running alongside the site. "It's a tragedy that hardly anyone comes here. Least of all the Germans themselves, many of whom know very little about what happened," Andre de Bruin, a guide and founder Over The Top Tours, told DW. In some of the cemeteries, not even headstones were permitted Millions of casualties Andre points to rows of gravestones that lie flat on the ground, explaining: "Belgium imposed very strict restrictions on German memorials. Headstones were not allowed to stand, not like those of the Commonwealth soldiers and there were many other rules that applied only to Germans." There were hundreds of burial sites of German soldiers after 1918 but in the 1950s, Belgium ordered that the bodies be regrouped in no more than four sites, of which Langemark is one. "It was probably done out of hatred for what happened, especially during World War II when Belgium was occupied. They even forbade the use of crosses above the headstones," de Bruin said. Germany lost nearly two million men in the First World War, the greatest number of casualties suffered by any nation. Yet for decades, this chapter of history was hardly taught at German schools. Today, the care of German memorials in western Flanders, where some of the bloodiest battles took place, is carried out by a voluntary association, the German War Graves Commission, and its grounds are tended by students. At the back of Langemark, rain-sodden fields stretch ahead, the same ground that turned into a giant, water-clogged inferno of craters and trenches almost a century ago. It is here that 3,000 German students were killed in 1914. "They had received just six weeks basic training before they were sent to the front to accompany German soldiers in what was meant to be a triumphant march to victory. But they were all killed in the ensuing battles," Andre explained. "These men died in the same horrific battles as everyone here and yet on Armistice Day they will lie mostly unremembered," he added. Flanders saw some of WWI's bloodiest battles Only few visitors from Germany Only a tiny number of Germans come to this part of Belgium whereas thousands come to visit the Commonwealth graves from as far away as Australia. A visitors' book at Langemark shows that most visitors are British school children, who visit the site as part of their trips around Ypres. "We always bring the children here as part of our tours of the World War I sites. We feel that German families mourned their dead just as British or Belgian families would have done," Leonie Giles, a teacher at St Nicholas School in northwest England, told DW. A colleague added that "the aura is very somber compared to the pristine white cemeteries where the British are buried, which are more like English gardens. But we want our kids to realize that these soldiers were just like the British who died for King and Country." Simon, a thirteen-year old carrying a small wooden cross with a poppy, said: "It's so vast, that mass grave. And it's such a sad place. I feel very emotional." Remains of soldiers are still found in this area every year, and these are added to the mass grave. But these days, their burials are done with full military honors and are attended by officials from Germany and Belgium - a sign perhaps that, in time, more recognition will be given to these men who volunteered to lay down their lives. "Deutschland muss leben auch wenn wir sterben müssen," reads the plaque above their graves. "Germany must live even if we must die."

President Barack Obama speaks about health care, Thursday, April 17, 2014, in the briefing room of the White House in Washington. The president said eight million have signed up for health insurance under Affordable Care Act. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) Is it working? After six months of partisan drama over the Affordable Care Act, there’s finally enough reliable information to assess whether the law is doing what it was supposed to do. The qualified answer seems to be yes. There have been too many controversies over the ACA to count, and it will be a long time before it becomes clear whether Obamacare, as it’s known, is smart, cost-effective policy. But the law is fulfilling its main purpose: To provide health care for more people and reduce the portion of Americans without health insurance. “What’s pretty amazing is the number of people who seem to have gotten coverage, even with all the problems,” says analyst Gary Claxton of the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation. Most of the attention has been focused on the politically charged question of whether enrollment through one of the exchanges created by the law would hit thresholds predicted before the ACA went into effect. So it was a victory of sorts for President Obama when he was able to announce recently that 8 million people have enrolled in Obamacare, considerably more than earlier predictions of 6 million to 7 million. What has gotten less attention, but is equally important, is a surge in the number of people who have gotten insurance through a source other than Obamacare so far in 2014. The upshot is that the number of uninsured Americans--which totaled around 47 million in 2013--is likely to drop sharply this year. The data is still incomplete, but there are three credible sources that all show the same trend, more or less: Gallup. The polling firm found that the percentage of adults lacking health insurance—the uninsured rate— fell from 18% right before Obamacare went into effect last year to 15.6% so far this year. Rand. The nonprofit research group estimates there was a net gain of 9.3 million people having health insurance from September 2013 to mid-March 2014. The Urban Institute. This think tank has conducted polls showing the number of nonelderly adults lacking health insurance shrank by 5.4 million from September 2013 to mid March 2014. All of this data was gathered before the surge of Obamacare enrollment that occurred right before the April 1 deadline. So the number of people with insurance is probably higher than these estimates suggest, and the uninsured rate lower. Subsidized insurance offered through the online exchanges explains only part of the increase. Medicaid expansion also has something to do with it. In 25 states that expanded Medicaid eligibility under the ACA, as they were allowed but not required to do, the uninsured rate is 5.7 percentage points lower on average than in states that didn’t expand Medicaid. So Medicaid expansion also accounts for some of the net gain in the number of people with coverage. There also seems to have been an increase in the number of people getting coverage on their own, without any government subsidies, in the private sector. That suggests the individual mandate requiring all Americans to have health insurance probably compelled at least a couple million previously uninsured people to pay for their own health insurance, to avoid paying a penalty fee. Some of those people undoubtedly purchased an individual policy in the so-called non-group market, because they couldn’t get coverage through an employer. But others who had passed up employer-provided coverage before—most likely because they didn’t want to pay their share of the premium--probably decided to take the plunge and get covered through their company. “Some people who are uninsured can get coverage through an employer,” says Genevieve Kenney of the Urban Institute. “The individual mandate may have led to an uptick in takeup rates among workers or their spouses.” It also helps that overall employment has ticked up by about 1.1 million since last fall. Some of those people got jobs that include health insurance, pushing down the uninsured rate even more. It will still take a long time for the dust to settle and the full effects of Obamacare to come into focus. Some people still aren’t aware the ACA requires them to have coverage. Others know what’s required but haven’t purchased insurance anyway, because it’s too expensive. And it’s still not clear if Obamacare will do anything to reduce medical costs and make healthcare itself more affordable. Some analysts think the opposite could happen, with more people demanding healthcare pushing doctors’ fees and other costs up, not down. Nonetheless, the implementation of the ACA will trigger a sharp reversal in the 25-year trend of rising uninsured rates and more people going without healthcare coverage. Whether that’s happening in the right way, for the right reasons, will be hotly debated for years. But whether it’s happening won’t be. Rick Newman’s latest book is Rebounders: How Winners Pivot From Setback To Success. Follow him on Twitter: @rickjnewman.

Baked Beans of Skyrim (with accompanying Gas Simulation System) Updates Fixed a bug that caused the "Jumping relieves pressure" checkbox to not work properly. Thanks to maskedmadnessq for reporting this one. Added Bean Chili, a fearsome combination of Baked Beans, Beef, Mammoth Cheese and Cabbage. Eating it will instantly max out your gas level, as well as granting access to... A new gas-powered Power. What the Greybeards never told you (but they almost certainly know!) is that the power of the Thu'um can be used to force your will into not only your breath, but any wind that leaves your body. Abusing this ancient power in such a fashion, though, will probably bring harm to any and all involved. You have been warned. For more info on the Chili and the new Power, see "The Wind of the Dragonborn's Passage" farther down. A few additional NPC comments have been added, along with some extras for the new Power. Gas now prompts various player expressions. New options for tolerance of raw food and intolerance of dairy products. New options for what happens when you run or walk with a belly full of bloat. Gas tracking is now done with an alias instead of an Ability, which is proving to be much more reliable overall. Gas timing configuration and disabling gas now actually works. Minor bugfixes RND patch updated as well, be sure to grab it if you want Bean Chili to count as food for RND! Wait, beans? Oooookay... so where do I- So, that's it? Just beans? Features New food item: Bowl of Baked Beans New misc item: Jar of beans New custom meshes (for the beans) Brand new textures (for the beans) Wide range of quality sound effects A brand new power with spectacular special effects! But why would a simple food mod need compatibility? Compatible with what, exactly? Realistic Needs and Diseases (Medium meal, small drink. Spoils like soup. Requires patch, available on the files page) iNeed (no patch required, medium meal) ZF Primary Needs (no patch required, but does not spoil currently. Patch is coming.) Eat and Sleep (no patch required, medium meal, spoils in 3 days) So there shouldn't be any requirements... Do the beans actually do anything? Why should I eat 'em, then? You mentioned something about new behaviors in dungeons... And that's it? So you really wrote a mod that does nothing but add beans to Skyrim. Speaking of size, why is a simple single food mod so big? What else is in here? Wait.. what sound effects? Okay, seriously now. So it does make you fart! Become a social pariah for fun and profit The Wind of the Dragonborn's Passage The Most Dangerous Food Milk and Meat Special note to Modders So what's next? But why, Vert? Why? Changelog Added Bean Chili, a fearsome combination of Baked Beans, Beef, Mammoth Cheese and Cabbage. Eating it will instantly max out your gas level, as well as granting access to... A new gas-powered Power. What the Greybeards never told you (but they almost certainly know!) is that the power of the Thu'um can be used to force your will into not only your breath, but any wind that leaves your body. Abusing this ancient power in such a fashion, though, will probably bring harm to any and all involved. You have been warned. A few additional NPC comments have been added, along with some extras for the new Power. Gas now prompts various player expressions. New options for tolerance of raw food and intolerance of dairy products. New options for what happens when you run or walk with a belly full of bloat. Gas tracking is now done with an alias instead of an Ability, which is proving to be much more reliable overall. Gas timing configuration and disabling gas now actually works. Minor bugfixes RND patch updated as well, be sure to grab it if you want Bean Chili to count as food for RND! Fixed several bugs that could cause the tracking script to stop tracking gas buildup. Added MCM panel to control gas duration, intensity, digestion speed, along with several presets: Arngeir, Lydia, Alduin, and Mick the Master. Also localization support, because while gas may be a universal language, English is not. Nearby NPCs will now make comments about (or laugh at) your newfound musical abilities. Sleeping now resets your gas status. Fixed a bug that was preventing "aftershocks" from occurring and delaying the next "attack". Added support and gas-tracking info for nearly 400 new foods from 10 other mods and all official DLC. Compatibility patch now available for Realistic Needs and Diseases. In addition, Baked Beans are now counted as food by iNeed, ZF Primary Needs, and kuertee's Eat and Sleep, no patch required. Jar of beans now makes two bowls of beans. Fixed ugly hack for populating LeveledItems, replaced with a different ugly hack that at least has the virtue of being sort of standard for this sort of thing. Innkeepers are now much more likely to have freshly baked beans in stock, and slightly less likely to have jars. There is now a slight chance to find jars of beans in barrels, sacks, etc, wherever raw food can be found. Bandits and Forsworn now have a low chance to drop beans. Complete your immersive experience with the new comfort food of Skyrim. Nothing can compare to beans heated over an open flame! Portable and filling, baked beans offer a warm supper on those nights when cooking complex meals just isn't an option. Adventurers young and old can appreciate the wholesomeness of baked beans. But wait, there's more! These aren't just ANY baked beans... these are the Baked Beans of Skyrim!Baked Beans of Skyrim is completely compatible with that most popular of shelter mods, “Frostfall”! Take your role playing experience to a whole other level.! Add richness and flavor to your dungeon runs, with effects and special bonuses actually make you and your targets behave in exciting and new interactive ways!In their eco-friendly jars, it's easy to pick up as many beans as you need. They stay fresher longer than unpackaged vegetables, roots, leaves, or fruit. All you need is a campfire or cook pot and *BAM* you've got some beans goin'!"A bugfix!""Not the features you need, but the features you deserve."I consider version 1.08 feature-complete. Any future updates will be bugfixes only and no additional features are likely to be added. I think I've spent plenty of time on what is, after all, a fart mod, and I think it's the best fart mod around. If you can find a better fart mod anywhere... use it ;)Yes, beans! Delicious baked beans! Good for the heart, good for the soul. Keep yourself warm on those cold Skyrim nights!I'm so glad you asked! You can buy delicious cooked Baked Beans from most Innkeepers in the Skyrim mainland. You can also buy sealed glass jars chock full of ready-to-cook beans that will never spoil and require nothing but a cook pot to prepare!No no no, my friend, not JUST beans. These are the best beans in all of Skyrim. In fact, they're the ONLY beans in all of Skyrim, and they're brought to you in style! Let me explain...Why, Baked Beans of Skyrim not only introduces hot, steaming, delicious, nutritious Baked Beans to the world of Skyrim, but does so with compatibility in mind, and works so nicely with other popular mods!Never mind WHY, old chum, the point is that is IS compatible! Completely compatible!Well, Frostfall, for a start: Baked Beans of Skyrim are counted as a hot meal by Frostfall, so take some with you when you go out into that cold night air!Baked Beans of Skyrim supports all food added by the following mods:In addition, a bowl of Baked Beans will be counted as a medium-sized meal in:Did I miss your favorite? Let me know, and I'll add it! If you're a modder and you want your food to work with Baked Beans of Skyrim, see the Special Note to Modders below!Nope! You should use SKSE, though. The Baked Beans will be more efficacious and offer better immersion, and let's face it, you should have it installed already anyway!You mean besides being delicious and piping hot? Well yes, they'll restore a bit of your Health and provide a decent, long-lasting boost to both your Heal Rate and your Stamina! But that's not why you should eat 'em!Because they're delicious, of course!Did I? Slip of the tongue, old chum, slip of the tongue. I mean, sure, loading yourself with beans might have some slight effect on your enemies... because you'll be so BIG AND STRONG you can KILL THEM FASTER?Well yes! I mean, they're just beans, I mean, what other sort of stuff can happen when you eat a ton of beans?That's about the size of it, yes.Never you mind. Not important. Water under the bridge. Now eat your beans, they're good for you!Well, okay. April Fools' day is over so I may as well spill the... I might as well just tell you."Farting" hardly does it justice! Baked Beans of Skyrim is a sophisticated digestion-tracking system. It notes the gas content of the various foods you consume, tracks them as they go through your innards, monitors the resulting internal pressures, and finally makes sure that the resulting miasma escapes in a fairly realistic fashion.The practical upshot of all this is that you will fart vigorously after consuming foods that are, on Earth as on Nirn, renowned for their musical properties. Not merely the eponymous beans, mind you, but a whole variety of starchy, high-fiber or high-fat foods. This is why I had to write in support for other food mods: if you devoured a fried egg from Osare Food, a fruit pie from Babette's Feast, and a cheese-stuffed gourd from Cooking Expanded and then didn't shatter some windows afterward, I could hardly call it immersive, could I?The more gas-laden foods you eat, the more powerful the resulting effluvium. A couple of leeks will do you no lasting harm (a few one-cheek squeaks, perhaps, that could be blamed on the dog). If, however, you pause in the middle of a fight to eat 6 bowls of beans, 4 baked potatoes, a slab of horsemeat and 26 cheese wheels, then you (and everyone around you) can expect to be paying the consequences of your capricious gluttony for hours to come.Nor is this a mere sound effect, oh no. That would be too easy. You may find your ill-tempered zephyrs giving away your position to bandits, draugr, dragons, and indeed anything with sharper ears than a deaf mudcrab. Even your friends and followers will gaze upon you in disgust, make insightful and/or cruel comments, or simply chuckle and wander away.You will, at least, have plenty of warning. When your gut is heavy with your greed-fueled bonanza, you'll hear various grumblings and rumblings, as if you swallowed a camel that itself swallowed an oil refinery. Shortly thereafter, the symphony will begin with a few staccato blats and toots, letting you know the tubas and sousaphones are only moments away from really cutting loose.The only cure, at least for now, is time: Skyrim is a simple land, having only recently discovered geared watermills, covered wagons, and organized crime, and as such probably won't address its severe lack of antacids anytime soon. Running may cause you to blow off the pressure a bit faster, as will jumping in place. But digestion takes time, and you're unlikely to be able to get rid of all of it all at once.By popular demand (Divines alone know why), I have added a special, gas-powered Power (I can't really call it a Shout, though it is rather Shout-like). To activate it you must create and eat at least one bowl of Bean Chili. After that, whenever you are at your absolute gassiest, you will automatically receive and equip "Wind of your Passage", a very powerful and dangerous skill. It will completely blow away anyone unfortunate enough to be standing behind you, poison any nearby attackers, and knock down anyone within melee range. It will also cause nearby NPCs to shout and yell in panic as their entire world apparently blows up in front of them in some sort of hellish apocalypse of pure stench. You monster.It's very easy to hit friendly NPCs with this Power, too, so either be very careful of where you aim, or don't use it near settlements at all unless you want to really people to be furious at you. Well, after they regain consciousness, anyway...It also completely eliminates all your gas at once, so don't think you're going to be spamming this skill. You can consume bowls of Bean Chili after activating the Power to immediately recharge it, if you must.Oh, and you might want to turn your speakers down a bit if you're sharing an apartment, house, or indeed building with anyone who doesn't wish to be woken out of sound sleep.So you want to eat Bean Chili, eh? Well, it's easy enough to make. It takes two bowls of baked beans, mammoth cheese, cabbage, raw beef and cook pot. It will count as a large/heavy meal for the various supported needs mods, and as a warm meal for Frostfall. It confers no other benefit. After eating the first one, though (which unlocks the new Power), eating additional bowls of Chili will instantly and completely fill your guts with terrible gas. This will allow you to use the Power, then eat a bowl of Chili and use it again immediately. Or you can just fill up on Chili to listen to the sweet music. I am not proud. I do not judge.The verisimilitude of Baked Beans of Skyrim's digestion tracking has been improved even more! Now, you can use the MCM panel to decide how sensitive your character's stomach is to dairy products and raw meat! These are fairly self-explanatory and are intended for improved customization and immersion. If you think your Orc or Argonian or Khajiit can eat raw meat off the bone without ill effects, make it so! If your opposition to milk-drinking is more than a matter of pride, then by all means, punish yourself by making your character lactose intolerant. The power is IN YOUR HANDS!If you want to make your new food mod compatible with Baked Beans of Skyrim (i.e. make the player fart after eating your food), add your foods to my formlists during your mod's upkeep script. The formlists are vBBS_GassyFood [020022F1] (mildly gassy), vBBS_STUPIDGassyFood [020022F3] (extremely gassy), vBBS_DairyFood [0200694F] (for lactose intolerance) and vBBS_RawMeatFood [02006950] (for raw foods that can cause indigestion). Each food you want to cause gas should be added to only one list, unless it's your intent to make it ridiculously gassy. These lists are reverted when the player loads a game, so be sure to check for and re-add your foods in your own OnPlayerLoadGame event or shortly afterward. The mods listed as compatible above do not need to do this, as your foods are already added to my formlists by my upkeep script.Nothing! No, seriously, I'm done. If someone finds a serious bug, I'll fix it, but this has all the features I originally planned or even thought about, plus a couple of user requests. Now I fully intend to release it into the forest to run free and wild (as Talos intended!) so I can get back to some more serious projects I'd like to finish sometime this century!What can I say? Farts are funny. Would you believe it was my wife's idea? No, seriously.Whatever else it may be, Baked Beans of Skyrim is probably the most advanced fart system in gaming today. I hope you laugh as hard playing with it as I did making it!"Not the features you need, but the features you deserve."Internal testing builds"What happened to 1.04?"

On April 7, Norwegian powerhouse singer Jorn Lande was officially appointed "Prince Of The Sun" by the mayor of his city of birth, Rjukan, in Telemark, Norway. The Prince and his entourage arrived at the town square stage after being part of a long royal style cortege through the streets of Rjukan. The ceremony was held in front of several thousand people at the town square. "The rock world already has its 'Prince Of Darkness,' now it also has a 'Prince Of The Sun,'" the newly appointed Prince Jorn proclaimed in his speech to the people. The city of Rjukan is famous for this annual celebration every spring, marking the day the sun returns — meaning that it is high enough on the sky to reach Rjukan and its residents in the deep valley. From October to March every year, the valley is in shadows. All the people of Rjukan take to the streets and dress up in fantastic costumes to celebrate the sun’s return. The first Solfest (sun carnival) was held in 1925 and has since been an important cultural event. And every Solfest they appoint a Prince Of The Sun — who has to be a person from Rjukan that has contributed to promoting and benefiting the town and the area. Rjukan's history is quite impressive and of huge interest worldwide, as it was here the world's largest power plant was built by Norsk Hydro in the early 19th century. Rjukan was a significant industrial center producing Salpetre (fertilizer) and later hydrogen, which again resulted in the product known as heavy water (deuterium oxide). During World War II, the production of heavy water was of huge interest to Hitler and his nuclear program, since heavy water could be used to produce nuclear weapons. The Norwegian resistance, in collaboration with the allies, decided to sabotage the heavy water supply and destroy the heavy water plant, to stop the nazi development of nuclear weapons. High-risk raids were aimed at the 60-MW Vemork Power Station by the Rjukan water fall while it was in German hands. After the war, Hollywood and Columbia Pictures looked to Rjukan and the spectacular war efforts of the local saboteurs, and in 1965 the film "Heroes Of Telemark" was made, starring legendary actors Kirk Douglas and Richard Harris. The film, about the heavy water sabotage, was among the 15 most popular films at the british box office in 1966.

U.S. President Donald Trump welcomes President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey outside the West Wing of the White House May 16, 2017 in Washington, DC. Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images Over the weekend, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan took some steps to exercise the powers he won in a controversial constitutional referendum last month, which dramatically expanded the role of the presidency, a job Erdogan could now potentially hold until 2029. The referendum was widely seen by Erdogan’s opponents and outside observers as a shift toward authoritarianism. The president has been eliminating potential opponents on a massive scale. A trial of 221 suspects in last June’s failed coup attempt against Erdogan, including dozens of former generals, began in Ankara on Monday. Erdogan has blamed the coup on followers of the exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen—he denies involvement—and thousands of suspected Gulenists have been arrested in a post-coup crackdown, often on very flimsy evidence. The Trump administration doesn’t seem to care much about any of this. It has signaled that it considers human rights concerns to be an unnecessary impediment to economic and diplomatic goals, a stance very much underlined by Trump’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia. Despite all the international criticism of the referendum, Trump called to congratulate Erdogan on his victory in April. According to a Reuters report, Trump described Erdogan has a “great guy” in a conversation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in April, and was surprised when she brought up that he had been calling European governments Nazis for not allowing his ministers to campaign for the referendum in Europe. Trump was apparently unaware of the pretty well-publicized controversy. Recent headlines should make it harder for the administration to ignore Erdogan’s increasing authoritarianism or brush it under the rug. Last week, while Erdogan was visiting Washington to meet with Trump, his bodyguards were filmed beating up a group of mainly Kurdish protesters outside the Turkish ambassador’s residence while the Turkish president watched from his car. The State Department expressed concern about the incident, which might have been the end of it, except that Ankara isn’t letting it go: Turkey summoned the U.S. ambassador on Monday to protest the “aggressive and unprofessional actions” by American security personnel against the bodyguards during the incident. Evidently, the guy putting a woman in a chokehold in a foreign capital is the aggrieved party here. Also, over the weekend, NBA player Enes Kanter, who is among the most famous and visible Turks in the United States, was detained at an airport in Romania, reportedly because his passport was canceled by the Turkish government. The Oklahoma City Thunder center said in a video posted on Twitter that he believes this is because of his political views: Kanter is a supporter of Gulen and called Erdogan the “Hitler of our century.” Kanter is now back in the U.S. and says he wants to become a U.S. citizen. (There hasn’t been an official response from the Turkish government yet. ) There’s also the ongoing saga of Andrew Brunson, the American pastor who had lived in Turkey for more than two decades before being arrested and held on terrorism charges in the run-up to the referendum. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence—who has taken a particular interest in the case—raised Brunson’s case in the meeting with Erdogan in D.C., but there doesn’t appear to be any movement. The official charges against Brunson have not been released, but last week the Turkish media reported some new details of what he’s accused of. Hurriyet reports that Brunson is accused of giving a “special sermon” to a group of Kurds and saying during a meeting at his church that it would be “beneficial to have dialogue” with the Fethullah Gulen movement. This was apparently enough to get him charged as a member of the “Fethullahist Terror Organization,” as the Turkish government refers to the Gulen movement. Some of Brunson’s supporters worry that he is being used as a bargaining chip in U.S.-Turkey talks. For all this, it doesn’t really appear that the allegedly improved U.S.-Turkey relations under Trump are bearing much fruit. The administration want Turkish help in the fight against ISIS in Syria, but Turkey is outraged at U.S. support for Kurdish fighters there, who it considers to be terrorists. The Turkish media reported over the weekend that Ankara is stepping up training of its own Syrian rebel force, which has fought against both ISIS and the U.S.-backed Kurds—two groups Turkey considers equally threatening. This increases the risk of U.S. troops on the ground in Syria getting drawn into fighting with Turkish or Turkish-backed forces. It might be easier to understand the Trump administration’s whitewashing of Erdogan’s abuses—including abuses against Americans and U.S. residents—if it was clear what the U.S. was getting out of it.

As if we needed another sign of Xiaomi's skyrocketing growth, the Chinese smartphone maker says it's now the most highly valued technology startup in the world. Yes, it's even worth more than wunderkind Uber. Xiaomi announced that it raised a whopping $1.1 billion from investors, which pegged its valuation at $45 billion, slightly higher than Uber's $40 billion-plus value. For a company that didn't even exist before 2010, Xiaomi is on a roll: It was named the third-largest smartphone maker in the world earlier this year (which honestly makes it hard to think of it as a startup). And it's now focused on expansion efforts in India and Indonesia (scaling back plans to reach 10 more countries this year). It's no wonder why Xiaomi is popular in emerging markets -- its phones offer high-end specs and looks for a fraction of the price of other smartphones. While it has no plans to tackle the US or Europe yet (its next stop is Brazil next year), Xiaomi's unique strategy and massive funding could end up driving down smartphone prices everywhere.

Though some areas of the world may have a hard time believing it, summer is just around the corner! Summer is full of temptations to spend money. From new clothes, to summer activities and family outings, the summer season seems to be looking for money everywhere. Children’s Summertime Wardrobe With growing children and drastic weather change from winter to summer, children often need new clothes. Before ever buying new clothes, I always check my local thrift stores. At the rate children grow, you can get barely worn or even new clothes at a fraction of the department store prices. The other thing to check for if buying from a department store is to see if the children’s clothes comes with any guarantee. Some store brands will promise that the clothes last until the child outgrows them offering replacement or money back guarantee. Given how hard kids can be on their clothes, it may be worth the investment! Summer Sports I grew up on a soccer field. I know how expensive sporting events can be. Sure soccer isn’t necessarily an expensive summer sport to play, but when you start factoring tournaments and team outings, costs add up fast! To keep costs down for tournaments, the family would camp for the weekend away rather than spending money on a hotel room. We saved money on food as well since we would eat campground meals rather than restaurants for the weekend. I loved this since it combined camping and soccer in one weekend. My two favorite summer activities. I never felt like it was a ”money saving trip” or that we were doing it because we ”couldn’t” afford the hotel. Summer Vacation Alternatives A summer vacation that your kids can’t wait to tell their friends about doesn’t have to include a lavish trip away. Capitalize on your city and all that it has to offer! A staycation can be just as fun. Exploring your city with the mindset of a tourist this summer will open your eyes to many new opportunities. Check out that event/restaurant/museum that you’ve been meaning to get to, but haven’t yet. We often take advantage of places within our hometowns since we live there. Don’t delay anymore and explore! Even checking out a local hotel for a family night away will be cheaper than burning gas or airfare to leave town. Picnics are another fun summer activity. Have everyone pack their favorite foods and drive to a favorite family spot for the day. Spending time together and eating the foods everyone loves is sure to please. A picnic beach day is always fun too! If you do travel, remember our tips for travelling with children on vacation. Summer goes too fast every year. Don’t stress about money, try to enjoy it or it will be over before you know it! What are your favorite ways to save money while not compromising on summertime fun?

Ethnically Bangladeshi and Pakistani households in the UK have experienced the fastest income growth this century after an improvement in their pay and employment rates. An analysis of household incomes by the Resolution Foundation think-tank shows the gaps between different ethnicities have narrowed since the turn of the millennium. The catch-up growth by Bangladeshi and Pakistani households has been particularly strong: the median Bangladeshi household experienced real terms income growth of 38 per cent between 2001-03 and 2014-16, compared with 13 per cent for white British households. Pakistani households saw growth of 28 per cent. But the overall disparities remain large. Median Bangladeshi household incomes are still 35 per cent lower than the median white British household. For Pakistani households the gap is 34 per cent while for Black African households it is 22 per cent. Adam Corlett, senior economic analyst at the Resolution Foundation, said it was important to recognise that income gaps between different minority ethnic groups and white British households were “significant and persistent”. “However, we should be encouraged by the fact that there have been big improvements in some instances, such as the impressive employment gains seen among black, Bangladeshi and Pakistani men and women,” he said. Many non-white groups are disadvantaged in the UK labour market — a problem that both Theresa May and her predecessor David Cameron have highlighted in recent years. Yet some of the disparities in terms of employment and wages have been shrinking. Employment rates for Pakistani and Bangladeshi women have surged by 10 and 18 percentage points, respectively, between 2001-03 and 2015-17. They still remain low compared with white women at 37, 35 and 72 per cent, respectively. Employment rates for Pakistani, Bangladeshi and black men have also increased over that period, while the rate for white men has stayed flat. Pay has made a difference too. Typical weekly pay for male Pakistani and Bangladeshi employees rose 28 per cent over the period after accounting for inflation. For men of other ethnicities, pay grew just 1 per cent. Family size appears to be another factor that has affected household incomes. The average number of children in Bangladeshi and Pakistani households (including those with no children) dropped from 2.1 in the mid-1990s to 1.3 in the middle of this decade. The Resolution Foundation warned that the government’s implementation of £14bn worth of welfare spending cuts could hurt the prospects for these groups. “Given that the impact on low to middle income families is set to be very negative, and that some minority ethnicities are disproportionately low income, young and with children, there is a danger of recent progress being undone,” the think-tank said. Copyright The Financial Times Limited . All rights reserved. Please don't copy articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web.

(This story will be updated through the day). The Australian government has nailed its colours to the mast on the issue of renewable energy by choosing manufacturing chief and climate change denier Dick Warburton to head its review into the renewable energy target. Warburton will head a four-person panel that will report to the Prime Minister’s office, rather than to either the environment department or the ministry for industry, which includes the energy portfolio. Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s chief business advisor, Maurice Newman, shares Warburton’s view of climate science and dislikes renewable energy, wind farms in particular, and Abbott himself has blamed renewable energy for rising electricity costs. Warburton was one of the main campaigners against the carbon price under the previous Labor government. He said on repeated occasions that climate science was not settled. “On the cause there’s huge debate about whether carbon dioxide is the main cause,” he said at the time. The other members of the panel will be Matt Zema, the CEO of the Australian Energy Market Operator, Shirley In’t Veld, the former head of WA government owned generation company Verve Energy, and Brian Fisher, the former long-term head of ABARE who gained notoriety for his positions on climate policies and is a noted free-market hardliner. The selection of key members with an antipathy to renewable energy will not be a surprise to those who have watched the Abbott government in its first six months. The government is under pressure from the coal lobby, incumbent utilities, network operators and state governments to either dump, or sharply reduce the renewable energy target. The last review was conducted by the Climate Change Authority, which rejected the appeals to reduce the target, noting that such a move would not save consumers money, and would only serve to protect the revenues of the incumbents. The CCA has a statutory obligation to do the next review, but the Abbott government is trying to dissolve the CCA, as it has already achieved with the Climate Commission, and is seeking to do with the carbon price and the Clean Energy Finance Corp. Environment Minister Greg Hunt and industry Minister Ian Macfarlane said in a joint statement that the review will consider the “contribution of the RET in reducing emissions, its impact on electricity prices and energy markets, as well as its costs and benefits for the renewable energy sector, the manufacturing sector and Australian households. “Australia’s diversity of energy sources is one of our greatest national strengths. Renewable energy has contributed to the energy mix, but we must ensure that the program is operating effectively,” the statement said. It said the review’s report will be provided to Government by the middle of the year, which will in turn be an important input into the Energy White Paper process.” Interestingly, the terms of reference include a review of the target, and its implementation, and “implementation arrangements for any proposed reforms to the RET, including how to manage transition issues, risks and any adjustment costs that may arise from policy changes to the RET.” In’t Veld headed Verve Energy, which has had a history of snubbing renewable energy and chose instead to invest in the refurbishment of the ageing Muja coal-fired generator. The refurbishment has proved to be a financial disaster, with the WA government admitting that nearly $300 million had gone down the drain. Hunt said that Verve had a mix of energies in its portfolio. But according to its 2012 annual report, it had 3,376 MW of fossil generation and just 46 MW of renewable energy generation. That’s 98.7 per cent fossil fuel mix. Zema is an interesting choice. AEMO recently completed a study that found 100 per cent renewables would be possible in Australia, and concluded that the cost of electricity would be little different to business as usual, although AEMO declined to do a full cost analysis. The choice of a climate change denier to head the review does not bode well for the renewable energy industry in Australia, which has been at a virtual standstill for the past year because of uncertainty about the policy. According to journalist Ben Eltham, Fisher is not much more enlightened than Warburton. “One of the models is the GTEM model, developed by ABARE, the Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics. ABARE is a notoriously backward agency whose stance throughout the Howard government’s reign was openly pro-pollution and climate change denialist,” he wrote for New Matilda. “Under its long-term boss, Dr Brian Fisher, ABARE was responsible for the infamous “MEGABARE” model that made Australia a laughing stock in connection to the Kyoto negotiations, as Clive Hamilton details in his book Scorcher. ABARE is not truly independently funded: it routinely takes money from the corporate sector to fund its activities. Fisher has since left ABARE to head up a fossil fuel lobby group, Concept Economics.” Bernard Keane in Crikey wrote this about Fisher: “ABARE’s rigid adherence to this approach emerged strongly during the long reign of Dr Brian Fisher. Fisher headed ABARE for 18 years until he departed for the private sector in 2006. A former head of the Department of Agricultural Economics at the University of Sydney, Fisher is said to be a hardline free marketeer with a strong objection to market intervention or attempts to remedy market failure. While Fisher had been undertaking climate change modelling in the last days of the Keating Government, it was under John Howard that he found his public service calling as a willing assistant in that Government’s campaign to resist and delay carbon abatement measures. “Outright greenhouse denialism was never ABARE’s method – although, as late as October 2006, ABARE staff appearing before Estimates were declining to accept that climate change was real. Instead, under Fisher, ABARE’s primary method was to systematically produce modelling demonstrating the massive costs to Australia of any action to mitigate carbon emissions. “Research was initially done using the infamous MEGABARE and GIGABARE climate change models, which were overseen by a “steering committee” dominated by resource companies. The Keating Government had imposed a 30% external funding requirement on ABARE and other research agencies; this had been increased to 40% by the new Howard Government in 1996, ensuring ABARE was required to work closely with industry in order to pursue its work program.” Leigh Ewbank, from Yes2Renewables, said:

Two days after New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) claimed he had no knowledge of a political scheme conducted by his aides to cause traffic jams, the lawmaker heading a probe into those actions unraveled a new thread. New Jersey Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D) told NBC News Saturday that if Christie was at all aware of his aides' actions, impeachment could emerge as a potential issue. "Using the George Washington Bridge, a public resource, to exact a political vendetta, is a crime," Wisniewski said. "Having people use their official position to have a political game is a crime. So if those tie back to the governor in any way, it clearly becomes an impeachable offense." "It's hard to really accept the governor's statement that he knew nothing until the other morning," Wisnieswki added. During his Thursday press conference, Christie apologized profusely for the conduct of his team members, saying he was "sad" and "heartbroken" by the acts he deemed as betrayal. "It is heartbreaking to me that I wasn't told the truth," Christie said. "I'm a very loyal guy, and I expect loyalty in return. And lying to me is not an exhibition of loyalty." Additionally, the Newark (N.J.) Star-Ledger reported Saturday that Wisniewski said additional subpoenas are likely to go out Monday or Tuesday. That move would arrive ahead of a special session reauthorizing the state transportation committee's subpoena power. Among those who could be subject to those subpoenas are former Deputy Chief of Staff Bridget Anne Kelly, whose employment was terminated earlier this week, and Michael Drewniak, who serves as chief spokesperson for Christie.

72 Hour Maximum 18 Inches or Less from Curb Face the Flow of Traffic Curb Your Tires Check Your Bumpers Check for Signs Don't Park in the Same Place in Permit Areas Parking is Allowed After Sweeping Watch for Tow-Away Zones Driveways, Sidewalks and Crosswalks Watch For Crosswalks Disabled Placards Permits & Street Sweeping We at the SFMTA want to help everyone in San Francisco park legally, and we know that reading the signs is half the battle. Follow these additional tips to be sure you won't be hit with a ticket: 72 Hour Maximum In the absence of other restrictions, such as permit zones, street sweeping, meters or posted time limits, you are allowed to park in one spot for up to 72 hours. Vehicles parked beyond the maximum limit may be issued a warning and be cited and/or towed, even if they have a permit to park in that area. A disabled placard or residential parking permit does not provide an exemption from this restriction. To avoid a citation for violating the 72 hour maximum, you must move your car to another parking spot. The program's intent is to eliminate cars that are being stored or abandoned on a public street. We request that you wait 72 hours (3 days) for the car to be parked at the same location, before requesting a service call. This ensures the prevention of harassment or abuses of the program. Excessive requests or calls deemed as harassment may lead to the suspension of service to the location as determined by the Vehicle Abatement Unit. 18 Inches from the Curb When parking parallel (with the side of your car against the curb), make sure your wheels are within 18 inches of the curb. Face the Flow of Traffic Don't park against the flow of traffic. Your vehicle must face in the direction of the flow of traffic, even if it is otherwise parked legally. Curb Your Tires on Hills When you park (3% grade or more) angle your front wheels so if your vehicle were hit or its brakes were to fail, it would roll into the curb and not into traffic. On a sloping driveway, turn the wheels so the vehicle will not roll into the street. Set your parking brake. Headed downhill, turn your front wheels into the curb or toward the side of the road. Set your parking brake. Headed uphill, turn your front wheels away from the curb and let your vehicle roll back a few inches. The wheel should gently touch the curb. Set your parking brake. Headed either uphill or downhill when there is no curb, turn the wheels so the vehicle will roll away from the center of the road if your brakes fail. Always set your parking brake and leave the vehicle in gear or in “park” or “P” position. You can confirm the grade of your street by going to the Department of Public Works (DPW) Street Grade Map. DPW Street Grade Map Check Your Bumpers Check your front and rear bumpers to make sure they are not extending into a driveway, crosswalk or color zone. Check for Signs Always check for posted parking and street sweeping times. Look 100 feet in both directions for any sign. Please call 311 to report any defaced, deficient or missing parking signs. Don't Park in the Same Place in Permit Areas In permit areas you must move your vehicle after the posted time limit (typically 1 to 2 hours) if you don't have a permit. The law requires you to move one block away or at least one-tenth (1/10) of a mile—about 500 feet. Do not drive around and then park in the same block, or you can be ticketed! Need a permit? A, Z, or any letter in between, here's the information on Residential Parking Permits Parking is Allowed After Sweeping Sweeping the streets keeps them clean, and street sweeping citations discourage vehicle owners from blocking the street sweeping truck's path. Once the street sweeping truck has swept the curbside, you may park your vehicle there, even if the posted sweeping hours have not expired. DPW's Street Sweeping Schedule Some parking zones become tow-away zones during commute hours. Check the meter face and posted signs for tow-away restrictions. DRIVEWAYS, SIDEWALKS & HILLS Do not block driveways or crosswalks. A driveway begins at the "curb cut," where the curb begins to slope downward toward street level. Residents can park in front of their own driveways if the building the driveway serves has 1-2 units and the vehicle’s license plate is registered to the building’s address (a permit is not required). However, it is illegal to park in any marked or unmarked crosswalks. Never block disabled curb ramps located inside or adjacent to crosswalks. Do not park on sidewalks. A sidewalk citation can be given even if the pedestrian travel path is partly clear or if the vehicle is parked across a driveway. This includes motorcycles and bicycles that impede pedestrian paths. Curb wheels when parking on a hill of any perceptible grade. When parking facing uphill, turn the steering wheel toward the street. When parking facing downhill street, turn steering wheel toward the sidewalk. We also recommend parking letting your vehicle wheels rest against the curb to keep it from rolling. Give Driveway Owners Space to Get In and Out A driveway begins at the top of the sloped edges, or the “curb cut.” Some driveways may have red tips—red curb coloring on the curb cuts and space adjacent to it. Parking in the red tip or within the cut curbs may result in your vehicle being cited and/or towed. You can help neighbors and visitors avoid citations and being towed. Feel free to print and share this flyer: Thanks for supporting safe driving (PDF) Park In Your Own Driveway You may park in your own driveway as long as no portion of your vehicle extends over the sidewalk or into the required setback. So please do not park on the sidewalk or within the required setback. San Francisco's Planning Department provides more information, including a list of common planning code violations. San Francisco Planning Code Violations San Francisco's Planning Department provides more information, including a list of common planning code violations. San Francisco Planning Code Violations You can confirm the width of your sidewalk by going to the San Francisco Public Works (DPW) Street Grade Map. DPW Street Grade Map Follow DPW's instructions by entering the street name, limits/(cross street), keymap number, block number or block lot number. Press search. Under "Key Map Results" click on "grade". Allow your browser to open the map. On the map you will find your sidewalk's width numerically listed in feet along with the symbol for feet ('). As an example 15' represents 15 feet. For further answers please contact DPW at: (415) 554-6920 Residents may block their own driveway by parking parallel to the curb or street, only if the vehicle’s license plate is registered to the building’s address, and if the building has two or fewer units. You can help neighbors and visitors avoid citations and being towed. Feel free to print and share this flyer: Thanks for keeping our sidewalks safe (PDF) Watch for Crosswalks It is illegal to park in any marked or unmarked crosswalks. Never block curb ramps located inside or adjacent to crosswalks. Leave at least three (3) feet of space between a curb ramp and your vehicle. Disabled Placards With a properly displayed disabled placard or disabled license plate (including one issued by a different state or country) you may park in any of the following zones, so long as the person to whom the placard is issued is being transported: Blue zones General metered parking zones without paying Green zones Residential Permit Parking areas Areas with posted time limits (e.g. a one-hour zone in a business district) However, a disabled placard does not allow you to park in the following times or places: No-parking, no-stopping or other red zones During street-cleaning hours During posted commercial loading hours (look for signs, yellow curb, or yellow or red meters) During posted passenger loading hours (look for signs or white curb) During posted commuter tow-away hours (check for tow-away signs within 100 feet in both directions of a parking space) For more than 72 hours in any space. A disabled placard does NOT exempt the vehicle from all other citation and/or tow-away rules and restrictions. PERMITS & STREET SWEEPING In areas with time limits, do not park in the same spot or on the same side of the street. After you move your car, we recommend parking on another block. The law requires you to move one block away or at least one-tenth of a mile from your vehicle’s first recorded parking position. This will ensure the parking enforcement officer does not ticket you for disobeying the time limit. Always check for parking and street sweeping signs. Look 100 feet in both directions for any parking signs and check the curb to see if there are any color curb markings. During street sweeping hours, you may not park until the street has been physically swept. Please call 311 to report any defaced, deficient or missing parking signs. EXERCISING COURTESY Some parking practices are perfectly legal, just not very nice. You may not get a ticket for parking bumper-to-bumper, but you can be kind to your neighbors by using these rules of thumb: Don't let your bumpers touch. Leave at least 18 inches of space between cars when parking parallel so that your neighbors can access their trunks, or drive away without having to bump into your vehicle. Report faded curb colors. Where the curb has faded, vehicles will not be cited for curb color violations. Help us keep the colors bright and up to date by calling 311. Maximize availability. In areas where there are not spaces marked by painted lines, pull as close to the vehicles in front or behind you as possible while leaving enough space for them to exit. How You Can Help Give Others Room to Park Maximize availability. In areas where there are not spaces marked by painted lines, pull as close to the vehicles in front or behind you as possible while leaving enough space (18 inches) for them to exit. Irregular space between parked cars may be caused by motorcycles and small vehicles. Report Broken Meters and Faded Curbs Where the curb has faded so badly as to be difficult to determine the curb color, it will not be enforced for curb color violations. And while you may only park at a broken meter for the posted time limit or four hours, whichever is shorter, functioning meters guarantee better parking availability for everyone. Help us keep meters working and curb colors bright and up to date by calling 311. By calling 311 you'll create a record so that the curb or meter will be evaluated. "HOW DO I...?" Simply dial 311 in order to:

Steven Dick is accused of conning five women along with the kidnap and rape of another woman. © STV **A man has appeared in court charged with fraudulently securing sexual favours from young women by pretending he worked on a Sky TV reality show. ** Steven Dick, 35, is said to have conned five women into performing sex acts on him and themselves at his home in Burntisland, Fife, between January 2009 and January 2011. He is said to have taken out an advert on a website and told his alleged victims that they were more likely to appear on television if they agreed to perform the sex acts that he asked for. Dick is then said to have made film recordings of the females, who cannot be named for legal reasons. The prosecution alleges that he obtained the videos by fraud. Dick also allegedly had indecent photographs featuring young children in his possession at his home between June 2010 and February 2011. The story emerged following a hearing at the High Court in Edinburgh on Thursday. Dick appeared with Stuart Dick, 25, of Thornhill, Stirlingshire, on a total of nine charges before judge Lord Tyre. Steven Dick is also accused of abducting and raping a woman between February 22 and February 23 2011. Prosecutors say he held her against her will at his home by tying her to a bed by her wrists and ankles before gagging her and cutting her on the body with scissors before sexually assaulting her. Steven Dick also allegedly stopped Fife Constabulary officers from entering his house on February 23 before going onto destroy evidence which would have proved his guilt with regard to the rape. Murder And prosecutors also say they have enough evidence to show that between May 2011 and September 2011, both Steven Dick and Stuart Dick conspired to murder the woman who was allegedly raped. It is claimed they tried to trace the woman by paying a debt collection agency £90 for information about her whereabouts. In August 2011, they are said to have contacted a petrol company in London and pretended to be employees from Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs in a bid to find out where she was. The indictment also claims that between September 4 and September 7 2011, the two men travelled to Stockholm, Sweden carrying two knives, a balaclava, a boiler suit, a pair of combat trousers, a camouflage hat, a poncho, a wig, a pair of gloves, a pair of boots and two photographs of the woman who was allegedly raped. On September 5 2011, the two men allegedly visited a petrol company in the Swedish capital and asked workers there to speak to the woman. On Thursday, Steven Dick's solicitor advocate Gordon Martin said his client was willing to plead guilty to the charges alleging that he obtained sexual favours fraudulently and not guilty to the murder conspiracy charge. However, the Crown refused to accept the pleas. Advocate Depute Tim Niven Smith said the pleas were "entirely unacceptable" to him. Stuart Dick pleaded not guilty to the charge of conspiracy to murder. Judge Lord Tyre continued the case to another hearing at the High Court in February 2012.

The eight-year battle over unionizing in-home child-care providers bounced from the State Capitol back to the courtroom Wednesday, where anti-union providers are seeking to block a union election authorized days ago by the DFL-controlled Legislature and Gov. Mark Dayton. “You do not mess with people who care for children — especially women,” said Hollee Saville, a child-care provider from St. Michael, longtime union foe and plaintiff in the suit. “The Minnesota Legislature gave home child-care providers and home health-care workers the right to vote on a union,” responded Jennifer Munt, spokeswoman for AFSCME Council 5, which is organizing child-care providers. “There is nothing more constitutional than the democratic right to vote.” The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court on Wednesday, takes aim at one of the last major acts of the Minnesota Legislature before it adjourned: passage of a union-supported bill that gives some child-care providers and personal care assistants the right to vote on unionization. While personal care assistants are relatively new to the battle, unions have worked years to organize child-care providers. Saville and another provider-plaintiff, Becky Swanson of Lakeville, also were plaintiffs in a nearly identical suit that the court ruled on last year. That suit, filed by Doug Seaton, the same attorney representing them this year, succeeded in blocking the DFL governor from ordering a union election by executive order. The judge said union supporters needed to go to the Legislature and get a law passed. This year, after helping elect DFL majorities in the House and Senate, union supporters did just that. The bill passed by a bare majority in the House and only after a 17-hour debate in the Senate, with Saville and Swanson lobbying hard against it. AFSCME and the Service Employees International Union, which is organizing the personal care assistants, made passage of the bill a top priority, and it became a flashpoint of the session’s last days. Wednesday’s suit, directed against Dayton and state agencies, refers only to the child-care providers, but eventually could affect home care workers if a judge blocks the election. The suit argues that the new law restricts the union vote to only those licensed and unlicensed family providers who care for children receiving state subsidies, disenfranchising nearly half of all licensed providers. “This is not democratic,” Saville said. “In a democracy, everyone would get a vote.” Seaton said the complaint also makes the case he sought to make during hearings on the bill — that federal labor law prevents it. “Business owners in the private sector can’t be labeled public employees and then thrown into a union,” Seaton said. If the law succeeds, he said, “nobody is going to be free of the possibility of being dragooned into a union and forced to pay dues.” Munt said that in-home child-care providers are not covered under federal labor law and that the state can give them a unionization option. “No one is being forced to join a union,” she said. The bill would allow about 12,700 providers the right to vote in an election if the union gets enough authorization cards to trigger a vote, Munt said. If the vote is in favor of unionization, individual providers could opt to remain outside the union, but would still be charged a fee for union representation. Munt said union officials are meeting with affected providers to make the case that unions can help improve subsidies and training. She said health insurance also is a high priority of providers who favor unionization. The suit, and another planned for next week by attorney William Messenger, of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation of Springfield, Va., seeks to block the law permanently. But even if it doesn’t, it could delay a showdown vote. The bill’s House sponsor, Rep. Michael Nelson, DFL-Brooklyn Park, called the lawsuit “frivolous” and said he is confident of victory. The union push has drawn opposition from conservative groups, including the Minnesota Majority and the Minnesota Family Council, which have formed an anti-unionization group called Childcare Freedom. Seaton noted that last year’s case is not yet finished. The Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled in April that private attorneys in the earlier case are entitled to legal fees paid by the state, in part because Dayton’s unionization order was based on an incorrect reading of state labor laws.

Abstract The Neandertal lineage developed successfully throughout western Eurasia and effectively survived the harsh and severely changing environments of the alternating glacial/interglacial cycles from the middle of the Pleistocene until Marine Isotope Stage 3. Yet, towards the end of this stage, at the time of deteriorating climatic conditions that eventually led to the Last Glacial Maximum, and soon after modern humans entered western Eurasia, the Neandertals disappeared. Western Eurasia was by then exclusively occupied by modern humans. We use occlusal molar microwear texture analysis to examine aspects of diet in western Eurasian Paleolithic hominins in relation to fluctuations in food supplies that resulted from the oscillating climatic conditions of the Pleistocene. There is demonstrable evidence for differences in behavior that distinguish Upper Paleolithic humans from members of the Neandertal lineage. Specifically, whereas the Neandertals altered their diets in response to changing paleoecological conditions, the diets of Upper Paleolithic humans seem to have been less affected by slight changes in vegetation/climatic conditions but were linked to changes in their technological complexes. The results of this study also indicate differences in resource exploitation strategies between these two hominin groups. We argue that these differences in subsistence strategies, if they had already been established at the time of the first contact between these two hominin taxa, may have given modern humans an advantage over the Neandertals, and may have contributed to the persistence of our species despite habitat-related changes in food availabilities associated with climate fluctuations. Citation: El Zaatari S, Grine FE, Ungar PS, Hublin J-J (2016) Neandertal versus Modern Human Dietary Responses to Climatic Fluctuations. PLoS ONE 11(4): e0153277. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0153277 Editor: Roberto Macchiarelli, Université de Poitiers, FRANCE Received: September 10, 2015; Accepted: March 25, 2016; Published: April 27, 2016 Copyright: © 2016 El Zaatari et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files. Funding: This study was supported by Max Planck Society, Wenner Gren Foundation through a Hunt Post-Doctoral Fellowship to SEZ (8554), the National Science Foundation to FEG and SEZ and PSU (0452155; 0315157), and the LSB Leakey Foundation to SEZ and FEG (800320). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Introduction Over the course of the last half million years, western Eurasian hominins lived during times of extreme climatic instability characterized by high amplitude fluctuations between cold glacial and warmer interglacial phases. These fluctuations constantly shaped and reshaped the landscape, greatly affecting both plant and animal communities [1]. Paleolithic hominins relied on these communities for subsistence, and therefore would have had to adapt to the frequent and sometimes dramatic, multisecular scale changes in dietary resources in order to survive. The occupation of Europe by members of the Neandertal lineage for hundreds of thousands of years amidst these continuously changing conditions suggests that they had effective subsistence strategies that allowed them to survive for such a lengthy period. Yet, it appears that during the severe millennial scale climatic fluctuations of Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 3 [2], the survival strategies of the Neandertals failed, perhaps in part due to competition with modern humans who first entered Europe during this period [3]. Although a small amount of introgression of Neandertal DNA is documented in early modern Eurasians [4–6] and such an introgression is still detectable in extant non-African humans [7], there was undoubtedly a major population replacement in MIS 3. It seems counterintuitive that Neandertals, who had been living in Europe for such a long time and had managed to overcome earlier climatic cycles, disappeared, leaving the invading modern humans to flourish. Simply stated, Neandertals might be expected to have been better adapted than Homo sapiens—a species that evolved in Africa—to live in Europe during the fluctuations of MIS 3. But, the replacement of Neandertals by modern humans suggests that the latter may have had some advantages over the former. Here, we present evidence for differences in dietary responses to climatic changes between Neandertals and modern humans in western Eurasia, which most likely gave the latter a survival advantage. This evidence takes the form of variation in dental microwear textures, and ergo diet, that accompanied fluctuations in ecological conditions. We employ a large sample of Paleolithic individuals (n = 52) that encompasses their geographical and temporal ranges (i.e., from 37 sites spread across western Eurasia that range in age from ca. 500 to 12 ka). We also present previously unpublished occlusal molar microwear data for 11 Middle Pleistocene specimens (S1 Table and S1 File) that date to between MIS 12–11 (e.g., Arago) and MIS 7 (e.g, Biache-Saint-Vaast). We here refer to this group as “early Neandertals” since Neandertal traits are expressed in all of the included individuals, albeit to varying degrees [8–10]. In addition, we summarize and reanalyze previously published data for later Neandertals [11–13] and for Upper Paleolithic modern humans [14] (S1 Table), and we offer the first comparison of the microwear textures among these three hominin groups. Microwear texture analysis presents a proxy for the inference of dietary variations among Paleolithic hominin groups. The link between dental microwear textures and the mechanical properties of ingested items has been well-established through the examination of a variety of extant mammal species with well-documented diets [15–18]. Several surface texture attributes—complexity, anisotropy, texture fill volume, scale of maximum complexity, and heterogeneity—have proven useful for the overall characterization of diets. Complexity, measured as change in surface roughness with the scale of observation, has been considered a proxy for food hardness. Anisotropy, a measure of surface texture orientation, has been associated with toughness. Textural fill volume, a measure of size and depth of wear features, and scale of maximum complexity, the scale at which roughness increase tails off, have both been related to the sizes of abrasive particles. Finally, heterogeneity, or variability in complexity across the surface, is likely related to variation in food properties. These microwear texture attributes have been shown to discriminate samples by diet and to be especially valuable for detecting intra-species dietary differences, reflecting subtle differences in food preferences and dietary breadth [15, 18–20]. Since microwear signatures are dynamic with a high turnover rate capturing an individual’s diet a short time (i.e., weeks to months) prior to death, their analysis has the potential to give insights into the effects of environmental and technological changes on the diets of early and late Neandertals and Upper Paleolithic modern humans. Such insights are crucial for documenting any differences in subsistence strategies between these hominin groups. Even though differences in subsistence strategies between Neandertals and modern humans have often been considered to have played a major role in their respective fates, the nature of such differences remains poorly understood. Middle Paleolithic faunal assemblages have led some researchers to argue that Neandertals focused on large ungulates whereas Upper Paleolithic humans broadened their dietary spectrum to include smaller mammals and aquatic resources [21–23]. However, various archaeological and geochemical analyses have shown that this view cannot be generalized to all Neandertal populations since at least some groups, especially those that lived in the warmer southern/Mediterranean regions, appear to have also exploited a diversity of terrestrial as well as possible marine resources [11, 24–29]. Stable isotope analyses have also contributed to the argument that modern humans had a broader dietary spectrum compared to Neandertals based on the former’s higher δ15N values, which have been linked to freshwater resource consumption [30–31]. Bocherens and colleagues [32], however, have recently cautioned that this observed enrichment could simply be due to a global enrichment in nitrogen-15 in terrestrial trophic webs between 31–35 ka cal BP rather than a dietary shift. However, the modern human remains from Ust’-Ishim (Siberia), which date to around 45 ka cal BP and thus predate this time period, already display high δ15N values [5]. As a whole, the picture of subsistence strategies of Neandertals and modern humans appears to be more complex than can be explained by a simple expansion of the dietary spectrum at the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition. Since both of these hominin groups occupied vast geographic regions offering different food resources that also changed through time in response to climatic fluctuations, an understanding of intraspecific dietary variation in response to these fluctuations is necessary before comparing subsistence strategies among the Paleolithic hominin taxa. Equally important is the understanding of the possible role the Upper Paleolithic technological complexes played in helping modern human adapt to climatic instability. This study explores these aspects in a sample of Paleolithic individuals that encompasses the wide temporal and geographical ranges they occupied. Materials and Methods Occlusal molar microwear texture data collected from a total of 52 pre-MIS 6 European hominins, MIS 6–3 Neandertals, and MIS 3–2 modern humans from 37 sites are included in this study (S1 Table). Microwear signatures for 11 pre-MIS 6 European individuals are analyzed here (see the Acknowledgements section for the repository information of the original specimens). Neandertal and modern human microwear texture data were obtained from published sources [11–14]. All necessary permits were obtained prior to the described study, which complied with all relevant regulations. High-resolution dental casts for all specimens were prepared following established protocols [33]. After cleaning the teeth with cotton swabs soaked in distilled water—and in acetone and/or ethyl alcohol as needed—molds were made with President MicroSystemTM (Coltène-Whaledent) regular body impression material. Positive casts were then poured using Epo-Tek 301 epoxy resin and hardener (Epoxy Technology). Using a Sensofar Plμ Confocal Imaging Profiler (Solarius Development, Inc.), four adjoining scans, covering a total area of 276 x 204 μm of crushing/grinding “Phase II” facets of one molar per individual were taken at 100x magnification, with a lateral sampling interval of 0.18 μm and vertical resolution specification of <0.005 μm. The scans were analyzed with Toothfrax and SFrax software (Surfract) to generate the five variables mentioned above that describe different aspects of the surface textures: complexity (Asfc), anisotropy (epLsar), scale of maximum complexity (Smc), textural fill volume (Tfv), and heterogeneity (HAsfc). Detailed descriptions of these variables and their computations can be found in Scott et al. [34–35] and El Zaatari [15]. Values for Asfc, epLsar, Smc, and Tfv obtained from the four scans per specimen were used to calculate median values for each variable which were used to represent each specimen. The HAsfc value for each specimen was measured as the median absolute deviation of Asfc divided by the median of Asfc for the four scans representing each individual specimen without further splitting single scans into smaller sub-regions. To assess the relationship between climatic change and microwear for the Paleolithic hominins each specimen included in this study was first assigned to one of three paleoecological categories—open, mixed, or wooded—based on all available paleoclimatic/paleoenvironmental data from the same sites and levels/layers that yielded the hominin individuals (see S1 File for details). In the context of Pleistocene western Eurasia, and as is evident from the paleoecological reconstructions summarized in S1 File, the open category represents the cold-steppe biome where open vegetation prevailed over the landscape and trees were relatively scarce, not exceeding 10% of the overall vegetation and/or where faunal records show a strong dominance of taxa that preferred cold, open habitats in the assemblage. The wooded habitats, on the other hand, correspond to woodlands where arboreal vegetation formed more than 40% and dominated over open vegetation and/or where woodland adapted animal taxa dominated the faunal assemblages. All specimens attributed to the wooded category in this study lived in forests that developed in warm climates and generally sustained deciduous as well as Mediterranean arboreal taxa (see S1 File). Finally, the mixed habitats represent intermediate environments that included significant amounts of both open and wooded vegetation elements, with percentages of trees ranging between 10% and 40%, and/or with faunal records showing a mix of taxa including species that preferred both open and wooded habitats. It should be acknowledged that the mixed category used in this study is relatively broadly defined and could potentially encompass a wide range of ecological zones where combinations of different open and wooded species would have covered the landscape. Mixed habitats in southern and Mediterranean Europe and the Levant would have been dominated by warm-loving Mediterranean taxa. But, with increasing latitude, the Mediterranean taxa would have gradually given way to deciduous and coniferous trees during temperate conditions as is evident from the pollen spectra of the various central European sites (e.g., Montmaurin, Saint-Césaire, La Chaise, Dolní Věstonice) with mixed vegetation (see S1 File). Unfortunately, the very small sample sizes that would result from splitting the mixed category into several sub-divisions dictated the use of a single broad mixed habitat category in this study although it is acknowledged that this might undermine the power of statistical tests in detecting significant differences between this group and those from wooded and especially open paleoecological categories. It should also be acknowledged that the paleoecological reconstructions for the Upper Paleolithic deposits yielding the specimens included in this study show that the sampled specimens lived either in open or mixed habitats and that none are associated with wooded habitats (S1 Table). To our knowledge, there are no well-preserved molars from Upper Paleolithic adult individuals from wooded habitats. This is not surprising considering the generally cold conditions that prevailed in western Eurasia from the second half of MIS 3 to the end of MIS 2 and that maintained vegetation cover largely open in character. Indeed, even during the warmer interstadials of MIS 3, high densities of trees were recorded only in few places in Eurasia, namely around the Mediterranean [1]. Otherwise, open coniferous/deciduous woodland vegetation covered most of the southern European landscape, open coniferous woodlands covered parts of central Europe, whereas steppe vegetation prevailed further north [1]. Thus, for the Upper Paleolithic humans, assessments of links between diet and paleoecological conditions were restricted to those involving two habitat types, open and mixed. At the same time, however, these modern human individuals could be assigned to one of three technological complex categories (i.e., Aurignacian, Gravettian, Magdalenian) based on the available descriptions of their associated archaeological assemblages (S1 File). After the assignment of individuals to the appropriate technological and/or paleoecological category, non-parametric Spearman’s rho and Kendall’s tau correlation coefficients were employed to test for correlations between diet and paleoecological conditions for each of the three groups of Paleolithic hominins (i.e., the early Neandertals, later Neandertals, and modern humans) and also between diet and technological developments through time for the Upper Paleolithic group. For the Neandertals, the microwear data for the five variables were compared against three paleoecological ranks (open = rank 1, mixed = rank 2, wooded = rank 3), whereas for the Upper Paleolithic humans these data were compared against two paleoecological ranks (open = rank 1, mixed = rank 2) and three technological complex ranks (Aurignacian = rank 1, Gravettian = rank 2, and Magdalenian = rank 3). To assess differences in the five microwear variables among groups from different paleoecological settings within each of the Neandertal samples, a one-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted [36]. Yet, for the Upper Paleolithic humans, since two grouping factors—paleoecology and technology—were used, a two-way MANOVA was conducted to examine differences in microwear signatures among the different modern samples. This two-way MANOVA was run twice while replacing the missing paleoecological information for Labatut 1 with either of the two possible reconstructions: open or mixed habitats. It should be noted that it is highly unlikely that wooded conditions prevailed during the time of deposition of the layer containing this individual since this stratum is attributed to the Gravettian (Upper Perigordian) and since, as discussed above, vegetation in Europe appears to have remained relatively open during this time period of MIS 3. Thus, the results of the MANOVA model run with this third possibility are not reported here. However, it is still worth noting that such an assignment does not significantly alter the MANOVA results. Finally, to assess differences in diet, and thus patterns of resource and niche exploitation between Neandertals and earlier (i.e., Aurignacian and Gravettian) modern humans in Europe, a one-way MANOVA was used to compare the data for the five microwear variables between the earlier modern humans and their Neandertal counterparts from similar open and mixed environmental settings. For the purposes of this analysis, individuals attributed to both early and later Neandertals were grouped together and those associated with Aurignacian and Gravettian industries were grouped together to increase sample size. This resulted in four groups: Neandertals from either open or mixed categories, and earlier modern humans from either open or mixed categories. All microwear data were rank transformed to mitigate violation of assumptions associated with parametric statistical tests before conducting the MANOVA analyses. The MANOVA analyses were followed by single classification ANOVA’s and two post-hoc tests, Tukey’s HSD (honestly significant difference) and Fisher’s LSD (least significant difference) tests to determine sources of significant differences when present [37–38]. These two post-hoc tests were used to balance Type I and II errors [37–38]. The null hypotheses for all these statistical tests state that the samples from different paleoecological categories and/or technological complexes have similar microwear textures. Discussion All hominins that lived in western Eurasia during the Pleistocene, whether the Neandertals, their direct ancestors or their modern successors, had to develop strategies that allowed them to cope with changes in food supply that accompanied the multisecular fluctuations in climatic conditions. Among the Neandertals, the significant correlation between molar microwear textures and the prevailing paleoecological conditions, as represented by vegetation cover, shows that they altered their diets in response to changes in food resource availability. The microwear data suggest that both early and later Neandertals followed the same pattern of dietary alteration: as conditions became more wooded, they significantly intensified their exploitation of hard, brittle abrasive food items; whereas they evidently did the opposite as conditions became more open. Indeed, there is a significant increase in complexity in microwear with tree cover for the two Neandertal groups (Tables 2 and 3, Fig 1A). It should be noted that unlike shearing, where abrasive particles are dragged across the surface due to the direction of movement that is almost parallel to the facet surface producing higher anisotropy, crushing such particles between opposing occluding facets in a motion perpendicular to the facet plane can result in higher complexity [39]. Even though foods with abrasive mechanical properties as well as environmental abrasives have been shown to raise surface complexity values of the crushing/grinding molar facets in recent hunter-gatherers [15, 40], the level of ingestion of the former, rather than the latter, is interpreted as being responsible for driving the complexity values in early and late Neandertals. This is because the highest of these values for the fossil groups (i.e., for that from wooded habitats) remain substantially lower than what would be expected if they regularly ingested exogenous abrasives (see [11, 15–14] for detailed discussions). In addition to the changes in the level of hard foods with vegetation cover, the results of this study are consistent with a trend for increased individual dietary variability in late Neandertals from wooded areas compared to those from open ones—note the significant positive correlation between the former’s heterogeneity values and tree cover (Table 1, Fig 1A). A similar tendency appears to be present among early Neandertals as well, although this lacks statistical support (Table 1, Fig 1A). PPT PowerPoint slide PowerPoint slide PNG larger image larger image TIFF original image Download: Fig 1. Bivariate plots of microtexture variables’ means and 1 standard deviations of Paleolithic groups. (A) Bivariate plot of complexity and heterogeneity for the early and later Neandertal specimens each grouped by paleoecological category. (B) Bivariate plot of complexity and heterogeneity for the Upper Paleolithic specimens grouped by paleoecological category. (C) Bivariate plot of complexity and heterogeneity for the Upper Paleolithic specimens grouped by both paleoecological and technological categories. (D) Bivariate plot of complexity and textural fill volume for the Neandertals (both early and later) and earlier (Aurignacian and Gravettian) modern human specimens grouped by paleoecological category. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0153277.g001 This pattern of dietary change observed in the Neandertal lineage is perhaps not surprising considering that more wooded environments, especially Mediterranean forests, which include almost all individuals in this category (see S1 File), support a much greater diversity of potential animal and plant foods compared to the open steppe habitats that prevailed in most of Europe especially during the cold episodes of the Pleistocene. Regular consumption of different foods including a diversity of hard plant parts, such as seeds and nuts, by early and later Neandertals living in wooded areas might have increased the complexity and heterogeneity of their microwear signatures. On the other hand, the considerably lower texture complexities and heterogeneity in individuals from open environments could reflect a reduction in the amount of hard plant food items in the diet and perhaps an increased reliance on meat (which, by itself, may not cause abrasion on occlusal molar surfaces) leading to an overall narrowing of their dietary spectrum. These results are consistent with other lines of evidence that suggest a diet mostly limited to terrestrial animal protein for Neandertals living in the more open and cold environments of Europe [30, 41–47] but dietary broadening through the consumption of various plant resources, in addition to small prey and aquatic animals, for those living under temperate Mediterranean conditions in southern Europe [48–55]. Overall, the results of this study show that the changes in Neandertal diets were directly associated with changes in local environments. As such, they can be described as having been largely environmentally-driven. However, the changes in food resources that mirrored climatic changes do not appear to have had the same effects on the diet of Upper Paleolithic individuals as they did on that of the Neandertals. In fact, the negative correlation between tree cover and the complexity of the occlusal molar surface textures, even if it does not reach a level of statistical significance (Table 1, Fig 1B), suggests a pattern of association with paleo-vegetation cover opposite of that observed for Neandertals. Yet, when considering technological association of the Upper Paleolithic individuals along with their habitat attributions, it becomes apparent that the highly complex occlusal molar surfaces of the individuals from Magdalenian contexts, almost all of which lived in open habitats, largely drive these results (Fig 1C). In comparison, the Aurignacian and Gravettian individuals, whether associated with open or mixed habitats, have significantly lower complexity values (Fig 1C). Therefore the results of this study suggest that for Upper Paleolithic humans overall there is a broad overlap of microwear signatures of individuals from open and mixed habitats within each of the technological groups but a chronological separation of these signatures, namely between the earlier (Aurignacian and Gravettian) and the later (Magdalenian) groups (Tables 4 and 5). On the one hand, the uniformity in textures, and thus the close clustering, of Upper Paleolithic individuals from a single technological group regardless of their local paleo-habitat might suggest that, unlike earlier inhabitants of western Eurasia, the Upper Paleolithic humans within each techno-cultural unit were able to maintain dietary stability despite fluxes in their local environment. Thus, they were able to free themselves from environmental constraints probably with the aid of their technology. This, however, remains to be confirmed with microwear analyses of Upper Paleolithic individuals that lived in wooded habitats considering that, for the Neandertals, the individuals associated with tree-dominated landscapes showed the most distinct microwear signal among the different paleoecological groups examined (Table 3). On the other hand, the clear separation in microwear patterns between the earlier and later Upper Paleolithic indicates a change in diet through time, with the most notable shift associated with the Magdalenian. The similarity in microwear signatures between the Aurignacian and Gravettian groups suggests that diet was maintained with little, if any, change during this cultural transition. It is possible that this cultural change actually aided humans in maintaining their diet by allowing them continuous access to their preferred resources at a time of deteriorating climatic conditions at the onset of the general cooling trend leading to the LGM. However, the Magdalenian cultural boom seems to have had a different effect on the human diet. The microwear data shows that this latter transition was coupled with a radical shift in diet to one that comprised substantially more hard items as is evident from the Magdalenians' significantly more complex microwear textures than those of earlier Aurignacian and Gravettian people (Fig 1C). Through the comparison of the microwear patterns of these three Upper Paleolithic groups to those of recent hunter-gatherers with known, differing diets, El Zaatari and Hublin [14] interpreted the relatively high surface complexity of crushing molar facets of the Magdalenians as resulting from an increased reliance on hard plant foods for subsistence compared to earlier periods of the Upper Paleolithic. This comparatively higher level of consumption of hard plant foods by the Magdalenians would have been expected if they were living in wooded habitats that generally offer a higher diversity of and, thus, easier access to, such food options compared to more open vegetation settings. But, even though this Late Upper Paleolithic culture developed at a time of overall warming after the LGM, it did not coincide with warm conditions in western Eurasia. At this final stage of the Paleolithic, most of the European continent was affected by some very cold episodes, such as, the Pomeranian (17–16 ka cal BP) and Older Dryas (14.2–13.7 ka cal BP) stages, which led to the accumulation of several meters of loess in Central Europe [56]. Thus, the Magdalenians had to colonize mostly open habitats, not very different from those inhabited by many of the modern populations in the region during MIS 3. Accordingly, paleoecological reconstructions associate all the Magdalenian specimens included in this study with relatively cold-open steppe biome type (S1 Table). In this kind of habitats, mechanically demanding plant food options would have been available. Underground storage organs, which would have existed in such biomes, fit this dietary category and have the potential of forming a year-round rich source of energy and nutrients [57] even though the extraction of their nutritional benefits would have come at the cost of requiring considerable work and sophisticated equipment [58–59]. The homogeneity of the microwear textures within the Magdalenian sample is consistent with the notion that the Magdalenians often selected such foods. Thus, the Magdalenians seem to have followed a different resource exploitation strategy compared to the earlier Gravettian and Aurignacian people. This change in landscape exploitation which would have been made possible by the Magdalenian’s relatively advanced and diversified toolkit might have been due, at least in part, to the overall decline in big game numbers and diversity compared to earlier periods of the Pleistocene [60]. Similarly, the present results also reveal differences in the strategies employed by earlier (i.e., Aurignacian and Gravettian) modern humans and Neandertals to exploit the western Eurasian landscape, although these differences appear to have been much more subtle compared to those that set apart the former group from the Magdalenians. In spite of the broad overlap of the microwear signatures of earlier modern humans from open and mixed habitats, when the signatures of each of these groups are compared to those of Neandertals from analogous habitats, significant differences in microwear textures are observed indicating that these two hominin taxa selected different dietary resources in comparable paleoecological settings (Table 6). Specifically, whereas Neandertals in cold-open conditions relied almost exclusively on foods that were tough rather than hard (i.e., most likely animal meat, see [11] for details), under similar habitats, the comparatively more complex crushing molar facet surfaces of the early modern humans indicate that their diet, although still predominantly comprised of tough foods, also included small amounts of hard plant foods proportional to those consumed by Neandertals from mixed habitats (Table 7, Fig 1D). However, it should be noted that the microwear textures of the early moderns that inhabited the western Eurasian open steppes still differed from those of the Neandertals from mixed habitats by having significantly lower textual fill volume (Table 7, Fig 1D). This suggests that these modern humans either selected items with generally lower hardness level or that they processed equally hard items in a way different from the Neandertals making them less mechanically demanding for consumption. Thus, the microwear data suggest that whereas Neandertals relied solely on animal meat in open habitats and only exploited plants as they became more available and diverse, modern humans seem to have indulged in plant exploitation more extensively and to have used plants to supplement their diets even in open habitats where they would have been less abundant in comparison to wooded habitats. This microwear evidence for plant exploitation and processing by Upper Paleolithic people during MIS 3 is in agreement with various botanical remains and archaeological findings of plant processing equipment from sites dating to this time period [61–64]. As for modern humans from mixed habitats, their microwear surface texture complexity values range rather widely, encompassing the majority of those of Neandertals from both open and mixed habitats (Fig 1D). This suggests a higher level of dietary variability among these modern individuals compared to Neandertals from habitats with equivalent tree cover. Yet, slight differences in diet between the earlier modern humans from mixed habitats and their Neandertal counterparts might have also been present as is indicated by the former's display of lower textual fill volume, which possibly reflects the ingestion of less mechanically demanding foods (Table 7). Overall, the differences in microwear textures between modern humans and Neandertals living in analogous environments suggest that, under similar ecological settings, the MIS 3 modern humans in Europe practiced a different pattern of food selection—perhaps also food processing—than their Neandertal predecessors. The microwear data hint that while Neandertals seem to have followed a more opportunistic dietary strategy, exploring resources only when they were most abundant and easily accessible in their local habitat (i.e., almost exclusively animal protein in open conditions but substantial amounts of plants in wooded ones), modern humans seem to have been willing to invest more effort in extracting resources from their environment (e.g., more plant foods in open conditions compared to Neandertals). On a more general level, the results of this study show that whereas Neandertals maintained the same pattern of dietary alteration with climatic change for hundreds of thousands of years, modern humans significantly changed their dietary strategies—along with their culture at times—in a relatively much shorter time span. It is worth noting here that the microwear texture data reveal that the Neandertals continued to alter their diets in response to environmental changes in the same way that allowed them and their immediate ancestors to survive numerous climatic cycles well into MIS 3. Indeed, based on their microwear signatures, the MIS 3 Neandertals fall into the expected distinctive clusters that correspond to habitat type and do not display any evidence for significant shifts in diet that could be indicative of dietary stress brought about by the climatic fluctuations of that stage (see [11] for details). Thus, the results of this study do not support the view that the Neandertals’ disappearance was primarily due to their inability to adapt to the severe climatic fluctuations of MIS 3. But, starting at around 42 ka cal BP, modern humans came into Western Europe, having likely entered Eastern Europe a couple of millennia earlier [3]. This could have potentially brought about competition with the Neandertals making them face an extra survival pressure [65]. If, indeed, there was any competition, and if behavioral differences like the ones suggested in this study were already established at the time of first contact, these differences might have given modern humans an advantage over the Neandertals by enabling more efficient exploitation of dietary resources in their environment and more flexibility in changing the percentages of contributions of these different resources in their diets. Thus, such differences could have played a role in the demise of the Neandertals and the survival of the modern humans. Unfortunately, since most recent dating attempts and re-evaluations provide date ranges with minimum limits in the most part extending until or slightly beyond 42 ka cal BP for the youngest Neandertals included in this study [66–70], and since there is no secure evidence that, at this time period, the ranges of these specific Neandertal individuals overlapped with those of Aurignacian modern humans in Europe [3], the microwear signatures of the geochronologically youngest Neandertals included here would not reflect possible effects of direct competition with modern humans on their diet. Acknowledgments We would like to thank the following people for making all fossil specimens included in this study available: A. Arellano, J. L. Arsuaga, M. Dočkalová, E. Egocheaga, V. Formicola, D. Grimaud-Hervé, L. Huet, V. Laborde, A. Del Lucchase, H. de Lumley, M-A. de Lumley, G. Manzi, P. Mennecier, P.-E. Moullé, P. Neruda, M. Oliva, I. Pap, A. Pérez-Pérez, S. Renault, C. Schwab, M. Teschler-Nicola, J.-F. Tournepiche, T. Sojkova, J. Svoboda, B. Vandermeersch, A. Vialet, R. Ziegler. The pre-MIS 6 European hominin fossils are housed in Musée de l'Homme, Paris (Montmaurin—La Niche 1), Musée d’Archéologie Nationale, Saint-Germain-en-Laye (Biache-Saint-Vaast 1), National Museum Wales, Wales (Pontnewydd PN1), Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde, Stuttgart (Steinheim 1), Junta de Castilla y León, Burgos (Sima de los Huesos 4, 7, 8, 17, 19), and Musée de Tautavel, Tautavel (Arago 13, 54). We are also grateful for six anonymous reviewers and the editor for their comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. This study does not involve any recent human subjects or animals. All material used in this study is archaeological and, thus, no additional ethics permission was required. Author Contributions Conceived and designed the experiments: SEZ FEG PSU JJH. Performed the experiments: SEZ. Analyzed the data: SEZ FEG JJH. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: PSU. Wrote the paper: SEZ FEG PSU JJH.

When a presidential candidate says adults in America are suffering from a "fun deficit," you know it's time to take the issue seriously. The following 20 camps are alternative ways to spend your allotted vacation time. 1. LEARN HOW TO RIDE A BULL AT SANKEY RODEO SCHOOL This isn’t the mechanical bull at your local cowboy-themed bar. Sankey Rodeo School provides beginners and more advanced participants with the real bull riding, rodeo experience. With locations around the country and multiple sessions run throughout the year, the schools employ qualified professionals to guide you through every step of the way and teach you everything you need to know about the proper bull riding technique. Prices start at $415. 2. STAR IN A PROCEDURAL AT HOLLYWOOD TV STAR FANTASY CAMP For those who’ve dreamt of walking the red carpet or posing for a magazine cover, Hollywood TV Star Fantasy Camp is the ideal retreat. The week-long (five night) experience includes the opportunity to act in two or three scenes of a crime procedural, have a photoshoot, be interviewed by "the press," have the chance to hobnob with industry professionals, and much more. Plus you can take home a DVD of your performance. Price is available upon request. 3. BECOME A KNIGHT AT ALLIANCE: LIVE ACTION ROLE PLAY Leave your business suit at home and channel your inner medieval knight with Alliance: Live Action Role Play, the oldest LARP community in the country. Prepare an original character, wield medieval weaponry, journey through an ever-changing plot, and be a part of a diverse community of enthusiasts. Beginners are welcomed with open arms and events are held all over the country by different chapters throughout the year. There are both one day events as well as weekend long adventures. Membership prices vary and weekends start at around $60. 4. LIVE LIKE AN ASTRONAUT AT ADULT SPACE ACADEMY You’re never too old for Space Camp thanks to the Adult Space Academy. This weekend-long, highly interactive program gives adults a chance to get a sense of the life of an astronaut. Train on simulators like the one-sixth gravity chair, build and launch a model rocket, and learn all about the history of space exploration. Prices start at $499. 5. DIG DEEPER AT THE ARCHAEOLOGY RESEARCH PROGRAM Join archaeologists excavating sites of the early Pueblo Indians (500-1280 C.E.) in the Mesa Verde region in Colorado at the Archaeology Research Program. Take a guided tour through Mesa Verde National Park, attend talks by archaeologists and scholars, study proper excavation techniques, and examine artifacts. The program is a week long and the price for nonmembers is $1720. Meals and housing are included. 6. BREAK INTO SONG AT BROADWAY FANTASY CAMP Can you dance? Can you sing? Can you act? No? It doesn’t matter! As long as you love to, Broadway Fantasy Camp in New York City wants you to be on stage. Sessions last from one to five days and celebrate the magic of the Great White Way. During the five-day session, you learn music and choreography from classic shows like Phantom of the Opera and Cats, talk with theater professionals, get lessons in stage makeup, tour a Broadway theater, put on a show, and toast your success at Sardi’s! Prices range from $595 to $4995. Housing, most meals, and transportation to and from the program are not included. 7. Get in the kitchen at Upper Crust Need to up your bake sale game? Tired of having to pass off your store-bought desserts as your own? Upper Crust at Paws Up Resort invites you to spend a long weekend in beautiful Montana and attend pie, cookie, and pastry workshops taught by professional chefs. Other activities include horseback riding, wine tastings, ATV tours, and a lot of eating. Prices start at $760. 8. Drink yourself silly at Sonoma Grape Camp Immerse yourself in the Sonoma Wine Country for a two-day, three-night exploration of everything grapes. Sonoma Grape Camp is all about hands-on participation—visitors get to walk through the vineyards, harvest grapes, tour the winery, attend seminars, and of course, enjoy delicious wines. Prices start at $2000. 9. Shimmy and Shake at the Burlesque Showgirl Retreat Get ready to rock those sequined headpieces. The Burlesque Showgirl Retreat from Burlesque Bikini Bootcamp is four days and five nights of intense showgirl action. You aren't just staying at the Mirage Hotel & Casino in Vegas and sipping cocktails by the pool. You spend three full days learning and rehearsing a group burlesque number to perform in front of a live audience, have the opportunity to work on a solo routine, take a field trip to the Burlesque Hall of Fame, and hear from a guest speaker, among other razzle dazzle. Prices start at $1299. 10. Be amongst the trees with Boulder Outdoor Survival School Test your survival instincts and see if you really have what it takes to make it in the wild. Boulder Outdoor Survival School runs several Field Courses that focus on living in the present without the burden of technology or literal (and metaphorical) baggage. With only a knife, a poncho, and a blanket, participants hike through Southern Utah and learn the ancient skills of the Puebloan people. Trips last from seven to 28 days and prices start at $1595. 11. Battle the undead at Zombie Survival Camp If you’re a fan of The Walking Dead or think zombies are in our near future, a weekend at Zombie Survival Camp in New Jersey will prepare you for the worst. Learn how to effectively throw a knife, use a crossbow, practice first aid, employ Zombitsu to defeat all evil, and how to stay healthy and safe in case of an emergency. You also get one-on-one time with experienced firearm experts so you can perfect your skills before returning home. Weekend camps are $450 per person and meals and lodging are included. 12. Look up at the stars at Astronomy Camp Embrace your nerdiness and attend science camp for adults! Astronomy Camp, run through The University of Arizona, is a two or three day hands-on program that introduces participants to the wonders of the cosmos. Visit one of the nearby observatories and operate high-powered telescopes, attend lectures and workshops from scientists about space, and hear from space artists and musicians about how space has impacted their work. Tuition is $600 for two days. 13. Grin and Beer it at Black Fly Craft Brewing Camp Earn your alcohol by learning the craft-brewing process. The Black Fly Craft Brewing Camp is a yearly event held at Great Camp Sagamore in New York. Attendees take courses on the craft brewing process, participate in a home-brew evaluation, and hear from brewing experts on all things beer. The weekend costs $279 per person and includes meals and a beer pairing dinner cruise on Raquette Lake. 14. Embrace Your Inner Freak at Coney Island USA's Sideshow School Day camps can be just as fun as sleepaway camps and the Coney Island USA’s Sideshow School is proof. Classes are offered on 3 to 4 consecutive days and cover sideshow skills like fire eating, sword swallowing, and even snake charming. Tuition varies depending on class length. 15. Defend yourself at Incredible Adventure's Covert Ops Learn Krav Maga under the blazing Miami sun at Incredible Adventure’s Covert Ops two- or four-day missions. Led by a former Israeli Defense Force soldier who specialized in undercover operations before working as a bodyguard for the Israeli Ministry of Defense, the program covers firearm use, counter ambush tactics, and shooting from a moving vehicle, among other methods of combat. Prices start at $2950. 16. Search for clues during Murder Mystery Weekend Stay at Point Sebago in Maine during their yearly Murder Mystery Weekend, and you’ll get a chance to solve an elaborate crime played out through an immersive theatrical experience. On Friday night, someone will die (spoiler) and it’ll be up to you and the rest of the guests to race against the clock to determine whodunit. Prices start at $165 and include meals, entertainment, and lodging. 17. Find a home on the range during Arizona Cowboy College Live the life of a cowboy at one of Arizona Cowboy College’s week long sessions. The first two days are spent at an equestrian center, and after that you saddle up and ride on over to a working cattle ranch. Topics covered in lessons include roping, safety, grooming, handling, and everything it takes to run a ranch. The program is $2250 and participants are advised to bring their own harmonicas. 18. Build a boat at WoodenBoat School If your community were relying on you to build an arc and save all the people and the animals from a flood, could you do it? If that’s something you’re concerned about, or you just want to learn about woodworking, WoodenBoat School in Maine has a plethora of one or two week woodworking and boat building courses for all levels. Beginners can take an introductory course, while those with a bit more hammer and nail knowledge can build a dory, a dinghy, or a skiff. Tuition varies by class and room and board are available for an additional cost. 19. Cook up a storm at The Culinary Institute of America Getty Images Listen up, foodies and fans of the Cooking Channel! The Culinary Institute of America offers various cooking boot camps in New York, Texas, and California throughout the year. You can enroll in basic training, or a different boot camp that caters to your specific cuisine interests. Camps range from one to four days and prices vary. All tools and some meals are included in tuition, but accommodations are not. 20. Blow Your Horn at Railroad Reality Week Toil and sweat while working on Nevada’s Northern Railway during Railroad Reality Week. Learn about what it takes to keep a train moving as you join the track crew, work in the maintenance shop, and ultimately get a chance to cycle through all of the roles that are required to get a train from Point A to Point B. The week costs $995 and lodging is not included.

MAPS Bulletin Winter 2014 Vol. 24, No. 3 - Annual Report Download this article. Mary Cosimano, M.S.W. Johns Hopkins University initiated their psilocybin studies in the year 2000. Since that time, I have been extensively involved with the research and clinical components of all six psilocybin and other hallucinogen studies that have taken place at Johns Hopkins. I have also personally guided over 300 study sessions and have participated in over 1,000 preparatory and integration meetings. Based on my clinical perspective, I would like to share what I personally believe to be one of the most important outcomes of this work: that psilocybin can offer a means to reconnect to our true nature—our authentic self—and thereby help find meaning in our lives. The experiences recounted to me by study participants, as well as my concurrent personal journey, together with our study results, represent a large body of data from which I derive my conclusions. When I have difficulty expressing myself, I remember what Ernest Hemingway wrote in A Moveable Feast about what he did when he had a hard time getting started writing. “All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” What comes to me now is a very short sentence—in fact, not a sentence but a word: love. I believe that what humans really want is to receive and to give love. I believe that love is what connects us to each other and that such a connection is brought about by being intimate with each other, by sharing ourselves with others. I believe that the nature of our true self is love. The psilocybin study treatment room at Johns Hopkins University I believe this theme—love, the need to reconnect with our true selves—addresses the underlying outcome of our psilocybin studies. Yet very often we’re afraid to open ourselves to this connection so we put up barriers and wear masks. If we are able to remove the barriers, to let down our defenses, we can begin to know and accept ourselves, thus allowing ourselves to receive and to give love. In her TED talk on “The Power of Vulnerability,” Brené Brown, Ph.D., helps us understand how important this sense of connection is on a deep level. Briefly, she states that connection is why we’re here. It’s what gives purpose and meaning to our lives. The way to connect is by being vulnerable, which means having the courage to face our fears—fears that we might fail, fears that others will realize that we aren’t perfect, fears that we are somehow unworthy of connection. Because this honesty could risk jeopardizing a connection, we shut down, cover up, or “fake it.” Dr. Brown’s answer for overcoming these fears is courage. She points out that courage comes from the Latin word cor (heart), and that the original meaning of courage was to tell your story with your whole heart. How do we help psilocybin study participants achieve a state of mind wherein it is possible for them to reconnect to their true self and face their fears? I believe it’s a combination of our preparatory meetings with the effects of psilocybin itself. In our preparatory meetings, we aim to create a space where participants feel secure and safe. We believe this peaceful, positive environment is necessary for them to have the courage to tell the story of who they are. We work to create a deep sense of trust so that the participants feel comfortable to share anything and everything—their fears, joys, disappointments, and shame—without fear of being rejected. Intimate conversation is one of the most important practices to assist in this self-disclosure, and some of our participants have shared that their session was the first time they felt they had been fully seen. Once they have opened up and shared, they are much more likely to let go and progress though their psilocybin experiences, managing difficult moments with more ease, and eventually restoring their deep and intrinsic connection to their true selves. After their story has been told and trust established, the psilocybin session follows. In order to achieve maximum benefit from the psilocybin sessions and to access these states of a deep sense of love and connectedness, I believe it is necessary to be relaxed in both body and mind. When we are stressed, anxious, or afraid, we hold ourselves in and tense our bodies. These states of mind and postures keep us from being able to relax and expand our consciousness. In order to relax, a safe and trusting environment is necessary. Ideally, our preparation meetings have provided that, thus enabling participants to relax into a deeper and more expansive experience. This expansiveness often leads to a deep sense of love and connection for self and all; both this expansiveness and this sense of connection are recurrent themes in psilocybin experiences. After their session one participant wrote: “I was reveling in the undeniable feelings of infinite love. I said [to myself], ‘I am love, and all I ever want to be is love.’ I repeated this several times and was overwhelmed with the intensity of the love. I was aware of tears flooding my eyes at this point. All the other goals in life seemed completely stupid.” InLove 2.0, Barbara Fredrickson, Ph.D., wrote: “Love is far more ubiquitous than you ever thought possible for the simple fact thatlove is connection.” Another participant said: “Once I was past the darkness, I began to feel an increasing feeling of peace and connectedness…An intense feeling of love and joy emanated from all over my body and I can’t imagine feeling any happier. I knew that the worries of everyday life were meaningless and that all that mattered were my connections with the wonderful people who are my family and friends.” The first two psilocybin studies conducted at Johns Hopkins (Griffiths et al. 2008, 2011) showed that psilocybin occasions personally meaningful and spiritually significant mystical experiences producing positive changes in attitudes, mood, altruism, behavior, and life satisfaction. A further analysis (MacLean et al. 2011) found significant increases in openness following a high-dose psilocybin in participants who had mystical experiences. I believe these findings suggest that increased personal meaning, a sense of spiritual significance, and an increase in openness are what allow humans to connect to their true selves—which is, at its core, love. I observed how participants in our study of psilocybin-assisted therapy for cancer anxiety often came into the study feeling “disconnected”—not only from their place in the world but also more importantly from themselves, due to the fact that their lives had changed dramatically since their diagnosis. Many are too weak to continue to work, and many have lost their jobs. Outward appearances may also have changed, as they lose weight, muscle tone, and often their hair. Their thoughts and feelings of what had once defined them are no longer accurate. What once gave purpose and meaning to their lives seems meaningless. One participant said: “Once you have a cancer diagnosis you’re like the ‘walking dead.’” Another told us that she was living like she’d already died. Our structured psychiatric interviews include two questions that target this sense of disconnection: 1. Have you all of a sudden changed your sense of who you are and where you are headed? 2. Do you often feel empty inside? Among our cancer participants, there was a high positive response rate to both of these questions, which I believe was due to their loss of a sense of self and meaning in their lives. Our cancer study often enables our participants to get back that connection to their true self, to believing that they are worthy of love and connection. One participant wrote in her six-month report that her “depression lifted completely” and that she was “able to get out of the ‘cancer world’ and back to myself…and able to connect with others and care better for [her partner].” Two additional quotes from our volunteers nicely summarize my thoughts about the importance of love, true self, and meaning during and after the sessions: “Everything is swept up into a climactic epiphany of love as the universal essence and meaning of all things. The journey of spirit coming to itself, revealing to itself its own inner mystery, is nothing but the self-realization of love.” “The purpose of all of us here together is to be constant reminders to each other of Who We Really Are.” It is interesting to reflect on the differences and similarities between our Johns Hopkins psilocybin studies and MAPS’ MDMA-assisted psychotherapy studies. The Johns Hopkins studies have characterized the phenomenology of psilocybin experience in healthy volunteers, and explored the therapeutic use of psilocybin in treating anxiety associated with life-threatening cancer diagnosis, and in treating cigarette smoking addiction. Although the therapeutic endpoints differ between the psilocybin (cancer anxiety and addiction) and MDMA (posttraumatic stress disorder or PTSD) studies, both approaches highlight the importance of trust and rapport between participant and guide/therapist. One notable difference is that the psilocybin studies have characterized mystical-type experiences, and have suggested that such experiences may underlie the therapeutic and other enduring positive effects of psilocybin session experiences. It would be productive and valuable to assess whether similar changes occur in response to guided MDMA sessions as well. I’d like to acknowledge and thank the Johns Hopkins Psilocybin Research Team, our study participants, and our funders. REFERENCES Hemingway, Ernest; A Moveable Feast. Scribner Classics: New York, 1996. Fredrickson, B. L. 2013. Love 2.0: How Our Supreme Emotion Affects Everything We Feel, Think, Do, and Become. Brown, Brené 2010. TEDx talk: The Power of Vulnerability June 2010 Griffiths, R.R., Richards, W.A., Johnson, M.W., McCann, U.D., Jesse, R. 2008. “Mystical-type experiences occasioned by psilocybin mediate the attribution of personal meaning and spiritual significance 14 months later.”Journal of Psychopharmacology, 22(6), 621-632. Johnson, M.W., Garcia-Romeu, A., Cosimano, M.P., and Griffiths R.R. 2014. “Pilot study of the 5-HT2AR agonist psilocybin in the treatment of tobacco addiction.” Journal of Psychopharmacology, 28(11), 983-92. Griffiths, R.R., Johnson, M.W., McCann, U., Richards, W.A., Richards, B.D., and Jesse, R.. 2011. “Psilocybin occasioned mystical-type experiences: immediate and persisting dose-related effects.” Psychopharmacology, 218(4), 649-665. MacLean, K.A., Johnson, M.W., and Griffiths, R.R. 2011. “Mystical experiences occasioned by the hallucinogen psilocybin lead to increases in the personality domain of openness.” Journal of Psychopharmacology, 25(11), 1453-1461. Mary Cosimano, M.S.W., is currently with the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and has served as study guide and research coordinator for the psilocybin studies for 15 years. During that time she has served as a session guide for the six psilocybin studies and other hallucinogen studies and has conducted over 300 sessions. She has worked as a clinician teaching individual and group meditation to breast cancer patients in research at Johns Hopkins, was a behavior modification counselor for weight loss, and has 15 years of experience with direct patient care as a hospice volunteer. MAPS Bulletin Winter 2014 Vol. 24, No. 3 - Annual Report

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain John Sidney McCainGOP lobbyists worry Trump lags in K Street fundraising Mark Kelly kicks off Senate bid: ‘A mission to lift up hardworking Arizonans’ Gabbard hits back at Meghan McCain after fight over Assad MORE (R-Ariz.) is mocking Sen. Ted Cruz Rafael (Ted) Edward CruzTrump unleashing digital juggernaut ahead of 2020 Inviting Kim Jong Un to Washington Trump endorses Cornyn for reelection as O'Rourke mulls challenge MORE (R-Texas) for claiming he is “pressing” for hearings on allowing U.S. troops to carry private firearms on military installations. ADVERTISEMENT “You know, I was fascinated to hear that because I haven’t heard a thing about it from him. Nor has my staff heard from his staff. Where did that come from? I have not a clue,” McCain told reporters on Monday. “I’d be glad to discuss the issue and see if we need a hearing, but it came as a complete surprise to me that he had been pressing me.” “Maybe it was through some medium that I’m not familiar with. Maybe bouncing it off the ozone layer, for all I know,” McCain joked. “There’s a lot of holes in the ozone layer, so maybe it wasn’t the ozone layer that he bounced it off of. Maybe it was through hand telegraph, maybe sign language. Who knows?” Cruz's office issued a statement maintaining that the Texas Republican is not new to the issue. "Senator Cruz has been discussing this issue for a long time and he looks forward to continuing to raise it in the Senate Armed Services Committee where he serves with Chairman McCain," according to the statement. Cruz, a 2016 presidential candidate, made the most recent comments on Sunday while speaking at a campaign event in New Hampshire, according to Politico. “I am very concerned about that policy,” Cruz said. “I think it’s very important to have a public discussion about why we’re denying our soldiers the ability to exercise their Second Amendment rights.” In recent years, GOP lawmakers, including fellow Texan, Rep. Louie Gohmert Louis (Louie) Buller GohmertTrump met with group led by Ginni Thomas at White House: report House passes bill expressing support for NATO The Memo: Trump veers between hard-liner, dealmaker on shutdown MORE, have pushed for the Defense Department to ease its ban on private firearms, citing mass shootings, such as the two that have occurred at Fort Hood in Texas. They contend such tragedies could have been avoided had soldiers been allowed to be armed. Last week Gohmert urged the House Armed Services Committee to include a provision in its version of the annual defense policy bill to lift the ban. A laughing McCain, who earlier on Monday chided Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), another Republican presidential contender, over his understanding of foreign policy, said reporters should follow up with Cruz on how he sought hearings on the controversial issue. “Ask him how he communicated with me because I’d be very interested. Who knows what I’m missing?” the Arizona Republican said. — This story was updated on Tuesday at 9:16 a.m.

Latvia's economy suffered losses of €185 billion during the soviet occupation, as Ruta Pazdere from the commission set up to calculate the damage caused by the soviet occupation told reporters Monday. Demographic losses and damage to the environment each caused losses of dozens of billions of euros, said Pazdere. Today saw the presentation of three new books - Latvian Industry Before and After Restoration of Independence, Colonial Policy of the Soviet Empire and Colonization of Latvia in 1940-1990, as well as Damage Caused to the Baltics by the Soviet Union. Speaking at the event, MEP Inese Vaidere (Unity) stressed the need for a common understanding of history, explaining that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were "equally criminal". According to Vaidere, people are often too uncritical about the soviet period. Information disseminated by the soviet media was all built on lies, she stressed. Justice Minister Dzintars Rasnacs (National Alliance) said in turn that the Baltic countries should harmonize their methodologies in calculating the damage caused by the soviet occupation. The fact that budget funds have been allocated to the commission for calculating the damage caused by the soviet occupation proves that the government has the political will to solve the issue, said Rasnacs. The commission to calculate the damage caused by the soviet occupation was established in 2005 and halted in 2009 during the economic downturn. Speaking to Latvian Radio as researchers returned to their calculations in 2014, members of the commission said that they aren't hoping that Russia will foot the bill right away, however Pazdere said that the true losses should at least be known both in Latvia and internationally. While historian Kārlis Kangeris told Latvian Radio two years ago that the committee was created as Latvia had reservations about Russian claims over huge investment flowing into the Latvian USSR during the occupation. "Latvia created the commission as it doubted this Russian claim, so it started working on its own estimates," said Kangeris.

By Rob Moseley Editor, GoDucks.com Assessing where things stand for the Oregon football team entering the start of preseason camp Aug. 10. WIDE RECEIVER/TIGHT END Who's back: Like the running back spot, Oregon's receiving corps features talented headliners, backups who easily could be starters, and also intriguing newcomers champing at the bit to crack the rotation. Two years removed from rushing for over 1,000 yards, Byron Marshall enters his senior season on the watch list for the Biletnikoff Award as the nation's best receiver. He cracked the 1,000-yard mark to lead UO receivers last season, making a position switch in the absence of Bralon Addison, who is back healthy entering this fall. Also back is big junior Dwayne Stanford, an underrated target and physical blocker. The Ducks have two more experienced vets capable of starting in Devon Allen and Darren Carrington, though they're questions marks at the moment due to injury and possible suspension, respectively . At tight end, Pharaoh Brown also remains a major question mark as the season dawns, following the serious leg injury he suffered at Utah last season. Following the injury, Evan Baylis stepped up with 14 catches for 133 yards and a touchdown over the final five games of the year. Both he and Johnny Mundt worked to find the mix of both blocking and receiving that Brown brings at his best. At both tight end and receiver, there are also a bunch of hard-working practice players who will make the occasional cameo in games, including Zac Schuller, Chris Tewhill, Jeff Bieber, Casey Eugenio, Chayce Maday, Koa Ka'ai, Jake McCreath and Taylor Stinson. Their contributions Monday through Friday pay big dividends come Saturday. Who's new : Coming off his redshirt season, Jalen Brown brings arguably the most dependable hands on the roster into 2015. He was among the most consistent guys at the position in the spring, getting ample time with the first-string. Following in his footsteps was early enrollee Alex Ofodile, who spent spring beginning the adjustment to college. He was joined over the summer by dynamic classmates Kirk Merritt and Malik Lovette, just two more electric, versatile weapons for a UO offense packed with them. ESPN's take: Great shape: “Based on the Ducks' returning perimeter talent, the man who wins their quarterback job may be thrust into a "just don't screw it up" situation.” ROB'S TAKE Projected depth chart WR: Dwayne Stanford, Jr.; Jalen Brown, RFr.; Alex Ofodile, Fr.; Chris Tewhill, Jr.; Chayce Maday, RFr. WR: Byron Marshall, Sr.; Devon Allen, So.; Kirk Merritt, Fr.; Zac Schuller, Sr.; Casey Eugenio, RFr. WR: Bralon Addison, RJr.; Darren Carrington, So.; Malik Lovette, Fr.; Jeff Bieber, RFr. TE: Evan Baylis, Jr.; Johnny Mundt, Jr.; Pharaoh Brown, Sr.; Koa Ka'ai, Sr.; Jacob Breeland, Fr.; Jake McCreath, Jr.; Taylor Stinson, RFr.

This basic idea about how humans come to like novel foods, surprisingly, doesn’t come up very much in discussions about the price of healthy eating—a topic that economists, public-health researchers, and journalists all disagree about. On one side there are a number of economists who say that on a per-calorie basis, it’s more affordable (not to mention less time-consuming) to buy fast food than it is to cook a meal using fresh produce. On the other side are those who maintain that thinking by the calorie doesn’t make sense, because Americans eat too many calories anyway. This latter group, which includes other economists as well as the food writer Mark Bittman, insists that it’s not all that difficult to cook a filling, nutritious meal for less money than it takes to go to McDonald’s, as long as one isn’t hung up on buying organic or local food. Both arguments have their virtues and their shortcomings, but both overlook the basic fact that food purchased is not necessarily the same as food consumed. When many economists estimate the price of eating fresh foods, the cost when a child eats half of a 50-cent carrot is recorded as 25 cents, even if the other half goes to waste. Could this unaccounted-for cost be part of the explanation for why high-income and low-income Americans tend to have different diets? Caitlin Daniel, a doctoral student in sociology at Harvard, recently published a study in the journal Social Science & Medicine suggesting that this cost might actually be large enough to change the shopping decisions of some low-income families, but small enough for wealthier parents to shrug off. In other words, richer parents might have plenty of room in their budgets to force brussels sprouts on their children 10 times and throw out what remains, while poorer parents tend to stick to dependable but less-nutritious foods that their kids are known to like. Daniel arrived at this finding after interviewing 75 Boston-area parents from a range of economic backgrounds about their food-shopping habits. She spent an average of two hours with each interviewee, and followed a number of them on their trips to the grocery store. (And apparently, having a sociologist looking over their shoulder with a notepad didn’t deter the research subjects from their usual shopping behavior: Daniel reports that three interviewees stole from the grocery store even though they knew she was watching.) The data that came out of Daniel’s study is qualitative, but it provides some insight into how parents of different economic backgrounds think about the costs of feeding their children. “I try not to buy things that I don’t know if he’ll like because it’s just, it’s a waste,” one lower-income mother told Daniel. Parents talked about wanting to serve “real” food, but out of necessity resorting to more dependable, easier-to-love foods such as frozen burritos or Hot Pockets. Whether the rejected food was eaten by another family member, stashed in the fridge, or thrown out entirely, parents mentally counted it as a loss.

Business Insider UK spoke with dietitian Rachel Clare about intermittent fasting and the potential dangers that can have on your quality of life. Full transcript below. Rachel Clare: So lots of people have been talking about the intermittent fasting diet recently mainly because there are small studies that are showing that people do lose weight on the intermittent fasting regime. It can work in different sorts of ways so maybe the normal five days and low calorie two days or they condense all of their meals into eight hours of the day. The studies are often short-term and so it doesn't necessarily say that this is a sustainable way for weight loss and also in my eyes the intermittent fasting affects people's lifestyles a lot and it means that actually if they have a really nice dinner planned with their friends one day but it's the day that they're having 500 calories then what do they do? Do they sacrifice spending time with their friends over this diet which is unlikely to be sustainable? So people are putting their eating habits before general life and prioritizing their diets before socializing. It can even get in the way of work if somebody is not eating properly to give themselves the fuel they need to work productively. It's really affecting people's' relationships with foods but it's also affecting people's relationships with others. Produced by Jasper Pickering. Camera by David Ibekwe and Claudia Romeo. Research by Fraser Moore.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New orders for long-lasting U.S. manufactured goods fell in February as the sector continued to struggle with the lingering effects of a robust dollar and lower oil prices. Washers and dryers are seen on display at a store in New York July 28, 2010. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton While other data on Thursday showed an increase in the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits last week, revisions to the prior weeks’ figures showed the labor market was much stronger than previously thought. The resilience of the labor market has helped calm fears the economy was heading into a recession, and the combination of tightening labor market conditions and firming inflation likely keeps the Federal Reserve on course to steadily raise interest rates this year. “The economy continues to hold its own despite a slowdown in many other countries around the world. The Fed can continue with its policy of gradual rate hikes,” said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at MUFG Union Bank in New York. The Commerce Department said orders for durable goods, items ranging from toasters to aircraft meant to last three years or more, declined 2.8 percent last month after increasing 4.2 percent in January. Durable goods orders have decreased in three of the last four months. Non-defense capital goods orders excluding aircraft, a closely watched proxy for business spending plans, fell 1.8 percent after advancing by a downwardly revised 3.1 percent in January. These so-called core capital goods orders were previously reported to have increased 3.4 percent in January. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast durable goods orders falling 2.9 percent last month and orders for core capital goods slipping 0.1 percent. U.S. stocks fell on the data and weaker oil prices. The dollar rose against a basket of currencies after St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said another U.S. interest rate “may not be far off.” Prices for U.S. Treasuries were mixed. The U.S. central bank increased its short-term interest rate in December for the first time in nearly a decade. SOLID LABOR MARKET In a separate report, the Labor Department said initial claims for state unemployment benefits rose 6,000 to a seasonally adjusted 265,000 for the week ended March 19. The government also revised data going back to 2011, which showed claims generally trending lower than previously reported. Claims for the week ended March 5 were the lowest since November 1973. The low level of claims has economists anticipating another month of strong job gains in March after nonfarm payrolls increased by 242,000 in February. “The U.S. jobs market remains solid. With a tighter jobs market, more people are looking for work and employers are raising wages, both good news for consumer spending and the overall economy in 2016,” said Gus Faucher, deputy chief economist at PNC Financial Services in Pittsburgh. Strong domestic demand is helping to offset some of the drag on manufacturing from weak global consumption. Despite February’s drop in durable goods orders, there are signs the downward spiral in manufacturing is drawing to an end. Several reports in recent days have shown a pick-up in regional factory activity in March, leading to optimism that a broader manufacturing survey will show the sector expanded this month for the first time since September. “We are putting a low weight on this (durable goods orders)report in judging the short-term state of manufacturing activity,” said John Ryding, chief economist at RDQ Economics in New York. Manufacturing, which accounts for 12 percent of the U.S. economy, has been hammered by the buoyant dollar, weak global demand and capital spending cuts by oilfield service firms like Schlumberger (SLB.N) and Halliburton (HAL.N). Efforts by businesses to sell unwanted inventory have also meant fewer orders placed, adding to pressure on factories. But the dollar’s gains versus the currencies of the United States’ main trading partners .DXY have slowed since the start of the year and the oil price slide has become less pronounced. The drop in durable goods orders last month was broad-based. Shipments of core capital goods - used to calculate equipment spending in the gross domestic product report – fell 1.1 percent last month after sliding 1.3 percent in January. Lockheed Martin talent acquisition manager Charles Tulaney (R) greets job applicants at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation "Hiring Our Heroes" military job fair in Washington January 8, 2016. REUTERS/Gary Cameron The February shipments drop led economists to cut their first-quarter GDP growth estimates by as much as four-tenths of a percentage point to as low as a 1.4 percent annualized rate. The economy grew at a 1.0 percent rate in the fourth quarter, according to data released last month. The Commerce Department is due on Friday to release its final fourth-quarter GDP estimate. “GDP growth will not be getting much help from business spending in the near future,” said Tim Quinlan, a senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities in Charlotte, North Carolina.

$300 - M44 mosin nagant modified action and barrel. include old hardware (stock and internal mag well.) $100 - clamp on muzzle break $200 - Archangel OPFOR stock $260 - Weaver 2.5-8 optic $25ea - 2x 10rd mags Free -1x 5rd mag $25 - bi-pod Will trade for: I am open to trades and offers, generally I will give 75% in going price on trades unless it is something I am really looking for or if it is really high value item. Must show PA residence and either have a Carry permit for longguns only or do a transfer at a dealer (at your cost) all pistols have to go through an FFL no exceptions. shipping on your dime is okay I will say this to save us both from wasting time, I am not Gunbroker, I am not desperate to sell, so please don't lowball offers. if the listing is up it is still available, I email back all messages except asking if it still available. please do not send or ask for a phone number I will likely be too busy with work for long calls or be out of coverage area for texting. please chack out my other items here --- https://www.armslist.com/classifieds/search?relatedto=6666728&location=usa

How many Muslims will this ISIS virus be able to infect in the vast European "gray zone"? The answer will determine our future. Even if these polls and surveys must be taken with some caution, they all indicate a deep and vibrant "gray zone," which is feeding the Islamic jihad in Europe and the Middle East. We are talking about millions of Muslims who show sympathy, understanding and affinity with the ideology and goals of ISIS. Among young European Muslims, support for suicide bombings range from 22% in Germany to 29% in Spain, 35% in Britain and 42% in France, according to a Pew poll. In the UK, one in five Muslims have sympathy for the Caliphate. Today more British Muslims join ISIS than the British army. In the Netherlands, a survey shows that the 80% of Dutch Turks see "nothing wrong" in ISIS. In the 1970s and '80s, Europe was terrorized by a war declared by Communist armed groups, such as the Germany's Baader Meinhof or Italy's Red Brigades. Terrorists seemed determined to undermine democracy and capitalism. They targeted dozens of journalists, public officials, professors, economists and politicians, and in Italy in 1978, even kidnapped and executed Italy's former prime minister, Aldo Moro. The big question then was: "How deep is the 'gray zone'?" -- the sympathizers of terrorism in the industrial factories, labor unions and universities. In the last year, the Islamic State's henchmen slaughtered hundreds of Europeans and Westerners. Their last assault, in Brussels, struck at the heart of the West: the postmodern mecca of NATO and the European Union. We should now answer the same question: How deep is the "gray zone" of the Islamic State in Europe? Peggy Noonan recently tried to give an answer in the Wall Street Journal: "There are said to be 1.6 billion Muslims in the world. ... Let's say only 10% of the 1.6 billion harbor feelings of grievance toward 'the West', or desire to expunge the infidel, or hope to re-establish the caliphate. That 10% is 160 million people. Let's say of that group only 10% would be inclined toward jihad. That's 16 million. Assume that of that group only 10% really means it — would really become jihadis or give them aid and sustenance. That's 1.6 million." That is a lot. According to a ComRes report commissioned by the BBC, 27% of British Muslims have sympathy for the terrorists who attacked the Charlie Hebdo office in Paris (12 killed). An ICM poll, released by Newsweek, revealed that 16% of French Muslims support ISIS. The number rises to 27% percent for those aged 18-24. In dozens of French schools, the "minute of silence" to commemorate the murdered Charlie Hebdo's journalists was interrupted by Muslim pupils who protested it. How deep is ISIS's popularity in Belgium? Very deep. The most accurate study is a report from Voices From the Blogs, which highlights the high degree of pro-ISIS sympathy in Belgium. The report monitored and analyzed more than two million Arabic messages around the world via Twitter, Facebook and blogs regarding ISIS's actions in the Middle East. The most enthusiastic comments about ISIS come from Qatar at 47%; then Pakistan, at 35%; third overall is Belgium, where 31% of tweets in Arabic on the Islamic State are positive -- more than Libya (24%), Oman (25%), Jordan (19%), Saudi Arabia (20%) and Iraq (20%). This shocking data exposes the success of the network and its easy pro-ISIS recruitment in Belgium. In other European countries, after Belgium, Britain is at 24%, Spain 21%, France 20%. In the UK, one in five Muslims have sympathy for the Caliphate. Today more British Muslims join ISIS than the British army. In the Netherlands, a survey conducted by Motivaction shows that the 80% of Dutch Turks see "nothing wrong" in ISIS. Among young European Muslims, support for suicide bombings range from 22% in Germany to 29% in Spain, 35% in Britain and 42% in France, according to a Pew poll. The level of ISIS's popularity in the Arab world has been exposed by many surveys: the Clarion Project published a report based on multiple sources a March 2015 poll by the Iraqi Independent Institute for Administration and Civil Society Studies, a November 2014 poll by Zogby Research Services, a November 2014 poll by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, and an October 2014 poll by the Fikra Forum. The result: 42 million people in the Arab world sympathize with ISIS. After the massacre at Charlie Hebdo, Al-Jazeera conducted a survey asking, "Do you support Isis's victories?" 81% of respondents voted "yes." Even if these polls and surveys must be taken with some caution, they all indicate a deep and vibrant "gray zone," which is feeding the Islamic jihad in Europe and the Middle East. We are talking about millions of Muslims who show sympathy, understanding and affinity with the ideology and goals of ISIS. Anthony Glees, an English scholar of political radicalism, revealed the "gray zone" of Germany's Baader-Meinhof terror group: "By 1977, the West German Federal Criminal Agency had a terrorist index which contained the names of some 4.7 million suspects and sympathisers, many of them university students." The terrorist leaders at that time all came from good German families: Andreas Baader was the son of a professor of history, Ulrike Meinhof was the daughter of a museum director and a famous journalist, Gudrun Ensslin was the daughter of an evangelical pastor, Horst Mahler was the son of a judge. The Islamic State today has a much deeper gray zone of sympathizers in the Muslim communities of Europe. In the 1970s and '80s, Europe was terrorized by Communist armed groups, such as the Germany's Baader Meinhof (pictured in black and white), which had a "gray zone" of millions of suspected sympathizers. Today's European jihadists, such the late Paris attack mastermind Abdelhamid Abaaoud (right), have a much deeper "gray zone" of sympathizers in the Muslim communities of Europe. If Baader-Meinhof was at war with the "schweine" (bourgeois "pigs") and targeted specific political figures, the Caliphate's volunteers are at war with all the "kuffar" (unbelievers). ISIS loyalists target the patrons of restaurants, theaters and stadiums in Paris; a café in Copenhagen which held a debate on freedom of expression and Islam; Western tourists at a resort in Tunisia; commuters at the Maelbeek metro station and passengers at the Brussels airport. For ISIS, it is an eternal war in the name of the prophet. As Graeme Wood explained in "What ISIS Really Wants," ISIS "hungers for genocide ... and it considers itself a harbinger of — and headline player in — the imminent end of the world." A book just published in French by Ivan Rioufol, a journalist for the newspaper Le Figaro, eloquently titled "The Coming Civil War," details the dangers posed by the "apocalyptic ideology" of radical Islam in Europe. How many Muslims will this ISIS virus be able to infect in the vast European "gray zone"? The answer will determine our future.

A CHINESE government-controlled mining giant has spent $213 million buying up 43 farms so it can explore for coal outside the NSW township of Gunnedah. The mining boom has triggered an overnight property boom for the rural community 500km northwest of Sydney. A NSW title search reveals that Shenhua Watermark Coal carried out a two-year spending spree in 2009 and 2010, making some of the sellers instant millionaires. Read Next Some of the properties changed hands for 10 times more than their previous sale price. The highest price the Chinese miner paid was $18.3m for 1051ha of land at Curlewis. Shenhua paid $5.2m to a farmer for a house on four lots of land totalling 594ha in Duddy Road, Breeza, last November -- a property that last sold in 2002 for $376,000. A 183ha property along the Kamilaroi Highway at Breeza sold for $1.9m in June 2009 -- more than five times its previous sale price of $350,000. A farmhouse on 535ha that sold for $500,000 in 1993 fetched $9.2m in 2009. Shenhua Watermark Coal -- a subsidiary of the world's biggest coal company, Shenhua Energy -- is seeking NSW government approval for a coalmine on the Liverpool Plains, surrounding Gunnedah. The Chinese government-controlled company has paid the NSW government $300m for an exploration licence covering 19,500ha, and promised not to mine within 150m of the productive "black soil" farming country. But data sourced from the Land Titles Office reveals the company has bought out 43 farmers in the past two years, in another case of a mining company encroaching on farmland. Gunnedah Mayor Adam Marshall said the mining proposal was dividing the community. "Feelings are mixed," Mr Marshall said yesterday. "It's perfectly legal, and some of the people have been able to make some very, very good money out of their properties and are very, very pleased. "The concern is more that the Foreign Investment Review Board allows overseas-owned companies -- and in this case an overseas state-owned company -- to buy Australian land, to mine Australian resources and take them out of our country." Mr Marshall said mining companies had to seek owners' permission before exploratory drilling but Shenhua was free to drill on its own properties. The Chinese coal giant's spending spree slips under the FIRB radar, as the Treasury unit only investigates investments totalling more than $230m. Other multi-million-dollar purchases in the Liverpool Plains have included $12m for 518ha and another $12m for 418ha nearby, $12.5m for 947ha and $5.4m for 424ha of "general farmland". A further $12.5m was spent buying a 120ha farm at Breeza last year; the same property sold in 1997 for $615,000. A 206ha farm that sold for $275,000 in 2005 was bought by the Chinese mining giant six years later for $3.5m. And a 182ha farm at Gunnedah that sold for $405,180 in 2002 was bought by Shenhua for $2.8m. The owners of another Gunnedah property were paid $1.85m -- more than 10 times the $77,864 purchase price in 2004. A lot of "vacant urban land" at Nea that sold for $500,000 in 2008 was bought for $4.65m last June. The company also snapped up three houses in Gunnedah.

‘Debt trap’: Greek workers reject austerity program Published Jan 7, 2010 4:49 PM Thousands of Greek workers took to the streets in 63 cities on Dec. 17, called out by unions protesting a government austerity program. The All-Workers Militant Front (PAME), which is close to the Greek Communist Party, and Syriza, the Coalition of the Radical Left, supported the action. This strong workers’ action took place in Greece, but it was provoked by a worldwide attack on the working class. This affects workers especially in the countries hit hardest by the global capitalist economic crisis, including some countries that maintained a veneer of prosperity through borrowing but are now falling into what is called a “debt trap.” This prosperity mainly benefited the wealthy, already prosperous elites that controlled countries like Dubai and Greece. But budget deficits in the world’s industrialized countries have more than tripled since the financial crisis shook the world in 2008. Economists say that a country is in a “debt trap” when its public debt is greater than what it produces in a year — all the goods and services created in its internal economy, its GDP — and its economy is not growing fast enough to pay the interest on its debt. Greece’s public debt was 113 percent of its GDP in 2009 and is forecast to be 125 percent of its GDP in 2010. Its economy shrank by 1.1 percent in 2009 and is forecast to decline a bit in 2010. It most definitely is in a debt trap. (Figures from Eurostat.) The big imperialist banks are only lending to their most affluent and stable customers. Thus, companies and customers have turned to the bond market for the cash they need to operate. Moody’s and S&P, two bond ratings agencies, recently downgraded Greece’s bonds. Greece’s new Socialist Party government won the Oct. 4 elections on a platform to tax the rich and help the poor. When it was faced with an edict from the European Central Bank after its credit rating was cut, Prime Minister George Papandreou didn’t hesitate to announce an austerity program. He planned to cut spending on health by 10 percent, freeze salaries over $3,000 a month and impose a freeze on hiring. The government also called out 10,000 cops to repress the demonstration in Athens. PAME’s banner on the façade of the Finance Ministry read, “Arise! The government and the plutocracy are dismantling Social Security.” (L’Humanité, Dec. 17) Greece is not the only country in Western Europe whose economy is weighed down by debt. Italy’s debt at the end of 2008, the last period for which Eurostat has data, was 105 percent of its GDP. Portugal, which has kept its debt within the Eurozone limits, has had no growth. Ireland has seen its economy shrink by 7 to 8 percent since the financial crisis started and the Irish government has committed to $4 billion worth of budget cuts, including slashing salaries for 400,000 public employees. Spain’s overall unemployment rate is 19.3 percent, with a youth unemployment rate of 39.2 percent. The rates for youth, which include people from the age of 16 up to age 25, range from 18.5 percent in Portugal to 24 to 27 percent in Ireland, Greece and Italy. None of these five countries has a central bank like the Federal Reserve in the U.S., so none could adopt a stimulus package like the one the U.S. put together to attempt to boost its economy. In order for the local capitalists to get the advantages of participating in the world’s largest market in the Eurozone, they had to give up a major part of their sovereign control of their economies and the ability to serve the needs of their citizens. Germany and France, the dominant imperialist economic powers in the European Union, have effective control of the European Central Bank. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, representing German bankers, said the following about Greece’s problems: “It would be misplaced solidarity if we were to support Greece with financial help.” (Reuters, Dec. 30) Of course, this “misplaced solidarity” might keep people from going homeless or hungry, but that is not really the concern of the German ruling class.

The world lost one of its most joyful and beloved entertainers yesterday with the passing of Gene Wilder at the age of 83. The star of The Producers, Blazing Saddles, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Young Frankenstein, Stir Crazy and many more memorably hilarious films, Wilder was an endearing, soulful comedy icon. News of his death from complications due to Alzheimer’s disease hit his fans quite hard, especially since few knew he’d been suffering from the disease. And as his nephew has revealed, the reason most were unaware of his condition was that Wilder didn’t want his own hardship to diminish the happiness he and his movies continued to bring to fans. Related: Gene Wilder, 1933-2016: His Most Memorable Roles In a new interview with NPR’s Robert Siegel, Wilder’s nephew Jordan Walker-Pearlman explains that his uncle kept his Alzheimer’s diagnosis a secret because he feared that, were it to become public, it would begin to interfere with his ability to bring smiles to people’s faces even in retirement. “This decision was not as a result of vanity,” said Walker-Pearlman. “There were times we would go out to dinner as a family and children would light up at the sight of him and smile. And because he never lost his instinct or sense or sensibility, it occurred to him that if that disease were made public … that then after that smile, some parent may then say something about disease or sadness. And he was such that he could not bear to be responsible for one less smile in the world.” Related: Gene Wilder: A Critical Appreciation of an Impeccably Anxious Comedian As it turns out, lots of children often still recognized Wilder, even decades after his 1971 turn as the charismatic candy-maker Willy Wonka. “Particularly in the last year or two, the restaurants we would go to, which sometimes would be more family restaurants than where he would take me back in the day, there would be children there,” said Walker-Pearlman. “And they always recognized him, and they always had that smile, that look of wonder. And he would never want to take that look of wonder away from them.” Wilder himself discussed fans’ continuing love for Willy Wonka when he sat down with Robert Osborne at New York City’s 92nd Street Y in 2013, confessing (in the video below) that even decades later, “they stop me all the time with that one” — and revealing that he continued to receive up to five letters a day from admirers asking for an autographed picture of him in character. In that 2013 chat, Wilder recounts how, on Willy Wonka, he was the one who suggested to director Mel Stuart that his character make his now-famous cane-enabled entrance. That attention to detail was emblematic of the actor’s approach to his candy-man role, as evidenced by a handwritten letter from him to Stuart (via Entertainment Weekly) in which he proposed exhaustive ideas regarding the costume he’d wear in the film. Wilder’s decision to keep his affliction private isn’t surprising when one also considers that, in 2000, he was (according to People magazine) similarly reluctant to divulge that he was undergoing treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which he first learned he had a year earlier. No doubt that diagnosis hit exceptionally close to home, given that his third wife, comedian Gilda Radner, died of ovarian cancer in 1989 at the age of 42. Wilder established the nationwide cancer support network Gilda’s Club in her memory. Wilder is survived by his fourth wife, Karen Webb, as well as his daughter, Katharine. He’ll be missed by anyone who ever smiled at one of his many masterful performances.

Dr. Eric Belin de Chantemele, physiologist in the Vascular Biology Center and associate professor in the Department of Medicine at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University, suggests doctors prescribe drugs to target the hormone aldosterone to benefit women with hypertension. Photo by Phil Jones Aug. 2 (UPI) -- A recent study by the Medical College of Georgia found that medications to block the hormone aldosterone may greatly benefit hypertensive women. Aldosterone is a hormone more abundant in women than men, however, high levels of aldosterone can cause damage to the cardiovascular system. However, obesity and diabetes can make levels of aldosterone skyrocket and can be a major driver of hypertension. "We are finding more evidence that higher aldosterone levels in women translate to higher blood pressure and that the most effective way to treat hypertensive women likely is to target this hormone and its receptor," Dr. Eric Belin de Chantemele, physiologist in the Vascular Biology Center and associate professor in the Department of Medicine at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University, said in a press release. Belin de Chantemele began studying aldosterone five years ago in mice that were hypersensitive to the satiety hormone leptin. "What we observed is that their aldosterone level was sky high," Belin de Chantemele said. While aldosterone also has a positive role in regulating blood pressure, high levels of the steroid hormone are associated with adverse affects on the cardiovascular system like inflammation and blood vessel stiffness and scarring. The study, which was presented this week at the 38th World Congress of the International Union of Physiological Sciences, shows that drugs to block aldosterone may benefit women with hypertension. Belin de Chantemele suggests that if aldosterone levels are high, doctors should prescribe drugs designed to directly target the hormone's receptor.

James Harden and his beard will make their return to Oklahoma City on Wednesday, his only scheduled visit there with the Houston Rockets this season. The Oklahoma City Thunder's famous fans are expected to give him a rousing ovation and there may even be a few of those old tribute beards dotting the stands. But while honoring the past, there should be something noted about the present: The kids are all right. There was widespread belief the Thunder's controversial preseason Harden trade would deal a blow to their chances of returning to the Finals. The final answer on that will not be firm until later, of course. But by the numbers and within the locker room, it's hard to notice they have missed a beat even though they have a different look and a slightly different style of play in the early going this season. In fact, in several regards they are performing at a higher level than they did last season. After a sluggish 1-2 start, Oklahoma City has won 10 of 12 and is not showing it's missing its former Sixth Man of the Year. The Thunder have the third-most effective offense in the league thus far, even with ESPN.com's John Hollinger tearing at the inefficiency in their starting lineup last week. "After the trade, it was come in and do your job," Thunder coach Scott Brooks said. "We said, 'This is what we need from you guys,' and they've done that." Last season with Harden, the Thunder averaged 107 points per 100 possessions, shot 47 percent overall and were second in the league in getting to the foul line at 26 times per game. Harden and his 16.8 scoring average, 49 percent shooting and 6 free throws per game were a big part of it.

Destiny Church's Brian Tamaki stood ankle deep in cash at the church's annual conference on Saturday. A controversial American preacher who has faced allegations he sexually abused young men during a previous trip to New Zealand urged Destiny Church followers to "repent, repent, repent" at their annual conference. American evangelist Eddie Long was the guest of honour at Destiny's annual get together at the "City of God" in Manukau, south Auckland, which attracted about 1000 followers who paid $120 for a weekend pass. "To ease the burden in the head . . . repent, repent, repent, repent . . ," Long said on Saturday morning. SIMON MAUDE / FAIRFAX NZ American preacher Eddie Long, centre, preaches to Destiny Church attendees as Bishop Brian Tamaki, left, and wife Hannah cheer him on. Standing just metres away in the church's hangar sized 'Sanctuary', ankle deep in tithed banknotes, stood self-appointed Destiny Church 'Bishop' Brian Tamaki who had invited Long as a special guest to the church's weekend Australasian 'Invasion' conference. READ MORE: * Founder's sex scandal threatens mega-church * Beleaguered pastor suspends preaching * Church attacked for Jesus tweet * Destiny criticised for flashing cash Both men refused to answer questions over Long's suitability to preach given past sexual abuse allegations. DON SCOTT / FAIRFAX NZ "Let's face it, all churches are good at covering this stuff up, so I suppose they don't see it as anything wrong," Ken Clearwater said. In 2010, several young men of Long's New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in US state Georgia, sued staunchly anti-gay Long for alleged grooming and sexual abuse, some of which allegedly happened in New Zealand. By 2011 four lawsuits resulting from those allegations, according to US media, were all subsequently dismissed, unable to proceed in court. The four former members of a youth group Long ran had accused him of repeatedly coercing them into homosexual sex acts, and of abusing his moral authority over them while plying them with cash, new cars, lodging and lavish trips overseas trips including, for one of the four, a trip to New Zealand. SIMON MAUDE / FAIRFAX NZ Following Long's preaching, Destiny Church 'Invasion' conference attendees enjoyed a Kanyesque style christian hip hop jam. Maurice Robinson's lawsuit alleged Long lavished attention on him. Robinson was rewarded with a Chevy Malibu before him and Long travelled to New Zealand in 2008 – during that trip where Robinson turned 18, they began a sexual relationship. Manager of Male Survivors of Sexual Abuse Ken Clearwater said the unresolved historic allegations against Long are concerning and Bishop Brian Tamaki is turning a blind eye. In 2010, Tamaki, who considers Long his 'spiritual father', said he was shocked by the allegations but had reserved judgment on Long. On Saturday Tamaki's spokespeople refused media access to the 'Invasion' event which borrows its theme from Long's approach to mentoring young men. In an effort to get a response from Tamaki and Long Stuff attended the Manukau, South Auckland event, but was once again refused an interview with the men. "Let's face it, all churches are good at covering this stuff up, so I suppose they don't see it as anything wrong," Clearwater, a sexual abuse survivor himself, said. It was easier in America for people in positions of power to bargain their way out of such cases, he said. A beautiful powhiri to welcome Bishop Eddie L. Long, First Lady Vanessa + the New Birth team! It's all on now! pic.twitter.com/fODvup2GFq — Destiny Church (@DestinyChurchNZ) June 1, 2016 Clearwater said because Long had never been convicted it was difficult to stop him appearing in public. "You can only go on hearsay." Brian Tamaki had "definitely turned a blind eye. It's no different to how the Catholic church has turned a blind eye to child abuse...they don't want to know that stuff. If this guy is a mentor of his he's definitely not going to say anything bad against him." He said when celebrities accused of sex abuse continued to appear in public it was "massively" tough for the victims. "It re-traumatises them. They get angry and think, 'what's the point of coming forward?'" Meanwhile, Destiny continue to seek new revenue streams, releasing mobile phone covers for sale at the conference this week. The his and hers models feature quotes from Hannah and Brian Tamaki. "I don't just blend into the crowd," said Hannah's, while Brian's said: "I'm not born to live and do nothing."

Police arrested a man in front of the United States Capitol in Washington, DC on Wednesday afternoon after he landed a small gyrocopter on the west lawn of the building. Eyewitnesses near the US Capitol saw police rush to a greenery on the east end of the National Mall early Wednesday afternoon after the craft landed. The pilot was apprehended at the scene. Small helicopter — it looks like it was in C.H.I.P.S. or something — has landed on the West lawn of the Capitol. pic.twitter.com/jFsh7b0o9W — Matt Fuller (@MEPFuller) April 15, 2015 Police have not yet identified the man, but the aircraft’s pilot is said to be 61-year-old Doug Hughes of Florida. According to a Tampa Bay Times profile of the man, published as his flight began on Wednesday, the event was meant to protest the Supreme Court’s 2012 decision in the Citizens United case. “The US Capitol Police is investigating a gyro copter with a single occupant that has landed on the grassy area of the West Lawn of t‎he US Capitol,” Capitol Police Lt. Kimberly Schneider said in a statement to CNN. “The US Capitol Police continues to investigate with one person detained and temporary street closures in the immediate area.” The newspaper had published a profile about Hughes on account of his plans to “draw attention” to the Citizens United case in which the high court ruled that corporations can contribute endlessly to political causes. “I'm not promoting myself,” Hughes told the paper prior to its publication. “I’m trying to direct millions of people to information, to a menu of organizations that are working together to fix Congress.” Here's a photo as the first police officer arrived on the West Front of the Capitol pic.twitter.com/r4hysBbCuU — Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree) April 15, 2015 According to the paper, Hughes had brought his gyrocopter from Florida to an area outside of DC late last week. On Wednesday, he planned to “to buzz through the air at 45 miles per hour at about 300 feet up in an ultralight gyrocopter toward Washington, D.C., toward protected airspace, where, if his plan works, he'll land on the lawn of the United States Capitol building and deliver the mail,” journalist Ben Montgomery wrote. “We're heading full-throttle toward a breakdown,” Hughes told the paper of the Citizens United case. “There's no question that we need government, but we don't have to accept that it's a corrupt government that sells out to the highest bidder. We can have a government that works for the people, that answers to the people, that can only take money from the people in small amounts.” “I don't believe that the authorities are going to shoot down a 61-year-old mailman in a flying bicycle,” Hughes told the paper. “I don't have any defense, okay, but I don't believe that anybody wants to personally take responsibility for the fallout.” You can see U.S. Capitol police, crouching behind Capitol rails, with their automatic guns drawn. pic.twitter.com/1NzEbubTnP — Matt Fuller (@MEPFuller) April 15, 2015 The Times described the gyrocopter as lightweight aircraft fitted with un-powered helicopter blades on top for lift and propeller on the back for thrust with a wide-open cockpit. "This is as transparent a vehicle that I could come up with," Hughes said. "You can literally see through it." Congressional staffers reported that the area was placed on lockdown on Wednesday as authorities rushed to apprehend the pilot and make sense of the scene. According to a local ABC News affiliate, the White House was also placed on lockdown as a precautionary measure.

Recently, in a statement issued on its official website, People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has announced a plan to launch its own digital currency. In light of this big news from China, Cointelegraph conducted a survey of industry experts to hear what they think of the move and how it affects the cryptocurrency market. Centralized Currency vs. CryptoCurrency? If PBOC launches its own digital currency, will it have anything to do with cryptography at all? Can a centralized virtual currency ever compete with cryptocurrency where no third party involvement exists? Tone Vays, head of research at BraveNewCoin, thinks this move from the PBOC has nothing to do with cryptocurrency at all. He said: “The PBOC already has a Digital Currency, it's called the Yuan. The only difference will be the elimination of physical bills. It will have absolutely nothing in common with bitcoin and will never compete with the only use case the Bitcoin Blockchain currently has - Permissionless Value Transfer." Jeffrey A Tucker, who is a distinguished fellow of the Foundation for Economic Education believes: “A government starting a crypto-currency today is a bit like the post office starting its own email in 1995. They can do it but getting people to choose a centralized public version over the decentralized market version is the real challenge. I don't believe that the Bank of China or any other central bank is up to it.” Manie Eagar, founder of the BlockChain lab, added, “They have seen what bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have done in their market which was their initial fear - they cannot control it - they expect it to be compliant, taxable, auditable etc.” Improved Centralized Virtual Currency? Would a centralized virtual currency like this work better than the traditional banking system? Patrick Dugan, a board member of Omni Foundation, thinks it will carry all the disadvantages of a banking system other than maybe faster processing time: “The Chinese economy might just do ok, and it will be continue to be pretty big, so this is a huge gesture that shows centralized authorities, highlighted by the CCP who are the foremost Leninist organization on the planet, are taking blockchain technology seriously. It will carry all of the disadvantages of banking except for perhaps slow processing times.” Jure Pirc president of Bitcoin Association Slovenia said: “If the national bank adopts blockchain and issues its own cryptocurrency, it’s a step in the right direction but only if the ledger is public.” When asked, how relevant the claim from governments that bitcoin can abet money laundering and fund banned organisations is, Tone Vays from BraveNewCoin said: "Money Laundering has become the biggest go to phrase for indebted western governments in order to make sure they collect every penny of tax revenue or confiscate people's wealth to stay in power. Bitcoin takes away their ability to enforce financial regulation and that is why no western government will ever adopt the only viable public Blockchain unless it goes through a 1930's style collapse." Threat to Bitcoin? Is a country launching a centralized virtual currency a threat to cryptocurrencies? Simon Dixon, the CEO of BnktotheFuture.com thinks it doesn’t stand a chance. He said: “Crypto Currency does not need governments to make them work better. Bitcoin works very well because it is not issued by a government and is regulated by maths and code which is less corruptible than a office full of people developing regulations and policies who are all capable of corrupting the currency to support a certain agenda” Alireza Beikverdi , co-founder at Bitholla said: “It is a large market. It can affect bitcoin mining for sure which definitely influences the price and nothing more than that. PBOC's new digital currency does not really compete with decentralized digital currencies such as bitcoin. It’s only a small improvement in digital banking.” Will more countries follow the example of China? Jure Pirc thinks:

The 75-second clip on polarizing political campaigning had been widely circulated on social media Highlights Activist says 75-second ad appears to promote hatred against Muslims Video targets Congress but does not refer directly to it or BJP Election body orders probe, says video seems professionally produced A human rights activist has complained to the Election Commission about a video circulating on social media platforms that is seen as an attempt to polarize the political campaign in Gujarat ahead of next month's elections.Govind Parmar has told the poll panel that the 75-second clip appears to promote hatred against Muslims and should be banned.The state's chief electoral officer BB Swain has ordered a police probe to ascertain the origin of the video. Mr Parmar told NDTV that this shouldn't be difficult since the video seemed to have been professionally produced. You just need to trace the actors in the video, he said.Activists say the video, which ends with the message "your vote, your security" seems to play on the fears and distrust between communities. It starts with the message: "This is what can happen post 7 pm in Gujarat''. A young girl is shown walking hurriedly on a public road with a sound similar to azzan, or the Islamic call to worship, heard in the background. She reaches home to the relief of her worried parents. Her mother looks at the camera and says, "Surprised that this is Gujarat?" The father adds: "This was Gujarat 22 years ago. And this can happen again if they return." "But don't worry, no one will come because here it's Modi" says the daughter.The source of the video advertisement is not known. It doesn't directly refer to the BJP or Congress. But the BJP has been in power for 22 straight years in the state. The Congress was last in power in the state in 1995 but it later supported Shankarsinh Vaghela as Chief Minister after he broke away from the BJP and formed the Rashtriya Janata Party. Gujarat's Chief Electoral Officer BB Swain said he had received the complaint and ordered an inquiry by the Cyber Crime Cell of Ahmedabad.

Note: When the promo was filmed, our school's tech office was closed. When we film the actual pilot, we will have access to legitimate professional equipment. Essentially, the show is The Office, but instead of the protagonists' job consisting of paper management, the stars of Comedy[comma]Sketch must accomplish the daunting task of coming up with sketches for a television pilot. We, then, are presented with the finished product, AKA the sketches. This merging of the classical narrative-driven shorts with the new reality-style movement allows for one of the most diverse melting pots of humor ever put to screen! The pilot episode was written by Asher Refailov, a senior attending The Santa Fe University of Art and Design. In fact, every single member (crew and cast) of C,S attends the South Western art school (though some have recently graduated). Comedy (,) Sketch is a grandiose collaboration project that weaves itself through every department of the college, utilizing the up-and-coming talent in each appropriate medium (all design work will be done by design students, acting by theater, etc) Currently, the script is halfway into the third draft. It consists of 10 individual sketches and about half-a-dozen scenes in the Acting Lab (where the 'writers' pitch their ideas to one another). At a whopping 75 pages, this is going to be a large effort on all our parts, and why we need you! (I had to say it, sorry). But, really, film costs a lot of money, and though the script caters to that (I wrote all the sketches from a near-nothing budget perspective), there will still be many, many expenses. Any contribution will help, even if it is just to share it on your facebook or twitter or friends who may be interested, whatever. In terms of specific influences, Commady Sketch takes much (in terms of humor styles) from The Whitest Kids U'Know, South Park, Mr. Show, Arrested Development, Flying Circus and The Office. We really are going for diversity here. We see humor as an art form and try to mash and contort and tweak it until we end up with something you can only label as experimental humor. We are all incredibly excited to work on this project. It is going to be a blast peppered with delicious lessons. We will conquer the odds and complete what is said to be the impossible: selling a TV show (and still being in college). Release date: Spring 2012 Written, Directed, Edited by Asher Refailov Other sketches by: Julien Seredowych, AJ Brown Starring: Michael Pepp, Liane Pippin, Corbin Albaugh, Michael Curtis, Garner Jarrett, Tallis Geohegan Freifeld, Torian N'Jaka, Maddi Knox

BEFORE WE GET INTO IT, let me make one thing clear. This intervention is not aimed at those with life-threatening food allergies or similarly grave medical conditions. I would never question people whose faces will balloon if they ingest trace amounts of shellfish. Or people who risk going into anaphylactic shock with a whiff of peanut dust. Or people whose ingestion of a smidge of gluten will send their bodies on an autoimmune witch hunt that over time will eat away at the lining of their small intestines and potentially lead to everything from infertility to cancer. Those problems are very real, and everyone who is afflicted with one or more of them has my sympathy. I’m talking about the rest of you. Those of you who don’t eat garlic because you detest its smell or avoid cauliflower because it makes you fart or have gone gluten-free because you heard it worked wonders for Jennifer Aniston or Lady Gaga or Dave, your toned instructor from spin class. When you settle into your seat at a restaurant, don’t be shy about telling your server your food preferences. By all means, ask if your dish can be prepared garlic-free or cauliflower-free or gluten-free. You’re paying good money, so you should get the meal that you want, not one that leaves you riding home in a foul mood and a plume of fetid air. The days of the imperious no-substitutions chef, telling you to take it or leave it, now seem as dated as a rerun of that Seinfeld “Soup Nazi” episode from 20 years ago. Advertisement But for the love of Julia Child and the sake of every other soul in the restaurant, particularly the underpaid line cooks sweating their way through another Saturday night shift, please, please stop describing your food preferences as an allergy. That is a very specific medical term, and invoking it triggers an elaborate, time-consuming protocol in any self-respecting kitchen. It shouldn’t be tossed around as liberally as the sea salt on the house-made (gluten-free) breadsticks. Get Today's Headlines in your inbox: The day's top stories delivered every morning. Sign Up Thank you for signing up! Sign up for more newsletters here I know you want your dietary preferences to be taken seriously, and you think invoking the A-word is a harmless little white lie. But you have no idea how much trouble you’re causing and how much you’re helping to erode hard-won progress for people with genuine allergies and disorders. In a stunningly short slice of history, we’ve gone from food allergies being met with ignorance or indifference in the restaurant world to their domination of the discussion between server and diner, starting with the greeting and continuing all the way to dessert. The seriousness with which most chefs now take allergies has opened up the restaurant experience to a whole group of people who previously couldn’t risk dining out. That progress should be celebrated. But it shouldn’t be taken for granted. And we’ve come to a tipping point, thanks to the explosion of faddists and bandwagon-jumpers and attention-seekers who wrap their food dislikes in the packaging of allergy and disease. After witnessing enough diners who make a big fuss about how their bodies can’t tolerate gluten and then proceed to order a beer or dig into their date’s brownie dessert, fatigued chefs and managers are beginning to adopt a less accommodating approach. But the people who may ultimately pay the price for this pushback won’t be the “free-from” fabulists. They’ll be those with serious conditions. Roots of gluten This isn’t just my opinion. The physician-researcher who put gluten on the map in America and the parent-activist who led the crusade that transformed how seriously this country takes food allergies both admitted to me that they can’t believe how much things have gotten out of hand. Advertisement When Dr. Alessio Fasano came to the United States from his native Italy in the 1990s, the prevailing view in medicine was that celiac disease — the autoimmune disorder triggered by eating the gluten protein composite in wheat, barley, and rye — effectively didn’t exist here. It was a problem only for European kids. Through a meticulous years-long study, Fasano demonstrated that, in fact, 1 percent of Americans have the disease, cutting across all ages and races. Suzanne Kreiter/Globe staff Dr. Alessio Fasano, who put celiac disease on the map in the United States, is troubled that so many people are diagnosing themselves with gluten intolerance. Yet Fasano, who founded the Center for Celiac Research now at Massachusetts General Hospital, never could have predicted the market-fueled tsunami of me-too-ism that his findings would release. “We were so good,” he says, “that we lost control.” That’s why I’ve called you here today. So grab a dairy-free, soy-free, gluten-free snack and sit back to learn how we got so off-track and what we need to do to regain control. ONE WINTER NIGHT IN 1986, a Brown University freshman joined her friends for dinner at Montana, a popular restaurant at the edge of campus. The Tex-Mex BBQ place was so well known for its beef ribs that the word was marbled into its phone number (273-RIBS). Its other signature menu item was chili — good enough to have won a best-in-Providence contest. As a nationally ranked squash player, Kate Brodsky had won her share of contests as well. She also had a very serious peanut allergy, so she had learned to ask before ordering any dish that was likely to contain nuts. But that didn’t seem necessary with the chili. Advertisement After taking her second bite around 7:30 p.m., the 18-year-old felt ill. Rather than go to the hospital, she asked to be taken back to her dorm room. She didn’t get to the hospital until 9:30 p.m. By 10:55 p.m., the Ivy League student with the limitless future was dead. The agent was Montana’s prizewinning chili, which, it turned out, contained peanut butter as a thickener. This death-by-chili tragedy, which attracted coverage in The New York Times and the wire services, ricocheted around the country. Even if there had been earlier deaths, the shocking circumstances turned Brodsky into a sort of Patient Zero of restaurant food-allergy victims, a chilling reminder of how easily the neighborhood bistro could become a deathtrap. Nonetheless, the story soon faded, and it would be a couple of years before these kinds of fatalities were examined in the medical literature. Carol Rosenblatt, who owned Montana with her husband, tells me that as much as she believes Brodsky would still be alive if the young woman had gone immediately to the hospital, she continues to feel awful about what happened. “Just thinking about what the family was going through, losing a child,” Rosenblatt says, “you can’t help but identify.” Around the same time as Brodsky’s death, a Virginia mother of two and former researcher for Time-Life Books was figuring out how to protect her 2-year-old daughter from a similar fate. Anne Munoz-Furlong’s younger daughter, Mariel, had been diagnosed at age 9 months with a serious allergy to eggs and milk. For nearly two years after that diagnosis, Munoz-Furlong learned the hard way just how often these ingredients were hiding in unlikely foods. It was trial by projectile vomit. Graham Smith Food Allergy Network founder Anne Munoz-Furlong, who led one of the most effective citizen crusades in recent memory, fears that fakers may jeopardize allergy progress in restaurants. When her family traveled, they would reduce the odds of accidental exposure by eating in the hotel restaurant every night, ordering plain white rice for Mariel. The cautious approach didn’t always work. On the third night eating at one hotel restaurant, after her daughter had suffered repeated bad reactions, she called over the chef to try to figure out what could possibly be happening with the white rice. “I felt sorry that the food was so bland,” the chef confessed, “so I added a pat of butter to give it some flavor.” That, Munoz-Furlong says, “is when I realized how eating out in a restaurant is such a leap of faith.” By 1991, she had founded the Food Allergy Network, an advocacy group arming parents with information to keep their afflicted children safe and lobbying food manufacturers to disclose all of their ingredients. She began FAN with a focus on the food served in schools, then moved on to the packaged food industry. Only later did she turn her attention to the dining-out scene, figuring “You can live without going to restaurants.” Along the way, she withstood ferocious criticism. Peanut farmers accused her of killing their livelihoods. PB&J-loving parents accused her of being a worrywart whose campaign was leading to the peanut bans that would become standard in schools around the country. With assists from “Dear Abby” and others, Munoz-Furlong led what became one of the most effective citizen crusades since Ralph Nader shamed Detroit into taking safety seriously. Despite the accusations by peanut farmers, Munoz-Furlong had never been a radical. She didn’t pressure restaurants to stop serving certain foods, only to be transparent about ingredients and vigilant about cross contamination. And she urged allergic people to be reasonable. If they had a shellfish allergy, she advised them to avoid seafood restaurants altogether, rather than ordering chicken at one of them. The word “allergy” has been around only since 1906, when Austrian pediatrician Clemens von Pirquet coined it to describe altered biological reactivity. It didn’t gain traction until the mid-1920s, when it took on a big-tent definition describing reactions to everything from food and insect stings to mold and hay fever, says medical historian Matthew Smith, author of the new book Another Person’s Poison: A History of Food Allergy. For most of the 20th century, research-focused “orthodox” allergists, who insisted on a definition requiring a measurable immune reaction, battled with more flexible food allergists, whose main focus was bringing relief to their patients’ hypersensitivities. The peanut wars of the 1990s brought heightened visibility to the battle. In 2009, Massachusetts led the nation as the first state to require restaurants to undergo allergy training, followed by Rhode Island. A year later, Paul Antico, a former Fidelity portfolio manager from Cohasset, started AllergyEats, a Yelp-type website, and now also an app, where customers rate restaurants based on how seriously they take allergies. As the father of five, three with food allergies, Antico wanted to give families the freedom to eat out without paralyzing fear. The site now has tens of thousands of user reviews of restaurants from around the country. Allergy advocacy culminated with the 2013 law signed by President Obama — whose older daughter has a peanut allergy — pushing schools to stockpile anaphylaxis-combating auto-injecting epinephrine EpiPens. Today, an estimated 4 percent of American adults — or around 10 million — are believed to have food allergies. The percentage is higher for children, 5 percent or more, although many kids will outgrow allergies to milk, egg, wheat, and soy. The other four biggies — peanuts, tree nuts, fish, and shellfish — are more likely to endure. Catering just to the gluten-free subset (technically, celiac and gluten sensitivity aren’t allergies) represents an estimated $23 billion-a-year market. In his presentation to restaurateurs, Antico argues that appealing to the allergy crowd can pay off in dollars and cents. The market, he says, is much bigger than just people with diagnosed allergies. He cites a Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology study that found a whopping 30 percent of Americans believe they have a food allergy. Still, even he acknowledges the excesses. “There are people who fake allergies, and that stinks,” he says. “We, as the food allergy community, have to be respectful of what the restaurant goes through and be thankful that they’re willing to slow down the entire machine on a busy Saturday night to address our needs.” Munoz-Furlong stresses that consumers need to know the harm they’re causing when they phrase their food preferences in the form of an allergy. Not long ago, she laid into an acquaintance who had told their waiter, “I am allergic to peppers,” then confided to Munoz-Furlong, “I just hate peppers.” “People have to understand why it took us so long to get restaurants up to speed,” she says. “It was like getting an ocean liner to change course. We don’t want to go backward because the restaurant industry can’t trust that people are really being honest.” Dina Rudick/Globe Staff Chef Michael Leviton at Lumiere in Newton says if diners are honest about what’s a food preference and what’s an allergy, everyone will be better off. IT’S 5:15 ON A RECENT FRIDAY evening at Lumiere, the upscale restaurant in West Newton run by noted chef Michael Leviton. Right now, just one of the burgundy-and-cream banquettes is occupied, though soon all 88 seats will be filled. The tiny kitchen is already humming. It takes hours of prep work for a restaurant with an ambitious menu to run smoothly on a busy night. The little black ticket machine in the kitchen spits out a takeout order for a chicken dish. In red block lettering, the ticket reads GLUTEN ALLERG. As special requests go, this one is easy. The machine will occasionally produce a ticket with so many allergy notations in red that it stretches as long as a supermarket receipt from a stock-up-and-save sale. Every time the cooks see the word “allergy,” they have to assume the customer’s condition is life-threatening. The big danger is cross contamination, where an allergen is inadvertently transferred from one dish to another, often through a shared cutting board or utensil, or through the oil in the fryer or even food dust in the air. That means with every allergy, the action must stop in this kitchen jammed with cooks and dishwashers. The cooks consult a printed breakdown of ingredients in each dish to make sure the allergen isn’t hiding out in a component. They either grab new cutting boards, knives, and tongs or put theirs through the sanitizing dishwasher. And when the plate is done, they use disposable wipes to hold it by the edge. Imagine doing that repeatedly across a breathless night, disrupting the choreography of the kitchen each time. I asked numerous chefs how many tables have a diner asking for these special accommodations on a typical night, and I heard estimates ranging from 10 percent to a jaw-dropping 60 percent. Now imagine that a diner whose “serious dairy allergy” required you to take all those time-consuming steps decides to finish her meal by ordering ice cream, telling her server that it’s OK if she “cheats a little.” This, Leviton says, happens all the time. He has no problem if a customer says, “I’m not eating gluten” or “I’m avoiding dairy.” The kitchen will make sure those ingredients aren’t in the dish. But they won’t be wasting time taking unnecessary steps. “We’re jumping through a different level of hoop,” he says. Still, he stresses that people must have realistic expectations. If they come in with no early notice, proffering a card listing “15 different things they’re allergic to,” he says, “there’s not an awful lot we can do on a Saturday night at 7:30.” Moreover, Leviton emphasizes that, as much as they work with extreme caution, they don’t cook in a vacuum. “We make bread in the same tiny kitchen we make everything else in,” he says, noting that it’s not as if the kitchen is being steam-cleaned to remove all flour dust. Most people who are “super-hyper-allergic,” he says, would stay away from restaurants because they know that just one tiny mistake could prove fatal. That fear of a customer being carried out on a stretcher forces chefs to be vigilant. But the growing worry is that, as they run around addressing the needs of exaggerators and outright fakers, they might slip up on a customer with a genuinely deadly allergy. Is it any surprise that more and more chefs are hitting their boiling points? Kenny Shopsin, the cantankerous owner of the famed New York diner bearing his name, has bragged that when customers tell him they’re deathly allergic to something, he kicks them out, only to hear many confess that they’re not “that allergic.” This frustration with fakers has occasionally led to recklessness. Recall what a former cook at the Tavern on the Green in New York’s Central Park copped to a few years back. Alleging that customers’ gluten problems were all in their “disturbed little heads,” Damian Cardone boasted he had made a habit of secretly giving anyone ordering gluten-free pasta the normal stuff with gluten and that they were no worse for it. (He seemed clueless that the most serious damage that celiac patients suffer takes place over time, not immediately.) Then there was the waitress who posted an anonymous screed on Reddit that went viral. It began: “A server will never say this to your face but we all know your gluten allergy is fake. . . . You are just on a gluten-free diet and want attention.” When I track down the author, Chelsea Welch, she admits she had written the post in frustration, after witnessing too much nonsense as a waitress in an Italian restaurant in St. Louis. The 21-year-old former waitress, who was once fired from Applebee’s for exposing a pastor as a tip cheapskate and who now goes by the name Ferris McEvoy, describes being a server as “a balancing act between pleasing the customer and not pissing off the kitchen.” Because servers are so dependent on tips, customers who make unreasonable requests “are dangling the server’s pay in front of them.” Lately, the allergy pushback has been coming from more prominent quarters. At the end of last year, as the European Union prepared to enact a law requiring restaurants to disclose every possible ingredient used in their meals, 100 of Europe’s top chefs joined forces in protest. “It’s a total fiasco,” former BBC MasterChef winner Thomasina Miers told the Telegraph, noting that she herself suffered from a serious allergy. “It’s the responsibility of the allergee to ask, not the restaurateurs to list.” Dina Rudick/Globe Staff At Burtons Grill, the philosophy rests on always saying “yes” to the customer. Closer to home, some restaurants have begun using surcharges to call the bluff of fakers. Paul Overgaag, chef-owner of back-to-back Harvard Square restaurants The Red House and Charlie’s Kitchen, has found the upcharge can be an effective deterrent. If a customer says he’s got a dairy allergy and the accompanying starch has dairy in it, he will be offered a substitution such as a salad, for a couple of bucks extra. “If you’ve got a serious allergy, of course you’d be willing to pay,” Overgaag says. “But at least two to three times a night, the word comes back from the customer: ‘I’ll just have the starch with the dairy in it.’ They don’t want to pay for it.” Leviton, whose success at Lumiere has long rested on the combination of high-quality food and service, hit his breaking point a few months ago. He told his staff that while they should continue to meet reasonable requests, they would begin saying no to customers more often. For example, to cope with the spike in diners claiming garlic allergies, he had been holding off on adding the garlic until the very end, so it could be easily eliminated. But because a dish will be more flavorful when garlic is added early on, he concluded he was penalizing the many to please the few. “We had crossed over and were making too many accommodations, and it was adversely affecting the majority of the customers,” he says. These days, diners who report a garlic allergy will learn that the garlic cannot be omitted and will be encouraged to select another dish. Leviton says this “recalibrated” policy hasn’t produced many complaints. “If we’re offending someone by not being as accommodating as they would like,” he says, “we just might not be the right place for them.” IN THE ’90S, fat-free diets were all the rage. But people didn’t go into restaurants announcing that they were “allergic to fat.” So what has caused this tremendous spike in allergy claims? It starts with a bunch of self-promoting, self-appointed “experts” dishing out lousy advice. Consider Dr. Andrew Ordon, one of the stars of that inane The Doctors syndicated TV show, who offered viewers this kernel of wisdom when they dine out: “Probably the only guaranteed way to avoid that butter is to say, ‘Garcon, I have a bad butter allergy.’ ” How did the other talking heads on the panel react to this serving of nonsense? With approving nods and exclamations of “I like that!” Then there’s blogger Vani Hari, who calls herself the “Food Babe.” Her dubious advice includes this gem: “Go so far as telling your server you’re allergic to butter and dairy, soy and corn.” Dr. John McDougall, who peddles his low-fat, high-starch McDougall Program diet as a way to prevent degenerative disease, kicks it up a few notches, urging his flock to paint a picture for their servers. “Tell them you’re allergic to oil. [Say] ‘If I eat oil, I’ll have an anaphylactic reaction. I’ll have a seizure. You’ll have to call the ambulance. It will just be a whole big bad scene here in the restaurant. . . .’ ” Graham Smith Medical historian Matthew Smith says the word “allergy” didn’t gain traction until the mid- 1920s, when it took on a bigtent definition describing reactions to everything from food and insect stings to mold and hay fever. Medical historian Matthew Smith says that on top of all that bad advice, there’s this reality: We’ve stomped out most major infectious diseases, leaving us with hard-to-treat chronic illnesses. Because diet is the one variable people feel they can control, they tinker with it. Some of them end up medicalizing benign conditions through self-diagnosis, swapping tips and drawing affirmation from online communities. That helps explain why so many Americans believe they have a food allergy and act on it without ever going to the doctor to confirm the hunch. (It might also help explain the excesses of the current landscape, where a Massachusetts prep school recently found itself sued by a couple who accused officials of ignoring their complaints about their son’s allergy to the school’s Wi-Fi signal.) And then there are the diners who simply thrive on attention. They’ll announce that they don’t see anything they like on an extensive menu and ask the chef to make them something special. There’s no more surefire way to ensure your dietary desires are met these days than to invoke an allergy. But restaurants are not blameless in this dance of deception. Culinary Institute of America professor and author Ezra Eichelberger is a leading voice on all things front-of-the-house. For too long, he says, too many restaurants tried to talk diners out of their preferences (“You’ve never had garlic the way our chef uses it”) or outright lied to them. They might, for instance, fail to disclose to vegetarians ordering the French onion soup that it was made with beef stock or neglect to wave pescatarians off the clam chowder because it has a little pork hidden in it. This behavior is irresponsible. Tragically, people still do die from allergic reactions at restaurants, though with heightened awareness and plentiful EpiPens, less frequently than in the past. A 2011 review found all food allergy incidents to be responsible for about 200,000 emergency room visits a year, though a study tracking anaphylaxis deaths over the last decade found that less than 7 percent involved reactions to food. (Most were caused by reactions to medication.) Eichelberger recognizes how out of whack things have become. When big bus-tour groups come in for a meal at the CIA and people start rattling off allergies that they failed to mention in advance, the staff will make accommodations — for a $10-a-plate surcharge. Nothing, he says, has fueled the recent explosion of allergy complaints like gluten. At a National Restaurant Association trade show not long ago, Eichelberger quipped: “I didn’t realize that celiac disease was contagious. It seems like everybody is getting it.” WE WERE NEVER meant to eat gluten. That’s the favorite refrain of gluten-free warriors. It’s true, says celiac expert Alessio Fasano, that in the 2.5 million years since our ancestors took their first bites, we’ve been eating gluten for only about 10,000 years. However, he stresses that for thousands of years, most people have been eating it with no problem. And gluten-dense wheat made possible our transition from hunter-gatherer life, where we spent almost all our energy on food procurement, to agriculture, which enabled creative work, like building the Colosseum or inventing the computer. In his book Gluten Freedom, Fasano notes that the first hint of celiac disease in the medical literature came nearly 2,000 years ago. A Greek physician named Aretaeus described a condition that involved “suffering in the bowels.” There was silence in the literature for the next 1,800 years, before British physician Samuel Gee in 1887 correctly diagnosed this malady of chronic indigestion as malabsorption caused by some unnamed foodstuff. Gee’s solution for his patients was less spot-on: He advised them to make sure the bread they ate was thinly sliced and toasted. Fasano trained at the University of Naples, a hotbed of research on celiac disease, at the time associated almost exclusively with European children suffering chronic diarrhea and other gastrointestinal problems. He tells me he came to the United States partly “to get away from celiac.” Yet when he arrived at the University of Maryland in 1993, he couldn’t accept the prevailing medical view that celiac basically didn’t exist in this country. Proving his intuition would consume a decade of his life. (Diagnosing the disease is cumbersome, requiring both blood tests and intestinal biopsies.) By 2003, he showed that 1 out of every 133 Americans — about 1 percent of the population — had celiac. It had been hiding because many Americans didn’t have the classic GI symptoms, but rather problems like anemia, joint pain, and chronic headaches. Imagine the exhilaration felt by these long-suffering patients who finally had an answer for their debilitating pain. Imagine their outrage at learning they had been hastening their deaths by unwittingly feeding themselves something that had been turning their bodies against them. They became powerful evangelists about the perils of gluten. But it didn’t take long for health-food hobbyists and diet-peddling hucksters to overrun the relatively small pool of celiac sufferers. And the “We were never meant to eat this” historical argument made their pitches all the more persuasive. That’s particularly true in the current climate, where we have become so estranged from our food and suspicious of the agribusiness behemoths supplying it. (While Fasano says pesticides may be a factor in rising rates of gluten intolerance, he sees no evidence for the popular claim that our wheat is substantially different from what it’s been for the last couple of centuries.) That’s the backdrop to a recent study that found 11 percent of American households are following a gluten-free diet, even though only a quarter of them said they were doing it because of celiac or gluten intolerance. The gluten-free spectrum is diverse. About 0.3 percent of Americans have a wheat allergy, meaning that ingesting even a trace amount could send them into anaphylactic shock. Then there is the 1 percent with celiac. Finally, there are people with gluten sensitivity, who suffer symptoms like diarrhea, bloating, or fatigue after eating gluten. Given the absence of diagnostic tools, the size of this last group is particularly fuzzy, though Fasano’s research suggests it’s in the 5 to 6 percent range. Fasano is troubled that so many people are diagnosing themselves with gluten intolerance, changing their diet without ever going to the doctor. “You don’t say, ‘I’m drinking a lot and peeing a lot, so I must have diabetes,’ and then start injecting yourself with insulin.” There is no cure for celiac or gluten sensitivity, and, unlike some allergies, people won’t outgrow the problem. So the only solution is to exclude gluten from the diet. That means going gluten-free is a therapeutic intervention, Fasano says. “It is not the South Beach diet.” Many who go gluten-free find themselves feeling better and see that as proof that they have gluten intolerance. But a genuine gluten problem is only one of three possible explanations for their improved health, and statistically the least likely. Another reason could be the placebo effect. The most likely explanation is that paying closer attention to diet and avoiding fried and junk food — which tends to be loaded with gluten — is bound to make anyone feel better. What’s the big deal if gluten-tolerant people go gluten-free, especially since they’ll be eating fewer Pop-Tarts? The problem is the more these bandwagon-jumpers demand special attention, the more likely that restaurants and wider society will come to see all gluten-free people as phonies. And by the time the fad-followers move on to another fad diet, they have cheapened the label for all those people who can’t move on. The label is already becoming comic shorthand. Jimmy Kimmel and Seth Rogen have both mocked LA gluten-free proponents who actually have no idea what gluten is. (When pressed, Rogen’s character in This Is the End hilariously describes gluten as a “vague term” meaning “things that are bad,” like calories and fat.) The Onion offered up the headline: “14% of Americans Now Intolerant to Word ‘Gluten’. ” With so many posers, people with celiac have to do a bit of acting themselves. Dr. Sheila Crowe, a specialist at the University of California San Diego, has begun advising her celiac patients who eat out to spare no details in telling servers how dangerously ill they will become from gluten. Fasano now gives his celiac patients permission to use the word “allergy” to describe their disease, since that will probably be taken more seriously. He marvels at how quickly things went from no one believing gluten was a problem here to today’s gluten phobia. “To define gluten as this devil we have to fight,” he says, “is a real stretch.” As he leans into his office chair, a gag box of Gluten Flakes cereal perched on the bookshelf above him, I ask Fasano, “Do you ever sit back and think, ‘What in the world did I unleash?’ ” He smiles wearily. “Yes.” Dina Rudick/Globe Staff Celiac sufferer Kevin Harron, cofounder and CEO of Burtons Grill, has built a restaurant chain that caters to people with allergies. WHEN KEVIN HARRON managed restaurants for Legal Sea Foods in the late 1980s and early 1990s, he says, “almost every year, we’d have somebody drop right at the table.” Typically, they’d be visitors from the Midwest or other landlocked regions. “They’d never eaten clams or lobster before, so they never knew they were allergic to it.” These unlucky Midwesterners learned their diagnosis through anaphylactic shock. The staff would call 911 and hope the ambulance got the customer to the hospital in time. Today, Harron is cofounder and CEO of Burtons Grill, a 10-year-old, 10-outlet chain of upscale casual restaurants. The Burtons philosophy rests on always saying “yes” to the customer. That’s particularly true if the request involves a food allergy. Harron shows me around the open kitchen of the first Burtons, in Hingham. Pan handles, cutting boards, and tongs are color-coded, like a Boston subway map. Red for meat dishes, yellow for poultry, blue for seafood, and a purple cutting board for gluten-free meals. Final dishes prepared free of gluten or a particular allergen are served on a square plate rather than a round one. If they’re takeout meals, a big “allergy” sticker is affixed to the container. Harron, who is 61, was diagnosed 45 years ago with celiac, though back then it was known as “sprue” and an almost entirely overlooked condition. He’s not particularly concerned about diners mislabeling their preferences as allergies, since his business is built to accommodate these requests. Still, he can understand why other restaurant owners have begun pushing back in frustration. “In this area, you’ve got to be either all in, or out,” Harron says. “There’s little margin of error.” Faced with this choice, more restaurants are likely to opt out, unless they can do a better job of differentiating the serious from the frivolous requests. Follow-up questions from restaurant staff can help, though some allergy sufferers resent this tactic. Graham Smith AllergyEats founder Paul Antico argues that diners should not resent followup questions from servers. “There are people who fake allergies, and that stinks.” But AllergyEats founder Paul Antico says the allergy community has to get less defensive. If restaurants can do a better job of distinguishing real from exaggerated, they’ll be more likely to continue making accommodations for the people who really need them. And maybe if more people with preferences begin to appreciate the trouble they’re causing with their use of the A-word, they’ll correct their ways. That begins with awareness. Carol Rosenblatt and her husband continued to operate their Tex-Mex BBQ restaurant in Providence for more than a decade after the death of the Brown student. Eventually, they closed the place and returned to their native New York. When I tell her how much things have changed since her day, how many times a night that kitchens now have to swap out their utensils to address the explosion of allergy requests, she is stunned. “Oh, my God,” she says. “I’m glad I’m out of the restaurant business.” I ask her if there are any food allergies in her family. “My husband thinks he’s allergic to dairy and gluten and all that kind of stuff, but I think it’s more a sensitivity than an allergy.” I wonder how he introduces the subject when he’s eating out. She explains that “he asks the waiter, ‘Does it have this? Does it have that?’ ” “Does he ever say he has an allergy?” I ask. Rosenblatt pauses. “Oh, yeah. He sometimes does.” Neil Swidey is a member of the Globe Magazine staff. E-mail him at swidey@globe.com or follow him on Twitter @neilswidey. HOW A KITCHEN RESPONDS Dina Rudick/Globe Staff > Server has discussion with customer, trying to ascertain specifics of allergy. Often will get manager involved. Then server puts through order, noting allergy. > Action in kitchen stops, and there is typically a discussion of everything that needs to change to avoid cross contamination. > Cook clears an area and either grabs a new cutting board, tongs, saute pan, utensils, etc., or puts all of those through the high-temp sanitizing dishwasher. > For fried food, cook must use different oil or a separate fryer. > When final dish is ready, it is handled with extreme care. Kitchen staff may use a disposable wipe to grasp plate. > In many restaurants, a specific person (such as a manager) is assigned to deliver dishes to any allergic diners. GLOMMING ON TO GLUTEN-FREE > $23 billion — Estimated size of US gluten-free market > 1 percent — Percentage of Americans with celiac disease > 11 percent — Percentage of American households following a gluten-free diet; only one-quarter of those are doing it because of a celiac or gluten sensitivity Sources: Nielsen; MGH Center for Celiac Research; NPD Group ALLERGY SHOTS > 4 percent — Percentage of American adults with a food allergy (rate is 5 percent or higher in children) > 90 percent — Percentage of food allergies represented by these 8 allergens: milk, egg, wheat, soy, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, and shellfish > 200,000 — Number of annual visits to US emergency rooms because of food allergy reactions > 7 percent — Percentage of anaphylaxis deaths in the US related to food allergies (more than 60 percent are related to medications) Sources: Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology; Food Allergy Research & Education Related: • When food allergies dine out • Chefs and dietitians join forces • Tastes good, no gluten

The parrot, the poo and the parasitic flower By John Pickrell | The study of fossilised dung has revealed a lost link between New Zealand’s kakapo and the parasitic Hades flower – one of the world’s weirdest blooms. Share this story Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window) Contributor John Pickrell John Pickrell is the editor of Australian Geographic. He is a science writer, author, nature lover and self-confessed geek. Blog posts range over Southern Hemisphere palaeontology, dinosaurs, megafauna, archaeology, palaeoanthropology and a smattering of other topics. THIS IS a tale of two strange and fascinating species, both of which evolved unusual life histories during millions of years of isolation on the islands of New Zealand – two species that, we now know, once had a close ecological relationship. The first is the kakapo: a large, fragrant, nocturnal bird, and the world’s only flightless parrot – its numbers have dwindled to about 125, most of which are found on Codfish Island, a small speck off the south of the South Island. Here the kakapo’s breeding success is linked to the infrequent fruiting of a single tree, the rimu. The second, you’re less likely to have heard of. It’s Dactylanthus taylorii, also known as the Hades flower or wood rose, or as ‘pua o te reinga’ to the Māori, which means ‘flower of the underworld’. A flower with no leaves or roots It’s a parasitic plant, which can’t photosynthesise and has no leaves or roots. It spends most of its life underground, where it lives swaddled around the roots of the native trees from which it draws its water and nutrients. For just a few weeks in early autumn each year, Dactylanthus plants throw up large numbers of dull pinky-brown flowers, which emerge from the ground around the host trees. These stud the forest floor, emit a musky, fruity scent and produce copious quantities of nectar to attract the New Zealand lesser short-tailed bat, the plant’s key pollinator. Unusually for a bat (another NZ quirk), this species spends much of its time crawling on the ground and burrowing in leaf litter. But a study of fossilised dung or ‘coprolites’ found in a cave in the north-western corner of the South Island in 2012 suggests the plant once had other pollinators, too. Researchers led by Dr Jamie Wood at Landcare Research in Canterbury have revealed that a series of 900-year-old kakapo droppings are packed with Dactylanthus pollen, suggesting that these birds once consumed its nectar and helped to pollinate the flowers. Similar to the kakapo, Dactylanthus has been reduced to just 4 per cent of its historic range – but both species were once common across the North Island and the north of the South Island. Coprolites and ancient ecological relationships “Kakapo and potentially many other nectar-drinking birds once fed on the nectar of Dactylanthus flowers, and may also have acted as pollinators or seed dispersers for the plant,” Jamie says. “Coprolites are one of the only ways to reconstruct important pre-human ecological relationships, such as pollination and seed dispersal, which must be restored to conserve these species over the long term.” Intriguingly, in 2012 eight kakapo were reintroduced to Little Barrier Island, 80km north of Auckland on the North Island, one of the remaining Dactylanthus strongholds. This meant that the plant and its historic pollinator were once again brought together. In 2015, for the first time, a series of camera traps has been installed on the island to attempt to find out if the ancient ecological relationship has been restored. It remains to be seen if any of the cameras have yet photographed instances of kakapo feeding on Hades flowers. John Pickrell is the author of Flying Dinosaurs: How fearsome reptiles became birds, published by NewSouth Books in 2014. Follow him on Twitter @john_pickrell.

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Bernie Sanders has scorned Donald Trump for only now declaring he believes President Obama is American-born. While campaigning for Hillary Clinton, Vermont Senator Mr Sanders described the Republican candidate statement regarding the birther argument as "pathetic" and goes to the "root of what Trump's campaign is about". Mr Trump led a campaign in 2011 calling for Mr Obama to release his birth certificate to show whether he was born in Kenya or Hawaii as the President stated. We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view. From 15p €0.18 $0.18 $0.27 a day, more exclusives, analysis and extras. The controversial businessman now claims it was his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton who first raised concerns about Mr Obama's nationality in 2008. Mr Sanders, a US Senator for Vermont, said on CNN: "Well, isn't that something. My word, after eight years of having President Obama as president, Donald Trump now thinks he's a legitimate president. "Well, I'm just overwhelmed with emotion. Look, this is pathetic. This goes to the root of what Trump's campaign is about. "Let's be clear. It's about bigotry. You remember, let's all remember that a few years ago Donald Trump was the leader of the so-called birther movement." Bernie Sanders stated Trump tried to delegitimise President Obama with the birther argument, "not disagree with him". He said: "This is a democracy. We can criticize Obama. It was delegitimising the first African American president in the history of our country. And the reason for that was clear. "There are racists in this country who could never accept the fact that we had a black president. And that's what Trump was trying to do, delegitimise the president, not disagree with him. "So I think this is part of his entire campaign of bigotry. It's against Muslims." Donald Trump has made gains on Hillary Clinton's lead in the presidential polls after the former Secretary of State filmed stumbling following a September 11 memorial event in New York. We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view. At The Independent, no one tells us what to write. That’s why, in an era of political lies and Brexit bias, more readers are turning to an independent source. Subscribe from just 15p a day for extra exclusives, events and ebooks – all with no ads. Subscribe now

By Annabelle Bamforth The U.S. Central Command recently announced that troop numbers in Iraq and Syria will no longer be reported to the public. In its announcement, CENTCOM spokesman Army Col. John Thomas declared that “capabilities, not numbers,” should be the area of focus, and the public will be given general estimates of troop sizes in the future. Jason Ditz of antiwar.com points out that the Obama administration was already less than forthcoming about the number of soldiers sent to these areas by utilizing a variety of tactics, including “deliberately omitting large numbers of troops from the official count by labeling them ‘temporary.’” The Pentagon’s announcement comes during a time in which the U.S. military’s recent use of airstrikes is under fresh scrutiny and stands accused of causing deaths of hundreds of civilians in recent weeks, including strikes in Mosul last week that killed an unconfirmed, but reportedly numerous, number of noncombatants. According to Reuters regarding the strike in Mosul, “Eyewitnesses from Mosul and Iraqi officials have said last week’s strike on Islamic State targets may have collapsed homes where rescue officials say as many as 200 people were buried in the rubble.” Reuters described this event as “one of the deadliest single incidents for civilians in recent memory in any major conflict involving the U.S. military.” In the Pentagon’s acknowledgment of the Mosul strike and announcement of its investigation into the incident, Army Col. Joseph Scrocca admitted that “we believe a coalition strike contributed in at least some way to the civilian casualties.” American Natural Superfood - Free Sample The new U.S. presidential administration has unsurprisingly provided little change in its approach to foreign policy and the war on terror; in fact, President Trump is currently considering sending at least 1,000 more troops to Syria. As Ditz noted, the government has long lacked transparency regarding troop numbers in Iraq and Syria, and it appears that CENTCOM may be seeking to avoid further criticism over specific deployment numbers by simply eliminating these reports. However, this increase in secrecy that further places civilians in the dark will undoubtedly exacerbate tensions across the globe in regards to American accountability. Another troubling revelation from Thomas is the military’s dismissal of making changes to airstrike policy. Thomas stated that General Joseph Votel, the head of CENTCOM, “is not looking into changing the way we operate other than to say our processes are good and we want to make sure we live by those processes.” New Hampshire-based writer Annabelle Bamforth is focused on breaking the left/right paradigm through new media and local politics. Annabelle is the editor-in-chief of Emmy-winning journalist Ben Swann’s Truth In Media Project and a producer for Mr. Swann’s Truth In Media episodes. This article first appeared at TheFreeThoughtProject.com Activist Post Daily Newsletter Email address: Yes - I consent to receive emails Leave this field empty if you're human: Subscription is FREE and CONFIDENTIAL Free Report: How To Survive The Job Automation Apocalypse with subscription Subscription is FREE and CONFIDENTIALFree Report:with subscription In addition, reports have surfaced alleging that recent U.S. airstrikes in Syria have led to significant civilian deaths. One strike that was launched in northern Syria in mid-March, reportedly targeted at a building “that local officials said was a mosque filled with worshippers at evening prayer” and also resulted in civilian casualties. Another strike by a U.S.-led coalition at a school in Raqqa that was being “used as refugee centre,” according to The Guardian. The Guardian’s report notes that “Over the past eight months, there have been four cases in which US planes or drones have been blamed for mass civilian casualties in Syria.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision to scrap Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes in a surprise announcement on November 8 has not been completely endorsed or rejected by the people, but the Economist says it could turn out to be Modi's biggest political blunder yet. "The surprise scrapping of what amounted to 86% of the cash in circulation could, in fact, turn out to be the worst mistake of Mr Modi's career," the London-based weekly wrote. The dominance of cash-based transactions in many sectors of the economy and the lack of banking facilities in many parts of India makes Modi's move a wrong gambit, according to the magazine. "For many among the estimated 80 percent of wage earners who are paid in cash, for the tens of thousands of villages with no banking facilities, and for the traders, drivers, farmers, prostitutes, beggars and others who work in the 'informal' economy that accounts for anywhere between 25 percent and 70 percent of India's GDP, it has brought anxiety and hardship," the weekly, which has rarely taken a favourable view of Modi and the BJP, wrote. The Financial Times preferred to call it a significant move in Modi's avowed decision to crackdown on black money, starting with the tracking of large cash transactions, typically done at luxury and jewellery stores. "The campaign hit its apogee last week, with New Delhi's surprise ban on the use of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes — a radical action intended to catch black money hoarders," the daily wrote. Besides, the decision, which the BJP prefers to call a "surgical strike on black money," is ill-advised in an economy where cash transactions are prevalent in a big way, according to the Financial Times, besides raising doubts on the benefits of such a decision. An analyst at JPMorgan told the daily that it's difficult to assess the impact on India's economy. "No country has done this kind of shock therapy. We don't have any precedents of doing anything of this sort. We are flying by the seat of our pants," Jahangir Aziz, global emerging markets analyst at JPMorgan, told the Financial Times. It said that such unprecedented measures are undertaken only during exceptionally bad conditions "such as in Germany after the second world war, or the former Soviet Union — or in the throes of hyperinflation," and not by a country like India that is growing at upwards of 7 percent.

The killer of a young East Bay mother is still at large Tuesday night. Police say 29-year-old Rashanda Franklin was shot on a Richmond street in front of her two young children. Police are looking for her estranged ex-boyfriend."If there's a wife, family member out there, you know him, you know where he's at -- turn him in. That could have been your child," said Franklin's mother Barbara Harris. "There's nothing else to say, her life was just stripped from her this morning."Police say Franklin's estranged boyfriend, 43-year-old Lawyer Dushan McBride from San Pablo was captured on surveillance video Tuesday morning -- walking away, then driving off moments after shooting Franklin.She had been taking her young kids to school when police say she was cut off by McBride at a stop sign.The children were in the backseat and saw it all."Witnessing your own mother being killed -- my heart breaks for those kids," said Lt. Felix Tan of the Richmond police department.Polie say McBride shot Franklin once in the upper body. Witnesses say the two argued at the intersection of 29th and Rheem streets before the shooting.A neighbor took Franklin's children into a home before police arrived."They cry," said neighbor Salvador Realagno. "I feel, it was very sad.""Those kids loved their mom," said Franklin's aunt Ummu Ikharo-Oza. "I know for sure."Ikharo-Oza says few words can describe her family's grief. "How do you explain to a young kid, 'Your mom ain't coming back, somebody took her life."One neighbor shared cellphone video of McBride driving away. Police say he was in a 2007 silver Mercedes Benz S550 sedan with paper plates."What I need is to lift this family up, and her three boys up to God," said Harris.