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<p>BALTIMORE (AP) — Summoned to pitch in a doubleheader that wasn’t on the original schedule, Orioles rookie Tyler Wilson was reminded of a lesson he no doubt learned in Little League: Don’t walk the leadoff hitter.</p>
<p>After matching zeros with Chicago White Sox ace Chris Sale for five innings, Wilson gave up two runs in the sixth and the Orioles lost 3-2 Thursday in the opener of a doubleheader caused by rioting in Baltimore last month.</p>
<p>A modest crowd watched the opener at Camden Yards. The doubleheader was scheduled after games on April 27-28 were postponed because of riots near the ballpark following the funeral of a black man who died of injuries sustained while in police custody. The third game of that series was played without fans in the stadium.</p>
<p>Sale (4-2) struck out 12, gave up four singles and walked none over 7 2-3 innings.</p>
<p>Making his first major league start following two appearances as a reliever this month, Wilson (1-1) hung with Sale until the sixth.</p>
<p>Leadoff hitter Adam Eaton drew a leadoff walk, Melky Cabrera hit an opposite-field RBI double and scored on a one-out double by Adam LaRoche, who had three hits.</p>
<p>“The biggest takeaway obviously is walking that leadoff guy in the sixth inning. Can’t happen,” Wilson said. “They executed a hit-and-run well on a changeup and then LaRoche hit a 2-0 changeup.”</p>
<p>Wilson allowed two runs, five hits and a walk in six innings. The 25-year-old was recalled from Triple-A Norfolk as the 26th man for the doubleheader.</p>
<p>“Gave us a chance to win,” manager Buck Showalter said. “Just matched up against one of the best pitchers in baseball. Sale had everything going today.”</p>
<p>Sale was pulled in the eighth after striking out Caleb Joseph and Everth Cabrera to raise his pitch count to 120.</p>
<p>“My main objective today was to fill in innings and get as deep as I could into the ballgame,” Sale said. “You get a doubleheader, you want to get as far in there as you can in the first one.”</p>
<p>Sale did just that, sparing a bullpen that had a 7.20 ERA and two blown saves in its previous four games.</p>
<p>Although Sale failed to go eight innings for the first time in four starts, he’s 2-0 with a 1.71 ERA over 31 2-3 innings during that span.</p>
<p>The 12 strikeouts were a season high for Sale. He owns the franchise record for career games with at least 10 strikeouts (21) and 12-plus strikeouts (11).</p>
<p>After Tyler Flowers added a run-scoring grounder in the ninth, Chris Davis hit a two-run homer in the bottom half off Zach Duke before Jake Petricka struck out Travis Snider for his first save. Davis has three homers in his last two games.</p>
<p>Duke struck out Manny Machado on a check-swing to end the eighth, with Machado getting ejected for arguing the call. Duke added two more strikeouts in the ninth before Delmon Young singled and Davis connected.</p>
<p>“It would mean a lot for us for him to get it going for a while,” Showalter said.</p>
<p>MATUSZ HEARING SET</p>
<p>Orioles LHP Brian Matusz will have his appeal of an eight-game suspension heard on June 3. He received the suspension Monday after being ejected from a game in Miami on Saturday for having a foreign substance on his right arm.</p>
<p>TRAINER’S ROOM</p>
<p>White Sox: 3B Avisail Garcia was not in the starting lineup for either game because of inflammation in his right knee.</p>
<p>Orioles: C Matt Wieters (elbow) was scheduled to catch for Double-A Bowie on Thursday. ... RHP Kevin Gausman (shoulder inflammation) is scheduled to face batters Friday and pitch for a minor league team on June 6.</p>
<p>UP NEXT</p>
<p>White Sox: RHP Chris Beck made his major league debut in the nightcap. Rookie RHP Mike Wright started for the Orioles.</p>
<p>BALTIMORE (AP) — Summoned to pitch in a doubleheader that wasn’t on the original schedule, Orioles rookie Tyler Wilson was reminded of a lesson he no doubt learned in Little League: Don’t walk the leadoff hitter.</p>
<p>After matching zeros with Chicago White Sox ace Chris Sale for five innings, Wilson gave up two runs in the sixth and the Orioles lost 3-2 Thursday in the opener of a doubleheader caused by rioting in Baltimore last month.</p>
<p>A modest crowd watched the opener at Camden Yards. The doubleheader was scheduled after games on April 27-28 were postponed because of riots near the ballpark following the funeral of a black man who died of injuries sustained while in police custody. The third game of that series was played without fans in the stadium.</p>
<p>Sale (4-2) struck out 12, gave up four singles and walked none over 7 2-3 innings.</p>
<p>Making his first major league start following two appearances as a reliever this month, Wilson (1-1) hung with Sale until the sixth.</p>
<p>Leadoff hitter Adam Eaton drew a leadoff walk, Melky Cabrera hit an opposite-field RBI double and scored on a one-out double by Adam LaRoche, who had three hits.</p>
<p>“The biggest takeaway obviously is walking that leadoff guy in the sixth inning. Can’t happen,” Wilson said. “They executed a hit-and-run well on a changeup and then LaRoche hit a 2-0 changeup.”</p>
<p>Wilson allowed two runs, five hits and a walk in six innings. The 25-year-old was recalled from Triple-A Norfolk as the 26th man for the doubleheader.</p>
<p>“Gave us a chance to win,” manager Buck Showalter said. “Just matched up against one of the best pitchers in baseball. Sale had everything going today.”</p>
<p>Sale was pulled in the eighth after striking out Caleb Joseph and Everth Cabrera to raise his pitch count to 120.</p>
<p>“My main objective today was to fill in innings and get as deep as I could into the ballgame,” Sale said. “You get a doubleheader, you want to get as far in there as you can in the first one.”</p>
<p>Sale did just that, sparing a bullpen that had a 7.20 ERA and two blown saves in its previous four games.</p>
<p>Although Sale failed to go eight innings for the first time in four starts, he’s 2-0 with a 1.71 ERA over 31 2-3 innings during that span.</p>
<p>The 12 strikeouts were a season high for Sale. He owns the franchise record for career games with at least 10 strikeouts (21) and 12-plus strikeouts (11).</p>
<p>After Tyler Flowers added a run-scoring grounder in the ninth, Chris Davis hit a two-run homer in the bottom half off Zach Duke before Jake Petricka struck out Travis Snider for his first save. Davis has three homers in his last two games.</p>
<p>Duke struck out Manny Machado on a check-swing to end the eighth, with Machado getting ejected for arguing the call. Duke added two more strikeouts in the ninth before Delmon Young singled and Davis connected.</p>
<p>“It would mean a lot for us for him to get it going for a while,” Showalter said.</p>
<p>MATUSZ HEARING SET</p>
<p>Orioles LHP Brian Matusz will have his appeal of an eight-game suspension heard on June 3. He received the suspension Monday after being ejected from a game in Miami on Saturday for having a foreign substance on his right arm.</p>
<p>TRAINER’S ROOM</p>
<p>White Sox: 3B Avisail Garcia was not in the starting lineup for either game because of inflammation in his right knee.</p>
<p>Orioles: C Matt Wieters (elbow) was scheduled to catch for Double-A Bowie on Thursday. ... RHP Kevin Gausman (shoulder inflammation) is scheduled to face batters Friday and pitch for a minor league team on June 6.</p>
<p>UP NEXT</p>
<p>White Sox: RHP Chris Beck made his major league debut in the nightcap. Rookie RHP Mike Wright started for the Orioles.</p>
| false | 2 |
baltimore ap summoned pitch doubleheader wasnt original schedule orioles rookie tyler wilson reminded lesson doubt learned little league dont walk leadoff hitter matching zeros chicago white sox ace chris sale five innings wilson gave two runs sixth orioles lost 32 thursday opener doubleheader caused rioting baltimore last month modest crowd watched opener camden yards doubleheader scheduled games april 2728 postponed riots near ballpark following funeral black man died injuries sustained police custody third game series played without fans stadium sale 42 struck 12 gave four singles walked none 7 23 innings making first major league start following two appearances reliever month wilson 11 hung sale sixth leadoff hitter adam eaton drew leadoff walk melky cabrera hit oppositefield rbi double scored oneout double adam laroche three hits biggest takeaway obviously walking leadoff guy sixth inning cant happen wilson said executed hitandrun well changeup laroche hit 20 changeup wilson allowed two runs five hits walk six innings 25yearold recalled triplea norfolk 26th man doubleheader gave us chance win manager buck showalter said matched one best pitchers baseball sale everything going today sale pulled eighth striking caleb joseph everth cabrera raise pitch count 120 main objective today fill innings get deep could ballgame sale said get doubleheader want get far first one sale sparing bullpen 720 era two blown saves previous four games although sale failed go eight innings first time four starts hes 20 171 era 31 23 innings span 12 strikeouts season high sale owns franchise record career games least 10 strikeouts 21 12plus strikeouts 11 tyler flowers added runscoring grounder ninth chris davis hit tworun homer bottom half zach duke jake petricka struck travis snider first save davis three homers last two games duke struck manny machado checkswing end eighth machado getting ejected arguing call duke added two strikeouts ninth delmon young singled davis connected would mean lot us get going showalter said matusz hearing set orioles lhp brian matusz appeal eightgame suspension heard june 3 received suspension monday ejected game miami saturday foreign substance right arm trainers room white sox 3b avisail garcia starting lineup either game inflammation right knee orioles c matt wieters elbow scheduled catch doublea bowie thursday rhp kevin gausman shoulder inflammation scheduled face batters friday pitch minor league team june 6 next white sox rhp chris beck made major league debut nightcap rookie rhp mike wright started orioles baltimore ap summoned pitch doubleheader wasnt original schedule orioles rookie tyler wilson reminded lesson doubt learned little league dont walk leadoff hitter matching zeros chicago white sox ace chris sale five innings wilson gave two runs sixth orioles lost 32 thursday opener doubleheader caused rioting baltimore last month modest crowd watched opener camden yards doubleheader scheduled games april 2728 postponed riots near ballpark following funeral black man died injuries sustained police custody third game series played without fans stadium sale 42 struck 12 gave four singles walked none 7 23 innings making first major league start following two appearances reliever month wilson 11 hung sale sixth leadoff hitter adam eaton drew leadoff walk melky cabrera hit oppositefield rbi double scored oneout double adam laroche three hits biggest takeaway obviously walking leadoff guy sixth inning cant happen wilson said executed hitandrun well changeup laroche hit 20 changeup wilson allowed two runs five hits walk six innings 25yearold recalled triplea norfolk 26th man doubleheader gave us chance win manager buck showalter said matched one best pitchers baseball sale everything going today sale pulled eighth striking caleb joseph everth cabrera raise pitch count 120 main objective today fill innings get deep could ballgame sale said get doubleheader want get far first one sale sparing bullpen 720 era two blown saves previous four games although sale failed go eight innings first time four starts hes 20 171 era 31 23 innings span 12 strikeouts season high sale owns franchise record career games least 10 strikeouts 21 12plus strikeouts 11 tyler flowers added runscoring grounder ninth chris davis hit tworun homer bottom half zach duke jake petricka struck travis snider first save davis three homers last two games duke struck manny machado checkswing end eighth machado getting ejected arguing call duke added two strikeouts ninth delmon young singled davis connected would mean lot us get going showalter said matusz hearing set orioles lhp brian matusz appeal eightgame suspension heard june 3 received suspension monday ejected game miami saturday foreign substance right arm trainers room white sox 3b avisail garcia starting lineup either game inflammation right knee orioles c matt wieters elbow scheduled catch doublea bowie thursday rhp kevin gausman shoulder inflammation scheduled face batters friday pitch minor league team june 6 next white sox rhp chris beck made major league debut nightcap rookie rhp mike wright started orioles
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<p />
<p>So what will be the big consumer crazes of 2017? Here, we’ve collected some predictions.</p>
<p>Food: Look for this to be the year that breakfast goes global. Technomic, a foodservice industry research firm, forecasts that restaurants will reach beyond breakfast burritos and start incorporating more Asian, African and Middle Eastern ingredients and spices into morning menus. The group says diners can expect to see more dishes like shakshuka, which, in a version offered at a small chain called Snap Kitchen, features eggs, chickpeas, kale, feta and spiced tomato sauce. Also, in an era when fat is not thought to be the dieting enemy it once was, Technomic expects restaurateurs will go big this year not only with butter, but with fats such as lard and tallow.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the National Restaurant Association predicts that unconventional cuts of meat, such as oyster steaks or Merlot cut steaks, will be a key menu trend in 2017. The trade group also expects poke, a Hawaiian raw fish dish, to take center stage.</p>
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<p>Fashion: Brace yourselves for an 80’s resurgence, but don’t start having nightmares about outfits that look straight out of “Designing Women.” Sidney Morgan-Petro, retail editor at trend forecasting firm WGSN, says we’re not going to see the aesthetic re-emerge quite so literally.</p>
<p>“It’s less about the actual look of the ’80s, and more about some of the ideas,” Morgan-Petro says.</p>
<p>So, for example, we can expect to see a lot of voluminous clothing with bigger proportions. Instead of skinny jeans, think slouchy trousers. Instead of ultra-tailored outerwear, think cocoon-like, floor-grazing overcoats. But perhaps the most prominent example of the volume trend will be a cavalcade of tops and dresses with billowing, dramatic sleeves. Bell sleeves, flute sleeves, ruffled sleeves, bishop sleeves — these silhouettes are already catching fashionistas’ eyes and are likely to explode in popularity in 2017.</p>
<p>“I think designers have seen that that kind of frivolous trim, that decadence in silhouette, is really resonating,” said Katie Smith, senior analyst at fashion forecasting firm Edited.</p>
<p>Morgan-Petro also anticipates that we’ll see the “athleisure” trend shift toward a look she calls “athluxury.”</p>
<p>“We’re going to see these elements that we love from athletic and activewear, but looking more refined and more sartorial,” Morgan-Petro said.</p>
<p>In other words, instead of simply wearing our gym leggings to do errands, we might invest in pieces that are made of similarly comfortable, technical fabric, but were intentionally designed to look more like a true trouser.</p>
<p>Beauty: The business of getting gorgeous roughly breaks down into four areas: makeup, skincare, hair care and fragrance. And Karen Grant, beauty industry analyst at NPD Group, a market research firm, said makeup is where she expects we’ll see “seismic momentum” in 2017. Eyebrow groomingproducts such as tinting gel and sculpting pencils should be especially popular, Grant said, continuing a recent hot streak. NPD found sales of these products soared 37 percent in the most recent quarter, as fuller, Lily Collins-esque brows remain in vogue.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Grant also expects a strong 2017 for lipsticks as well as contouring makeup, a product you apply to your face to strategically highlight your bone structure.</p>
<p>Why does Grant forecast that makeup will sell so strongly? She said a burst of new brands and new products helps.</p>
<p>Make-up sellers, Grant said, are “being rewarded by all the innovation coming into that category.”</p>
<p>Gadgets: The year ahead looks poised to be a breakout one for voice-activated digital assistants such as Google Home and Amazon’s Echo. Shawn DuBravac, chief economist at the Consumer Technology Association, said the early adopters who purchased these devices this year could be crucial catalysts for the technology to burst into the mainstream in 2017.</p>
<p>“As the ownership rates move up, the exposure increases,” DuBravac said.</p>
<p>In other words, more of us are going to encounter these devices in real life — say, when we go to a friend’s house and watch him use Echo to cue up the party tunes, or visit a sister who tells Google Home to add milk to her grocery shopping list. Once more consumers start to experience these use cases, they may be compelled to buy one of their own.</p>
<p>Also, it’s worth noting that adoption of these gadgets is poised to increase in part because the technology that powers them has gotten vastly better. DuBravac said that back in the 90s, the “word error rate” for voice-activated assistants was near 100 percent, meaning they almost never understood the user correctly. Fast forward to 2013, and that rate had come down to about 25 percent. Now, though, in the last three years, he said it has fallen to about 5 percent.</p>
<p>“We’ve had more progress in that technology in the last 30 months than in the previous 30 years,” DuBravac said.</p>
<p>(Jeffrey P. Bezos, the chief executive of Amazon, owns The Washington Post.)</p>
<p>Toys: Next year should be an extraordinarily busy one for toys with tie-ins to the silver screen. Jim Silver, chief executive at toy review website TTPM, says that in a typical year, we might see eight feature films that are attached to major merchandise licensing programs. This year, Silver said there are some 20 films that fit that bill. An installment in the “Transformers” series is scheduled to hit theaters this summer. And Spider-Man, one of the best-selling of all Marvel’s characters in toyland, should be in-demand after the box-office debut of “Spider-Man: Homecoming.” Also, Disney is set to release in March a live-action version of its 1991 animated classic “Beauty and the Beast,” which stars Emma Watson of “Harry Potter” fame and will likely deliver a jolt of interest in that property.</p>
<p>“Disney, probably among all the studios, is really good at building franchises and leveraging those” into a merchandising strategy, said Marty Brochstein, senior vice president at the International Licensing Industry Merchandisers’ Association.</p>
<p>It’s worth noting, Silver says, that the toy industry could benefit from the way these movie releases are positioned on the calendar. Instead of just a crush of toy-friendly movies at Christmastime, there’s going to be a steady trickle of flicks all year long that could have kids dragging their parents to the toy store.</p>
<p>Looking beyond toys with a Hollywood connection, keep an eye on the re-launch of Teddy Ruxpin. Laurie Schacht, co-publisher at review site The Toy Insider, said she expects the new, souped-up version of the 80’s-era talking bear to be a big hit. Its manufacturer, Wicked Cool Toys, is betting that it will strike a serious note of nostalgia for parents who played with the original back in the day.</p>
<p>retail-2017</p>
| false | 2 |
big consumer crazes 2017 weve collected predictions food look year breakfast goes global technomic foodservice industry research firm forecasts restaurants reach beyond breakfast burritos start incorporating asian african middle eastern ingredients spices morning menus group says diners expect see dishes like shakshuka version offered small chain called snap kitchen features eggs chickpeas kale feta spiced tomato sauce also era fat thought dieting enemy technomic expects restaurateurs go big year butter fats lard tallow meanwhile national restaurant association predicts unconventional cuts meat oyster steaks merlot cut steaks key menu trend 2017 trade group also expects poke hawaiian raw fish dish take center stage advertisement fashion brace 80s resurgence dont start nightmares outfits look straight designing women sidney morganpetro retail editor trend forecasting firm wgsn says going see aesthetic reemerge quite literally less actual look 80s ideas morganpetro says example expect see lot voluminous clothing bigger proportions instead skinny jeans think slouchy trousers instead ultratailored outerwear think cocoonlike floorgrazing overcoats perhaps prominent example volume trend cavalcade tops dresses billowing dramatic sleeves bell sleeves flute sleeves ruffled sleeves bishop sleeves silhouettes already catching fashionistas eyes likely explode popularity 2017 think designers seen kind frivolous trim decadence silhouette really resonating said katie smith senior analyst fashion forecasting firm edited morganpetro also anticipates well see athleisure trend shift toward look calls athluxury going see elements love athletic activewear looking refined sartorial morganpetro said words instead simply wearing gym leggings errands might invest pieces made similarly comfortable technical fabric intentionally designed look like true trouser beauty business getting gorgeous roughly breaks four areas makeup skincare hair care fragrance karen grant beauty industry analyst npd group market research firm said makeup expects well see seismic momentum 2017 eyebrow groomingproducts tinting gel sculpting pencils especially popular grant said continuing recent hot streak npd found sales products soared 37 percent recent quarter fuller lily collinsesque brows remain vogue advertisement grant also expects strong 2017 lipsticks well contouring makeup product apply face strategically highlight bone structure grant forecast makeup sell strongly said burst new brands new products helps makeup sellers grant said rewarded innovation coming category gadgets year ahead looks poised breakout one voiceactivated digital assistants google home amazons echo shawn dubravac chief economist consumer technology association said early adopters purchased devices year could crucial catalysts technology burst mainstream 2017 ownership rates move exposure increases dubravac said words us going encounter devices real life say go friends house watch use echo cue party tunes visit sister tells google home add milk grocery shopping list consumers start experience use cases may compelled buy one also worth noting adoption gadgets poised increase part technology powers gotten vastly better dubravac said back 90s word error rate voiceactivated assistants near 100 percent meaning almost never understood user correctly fast forward 2013 rate come 25 percent though last three years said fallen 5 percent weve progress technology last 30 months previous 30 years dubravac said jeffrey p bezos chief executive amazon owns washington post toys next year extraordinarily busy one toys tieins silver screen jim silver chief executive toy review website ttpm says typical year might see eight feature films attached major merchandise licensing programs year silver said 20 films fit bill installment transformers series scheduled hit theaters summer spiderman one bestselling marvels characters toyland indemand boxoffice debut spiderman homecoming also disney set release march liveaction version 1991 animated classic beauty beast stars emma watson harry potter fame likely deliver jolt interest property disney probably among studios really good building franchises leveraging merchandising strategy said marty brochstein senior vice president international licensing industry merchandisers association worth noting silver says toy industry could benefit way movie releases positioned calendar instead crush toyfriendly movies christmastime theres going steady trickle flicks year long could kids dragging parents toy store looking beyond toys hollywood connection keep eye relaunch teddy ruxpin laurie schacht copublisher review site toy insider said expects new soupedup version 80sera talking bear big hit manufacturer wicked cool toys betting strike serious note nostalgia parents played original back day retail2017
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<p>Abington 59, Council Rock South 40</p>
<p>Abington Friends 61, George School 56</p>
<p>Abington Heights 68, Scranton 56</p>
<p>Academy of the New Church 37, Germantown Friends 32</p>
<p>Aliquippa 78, Ellwood City 28</p>
<p>Allderdice 80, Westinghouse 45</p>
<p>Allentown Allen 66, Pocono Mountain East 55</p>
<p>Allentown Central Catholic 72, East Stroudsburg North 55</p>
<p>Ambridge 56, Hopewell 38</p>
<p>Annville-Cleona 74, Columbia 64</p>
<p>Archbishop Carroll 64, Philadelphia West Catholic 46</p>
<p>Archbishop Ryan 47, Father Judge 42</p>
<p>Archbishop Wood 50, LaSalle 35</p>
<p>Athens 75, Sayre Area 46</p>
<p>Baldwin 48, Connellsville 35</p>
<p>Beaver Falls 52, Blackhawk 45</p>
<p>Bellwood-Antis 68, Claysburg-Kimmel 53</p>
<p>Berks Christian 42, High Point 41</p>
<p>Berwick 48, Wilkes-Barre Coughlin 31</p>
<p>Bethel Park 54, Peters Township 43</p>
<p>Bishop Guilfoyle 67, Bishop McCort 52</p>
<p>Bloomsburg 42, Hughesville 40</p>
<p>Blue Mountain 68, Minersville 35</p>
<p>Boiling Springs 45, Shippensburg 41</p>
<p>Bonner-Prendergast 68, Philadelphia Roman Catholic 66</p>
<p>Bradford 55, Punxsutawney 52</p>
<p>Brashear 87, Perry Traditional Academy 35</p>
<p>Brentwood 57, South Allegheny 53</p>
<p>Burgettstown 70, Southmoreland 45</p>
<p>Burrell 54, Kiski Area 40</p>
<p>California 66, Jefferson-Morgan 63</p>
<p>Cambridge Springs 55, Iroquois 52</p>
<p>Camp Hill Trinity 74, East Pennsboro 34</p>
<p>Canon-McMillan 61, Upper St. Clair 48</p>
<p>Carrick 69, Pittsburgh Obama 57</p>
<p>Cedar Cliff 46, Palmyra 25</p>
<p>Cedar Crest 54, Warwick 50</p>
<p>Central Columbia 67, South Williamsport 31</p>
<p>Central Martinsburg 50, Clearfield 46</p>
<p>Chambersburg 55, Carlisle 40</p>
<p>Cheltenham 76, Upper Dublin 71</p>
<p>Chestnut Ridge 69, Bedford 52</p>
<p>Church Farm School 63, Bristol 33</p>
<p>Clairton 48, West Mifflin 38</p>
<p>Clarion 69, Union 43</p>
<p>Clarion-Limestone 75, Moniteau 35</p>
<p>Cocalico 41, Solanco 35</p>
<p>Commodore Perry 43, Tidioute Charter 40</p>
<p>Constitution 86, Audenried 59</p>
<p>Cornell 44, Rochester 37</p>
<p>Cranberry 63, Redbank Valley 54</p>
<p>Crestwood 50, Wilkes-Barre Meyers 36</p>
<p>Cumberland Valley 58, Central Dauphin East 53</p>
<p>Curwensville 58, Kane Area 45</p>
<p>Dallas 66, Wilkes-Barre GAR 40</p>
<p>Danville 71, Shikellamy 55</p>
<p>Delaware Valley 46, Honesdale 42</p>
<p>Donegal 40, Manheim Central 39</p>
<p>Dover 69, Kennard-Dale 62</p>
<p>Downingtown West 47, West Lawn Wilson 38</p>
<p>Dubois Central Catholic 77, Sheffield 40</p>
<p>Dunmore 59, Riverside 48</p>
<p>East Juniata 64, Susquenita 55</p>
<p>East Stroudsburg South 54, Easton 36</p>
<p>Eastern York 76, Susquehannock 66</p>
<p>Eisenhower 69, Youngsville 34</p>
<p>Emmaus 62, Pleasant Valley 42</p>
<p>Engineering And Science 51, Prep Charter 47</p>
<p>Episcopal Academy 70, Germantown Academy 49</p>
<p>Everett 88, Tussey Mountain 57</p>
<p>Farrell 53, Slippery Rock 48</p>
<p>Fels 72, Roxborough 54</p>
<p>Forest City 62, Blue Ridge 53</p>
<p>Forest Hills 67, Somerset 44</p>
<p>Fox Chapel 75, Hempfield Area 47</p>
<p>Frazier 62, Bentworth 58</p>
<p>Garden Spot 64, Ephrata 48</p>
<p>Greater Johnstown 75, Altoona 66</p>
<p>Greencastle Antrim 81, Northern York 59</p>
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<p>Grove City 51, Oil City 46</p>
<p>Hampton 85, West Allegheny 71</p>
<p>Hanover Area 70, Northwest Area 40</p>
<p>Haverford 60, Strath Haven 46</p>
<p>Hempfield 49, Penn Manor 43</p>
<p>Hershey 56, Mechanicsburg 27</p>
<p>Hickory 69, Franklin 54</p>
<p>Hollidaysburg 49, Bishop Carroll 34</p>
<p>Holy Ghost Prep 55, Calvary Christian 45</p>
<p>HOPE for Hyndman 73, Salisbury-Elk Lick 44</p>
<p>Huntingdon 64, Bellefonte 45</p>
<p>Imani Christian Academy 69, Eden Christian 51</p>
<p>Indiana 56, Deer Lakes 43</p>
<p>Jeannette 87, Summit Academy 57</p>
<p>Jenkintown 48, Phil-Montgomery Christian 44</p>
<p>Johnsonburg 75, Port Allegany 42</p>
<p>Juniata Valley 68, Moshannon Valley 38</p>
<p>Karns City 67, Venango 42</p>
<p>Keystone 59, Forest Area 37</p>
<p>Keystone Oaks 68, McGuffey 57</p>
<p>KIPP Dubois 61, Franklin Learning Center 58</p>
<p>Lancaster Catholic 68, Pequea Valley 28</p>
<p>Lancaster Mennonite 47, ELCO 41</p>
<p>Laurel 73, Northgate 44</p>
<p>Lebanon 70, Lancaster McCaskey 63</p>
<p>Lebanon Christian 84, Red Lion Christian 28</p>
<p>Leechburg 66, Riverview 42</p>
<p>Lewisburg 70, Milton 51</p>
<p>Ligonier Valley 76, Saltsburg 49</p>
<p>Lincoln Park Charter 66, Riverside 56</p>
<p>Littlestown 68, Hanover 42</p>
<p>Lower Dauphin 75, Harrisburg Bishop McDevitt 61</p>
<p>Lower Moreland 75, Morrisville 33</p>
<p>Malvern Prep 62, Haverford School 57</p>
<p>Maplewood 61, Saegertown 36</p>
<p>Mars 89, Knoch 57</p>
<p>Masterman 55, Parkway Center City 38</p>
<p>McKeesport 71, Laurel Highlands 62</p>
<p>Meadowbrook Christian 67, Columbia County Christian 29</p>
<p>Meadville 73, General McLane 54</p>
<p>Methacton 66, Boyertown 64</p>
<p>Mid Valley 50, Lakeland 40</p>
<p>Milton Hershey 72, Camp Hill 62</p>
<p>MMI Prep 51, Lake-Lehman 35</p>
<p>Mohawk 48, New Brighton 41</p>
<p>Montoursville 56, Warrior Run 44</p>
<p>Moon 52, Franklin Regional 48</p>
<p>Moravian Academy 55, Northern Lehigh 51</p>
<p>Mount Pleasant 52, Geibel Catholic 43</p>
<p>Mount Union 90, Glendale 50</p>
<p>Mountain View 59, Montrose 51</p>
<p>Nanticoke Area 56, Pittston Area 49</p>
<p>New Castle 49, Central Valley 42</p>
<p>Norristown 62, Spring-Ford 37</p>
<p>North Allegheny 64, Shaler 52</p>
<p>North Clarion 49, Allegheny-Clarion Valley 43</p>
<p>North Hills 82, Butler 55</p>
<p>North Penn 61, Central Bucks East 49</p>
<p>North Penn-Mansfield 61, Cowanesque Valley 48</p>
<p>North Schuylkill 67, Tamaqua 57</p>
<p>Northampton 52, Bethlehem Catholic 51</p>
<p>Northeastern 80, Dallastown Area 50</p>
<p>Northern Bedford 54, Southern Huntingdon 51</p>
<p>Northern Lebanon 76, Lebanon Catholic 35</p>
<p>Northumberland Christian 67, New Covenant 26</p>
<p>Norwin 66, Penn-Trafford 59</p>
<p>Our Lady Of Sacred Heart 70, Bishop Canevin 41</p>
<p>Owen J Roberts 49, Perkiomen Valley 47</p>
<p>Palmerton 51, Salisbury 46</p>
<p>Parkland 77, Nazareth Area 62</p>
<p>Penn Charter 81, Springside Chestnut Hill 56</p>
<p>Penn Hills 80, Plum 53</p>
<p>Penncrest 65, Garnet Valley 59</p>
<p>Penns Manor 60, Homer-Center 59</p>
<p>Penns Valley 52, Bald Eagle Area 38</p>
<p>Philadelphia Northeast 72, Edison 60</p>
<p>Phoenixville 49, Upper Perkiomen 47</p>
<p>Pine Grove 55, Lehighton 54</p>
<p>Pine-Richland 86, Steel Valley 64</p>
<p>Pittsburgh Central Catholic 55, Seneca Valley 47</p>
<p>Plumstead Christian 77, Calvary Baptist 36</p>
<p>Plymouth-Whitemarsh 62, Upper Moreland 47</p>
<p>Pocono Mountain West 69, Bethlehem Freedom 57</p>
<p>Pottstown 67, Pope John Paul II 63, OT</p>
<p>Purchase Line 85, Northern Cambria 57</p>
<p>Quaker Valley 70, Beaver Area 49</p>
<p>Red Lion 55, Central York 52</p>
<p>Ridgway 46, Elk County Catholic 36</p>
<p>Rocky Grove 62, Greenville 52</p>
<p>Scranton Holy Cross 62, Old Forge 31</p>
<p>Scranton Prep 63, Wallenpaupack 53</p>
<p>Sewickley Academy 86, Sto-Rox 68</p>
<p>Shade 77, Portage Area 29</p>
<p>Shady Side Academy 53, Apollo-Ridge 44</p>
<p>Shalom Christian 54, Grace Academy, Md. 44</p>
<p>Sharon 60, George Jr. Republic 52</p>
<p>Shenango 51, Neshannock 47</p>
<p>Solebury 60, New Foundations 54</p>
<p>Souderton 41, Central Bucks South 30</p>
<p>South Fayette 60, Belle Vernon 45</p>
<p>South Side 55, Charleroi 40</p>
<p>South Western 48, New Oxford 44</p>
<p>Southern Lehigh 54, Catasauqua 49</p>
<p>Springdale 48, Greensburg Central Catholic 47</p>
<p>St. Joseph's Prep 81, Conwell Egan 72</p>
<p>State College 77, Mifflin County 58</p>
<p>Susquehanna 64, Elk Lake 43</p>
<p>Thomas Jefferson 67, Ringgold 32</p>
<p>Towanda 83, Canton 59</p>
<p>Tri-Valley 47, Mahanoy Area 42</p>
<p>Trinity 85, Albert Gallatin 58</p>
<p>Tulpehocken 62, Oley Valley 58</p>
<p>Tyrone 79, Philipsburg-Osceola 53</p>
<p>Uniontown 70, South Park 68</p>
<p>United 50, Blairsville 46</p>
<p>Upper Darby 67, Springfield Delco 37</p>
<p>Valley 65, Freeport 53</p>
<p>Valley Forge Military 68, Delco Christian 49</p>
<p>Valley View 62, Western Wayne 38</p>
<p>Vincentian Academy 84, Pittsburgh Holy Family 64</p>
<p>Washington 62, Brownsville 39</p>
<p>Waynesburg Central 68, Elizabeth Forward 45</p>
<p>Wellsboro 67, North Penn/Liberty 36</p>
<p>West Greene 67, Mapletown 24</p>
<p>West Middlesex 53, Sharpsville 46</p>
<p>West Scranton 46, North Pocono 45</p>
<p>West Shamokin 54, Marion Center 40</p>
<p>West York 46, Gettysburg 42</p>
<p>Whitehall 60, Allentown Dieruff 53</p>
<p>Williamsburg 67, West Branch 65, OT</p>
<p>Wilmington 74, Lakeview 65</p>
<p>Wilson 69, Saucon Valley 45</p>
<p>Wissahickon 48, Quakertown 27</p>
<p>Woodland Hills 80, Greater Latrobe 69</p>
<p>Wyalusing 56, Troy 55</p>
<p>Wyoming Area 71, Wyoming Valley West 61</p>
<p>Wyoming Seminary 46, Holy Redeemer 41</p>
<p>York 73, Spring Grove 58</p>
<p>York Catholic 74, Fairfield 50</p>
<p>York County Tech 55, Bermudian Springs 29</p>
<p>Abington 59, Council Rock South 40</p>
<p>Abington Friends 61, George School 56</p>
<p>Abington Heights 68, Scranton 56</p>
<p>Academy of the New Church 37, Germantown Friends 32</p>
<p>Aliquippa 78, Ellwood City 28</p>
<p>Allderdice 80, Westinghouse 45</p>
<p>Allentown Allen 66, Pocono Mountain East 55</p>
<p>Allentown Central Catholic 72, East Stroudsburg North 55</p>
<p>Ambridge 56, Hopewell 38</p>
<p>Annville-Cleona 74, Columbia 64</p>
<p>Archbishop Carroll 64, Philadelphia West Catholic 46</p>
<p>Archbishop Ryan 47, Father Judge 42</p>
<p>Archbishop Wood 50, LaSalle 35</p>
<p>Athens 75, Sayre Area 46</p>
<p>Baldwin 48, Connellsville 35</p>
<p>Beaver Falls 52, Blackhawk 45</p>
<p>Bellwood-Antis 68, Claysburg-Kimmel 53</p>
<p>Berks Christian 42, High Point 41</p>
<p>Berwick 48, Wilkes-Barre Coughlin 31</p>
<p>Bethel Park 54, Peters Township 43</p>
<p>Bishop Guilfoyle 67, Bishop McCort 52</p>
<p>Bloomsburg 42, Hughesville 40</p>
<p>Blue Mountain 68, Minersville 35</p>
<p>Boiling Springs 45, Shippensburg 41</p>
<p>Bonner-Prendergast 68, Philadelphia Roman Catholic 66</p>
<p>Bradford 55, Punxsutawney 52</p>
<p>Brashear 87, Perry Traditional Academy 35</p>
<p>Brentwood 57, South Allegheny 53</p>
<p>Burgettstown 70, Southmoreland 45</p>
<p>Burrell 54, Kiski Area 40</p>
<p>California 66, Jefferson-Morgan 63</p>
<p>Cambridge Springs 55, Iroquois 52</p>
<p>Camp Hill Trinity 74, East Pennsboro 34</p>
<p>Canon-McMillan 61, Upper St. Clair 48</p>
<p>Carrick 69, Pittsburgh Obama 57</p>
<p>Cedar Cliff 46, Palmyra 25</p>
<p>Cedar Crest 54, Warwick 50</p>
<p>Central Columbia 67, South Williamsport 31</p>
<p>Central Martinsburg 50, Clearfield 46</p>
<p>Chambersburg 55, Carlisle 40</p>
<p>Cheltenham 76, Upper Dublin 71</p>
<p>Chestnut Ridge 69, Bedford 52</p>
<p>Church Farm School 63, Bristol 33</p>
<p>Clairton 48, West Mifflin 38</p>
<p>Clarion 69, Union 43</p>
<p>Clarion-Limestone 75, Moniteau 35</p>
<p>Cocalico 41, Solanco 35</p>
<p>Commodore Perry 43, Tidioute Charter 40</p>
<p>Constitution 86, Audenried 59</p>
<p>Cornell 44, Rochester 37</p>
<p>Cranberry 63, Redbank Valley 54</p>
<p>Crestwood 50, Wilkes-Barre Meyers 36</p>
<p>Cumberland Valley 58, Central Dauphin East 53</p>
<p>Curwensville 58, Kane Area 45</p>
<p>Dallas 66, Wilkes-Barre GAR 40</p>
<p>Danville 71, Shikellamy 55</p>
<p>Delaware Valley 46, Honesdale 42</p>
<p>Donegal 40, Manheim Central 39</p>
<p>Dover 69, Kennard-Dale 62</p>
<p>Downingtown West 47, West Lawn Wilson 38</p>
<p>Dubois Central Catholic 77, Sheffield 40</p>
<p>Dunmore 59, Riverside 48</p>
<p>East Juniata 64, Susquenita 55</p>
<p>East Stroudsburg South 54, Easton 36</p>
<p>Eastern York 76, Susquehannock 66</p>
<p>Eisenhower 69, Youngsville 34</p>
<p>Emmaus 62, Pleasant Valley 42</p>
<p>Engineering And Science 51, Prep Charter 47</p>
<p>Episcopal Academy 70, Germantown Academy 49</p>
<p>Everett 88, Tussey Mountain 57</p>
<p>Farrell 53, Slippery Rock 48</p>
<p>Fels 72, Roxborough 54</p>
<p>Forest City 62, Blue Ridge 53</p>
<p>Forest Hills 67, Somerset 44</p>
<p>Fox Chapel 75, Hempfield Area 47</p>
<p>Frazier 62, Bentworth 58</p>
<p>Garden Spot 64, Ephrata 48</p>
<p>Greater Johnstown 75, Altoona 66</p>
<p>Greencastle Antrim 81, Northern York 59</p>
<p>Greenwood 49, Juniata 40</p>
<p>Grove City 51, Oil City 46</p>
<p>Hampton 85, West Allegheny 71</p>
<p>Hanover Area 70, Northwest Area 40</p>
<p>Haverford 60, Strath Haven 46</p>
<p>Hempfield 49, Penn Manor 43</p>
<p>Hershey 56, Mechanicsburg 27</p>
<p>Hickory 69, Franklin 54</p>
<p>Hollidaysburg 49, Bishop Carroll 34</p>
<p>Holy Ghost Prep 55, Calvary Christian 45</p>
<p>HOPE for Hyndman 73, Salisbury-Elk Lick 44</p>
<p>Huntingdon 64, Bellefonte 45</p>
<p>Imani Christian Academy 69, Eden Christian 51</p>
<p>Indiana 56, Deer Lakes 43</p>
<p>Jeannette 87, Summit Academy 57</p>
<p>Jenkintown 48, Phil-Montgomery Christian 44</p>
<p>Johnsonburg 75, Port Allegany 42</p>
<p>Juniata Valley 68, Moshannon Valley 38</p>
<p>Karns City 67, Venango 42</p>
<p>Keystone 59, Forest Area 37</p>
<p>Keystone Oaks 68, McGuffey 57</p>
<p>KIPP Dubois 61, Franklin Learning Center 58</p>
<p>Lancaster Catholic 68, Pequea Valley 28</p>
<p>Lancaster Mennonite 47, ELCO 41</p>
<p>Laurel 73, Northgate 44</p>
<p>Lebanon 70, Lancaster McCaskey 63</p>
<p>Lebanon Christian 84, Red Lion Christian 28</p>
<p>Leechburg 66, Riverview 42</p>
<p>Lewisburg 70, Milton 51</p>
<p>Ligonier Valley 76, Saltsburg 49</p>
<p>Lincoln Park Charter 66, Riverside 56</p>
<p>Littlestown 68, Hanover 42</p>
<p>Lower Dauphin 75, Harrisburg Bishop McDevitt 61</p>
<p>Lower Moreland 75, Morrisville 33</p>
<p>Malvern Prep 62, Haverford School 57</p>
<p>Maplewood 61, Saegertown 36</p>
<p>Mars 89, Knoch 57</p>
<p>Masterman 55, Parkway Center City 38</p>
<p>McKeesport 71, Laurel Highlands 62</p>
<p>Meadowbrook Christian 67, Columbia County Christian 29</p>
<p>Meadville 73, General McLane 54</p>
<p>Methacton 66, Boyertown 64</p>
<p>Mid Valley 50, Lakeland 40</p>
<p>Milton Hershey 72, Camp Hill 62</p>
<p>MMI Prep 51, Lake-Lehman 35</p>
<p>Mohawk 48, New Brighton 41</p>
<p>Montoursville 56, Warrior Run 44</p>
<p>Moon 52, Franklin Regional 48</p>
<p>Moravian Academy 55, Northern Lehigh 51</p>
<p>Mount Pleasant 52, Geibel Catholic 43</p>
<p>Mount Union 90, Glendale 50</p>
<p>Mountain View 59, Montrose 51</p>
<p>Nanticoke Area 56, Pittston Area 49</p>
<p>New Castle 49, Central Valley 42</p>
<p>Norristown 62, Spring-Ford 37</p>
<p>North Allegheny 64, Shaler 52</p>
<p>North Clarion 49, Allegheny-Clarion Valley 43</p>
<p>North Hills 82, Butler 55</p>
<p>North Penn 61, Central Bucks East 49</p>
<p>North Penn-Mansfield 61, Cowanesque Valley 48</p>
<p>North Schuylkill 67, Tamaqua 57</p>
<p>Northampton 52, Bethlehem Catholic 51</p>
<p>Northeastern 80, Dallastown Area 50</p>
<p>Northern Bedford 54, Southern Huntingdon 51</p>
<p>Northern Lebanon 76, Lebanon Catholic 35</p>
<p>Northumberland Christian 67, New Covenant 26</p>
<p>Norwin 66, Penn-Trafford 59</p>
<p>Our Lady Of Sacred Heart 70, Bishop Canevin 41</p>
<p>Owen J Roberts 49, Perkiomen Valley 47</p>
<p>Palmerton 51, Salisbury 46</p>
<p>Parkland 77, Nazareth Area 62</p>
<p>Penn Charter 81, Springside Chestnut Hill 56</p>
<p>Penn Hills 80, Plum 53</p>
<p>Penncrest 65, Garnet Valley 59</p>
<p>Penns Manor 60, Homer-Center 59</p>
<p>Penns Valley 52, Bald Eagle Area 38</p>
<p>Philadelphia Northeast 72, Edison 60</p>
<p>Phoenixville 49, Upper Perkiomen 47</p>
<p>Pine Grove 55, Lehighton 54</p>
<p>Pine-Richland 86, Steel Valley 64</p>
<p>Pittsburgh Central Catholic 55, Seneca Valley 47</p>
<p>Plumstead Christian 77, Calvary Baptist 36</p>
<p>Plymouth-Whitemarsh 62, Upper Moreland 47</p>
<p>Pocono Mountain West 69, Bethlehem Freedom 57</p>
<p>Pottstown 67, Pope John Paul II 63, OT</p>
<p>Purchase Line 85, Northern Cambria 57</p>
<p>Quaker Valley 70, Beaver Area 49</p>
<p>Red Lion 55, Central York 52</p>
<p>Ridgway 46, Elk County Catholic 36</p>
<p>Rocky Grove 62, Greenville 52</p>
<p>Scranton Holy Cross 62, Old Forge 31</p>
<p>Scranton Prep 63, Wallenpaupack 53</p>
<p>Sewickley Academy 86, Sto-Rox 68</p>
<p>Shade 77, Portage Area 29</p>
<p>Shady Side Academy 53, Apollo-Ridge 44</p>
<p>Shalom Christian 54, Grace Academy, Md. 44</p>
<p>Sharon 60, George Jr. Republic 52</p>
<p>Shenango 51, Neshannock 47</p>
<p>Solebury 60, New Foundations 54</p>
<p>Souderton 41, Central Bucks South 30</p>
<p>South Fayette 60, Belle Vernon 45</p>
<p>South Side 55, Charleroi 40</p>
<p>South Western 48, New Oxford 44</p>
<p>Southern Lehigh 54, Catasauqua 49</p>
<p>Springdale 48, Greensburg Central Catholic 47</p>
<p>St. Joseph's Prep 81, Conwell Egan 72</p>
<p>State College 77, Mifflin County 58</p>
<p>Susquehanna 64, Elk Lake 43</p>
<p>Thomas Jefferson 67, Ringgold 32</p>
<p>Towanda 83, Canton 59</p>
<p>Tri-Valley 47, Mahanoy Area 42</p>
<p>Trinity 85, Albert Gallatin 58</p>
<p>Tulpehocken 62, Oley Valley 58</p>
<p>Tyrone 79, Philipsburg-Osceola 53</p>
<p>Uniontown 70, South Park 68</p>
<p>United 50, Blairsville 46</p>
<p>Upper Darby 67, Springfield Delco 37</p>
<p>Valley 65, Freeport 53</p>
<p>Valley Forge Military 68, Delco Christian 49</p>
<p>Valley View 62, Western Wayne 38</p>
<p>Vincentian Academy 84, Pittsburgh Holy Family 64</p>
<p>Washington 62, Brownsville 39</p>
<p>Waynesburg Central 68, Elizabeth Forward 45</p>
<p>Wellsboro 67, North Penn/Liberty 36</p>
<p>West Greene 67, Mapletown 24</p>
<p>West Middlesex 53, Sharpsville 46</p>
<p>West Scranton 46, North Pocono 45</p>
<p>West Shamokin 54, Marion Center 40</p>
<p>West York 46, Gettysburg 42</p>
<p>Whitehall 60, Allentown Dieruff 53</p>
<p>Williamsburg 67, West Branch 65, OT</p>
<p>Wilmington 74, Lakeview 65</p>
<p>Wilson 69, Saucon Valley 45</p>
<p>Wissahickon 48, Quakertown 27</p>
<p>Woodland Hills 80, Greater Latrobe 69</p>
<p>Wyalusing 56, Troy 55</p>
<p>Wyoming Area 71, Wyoming Valley West 61</p>
<p>Wyoming Seminary 46, Holy Redeemer 41</p>
<p>York 73, Spring Grove 58</p>
<p>York Catholic 74, Fairfield 50</p>
<p>York County Tech 55, Bermudian Springs 29</p>
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abington 59 council rock south 40 abington friends 61 george school 56 abington heights 68 scranton 56 academy new church 37 germantown friends 32 aliquippa 78 ellwood city 28 allderdice 80 westinghouse 45 allentown allen 66 pocono mountain east 55 allentown central catholic 72 east stroudsburg north 55 ambridge 56 hopewell 38 annvillecleona 74 columbia 64 archbishop carroll 64 philadelphia west catholic 46 archbishop ryan 47 father judge 42 archbishop wood 50 lasalle 35 athens 75 sayre area 46 baldwin 48 connellsville 35 beaver falls 52 blackhawk 45 bellwoodantis 68 claysburgkimmel 53 berks christian 42 high point 41 berwick 48 wilkesbarre coughlin 31 bethel park 54 peters township 43 bishop guilfoyle 67 bishop mccort 52 bloomsburg 42 hughesville 40 blue mountain 68 minersville 35 boiling springs 45 shippensburg 41 bonnerprendergast 68 philadelphia roman catholic 66 bradford 55 punxsutawney 52 brashear 87 perry traditional academy 35 brentwood 57 south allegheny 53 burgettstown 70 southmoreland 45 burrell 54 kiski area 40 california 66 jeffersonmorgan 63 cambridge springs 55 iroquois 52 camp hill trinity 74 east pennsboro 34 canonmcmillan 61 upper st clair 48 carrick 69 pittsburgh obama 57 cedar cliff 46 palmyra 25 cedar crest 54 warwick 50 central columbia 67 south williamsport 31 central martinsburg 50 clearfield 46 chambersburg 55 carlisle 40 cheltenham 76 upper dublin 71 chestnut ridge 69 bedford 52 church farm school 63 bristol 33 clairton 48 west mifflin 38 clarion 69 union 43 clarionlimestone 75 moniteau 35 cocalico 41 solanco 35 commodore perry 43 tidioute charter 40 constitution 86 audenried 59 cornell 44 rochester 37 cranberry 63 redbank valley 54 crestwood 50 wilkesbarre meyers 36 cumberland valley 58 central dauphin east 53 curwensville 58 kane area 45 dallas 66 wilkesbarre gar 40 danville 71 shikellamy 55 delaware valley 46 honesdale 42 donegal 40 manheim central 39 dover 69 kennarddale 62 downingtown west 47 west lawn wilson 38 dubois central catholic 77 sheffield 40 dunmore 59 riverside 48 east juniata 64 susquenita 55 east stroudsburg south 54 easton 36 eastern york 76 susquehannock 66 eisenhower 69 youngsville 34 emmaus 62 pleasant valley 42 engineering science 51 prep charter 47 episcopal academy 70 germantown academy 49 everett 88 tussey mountain 57 farrell 53 slippery rock 48 fels 72 roxborough 54 forest city 62 blue ridge 53 forest hills 67 somerset 44 fox chapel 75 hempfield area 47 frazier 62 bentworth 58 garden spot 64 ephrata 48 greater johnstown 75 altoona 66 greencastle antrim 81 northern york 59 greenwood 49 juniata 40 grove city 51 oil city 46 hampton 85 west allegheny 71 hanover area 70 northwest area 40 haverford 60 strath 46 hempfield 49 penn manor 43 hershey 56 mechanicsburg 27 hickory 69 franklin 54 hollidaysburg 49 bishop carroll 34 holy ghost prep 55 calvary christian 45 hope hyndman 73 salisburyelk lick 44 huntingdon 64 bellefonte 45 imani christian academy 69 eden christian 51 indiana 56 deer lakes 43 jeannette 87 summit academy 57 jenkintown 48 philmontgomery christian 44 johnsonburg 75 port allegany 42 juniata valley 68 moshannon valley 38 karns city 67 venango 42 keystone 59 forest area 37 keystone oaks 68 mcguffey 57 kipp dubois 61 franklin learning center 58 lancaster catholic 68 pequea valley 28 lancaster mennonite 47 elco 41 laurel 73 northgate 44 lebanon 70 lancaster mccaskey 63 lebanon christian 84 red lion christian 28 leechburg 66 riverview 42 lewisburg 70 milton 51 ligonier valley 76 saltsburg 49 lincoln park charter 66 riverside 56 littlestown 68 hanover 42 lower dauphin 75 harrisburg bishop mcdevitt 61 lower moreland 75 morrisville 33 malvern prep 62 haverford school 57 maplewood 61 saegertown 36 mars 89 knoch 57 masterman 55 parkway center city 38 mckeesport 71 laurel highlands 62 meadowbrook christian 67 columbia county christian 29 meadville 73 general mclane 54 methacton 66 boyertown 64 mid valley 50 lakeland 40 milton hershey 72 camp hill 62 mmi prep 51 lakelehman 35 mohawk 48 new brighton 41 montoursville 56 warrior run 44 moon 52 franklin regional 48 moravian academy 55 northern lehigh 51 mount pleasant 52 geibel catholic 43 mount union 90 glendale 50 mountain view 59 montrose 51 nanticoke area 56 pittston area 49 new castle 49 central valley 42 norristown 62 springford 37 north allegheny 64 shaler 52 north clarion 49 alleghenyclarion valley 43 north hills 82 butler 55 north penn 61 central bucks east 49 north pennmansfield 61 cowanesque valley 48 north schuylkill 67 tamaqua 57 northampton 52 bethlehem catholic 51 northeastern 80 dallastown area 50 northern bedford 54 southern huntingdon 51 northern lebanon 76 lebanon catholic 35 northumberland christian 67 new covenant 26 norwin 66 penntrafford 59 lady sacred heart 70 bishop canevin 41 owen j roberts 49 perkiomen valley 47 palmerton 51 salisbury 46 parkland 77 nazareth area 62 penn charter 81 springside chestnut hill 56 penn hills 80 plum 53 penncrest 65 garnet valley 59 penns manor 60 homercenter 59 penns valley 52 bald eagle area 38 philadelphia northeast 72 edison 60 phoenixville 49 upper perkiomen 47 pine grove 55 lehighton 54 pinerichland 86 steel valley 64 pittsburgh central catholic 55 seneca valley 47 plumstead christian 77 calvary baptist 36 plymouthwhitemarsh 62 upper moreland 47 pocono mountain west 69 bethlehem freedom 57 pottstown 67 pope john paul ii 63 ot purchase line 85 northern cambria 57 quaker valley 70 beaver area 49 red lion 55 central york 52 ridgway 46 elk county catholic 36 rocky grove 62 greenville 52 scranton holy cross 62 old forge 31 scranton prep 63 wallenpaupack 53 sewickley academy 86 storox 68 shade 77 portage area 29 shady side academy 53 apolloridge 44 shalom christian 54 grace academy md 44 sharon 60 george jr republic 52 shenango 51 neshannock 47 solebury 60 new foundations 54 souderton 41 central bucks south 30 south fayette 60 belle vernon 45 south side 55 charleroi 40 south western 48 new oxford 44 southern lehigh 54 catasauqua 49 springdale 48 greensburg central catholic 47 st josephs prep 81 conwell egan 72 state college 77 mifflin county 58 susquehanna 64 elk lake 43 thomas jefferson 67 ringgold 32 towanda 83 canton 59 trivalley 47 mahanoy area 42 trinity 85 albert gallatin 58 tulpehocken 62 oley valley 58 tyrone 79 philipsburgosceola 53 uniontown 70 south park 68 united 50 blairsville 46 upper darby 67 springfield delco 37 valley 65 freeport 53 valley forge military 68 delco christian 49 valley view 62 western wayne 38 vincentian academy 84 pittsburgh holy family 64 washington 62 brownsville 39 waynesburg central 68 elizabeth forward 45 wellsboro 67 north pennliberty 36 west greene 67 mapletown 24 west middlesex 53 sharpsville 46 west scranton 46 north pocono 45 west shamokin 54 marion center 40 west york 46 gettysburg 42 whitehall 60 allentown dieruff 53 williamsburg 67 west branch 65 ot wilmington 74 lakeview 65 wilson 69 saucon valley 45 wissahickon 48 quakertown 27 woodland hills 80 greater latrobe 69 wyalusing 56 troy 55 wyoming area 71 wyoming valley west 61 wyoming seminary 46 holy redeemer 41 york 73 spring grove 58 york catholic 74 fairfield 50 york county tech 55 bermudian springs 29 abington 59 council rock south 40 abington friends 61 george school 56 abington heights 68 scranton 56 academy new church 37 germantown friends 32 aliquippa 78 ellwood city 28 allderdice 80 westinghouse 45 allentown allen 66 pocono mountain east 55 allentown central catholic 72 east stroudsburg north 55 ambridge 56 hopewell 38 annvillecleona 74 columbia 64 archbishop carroll 64 philadelphia west catholic 46 archbishop ryan 47 father judge 42 archbishop wood 50 lasalle 35 athens 75 sayre area 46 baldwin 48 connellsville 35 beaver falls 52 blackhawk 45 bellwoodantis 68 claysburgkimmel 53 berks christian 42 high point 41 berwick 48 wilkesbarre coughlin 31 bethel park 54 peters township 43 bishop guilfoyle 67 bishop mccort 52 bloomsburg 42 hughesville 40 blue mountain 68 minersville 35 boiling springs 45 shippensburg 41 bonnerprendergast 68 philadelphia roman catholic 66 bradford 55 punxsutawney 52 brashear 87 perry traditional academy 35 brentwood 57 south allegheny 53 burgettstown 70 southmoreland 45 burrell 54 kiski area 40 california 66 jeffersonmorgan 63 cambridge springs 55 iroquois 52 camp hill trinity 74 east pennsboro 34 canonmcmillan 61 upper st clair 48 carrick 69 pittsburgh obama 57 cedar cliff 46 palmyra 25 cedar crest 54 warwick 50 central columbia 67 south williamsport 31 central martinsburg 50 clearfield 46 chambersburg 55 carlisle 40 cheltenham 76 upper dublin 71 chestnut ridge 69 bedford 52 church farm school 63 bristol 33 clairton 48 west mifflin 38 clarion 69 union 43 clarionlimestone 75 moniteau 35 cocalico 41 solanco 35 commodore perry 43 tidioute charter 40 constitution 86 audenried 59 cornell 44 rochester 37 cranberry 63 redbank valley 54 crestwood 50 wilkesbarre meyers 36 cumberland valley 58 central dauphin east 53 curwensville 58 kane area 45 dallas 66 wilkesbarre gar 40 danville 71 shikellamy 55 delaware valley 46 honesdale 42 donegal 40 manheim central 39 dover 69 kennarddale 62 downingtown west 47 west lawn wilson 38 dubois central catholic 77 sheffield 40 dunmore 59 riverside 48 east juniata 64 susquenita 55 east stroudsburg south 54 easton 36 eastern york 76 susquehannock 66 eisenhower 69 youngsville 34 emmaus 62 pleasant valley 42 engineering science 51 prep charter 47 episcopal academy 70 germantown academy 49 everett 88 tussey mountain 57 farrell 53 slippery rock 48 fels 72 roxborough 54 forest city 62 blue ridge 53 forest hills 67 somerset 44 fox chapel 75 hempfield area 47 frazier 62 bentworth 58 garden spot 64 ephrata 48 greater johnstown 75 altoona 66 greencastle antrim 81 northern york 59 greenwood 49 juniata 40 grove city 51 oil city 46 hampton 85 west allegheny 71 hanover area 70 northwest area 40 haverford 60 strath 46 hempfield 49 penn manor 43 hershey 56 mechanicsburg 27 hickory 69 franklin 54 hollidaysburg 49 bishop carroll 34 holy ghost prep 55 calvary christian 45 hope hyndman 73 salisburyelk lick 44 huntingdon 64 bellefonte 45 imani christian academy 69 eden christian 51 indiana 56 deer lakes 43 jeannette 87 summit academy 57 jenkintown 48 philmontgomery christian 44 johnsonburg 75 port allegany 42 juniata valley 68 moshannon valley 38 karns city 67 venango 42 keystone 59 forest area 37 keystone oaks 68 mcguffey 57 kipp dubois 61 franklin learning center 58 lancaster catholic 68 pequea valley 28 lancaster mennonite 47 elco 41 laurel 73 northgate 44 lebanon 70 lancaster mccaskey 63 lebanon christian 84 red lion christian 28 leechburg 66 riverview 42 lewisburg 70 milton 51 ligonier valley 76 saltsburg 49 lincoln park charter 66 riverside 56 littlestown 68 hanover 42 lower dauphin 75 harrisburg bishop mcdevitt 61 lower moreland 75 morrisville 33 malvern prep 62 haverford school 57 maplewood 61 saegertown 36 mars 89 knoch 57 masterman 55 parkway center city 38 mckeesport 71 laurel highlands 62 meadowbrook christian 67 columbia county christian 29 meadville 73 general mclane 54 methacton 66 boyertown 64 mid valley 50 lakeland 40 milton hershey 72 camp hill 62 mmi prep 51 lakelehman 35 mohawk 48 new brighton 41 montoursville 56 warrior run 44 moon 52 franklin regional 48 moravian academy 55 northern lehigh 51 mount pleasant 52 geibel catholic 43 mount union 90 glendale 50 mountain view 59 montrose 51 nanticoke area 56 pittston area 49 new castle 49 central valley 42 norristown 62 springford 37 north allegheny 64 shaler 52 north clarion 49 alleghenyclarion valley 43 north hills 82 butler 55 north penn 61 central bucks east 49 north pennmansfield 61 cowanesque valley 48 north schuylkill 67 tamaqua 57 northampton 52 bethlehem catholic 51 northeastern 80 dallastown area 50 northern bedford 54 southern huntingdon 51 northern lebanon 76 lebanon catholic 35 northumberland christian 67 new covenant 26 norwin 66 penntrafford 59 lady sacred heart 70 bishop canevin 41 owen j roberts 49 perkiomen valley 47 palmerton 51 salisbury 46 parkland 77 nazareth area 62 penn charter 81 springside chestnut hill 56 penn hills 80 plum 53 penncrest 65 garnet valley 59 penns manor 60 homercenter 59 penns valley 52 bald eagle area 38 philadelphia northeast 72 edison 60 phoenixville 49 upper perkiomen 47 pine grove 55 lehighton 54 pinerichland 86 steel valley 64 pittsburgh central catholic 55 seneca valley 47 plumstead christian 77 calvary baptist 36 plymouthwhitemarsh 62 upper moreland 47 pocono mountain west 69 bethlehem freedom 57 pottstown 67 pope john paul ii 63 ot purchase line 85 northern cambria 57 quaker valley 70 beaver area 49 red lion 55 central york 52 ridgway 46 elk county catholic 36 rocky grove 62 greenville 52 scranton holy cross 62 old forge 31 scranton prep 63 wallenpaupack 53 sewickley academy 86 storox 68 shade 77 portage area 29 shady side academy 53 apolloridge 44 shalom christian 54 grace academy md 44 sharon 60 george jr republic 52 shenango 51 neshannock 47 solebury 60 new foundations 54 souderton 41 central bucks south 30 south fayette 60 belle vernon 45 south side 55 charleroi 40 south western 48 new oxford 44 southern lehigh 54 catasauqua 49 springdale 48 greensburg central catholic 47 st josephs prep 81 conwell egan 72 state college 77 mifflin county 58 susquehanna 64 elk lake 43 thomas jefferson 67 ringgold 32 towanda 83 canton 59 trivalley 47 mahanoy area 42 trinity 85 albert gallatin 58 tulpehocken 62 oley valley 58 tyrone 79 philipsburgosceola 53 uniontown 70 south park 68 united 50 blairsville 46 upper darby 67 springfield delco 37 valley 65 freeport 53 valley forge military 68 delco christian 49 valley view 62 western wayne 38 vincentian academy 84 pittsburgh holy family 64 washington 62 brownsville 39 waynesburg central 68 elizabeth forward 45 wellsboro 67 north pennliberty 36 west greene 67 mapletown 24 west middlesex 53 sharpsville 46 west scranton 46 north pocono 45 west shamokin 54 marion center 40 west york 46 gettysburg 42 whitehall 60 allentown dieruff 53 williamsburg 67 west branch 65 ot wilmington 74 lakeview 65 wilson 69 saucon valley 45 wissahickon 48 quakertown 27 woodland hills 80 greater latrobe 69 wyalusing 56 troy 55 wyoming area 71 wyoming valley west 61 wyoming seminary 46 holy redeemer 41 york 73 spring grove 58 york catholic 74 fairfield 50 york county tech 55 bermudian springs 29
| 2,340 |
<p>Abingdon 82, Lee High 37</p>
<p>Armstrong 48, Lee-Davis 28</p>
<p>Bishop Ireton 50, Bishop McNamara, Md. 48</p>
<p>Bishop O'Connell 62, Holy Cross, Md. 45</p>
<p>Blacksburg 45, Cave Spring 40</p>
<p>Broad Run 60, Potomac Falls 49</p>
<p>Brunswick Academy 55, Richmond Christian 30</p>
<p>Bruton 62, Grafton 31</p>
<p>Cape Henry Collegiate 47, Walsingham Academy 19</p>
<p>Caroline 53, Spotsylvania 51, OT</p>
<p>Central Wise 56, Gate City 46</p>
<p>Charlottesville 46, Louisa 35</p>
<p>Chatham 46, Appomattox 41</p>
<p>Collegiate-Richmond 57, St. Margaret's 19</p>
<p>Culpeper 41, Skyline 29</p>
<p>Eastside 70, J.I. Burton 64</p>
<p>Faith Christian-Roanoke 55, Roanoke Catholic 51</p>
<p>Flint Hill 47, Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart, Md. 39</p>
<p>Fluvanna 31, Monticello 29</p>
<p>Fort Defiance 56, Turner Ashby 30</p>
<p>Freedom (South Riding) 62, Briar Woods 27</p>
<p>Galax 54, Grayson County 24</p>
<p>George Wythe-Wytheville 63, Bland County 25</p>
<p>Glen Allen 55, J.R. Tucker 54</p>
<p>Goochland 38, Buckingham County 32</p>
<p>Grace Christian 60, Mt. Carmel Christian 29</p>
<p>Green Run 79, Bishop Sullivan 22</p>
<p>Grundy 56, Twin Valley 42</p>
<p>Herndon 46, Yorktown 39</p>
<p>Highland-Warrenton 71, Fredericksburg Academy 27</p>
<p>Honaker 52, Patrick Henry-Glade Spring 47</p>
<p>James River-Midlothian 67, George Wythe-Richmond 18</p>
<p>King George 79, Eastern View 24</p>
<p>Landstown 64, Frank Cox 19</p>
<p>Lebanon 66, Tazewell 35</p>
<p>Loudoun County 59, Dominion 21</p>
<p>Loudoun Valley 69, Riverside 54</p>
<p>Marion 49, Richlands 47</p>
<p>Martinsville 43, Bassett 31</p>
<p>Millbrook 68, Fauquier 23</p>
<p>Monacan 53, Midlothian 38</p>
<p>Narrows 63, Bath County 29</p>
<p>Norcom 89, Booker T. Washington 9</p>
<p>Norfolk Academy 49, Greenbrier Christian 20</p>
<p>Norfolk Christian 56, Hampton Roads 23</p>
<p>Norfolk Collegiate 45, Isle of Wight Academy 30</p>
<p>Ocean Lakes 46, Kellam 41</p>
<p>Parry McCluer 84, Highland-Monterey 19</p>
<p>Patrick County 41, Franklin County 32</p>
<p>Patrick Henry-Roanoke 76, Hidden Valley 64</p>
<p>Paul VI 83, St. Mary's Ryken, Md. 48</p>
<p>Potomac School 70, St. Stephens-St. Agnes 61</p>
<p>R.E. Lee-Staunton 52, Luray 12</p>
<p>Rock Ridge 37, John Champe 29</p>
<p>Salem 34, Christiansburg 2</p>
<p>Seton School 44, St. John Paul the Great 33</p>
<p>Sherando 41, Liberty-Bealeton 32</p>
<p>Sidwell Friends, D.C. 55, Episcopal 46</p>
<p>South County 54, W.T. Woodson 42</p>
<p>Spotswood 70, Rockbridge County 15</p>
<p>St. Annes-Belfield 62, Trinity Episcopal 53</p>
<p>St. Catherine's 55, St. Gertrude 31</p>
<p>Stuart Hall 58, United Christian Academy 18</p>
<p>Tuscarora 60, Stone Bridge 50</p>
<p>Veritas Christian Academy 63, Christchurch 14</p>
<p>Western Albemarle 35, Powhatan 30</p>
<p>Woodbridge 61, Potomac 19</p>
<p>Woodstock Central 35, Madison County 22</p>
<p>Abingdon 82, Lee High 37</p>
<p>Armstrong 48, Lee-Davis 28</p>
<p>Bishop Ireton 50, Bishop McNamara, Md. 48</p>
<p>Bishop O'Connell 62, Holy Cross, Md. 45</p>
<p>Blacksburg 45, Cave Spring 40</p>
<p>Broad Run 60, Potomac Falls 49</p>
<p>Brunswick Academy 55, Richmond Christian 30</p>
<p>Bruton 62, Grafton 31</p>
<p>Cape Henry Collegiate 47, Walsingham Academy 19</p>
<p>Caroline 53, Spotsylvania 51, OT</p>
<p>Central Wise 56, Gate City 46</p>
<p>Charlottesville 46, Louisa 35</p>
<p>Chatham 46, Appomattox 41</p>
<p>Collegiate-Richmond 57, St. Margaret's 19</p>
<p>Culpeper 41, Skyline 29</p>
<p>Eastside 70, J.I. Burton 64</p>
<p>Faith Christian-Roanoke 55, Roanoke Catholic 51</p>
<p>Flint Hill 47, Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart, Md. 39</p>
<p>Fluvanna 31, Monticello 29</p>
<p>Fort Defiance 56, Turner Ashby 30</p>
<p>Freedom (South Riding) 62, Briar Woods 27</p>
<p>Galax 54, Grayson County 24</p>
<p>George Wythe-Wytheville 63, Bland County 25</p>
<p>Glen Allen 55, J.R. Tucker 54</p>
<p>Goochland 38, Buckingham County 32</p>
<p>Grace Christian 60, Mt. Carmel Christian 29</p>
<p>Green Run 79, Bishop Sullivan 22</p>
<p>Grundy 56, Twin Valley 42</p>
<p>Herndon 46, Yorktown 39</p>
<p>Highland-Warrenton 71, Fredericksburg Academy 27</p>
<p>Honaker 52, Patrick Henry-Glade Spring 47</p>
<p>James River-Midlothian 67, George Wythe-Richmond 18</p>
<p>King George 79, Eastern View 24</p>
<p>Landstown 64, Frank Cox 19</p>
<p>Lebanon 66, Tazewell 35</p>
<p>Loudoun County 59, Dominion 21</p>
<p>Loudoun Valley 69, Riverside 54</p>
<p>Marion 49, Richlands 47</p>
<p>Martinsville 43, Bassett 31</p>
<p>Millbrook 68, Fauquier 23</p>
<p>Monacan 53, Midlothian 38</p>
<p>Narrows 63, Bath County 29</p>
<p>Norcom 89, Booker T. Washington 9</p>
<p>Norfolk Academy 49, Greenbrier Christian 20</p>
<p>Norfolk Christian 56, Hampton Roads 23</p>
<p>Norfolk Collegiate 45, Isle of Wight Academy 30</p>
<p>Ocean Lakes 46, Kellam 41</p>
<p>Parry McCluer 84, Highland-Monterey 19</p>
<p>Patrick County 41, Franklin County 32</p>
<p>Patrick Henry-Roanoke 76, Hidden Valley 64</p>
<p>Paul VI 83, St. Mary's Ryken, Md. 48</p>
<p>Potomac School 70, St. Stephens-St. Agnes 61</p>
<p>R.E. Lee-Staunton 52, Luray 12</p>
<p>Rock Ridge 37, John Champe 29</p>
<p>Salem 34, Christiansburg 2</p>
<p>Seton School 44, St. John Paul the Great 33</p>
<p>Sherando 41, Liberty-Bealeton 32</p>
<p>Sidwell Friends, D.C. 55, Episcopal 46</p>
<p>South County 54, W.T. Woodson 42</p>
<p>Spotswood 70, Rockbridge County 15</p>
<p>St. Annes-Belfield 62, Trinity Episcopal 53</p>
<p>St. Catherine's 55, St. Gertrude 31</p>
<p>Stuart Hall 58, United Christian Academy 18</p>
<p>Tuscarora 60, Stone Bridge 50</p>
<p>Veritas Christian Academy 63, Christchurch 14</p>
<p>Western Albemarle 35, Powhatan 30</p>
<p>Woodbridge 61, Potomac 19</p>
<p>Woodstock Central 35, Madison County 22</p>
| false | 2 |
abingdon 82 lee high 37 armstrong 48 leedavis 28 bishop ireton 50 bishop mcnamara md 48 bishop oconnell 62 holy cross md 45 blacksburg 45 cave spring 40 broad run 60 potomac falls 49 brunswick academy 55 richmond christian 30 bruton 62 grafton 31 cape henry collegiate 47 walsingham academy 19 caroline 53 spotsylvania 51 ot central wise 56 gate city 46 charlottesville 46 louisa 35 chatham 46 appomattox 41 collegiaterichmond 57 st margarets 19 culpeper 41 skyline 29 eastside 70 ji burton 64 faith christianroanoke 55 roanoke catholic 51 flint hill 47 stone ridge school sacred heart md 39 fluvanna 31 monticello 29 fort defiance 56 turner ashby 30 freedom south riding 62 briar woods 27 galax 54 grayson county 24 george wythewytheville 63 bland county 25 glen allen 55 jr tucker 54 goochland 38 buckingham county 32 grace christian 60 mt carmel christian 29 green run 79 bishop sullivan 22 grundy 56 twin valley 42 herndon 46 yorktown 39 highlandwarrenton 71 fredericksburg academy 27 honaker 52 patrick henryglade spring 47 james rivermidlothian 67 george wytherichmond 18 king george 79 eastern view 24 landstown 64 frank cox 19 lebanon 66 tazewell 35 loudoun county 59 dominion 21 loudoun valley 69 riverside 54 marion 49 richlands 47 martinsville 43 bassett 31 millbrook 68 fauquier 23 monacan 53 midlothian 38 narrows 63 bath county 29 norcom 89 booker washington 9 norfolk academy 49 greenbrier christian 20 norfolk christian 56 hampton roads 23 norfolk collegiate 45 isle wight academy 30 ocean lakes 46 kellam 41 parry mccluer 84 highlandmonterey 19 patrick county 41 franklin county 32 patrick henryroanoke 76 hidden valley 64 paul vi 83 st marys ryken md 48 potomac school 70 st stephensst agnes 61 leestaunton 52 luray 12 rock ridge 37 john champe 29 salem 34 christiansburg 2 seton school 44 st john paul great 33 sherando 41 libertybealeton 32 sidwell friends dc 55 episcopal 46 south county 54 wt woodson 42 spotswood 70 rockbridge county 15 st annesbelfield 62 trinity episcopal 53 st catherines 55 st gertrude 31 stuart hall 58 united christian academy 18 tuscarora 60 stone bridge 50 veritas christian academy 63 christchurch 14 western albemarle 35 powhatan 30 woodbridge 61 potomac 19 woodstock central 35 madison county 22 abingdon 82 lee high 37 armstrong 48 leedavis 28 bishop ireton 50 bishop mcnamara md 48 bishop oconnell 62 holy cross md 45 blacksburg 45 cave spring 40 broad run 60 potomac falls 49 brunswick academy 55 richmond christian 30 bruton 62 grafton 31 cape henry collegiate 47 walsingham academy 19 caroline 53 spotsylvania 51 ot central wise 56 gate city 46 charlottesville 46 louisa 35 chatham 46 appomattox 41 collegiaterichmond 57 st margarets 19 culpeper 41 skyline 29 eastside 70 ji burton 64 faith christianroanoke 55 roanoke catholic 51 flint hill 47 stone ridge school sacred heart md 39 fluvanna 31 monticello 29 fort defiance 56 turner ashby 30 freedom south riding 62 briar woods 27 galax 54 grayson county 24 george wythewytheville 63 bland county 25 glen allen 55 jr tucker 54 goochland 38 buckingham county 32 grace christian 60 mt carmel christian 29 green run 79 bishop sullivan 22 grundy 56 twin valley 42 herndon 46 yorktown 39 highlandwarrenton 71 fredericksburg academy 27 honaker 52 patrick henryglade spring 47 james rivermidlothian 67 george wytherichmond 18 king george 79 eastern view 24 landstown 64 frank cox 19 lebanon 66 tazewell 35 loudoun county 59 dominion 21 loudoun valley 69 riverside 54 marion 49 richlands 47 martinsville 43 bassett 31 millbrook 68 fauquier 23 monacan 53 midlothian 38 narrows 63 bath county 29 norcom 89 booker washington 9 norfolk academy 49 greenbrier christian 20 norfolk christian 56 hampton roads 23 norfolk collegiate 45 isle wight academy 30 ocean lakes 46 kellam 41 parry mccluer 84 highlandmonterey 19 patrick county 41 franklin county 32 patrick henryroanoke 76 hidden valley 64 paul vi 83 st marys ryken md 48 potomac school 70 st stephensst agnes 61 leestaunton 52 luray 12 rock ridge 37 john champe 29 salem 34 christiansburg 2 seton school 44 st john paul great 33 sherando 41 libertybealeton 32 sidwell friends dc 55 episcopal 46 south county 54 wt woodson 42 spotswood 70 rockbridge county 15 st annesbelfield 62 trinity episcopal 53 st catherines 55 st gertrude 31 stuart hall 58 united christian academy 18 tuscarora 60 stone bridge 50 veritas christian academy 63 christchurch 14 western albemarle 35 powhatan 30 woodbridge 61 potomac 19 woodstock central 35 madison county 22
| 746 |
<p>CHICAGO (Reuters) - An Illinois judge on Thursday denied a Chicago-area transgender student’s demand to use the girls’ locker room at a local high school without being restricted to a private changing area inside the locker room.</p>
<p>Cook County Judge Thomas Allen rejected Palatine High School student Nova Maday’s request for a preliminary injunction that would have allowed unrestricted use, according to the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, which sued in November on Maday’s behalf.</p>
<p>The case marked the latest legal clash over the use of school bathrooms and facilities by transgender students in the United States, which has sparked battles in North Carolina, Kentucky and elsewhere.</p>
<p>Palatine-Schaumburg High School District 211 requires transgender students to use a private changing area inside the locker rooms of their preferred gender. The judge ruled that a preliminary injunction was not warranted as the case proceeds.</p>
<p>“I am disappointed with the decision today,” Maday said in a statement. “All I want is to be accepted by my school for who I am – a girl – and be able to take gym and use the locker room to change clothes like the other girls in my class.”</p>
<p>Superintendent Daniel Cates said in a statement to Reuters that the ruling upheld a balance between supporting students and privacy rights.</p>
<p>“We are committed to providing supportive access to our school locker rooms, access that respects and balances the identity and privacy rights of all of the nearly 12,000 teenagers in our high schools,” he said. “Our practices welcome transgender teens into the locker room of their identity with an agreement that they change or shower in the locker room privacy stalls.”</p>
<p>John Knight, LGBTQ &amp; HIV Project Director of the ACLU of Illinois, said it amounted to discrimination and the group was deciding how to move forward.</p>
<p>The conservative legal groups Alliance Defending Freedom and Thomas More Society, which intervened in the lawsuit, said in a statement the decision ensures student privacy.</p>
<p>“Schools should never be forced to give male students unrestricted access to areas where girls are changing clothes. Claiming a female gender identity doesn’t change that,” Thomas More attorney Thomas Brejcha said.</p>
<p>The issue has played out most prominently in North Carolina, which was mired in controversy and litigation after Republican lawmakers enacted a since-rescinded law in 2016 that restricted bathroom choice in state-run buildings to the sex on people’s birth certificates rather than their gender identity.</p>
<p>Reporting by Chris Kenning; Editing by Cynthia Osterman</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions instructed federal prosecutors on Wednesday to seek the death penalty in drug-related cases whenever it is “appropriate,” saying the Justice Department must boost efforts to counter America’s epidemic of opioid abuse.</p> FILE PHOTO: United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions visits families of opioid overdose victims and members of local law enforcement at the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Kentucky in Lexington, Kentucky, U.S. March 15, 2018. REUTERS/John Sommers II
<p>His mandate to prosecutors followed a plan announced by President Donald Trump earlier this week that called for executing opioid dealers and traffickers, and for stiffer sentencing laws for opioid trafficking.</p>
<p>The call for greater use of the death penalty in federal drug cases has already sparked a backlash from criminal justice reform groups. They say it is the wrong response to a public health crisis and harks back to the 1980s-era war on drugs policies that led to racial disparities in prosecutions.</p>
<p>While the death penalty is used in the United States, it is generally handed down in federal cases only in connection with the most heinous crimes.</p>
<p>According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 61 federal prisoners currently sit on death row.</p>
<p>Many American states also impose the death penalty, although also only for the most heinous crimes. However, states have struggled to carry out death sentences in recent years because of a lack of access to drugs used in executing people.</p>
<p>“In the face of all of this death, we cannot continue with business as usual,” Sessions said of the opioid epidemic in a memo sent to the country’s U.S. Attorneys offices.</p>
<p>“Drug traffickers, transnational criminal organizations, and violent street gangs all contribute substantially to this scourge. To combat this deadly epidemic, federal prosecutors must consider every lawful tool at their disposal,” he said.</p>
<p>Critics say greater use of the death penalty could tie up resources at U.S. Attorneys offices, because death penalty cases are more complex and take longer to move through the court system.</p>
<p>“Death penalty cases are extremely difficult and cumbersome and complicated,” one former federal prosecutor told Reuters when Trump first announced the plan. “They take a long time, lots of resources and every U.S. Attorneys office has a lot of limited resources.”</p>
<p>Under U.S. law, there are only four limited circumstances in which the death penalty can be sought in federal drug cases.</p>
<p>Those include cases which involve racketeering, cases involving the use of a firearm resulting in death during a drug trafficking crime, cases where a murder is committed as a part of a crime enterprise and cases involving large quantities of drugs.</p>
<p>Brett Tolman, a former U.S. Attorney for the District of Utah who is now an attorney with Ray Quinney &amp; Nebeker, said Trump’s proposal was unwarranted because the Justice Department had already started to seek out stiffer penalties in drug cases by requesting sentencing enhancements, a blunt legal tool that can add a large amount of prison time to a person’s sentence.</p>
<p>“They are already going in a direction that is so aggressive,” he said. “Why does the president even want to mess with the death penalty?”</p>
<p>Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Frances Kerry and Tom Brown</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>TEMPE, Ariz./SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Police in Arizona on Wednesday released a short video of a fatal collision between an Uber self-driving vehicle and a pedestrian, as investigators probe the accident that has put new focus on the safety of autonomous vehicles.</p>
<p>The video, taken from inside the Volvo XC90 sport utility vehicle that Uber has used for testing, shows the vehicle driving along a dark road when an image of a woman walking a bicycle across the road suddenly appears in the headlights.</p>
<p>The woman, Elaine Herzberg, 49, later died from her injuries.</p>
<p>Police have released few details about the accident that occurred on Sunday night in Tempe, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix, while the SUV was driving in autonomous mode. Uber suspended its self-driving testing in North America after the incident and federal safety regulators are conducting their own probe.</p>
<p>Fall-out from the accident could stall the development and testing of self-driving vehicles, which are designed to perform far better than human drivers and sharply reduce the number of motor vehicle fatalities that occur each year.</p>
<p>The video shows the vehicle traveling in the right-hand lane of a divided four-lane roadway. The vehicle’s headlights illuminate a woman directly in front of it who is crossing the SUV’s lane with her bike. The woman appears to be jaywalking as she is not in a crosswalk.</p>
<p>A photo released by safety regulators on Tuesday showed that the impact occurred on the right side of the vehicle.</p>
<p>The footage also shows a view of the vehicle’s interior and the driver at the wheel. The driver appears to be looking down, and not at the road, for two periods of about five seconds each. Just before the video stops, the driver looks upward toward the road and suddenly looks shocked.</p>
<p>“The video is disturbing and heartbreaking to watch, and our thoughts continue to be with Elaine’s loved ones,” Uber said in a statement. “Our cars remain grounded, and we’re assisting local, state and federal authorities in any way we can.”</p>
<p>The video is likely to be a key part of investigations of Uber’s self-driving car technology and whether it was ready for testing on public roads.</p>
<p>Although the exact specifics of Uber’s technology are not known, self-driving cars typically use a combination of sensors, including radar and light-based Lidar, to identify objects around the vehicle, including potential obstacles coming into range. While cameras do not perform well in the dark, radar and Lidar can work at night.</p>
<p>One question on regulators’ minds will be why the sensors did not pick up on the presence of Herzberg, who would ostensibly have already crossed three lanes of traffic before arriving in the path of the Uber vehicle.</p> Slideshow (3 Images)
<p>One self-driving car expert, Bryant Walker Smith, said his first impression was of “outrage” viewing the video.</p>
<p>“Although this video isn’t the full picture, it strongly suggests a failure by Uber’s automated driving system and a lack of due care by Uber’s driver (and by the victim),” said Smith, a professor of law at the University of South Carolina.</p>
<p>Another autonomous driving expert agreed with Smith’s assessment.</p>
<p>“The sensors should have detected the pedestrian in this case; the cameras were likely useless but both the radars and the Lidar must have picked up the pedestrian,” said Raj Rajkumar, a professor at Carnegie Mellon.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GOOGL.O" type="external">Alphabet Inc</a> 1094.0 GOOGL.O Nasdaq -1.80 (-0.16%) GOOGL.O GM.N
<p>“Though no information is available, one would have to conclude based on this video alone, that there are problems in the Uber vehicle software that need to be rectified,” he said.</p>
<p>Uber did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its systems.</p> OVERSIGHT?
<p>The video is likely to renew calls for more oversight in a nascent industry that lacks standardized testing or safety definitions. Lawmakers have had to juggle the need to encourage innovations that promise to dramatically improve safety on roads with current public safety concerns.</p>
<p>Companies including Uber, Alphabet’s Waymo ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GOOGL.O" type="external">GOOGL.O</a>) and General Motors’s Cruise Automation ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GM.N" type="external">GM.N</a>) have been testing their self-driving technology in Arizona, which has welcomed the industry with a lighter regulatory touch than in states like California, for example.</p>
<p>On Tuesday, Arizona transportation officials said they saw no immediate need to tighten rules on the testing of self-driving cars in the state.</p>
<p>Although some within the self-driving industry have suggested agreeing testing and safety standards for autonomous technology, there has been no concerted effort to do so.</p>
<p>Timothy Carone, an associate teaching professor at Notre Dame University’s Mendoza College of Business whose research specialties include artificial intelligence and autonomous systems, said the question is whether Uber did enough testing before sending robot cars out onto streets alongside humans.</p>
<p>“Did they jump the gun?” he said. “If their testing is found to be inefficient, that cannot be allowed to happen again because these systems have to be ready for road tests.”</p>
<p>Additional reporting by Paul Lienert and Nick Carey in Detroit; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien, Peter Cooney and Cynthia Osterman</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican and Democratic leaders in the U.S. Congress late on Wednesday unveiled a $1.3 trillion bill to fund the government through September, which includes an additional $80 billion in national defense spending but fails to fund some of President Donald Trump’s immigration initiatives.</p>
<p>If passed by the House of Representatives and Senate by a Friday midnight deadline, it would avert the shutdown of many federal agencies and programs beginning this weekend, when existing funds expire.</p>
<p>Earlier on Wednesday, the White House indicated Trump would support the measure, ending a prolonged debate over spending priorities for the fiscal year that began last Oct. 1.</p>
<p>The Republican-controlled Congress will need Democratic support to pass a bill that many Republican conservatives are likely to balk at because of its cost.</p>
<p>Representative Mark Walker, who heads a large group of House conservative Republicans, complained that the bill will add to budget deficits. “It is imperative that we curb Washington’s out-of-control spending addiction that has not been slowed under Republican rule,” Walker said.</p>
<p>Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer touted the measure. “From opioid funding to rural broadband, and from student loans to child care, this bill puts workers and families first,” he said in a statement.</p>
<p>Trump at one point wanted $25 billion included in the bill to fully fund construction of his proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall, but negotiations with Democrats to make that happen fell apart early this week, according to congressional aides.</p> U.S. President Donald Trump, flanked by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), takes the stage to address the Republican congressional retreat at the Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, U.S. February 1, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
<p>Instead, Trump will get nearly $1.6 billion more for border security this year.</p>
<p>Republicans said that money will help with more than 90 miles of “physical barrier construction” along the southern U.S. border “for replacement (of existing barriers), bollards, and levee improvements.”</p>
<p>Democrats said the money would not be used for any new concrete wall.</p> The U.S. Capitol building is seen in Washington, U.S., February 8, 2018. REUTERS/ Leah Millis
<p>Besides containing the largest increase in defense spending in 15 years, the bill would provide a significant boost in non-defense spending.</p>
<p>It would also include new money for infrastructure, combating Russian election hacking [nL1N1R31BT] and some modest gun legislation following a series of mass shootings at American schools, churches and other public spaces.</p> Related Coverage
<a href="/article/us-usa-fiscal-congress-whitehouse/trump-congressional-leaders-discuss-support-for-spending-bill-white-house-idUSKBN1GX2SV" type="external">Trump, congressional leaders discuss support for spending bill -White House</a>
<a href="/article/us-usa-fiscal-congress-cyber/u-s-spending-bill-to-provide-380-million-for-election-cyber-security-idUSKBN1GX2LC" type="external">U.S. spending bill to provide $380 million for election cyber security</a>
<p>The bill will provide a $307 million increase above the administration’s request for counter-intelligence efforts to fight Russian cyberattacks in 2018, when mid-term congressional elections will be held.</p>
<p>If approved by Congress and signed into law by Trump, the bill would take budget squabbling off the table in Congress for the next several months, allowing lawmakers to focus on their November re-election efforts.</p>
<p>Lawmakers have been arguing since early 2017 about funding for the current fiscal year. Since then, several temporary funding measures have been enacted. Two brief government shutdowns recently occurred due to Congress’ inability to pass appropriations bills in a timely way.</p>
<p>Additional reporting by Susan Heavey and Lisa Lambert; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh, Bill Trott and Leslie Adler</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Republican candidate in a close U.S. House of Representatives special election on March 13 in Pennsylvania conceded to his Democratic opponent on Wednesday, cementing a Democratic upset in a long-time Republican area that President Donald Trump handily won in 2016.</p> U.S. Democratic congressional candidate Conor Lamb is greeted by supporters during his election night rally in Pennsylvania's 18th U.S. Congressional district special election against Republican candidate and State Rep. Rick Saccone, in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, March 13, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
<p>In an ominous sign for Trump’s Republicans eight months before national midterm elections, moderate Democrat Conor Lamb led conservative Rick Saccone by a fraction of a percentage point in the race for the southwestern Pennsylvania seat.</p>
<p>Trump won the district by almost 20 points in the presidential election. He campaigned for Saccone, who started the race well ahead of Lamb.</p>
<p>“Just got off the phone with my opponent, @RickSaccone4PA, who congratulated me &amp; graciously conceded last Tuesday’s election,” Lamb said on Twitter.</p>
<p>An official at Saccone’s campaign confirmed the candidate had conceded.</p>
<p>The earliest the final election result could be certified is March 26, but the final tally could be unknown for weeks.</p> U.S. Democratic congressional candidate Conor Lamb is greeted by supporters during his election night rally in Pennsylvania's 18th U.S. Congressional district special election against Republican candidate and State Rep. Rick Saccone, in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, March 13, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
<p>Lamb led Saccone by 627 votes unofficially, state returns showed last week; Lamb had 49.8 percent of the vote and Saccone 49.6 percent.</p>
<p>House Republicans had called the race unique, noting that Lamb, 33, a Marine Corps veteran, had distanced himself from his party’s leaders and staked out positions to the right of many Democrats.</p>
<p>The patchwork of small towns, farms and Pittsburgh suburbs that make up Pennsylvania’s 18th congressional district has been so staunchly Republican that Democrats did not field candidates in the previous two House elections.</p>
<p>Come November, the district will cease to exist because boundaries have been redrawn. Both Lamb and Saccone are expected to run again, though in different districts.</p>
<p>The election, held to replace a Republican who resigned amid a scandal last year, was the latest forceful electoral showing for Democrats, who also won a governor’s race in Virginia and scored a U.S. Senate upset in conservative Alabama.</p>
<p>Lamb’s strong showing could buoy Democrats nationally as they seek to win control of the House from Republicans in the November elections. Democrats see 118 Republican-held districts in play. If they flip 24 seats, they could reclaim a House majority.</p>
<p>The Lamb win vindicates a strategy Democrats are using in some races to enlist candidates whose positions and ideologies are well suited to the district even while conflicting in significant ways with the positions of the Democratic leadership in Washington.</p>
<p>Reporting by Eric Walsh; additional reporting by David Morgan; editing by Toni Reinhold and Grant McCool</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
| false | 2 |
chicago reuters illinois judge thursday denied chicagoarea transgender students demand use girls locker room local high school without restricted private changing area inside locker room cook county judge thomas allen rejected palatine high school student nova madays request preliminary injunction would allowed unrestricted use according american civil liberties union illinois sued november madays behalf case marked latest legal clash use school bathrooms facilities transgender students united states sparked battles north carolina kentucky elsewhere palatineschaumburg high school district 211 requires transgender students use private changing area inside locker rooms preferred gender judge ruled preliminary injunction warranted case proceeds disappointed decision today maday said statement want accepted school girl able take gym use locker room change clothes like girls class superintendent daniel cates said statement reuters ruling upheld balance supporting students privacy rights committed providing supportive access school locker rooms access respects balances identity privacy rights nearly 12000 teenagers high schools said practices welcome transgender teens locker room identity agreement change shower locker room privacy stalls john knight lgbtq amp hiv project director aclu illinois said amounted discrimination group deciding move forward conservative legal groups alliance defending freedom thomas society intervened lawsuit said statement decision ensures student privacy schools never forced give male students unrestricted access areas girls changing clothes claiming female gender identity doesnt change thomas attorney thomas brejcha said issue played prominently north carolina mired controversy litigation republican lawmakers enacted sincerescinded law 2016 restricted bathroom choice staterun buildings sex peoples birth certificates rather gender identity reporting chris kenning editing cynthia osterman standards thomson reuters trust principles washington reuters us attorney general jeff sessions instructed federal prosecutors wednesday seek death penalty drugrelated cases whenever appropriate saying justice department must boost efforts counter americas epidemic opioid abuse file photo united states attorney general jeff sessions visits families opioid overdose victims members local law enforcement us attorneys office eastern district kentucky lexington kentucky us march 15 2018 reutersjohn sommers ii mandate prosecutors followed plan announced president donald trump earlier week called executing opioid dealers traffickers stiffer sentencing laws opioid trafficking call greater use death penalty federal drug cases already sparked backlash criminal justice reform groups say wrong response public health crisis harks back 1980sera war drugs policies led racial disparities prosecutions death penalty used united states generally handed federal cases connection heinous crimes according death penalty information center 61 federal prisoners currently sit death row many american states also impose death penalty although also heinous crimes however states struggled carry death sentences recent years lack access drugs used executing people face death continue business usual sessions said opioid epidemic memo sent countrys us attorneys offices drug traffickers transnational criminal organizations violent street gangs contribute substantially scourge combat deadly epidemic federal prosecutors must consider every lawful tool disposal said critics say greater use death penalty could tie resources us attorneys offices death penalty cases complex take longer move court system death penalty cases extremely difficult cumbersome complicated one former federal prosecutor told reuters trump first announced plan take long time lots resources every us attorneys office lot limited resources us law four limited circumstances death penalty sought federal drug cases include cases involve racketeering cases involving use firearm resulting death drug trafficking crime cases murder committed part crime enterprise cases involving large quantities drugs brett tolman former us attorney district utah attorney ray quinney amp nebeker said trumps proposal unwarranted justice department already started seek stiffer penalties drug cases requesting sentencing enhancements blunt legal tool add large amount prison time persons sentence already going direction aggressive said president even want mess death penalty reporting sarah n lynch editing frances kerry tom brown standards thomson reuters trust principles tempe arizsan francisco reuters police arizona wednesday released short video fatal collision uber selfdriving vehicle pedestrian investigators probe accident put new focus safety autonomous vehicles video taken inside volvo xc90 sport utility vehicle uber used testing shows vehicle driving along dark road image woman walking bicycle across road suddenly appears headlights woman elaine herzberg 49 later died injuries police released details accident occurred sunday night tempe arizona suburb phoenix suv driving autonomous mode uber suspended selfdriving testing north america incident federal safety regulators conducting probe fallout accident could stall development testing selfdriving vehicles designed perform far better human drivers sharply reduce number motor vehicle fatalities occur year video shows vehicle traveling righthand lane divided fourlane roadway vehicles headlights illuminate woman directly front crossing suvs lane bike woman appears jaywalking crosswalk photo released safety regulators tuesday showed impact occurred right side vehicle footage also shows view vehicles interior driver wheel driver appears looking road two periods five seconds video stops driver looks upward toward road suddenly looks shocked video disturbing heartbreaking watch thoughts continue elaines loved ones uber said statement cars remain grounded assisting local state federal authorities way video likely key part investigations ubers selfdriving car technology whether ready testing public roads although exact specifics ubers technology known selfdriving cars typically use combination sensors including radar lightbased lidar identify objects around vehicle including potential obstacles coming range cameras perform well dark radar lidar work night one question regulators minds sensors pick presence herzberg would ostensibly already crossed three lanes traffic arriving path uber vehicle slideshow 3 images one selfdriving car expert bryant walker smith said first impression outrage viewing video although video isnt full picture strongly suggests failure ubers automated driving system lack due care ubers driver victim said smith professor law university south carolina another autonomous driving expert agreed smiths assessment sensors detected pedestrian case cameras likely useless radars lidar must picked pedestrian said raj rajkumar professor carnegie mellon alphabet inc 10940 googlo nasdaq 180 016 googlo gmn though information available one would conclude based video alone problems uber vehicle software need rectified said uber immediately respond request comment systems oversight video likely renew calls oversight nascent industry lacks standardized testing safety definitions lawmakers juggle need encourage innovations promise dramatically improve safety roads current public safety concerns companies including uber alphabets waymo googlo general motorss cruise automation gmn testing selfdriving technology arizona welcomed industry lighter regulatory touch states like california example tuesday arizona transportation officials said saw immediate need tighten rules testing selfdriving cars state although within selfdriving industry suggested agreeing testing safety standards autonomous technology concerted effort timothy carone associate teaching professor notre dame universitys mendoza college business whose research specialties include artificial intelligence autonomous systems said question whether uber enough testing sending robot cars onto streets alongside humans jump gun said testing found inefficient allowed happen systems ready road tests additional reporting paul lienert nick carey detroit editing rosalba obrien peter cooney cynthia osterman standards thomson reuters trust principles washington reuters republican democratic leaders us congress late wednesday unveiled 13 trillion bill fund government september includes additional 80 billion national defense spending fails fund president donald trumps immigration initiatives passed house representatives senate friday midnight deadline would avert shutdown many federal agencies programs beginning weekend existing funds expire earlier wednesday white house indicated trump would support measure ending prolonged debate spending priorities fiscal year began last oct 1 republicancontrolled congress need democratic support pass bill many republican conservatives likely balk cost representative mark walker heads large group house conservative republicans complained bill add budget deficits imperative curb washingtons outofcontrol spending addiction slowed republican rule walker said senate democratic leader chuck schumer touted measure opioid funding rural broadband student loans child care bill puts workers families first said statement trump one point wanted 25 billion included bill fully fund construction proposed usmexico border wall negotiations democrats make happen fell apart early week according congressional aides us president donald trump flanked senate majority leader mitch mcconnell rky house speaker paul ryan rwi takes stage address republican congressional retreat greenbrier resort white sulphur springs west virginia us february 1 2018 reutersjonathan ernst instead trump get nearly 16 billion border security year republicans said money help 90 miles physical barrier construction along southern us border replacement existing barriers bollards levee improvements democrats said money would used new concrete wall us capitol building seen washington us february 8 2018 reuters leah millis besides containing largest increase defense spending 15 years bill would provide significant boost nondefense spending would also include new money infrastructure combating russian election hacking nl1n1r31bt modest gun legislation following series mass shootings american schools churches public spaces related coverage trump congressional leaders discuss support spending bill white house us spending bill provide 380 million election cyber security bill provide 307 million increase administrations request counterintelligence efforts fight russian cyberattacks 2018 midterm congressional elections held approved congress signed law trump bill would take budget squabbling table congress next several months allowing lawmakers focus november reelection efforts lawmakers arguing since early 2017 funding current fiscal year since several temporary funding measures enacted two brief government shutdowns recently occurred due congress inability pass appropriations bills timely way additional reporting susan heavey lisa lambert editing kevin drawbaugh bill trott leslie adler standards thomson reuters trust principles washington reuters republican candidate close us house representatives special election march 13 pennsylvania conceded democratic opponent wednesday cementing democratic upset longtime republican area president donald trump handily 2016 us democratic congressional candidate conor lamb greeted supporters election night rally pennsylvanias 18th us congressional district special election republican candidate state rep rick saccone canonsburg pennsylvania march 13 2018 reutersbrendan mcdermid ominous sign trumps republicans eight months national midterm elections moderate democrat conor lamb led conservative rick saccone fraction percentage point race southwestern pennsylvania seat trump district almost 20 points presidential election campaigned saccone started race well ahead lamb got phone opponent ricksaccone4pa congratulated amp graciously conceded last tuesdays election lamb said twitter official saccones campaign confirmed candidate conceded earliest final election result could certified march 26 final tally could unknown weeks us democratic congressional candidate conor lamb greeted supporters election night rally pennsylvanias 18th us congressional district special election republican candidate state rep rick saccone canonsburg pennsylvania march 13 2018 reutersbrendan mcdermid lamb led saccone 627 votes unofficially state returns showed last week lamb 498 percent vote saccone 496 percent house republicans called race unique noting lamb 33 marine corps veteran distanced partys leaders staked positions right many democrats patchwork small towns farms pittsburgh suburbs make pennsylvanias 18th congressional district staunchly republican democrats field candidates previous two house elections come november district cease exist boundaries redrawn lamb saccone expected run though different districts election held replace republican resigned amid scandal last year latest forceful electoral showing democrats also governors race virginia scored us senate upset conservative alabama lambs strong showing could buoy democrats nationally seek win control house republicans november elections democrats see 118 republicanheld districts play flip 24 seats could reclaim house majority lamb win vindicates strategy democrats using races enlist candidates whose positions ideologies well suited district even conflicting significant ways positions democratic leadership washington reporting eric walsh additional reporting david morgan editing toni reinhold grant mccool standards thomson reuters trust principles
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<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — After a three-day government shutdown and months of dysfunction on immigration and the budget, a group of senators and their leaders have settled on a bold plan to untie their latest legislative knot: having an actual debate on the Senate floor.</p>
<p>It speaks volumes about Washington’s chronic partisanship and atmosphere of distrust that the idea of having a floor debate about how to deal with about 700,000 so-called Dreamer immigrants is seen as a fresh approach.</p>
<p>But under the current norm on Capitol Hill, crises and do-or-die deadlines are about the only way most legislation ever moves. Leaders in both parties increasingly rely on must-do measures such as temporary funding bills to advance legislation that not too long ago would have travelled on its own. That has the benefit of speed and convenience — but only if Republican and Democratic leaders are in sync.</p>
<p>The upcoming Senate immigration debate would break from that pattern. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has recently only allowed two types of legislation to come to the Senate floor — bills that are immune to Democratic filibusters and legislation that can breeze through with the blessing of Democrats.</p>
<p>Now, McConnell is hamstrung, needing Democrats like Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York to solve the immigration problem as well as a bundle of more than $1 trillion worth of overdue spending bills. Agreement has been lacking, despite obvious benefits for both sides.</p>
<p>All sides agree on giving Dreamer immigrants protection from deportation. And there’s ample appetite for a budget deal that would add tens of billions of dollars to Pentagon and domestic accounts. But there’s no guarantee of success, despite sweeping support and plenty of incentive for each side to compromise.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the routine, must-do work of Congress — things like reauthorizing flood insurance and federal aviation programs — has stalled. President Donald Trump’s promises on infrastructure haven’t left the drawing board. Taking on tricky issues like sentencing reform seems like a longshot at best, and a massive undertaking like a farm bill that would open up sensitive questions like changes to food stamps feels almost beyond reach.</p>
<p>What’s more, this menu of issues is before a Congress filled with inexperienced lawmakers and weak committee chairs, as well as GOP leaders who often appear risk-averse and hamstrung by Trump’s unpredictable moves.</p>
<p>On immigration, for example, it seems that the last place to look for a solution is the committees of jurisdiction. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, has been sitting on his hands since Trump rescinded the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.</p>
<p>In the House, Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., has introduced legislation addressing DACA, but only as part of a grab-bag of hard-right ideas on immigration. He hasn’t scheduled a committee vote. Goodlatte’s measure appears to be far short of the support needed to move it through the House, so conservatives have demanded help from House GOP leaders in reworking the measure and getting a floor vote.</p>
<p>Not long ago, committee chairs would have been embarrassed at being bypassed or having to go to leadership for help. But long gone are icons like House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich., Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas, R-Calif. They operated as power centers independent of leadership. It’s difficult to imagine the cantankerous Stevens sitting still while his cherished spending bills languished.</p>
<p>Weaker figures have emerged, such as Senate Appropriations Chairman Thad Cochran, R-Miss., and his House counterpart, Rodney Frelinghuysen, R-N.J. Cochran, 80, hasn’t held committee votes on four major bills, including defense and homeland security, and hasn’t released a separate hurricane aid measure.</p>
<p>To be sure, the GOP-controlled Congress passed a landmark tax cut measure that is a career-defining accomplishment for many lawmakers. But that bill passed under fast-track, filibuster-proof budget rules that aren’t available next year.</p>
<p>Among the few remaining dealmakers in Congress are old-school senators like Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., partners on a major 2016 rewrite of the education law No Child Left Behind. Both are powerful members of the Appropriations panel, known for its bipartisan ways. Murray says the key to winning is to let the other side win, too.</p>
<p>“It begins with hearing what the other side really has to have in order to be successful and you share a common goal at the end of the day of the legislation you want to do,” Murray says. In the case of DACA, Murray says, it’s best to keep toxic immigration issues out of the bargain. “Do you want to narrow it so you can accomplish something or do you want to expand it so it can’t get done?” she asks.</p>
<p>But Congress is filled with junior lawmakers who have never seen the place function. Many of them have joined a bipartisan group on immigration, an untested and probably unwieldy group that hasn’t been tested yet by leaks and backbiting.</p>
<p>A recent success story was a six-year extension of a broadly popular health insurance program for children of low-income families. But it took an imminent crisis to make that happen, the deal passing only when it was added to Monday’s shutdown-ending temporary funding bill.</p>
<p>Still looming, assuming bickering leaders and the White House can agree, is a catchall spending bill. Such measures, brought before the rank and file as foot-tall, take-it-or-leave-it packages, used to be criticized as examples of all that is wrong with Congress.</p>
<p>Now, they’re viewed as successes.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>EDITOR’S NOTE — Andrew Taylor has covered Capitol Hill and the budget for The Associated Press since 2005.</p>
<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — After a three-day government shutdown and months of dysfunction on immigration and the budget, a group of senators and their leaders have settled on a bold plan to untie their latest legislative knot: having an actual debate on the Senate floor.</p>
<p>It speaks volumes about Washington’s chronic partisanship and atmosphere of distrust that the idea of having a floor debate about how to deal with about 700,000 so-called Dreamer immigrants is seen as a fresh approach.</p>
<p>But under the current norm on Capitol Hill, crises and do-or-die deadlines are about the only way most legislation ever moves. Leaders in both parties increasingly rely on must-do measures such as temporary funding bills to advance legislation that not too long ago would have travelled on its own. That has the benefit of speed and convenience — but only if Republican and Democratic leaders are in sync.</p>
<p>The upcoming Senate immigration debate would break from that pattern. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has recently only allowed two types of legislation to come to the Senate floor — bills that are immune to Democratic filibusters and legislation that can breeze through with the blessing of Democrats.</p>
<p>Now, McConnell is hamstrung, needing Democrats like Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York to solve the immigration problem as well as a bundle of more than $1 trillion worth of overdue spending bills. Agreement has been lacking, despite obvious benefits for both sides.</p>
<p>All sides agree on giving Dreamer immigrants protection from deportation. And there’s ample appetite for a budget deal that would add tens of billions of dollars to Pentagon and domestic accounts. But there’s no guarantee of success, despite sweeping support and plenty of incentive for each side to compromise.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the routine, must-do work of Congress — things like reauthorizing flood insurance and federal aviation programs — has stalled. President Donald Trump’s promises on infrastructure haven’t left the drawing board. Taking on tricky issues like sentencing reform seems like a longshot at best, and a massive undertaking like a farm bill that would open up sensitive questions like changes to food stamps feels almost beyond reach.</p>
<p>What’s more, this menu of issues is before a Congress filled with inexperienced lawmakers and weak committee chairs, as well as GOP leaders who often appear risk-averse and hamstrung by Trump’s unpredictable moves.</p>
<p>On immigration, for example, it seems that the last place to look for a solution is the committees of jurisdiction. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, has been sitting on his hands since Trump rescinded the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.</p>
<p>In the House, Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., has introduced legislation addressing DACA, but only as part of a grab-bag of hard-right ideas on immigration. He hasn’t scheduled a committee vote. Goodlatte’s measure appears to be far short of the support needed to move it through the House, so conservatives have demanded help from House GOP leaders in reworking the measure and getting a floor vote.</p>
<p>Not long ago, committee chairs would have been embarrassed at being bypassed or having to go to leadership for help. But long gone are icons like House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich., Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas, R-Calif. They operated as power centers independent of leadership. It’s difficult to imagine the cantankerous Stevens sitting still while his cherished spending bills languished.</p>
<p>Weaker figures have emerged, such as Senate Appropriations Chairman Thad Cochran, R-Miss., and his House counterpart, Rodney Frelinghuysen, R-N.J. Cochran, 80, hasn’t held committee votes on four major bills, including defense and homeland security, and hasn’t released a separate hurricane aid measure.</p>
<p>To be sure, the GOP-controlled Congress passed a landmark tax cut measure that is a career-defining accomplishment for many lawmakers. But that bill passed under fast-track, filibuster-proof budget rules that aren’t available next year.</p>
<p>Among the few remaining dealmakers in Congress are old-school senators like Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., partners on a major 2016 rewrite of the education law No Child Left Behind. Both are powerful members of the Appropriations panel, known for its bipartisan ways. Murray says the key to winning is to let the other side win, too.</p>
<p>“It begins with hearing what the other side really has to have in order to be successful and you share a common goal at the end of the day of the legislation you want to do,” Murray says. In the case of DACA, Murray says, it’s best to keep toxic immigration issues out of the bargain. “Do you want to narrow it so you can accomplish something or do you want to expand it so it can’t get done?” she asks.</p>
<p>But Congress is filled with junior lawmakers who have never seen the place function. Many of them have joined a bipartisan group on immigration, an untested and probably unwieldy group that hasn’t been tested yet by leaks and backbiting.</p>
<p>A recent success story was a six-year extension of a broadly popular health insurance program for children of low-income families. But it took an imminent crisis to make that happen, the deal passing only when it was added to Monday’s shutdown-ending temporary funding bill.</p>
<p>Still looming, assuming bickering leaders and the White House can agree, is a catchall spending bill. Such measures, brought before the rank and file as foot-tall, take-it-or-leave-it packages, used to be criticized as examples of all that is wrong with Congress.</p>
<p>Now, they’re viewed as successes.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>EDITOR’S NOTE — Andrew Taylor has covered Capitol Hill and the budget for The Associated Press since 2005.</p>
| false | 2 |
washington ap threeday government shutdown months dysfunction immigration budget group senators leaders settled bold plan untie latest legislative knot actual debate senate floor speaks volumes washingtons chronic partisanship atmosphere distrust idea floor debate deal 700000 socalled dreamer immigrants seen fresh approach current norm capitol hill crises doordie deadlines way legislation ever moves leaders parties increasingly rely mustdo measures temporary funding bills advance legislation long ago would travelled benefit speed convenience republican democratic leaders sync upcoming senate immigration debate would break pattern majority leader mitch mcconnell rky recently allowed two types legislation come senate floor bills immune democratic filibusters legislation breeze blessing democrats mcconnell hamstrung needing democrats like minority leader chuck schumer new york solve immigration problem well bundle 1 trillion worth overdue spending bills agreement lacking despite obvious benefits sides sides agree giving dreamer immigrants protection deportation theres ample appetite budget deal would add tens billions dollars pentagon domestic accounts theres guarantee success despite sweeping support plenty incentive side compromise meanwhile routine mustdo work congress things like reauthorizing flood insurance federal aviation programs stalled president donald trumps promises infrastructure havent left drawing board taking tricky issues like sentencing reform seems like longshot best massive undertaking like farm bill would open sensitive questions like changes food stamps feels almost beyond reach whats menu issues congress filled inexperienced lawmakers weak committee chairs well gop leaders often appear riskaverse hamstrung trumps unpredictable moves immigration example seems last place look solution committees jurisdiction senate judiciary committee chairman chuck grassley riowa sitting hands since trump rescinded obamaera deferred action childhood arrivals program daca house judiciary committee chairman bob goodlatte rva introduced legislation addressing daca part grabbag hardright ideas immigration hasnt scheduled committee vote goodlattes measure appears far short support needed move house conservatives demanded help house gop leaders reworking measure getting floor vote long ago committee chairs would embarrassed bypassed go leadership help long gone icons like house energy commerce committee chairman john dingell dmich senate appropriations committee chairman ted stevens ralaska house ways means chairman bill thomas rcalif operated power centers independent leadership difficult imagine cantankerous stevens sitting still cherished spending bills languished weaker figures emerged senate appropriations chairman thad cochran rmiss house counterpart rodney frelinghuysen rnj cochran 80 hasnt held committee votes four major bills including defense homeland security hasnt released separate hurricane aid measure sure gopcontrolled congress passed landmark tax cut measure careerdefining accomplishment many lawmakers bill passed fasttrack filibusterproof budget rules arent available next year among remaining dealmakers congress oldschool senators like lamar alexander rtenn patty murray dwash partners major 2016 rewrite education law child left behind powerful members appropriations panel known bipartisan ways murray says key winning let side win begins hearing side really order successful share common goal end day legislation want murray says case daca murray says best keep toxic immigration issues bargain want narrow accomplish something want expand cant get done asks congress filled junior lawmakers never seen place function many joined bipartisan group immigration untested probably unwieldy group hasnt tested yet leaks backbiting recent success story sixyear extension broadly popular health insurance program children lowincome families took imminent crisis make happen deal passing added mondays shutdownending temporary funding bill still looming assuming bickering leaders white house agree catchall spending bill measures brought rank file foottall takeitorleaveit packages used criticized examples wrong congress theyre viewed successes ___ editors note andrew taylor covered capitol hill budget associated press since 2005 washington ap threeday government shutdown months dysfunction immigration budget group senators leaders settled bold plan untie latest legislative knot actual debate senate floor speaks volumes washingtons chronic partisanship atmosphere distrust idea floor debate deal 700000 socalled dreamer immigrants seen fresh approach current norm capitol hill crises doordie deadlines way legislation ever moves leaders parties increasingly rely mustdo measures temporary funding bills advance legislation long ago would travelled benefit speed convenience republican democratic leaders sync upcoming senate immigration debate would break pattern majority leader mitch mcconnell rky recently allowed two types legislation come senate floor bills immune democratic filibusters legislation breeze blessing democrats mcconnell hamstrung needing democrats like minority leader chuck schumer new york solve immigration problem well bundle 1 trillion worth overdue spending bills agreement lacking despite obvious benefits sides sides agree giving dreamer immigrants protection deportation theres ample appetite budget deal would add tens billions dollars pentagon domestic accounts theres guarantee success despite sweeping support plenty incentive side compromise meanwhile routine mustdo work congress things like reauthorizing flood insurance federal aviation programs stalled president donald trumps promises infrastructure havent left drawing board taking tricky issues like sentencing reform seems like longshot best massive undertaking like farm bill would open sensitive questions like changes food stamps feels almost beyond reach whats menu issues congress filled inexperienced lawmakers weak committee chairs well gop leaders often appear riskaverse hamstrung trumps unpredictable moves immigration example seems last place look solution committees jurisdiction senate judiciary committee chairman chuck grassley riowa sitting hands since trump rescinded obamaera deferred action childhood arrivals program daca house judiciary committee chairman bob goodlatte rva introduced legislation addressing daca part grabbag hardright ideas immigration hasnt scheduled committee vote goodlattes measure appears far short support needed move house conservatives demanded help house gop leaders reworking measure getting floor vote long ago committee chairs would embarrassed bypassed go leadership help long gone icons like house energy commerce committee chairman john dingell dmich senate appropriations committee chairman ted stevens ralaska house ways means chairman bill thomas rcalif operated power centers independent leadership difficult imagine cantankerous stevens sitting still cherished spending bills languished weaker figures emerged senate appropriations chairman thad cochran rmiss house counterpart rodney frelinghuysen rnj cochran 80 hasnt held committee votes four major bills including defense homeland security hasnt released separate hurricane aid measure sure gopcontrolled congress passed landmark tax cut measure careerdefining accomplishment many lawmakers bill passed fasttrack filibusterproof budget rules arent available next year among remaining dealmakers congress oldschool senators like lamar alexander rtenn patty murray dwash partners major 2016 rewrite education law child left behind powerful members appropriations panel known bipartisan ways murray says key winning let side win begins hearing side really order successful share common goal end day legislation want murray says case daca murray says best keep toxic immigration issues bargain want narrow accomplish something want expand cant get done asks congress filled junior lawmakers never seen place function many joined bipartisan group immigration untested probably unwieldy group hasnt tested yet leaks backbiting recent success story sixyear extension broadly popular health insurance program children lowincome families took imminent crisis make happen deal passing added mondays shutdownending temporary funding bill still looming assuming bickering leaders white house agree catchall spending bill measures brought rank file foottall takeitorleaveit packages used criticized examples wrong congress theyre viewed successes ___ editors note andrew taylor covered capitol hill budget associated press since 2005
| 1,124 |
<p>HONOLULU (AP) — For more than a decade, Zach Johnson has held what amounts to an annual two-day summit to inspect every part of his game, figure out what needs to get better and make a plan going forward. He referred to the most recent meeting as the best one yet.</p>
<p>Johnson failed to reach the Tour Championship for the second straight year. He went a second straight season without winning, dating to his 2015 British Open title at St. Andrews. He was not at the Presidents Cup, ending a streak of five consecutive teams.</p>
<p>"I was frustrated because I thought my game was better," Johnson said. "What was good was that everyone threw it on the table. We mulled it over and said, 'OK, this is what we're going to do."</p>
<p>For all the stats that were analyzed, what stood out the most was that Johnson felt he wasn't as disciplined with his practice time and his focus. He did not describe any sense of urgency from going two years without a victory or failing to get to the FedEx Cup finale, though it raised questions.</p>
<p>"As a competitor, doubts creep in. 'Am I going to do it again? Do I need to make changes?'" he said. "It goes back to the basics. I have to do what I do well. Truth be told, what I'm practicing now is more on my strengths than my weaknesses. You know what you've got. Use it. It can work."</p>
<p>Another aspect of that meeting — and this surprised him — was that Johnson found he had become too emotional on the golf course. Not only was he getting frustrated when his game was not going well, he said he was getting overly excited over a good round, even a good shot.</p>
<p>"The emotion of this game is not necessary until the 73rd hole, after the tournament is over," Johnson said.</p>
<p>Even so, he had to contain some excitement leaving his two-day meeting last fall that included everyone involved with his game — swing, mental and fitness coaches, statisticians, his wife and caddie, friends that hold him accountable, even his financial adviser.</p>
<p>Johnson has high hopes for this year, and he was so eager to get going he played three times in the fall, finishing in the top 25 in all of them. He started this year with a pair of top 20s in the Sony Open and CareerBuilder Challenge.</p>
<p>Still to be determined is where it leads. Johnson might be the best proof that there is room for guys who don't blast it 300-plus yards off the tee. He has 12 victories, including major titles at Augusta and St. Andrews. He has played nine times in the Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup.</p>
<p>He'd like to be part of the next one, especially after watching the last one from home.</p>
<p>"I haven't missed many in my career, and it stinks," Johnson said. "It was hard in a good way. My mindset was, 'This is my team.' I'm not on the team, but it's my team. ... Once you're part of that team, you're always on the team. I hope I get many more opportunities."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>LPGA OPENER: The LPGA Tour season begins Thursday in the Bahamas, three weeks after the PGA Tour began in Hawaii. The concept of PGA Tour and LPGA Tour winners starting the year together at Kapalua lost traction last year, though it has not been ruled out.</p>
<p>"I think that's something we're still interested in," PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan said.</p>
<p>That starts, however, with Wisconsin-based Sentry Insurance, which took over as title sponsor this year at Kapalua. The focus was on Sentry getting through the first year, so whether it would be interested in hosting two tours was not even a topic.</p>
<p>"That's something that we'll continue to talk about as we go down the road," Monahan said. "And we'll continue to talk to the LPGA about it — if not here, how do we accomplish this at one of our tournaments?"</p>
<p>Monahan says he has spoken with LPGA Commissioner Mike Whan and "I would like to think that we'll get there at some point."</p>
<p>The only mixed events have been the Three-Tour Challenge in Las Vegas (PGA, LPGA, PGA Tour Champions), the Diamond Resorts Invitational (LPGA, PGA Tour Champions, celebrities) and the now-defunct J.C. Penney Classic, a mixed-team event back when there was a full plate of unofficial events in the offseason. Monahan said a mixed event for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo was discussed but didn't work out.</p>
<p>"We talked about the J.C. Penney format. That was a great event," Monahan said. "I think the reason discussions along those lines haven't progressed is because we've been focused on either this event (Kapalua) or different opportunities over that one. But that might be something that we do pursue."</p>
<p>There were 22 winners on the LPGA Tour. There was a 34-man winners-only field at Kapalua this year. Monahan said while the Sentry Tournament of Champions is not the only prospect, it is the most logical opportunity.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>RAHM'S OUTLOOK: Jon Rahm's passion is on full display on the golf course. He developed a more introspective side in the summer after his sophomore year at Arizona State, and he believes it allowed his career to blossom.</p>
<p>"A lot of people make the mistake that golf is their life. I was one of those people," Rahm said in an interview at Kapalua. "I do get mad on the golf course. When I'm done playing, one hour after, it's over. It's gone. I allow myself to be frustrated at the mistakes. After that, life moves on."</p>
<p>So he made a list of why he should be thankful and all the people who have helped him along the way.</p>
<p>"You realize how many people you have in your life," he said. "That makes you smile. There are so many things to be happy about. And once you separate them, it's better. I did that in the summer of 2014, and that's when my career really took off. The happier I am in life, the better golfer I will be, instead of thinking the better golf I play, the happier I will be. You can play great golf and be unhappy. It's what you do in life that's going to make you happy."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>GWAA AWARDS: Billy Payne, who retired last year as chairman of Augusta National Golf Club and the Masters, has been selected for the William D. Richardson Award for outstanding contributions to golf by the Golf Writers Association of America.</p>
<p>Payne, who promoted golf worldwide by helping launch the Asian Amateur and Latin American Amateur championships, will receive the award April 4 in Augusta.</p>
<p>The GWAA also voted Stacy Lewis as winner of the Ben Hogan Award for overcoming a serious illness or physical disability, and Ernie Els for the ASAP Sports/Jim Murray Award for his cooperation with the media.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>DIVOTS: Bernhard Langer tied for 16th in his title defense at the PGA Tour Champions opener in Hawaii. It was his worst finish since Langer tied for 18th in the U.S. Senior Open last July. ... In his preliminary spring schedule, Justin Rose left the Dell Technologies Match Play off his list for the second straight year. ... The last time Phil Mickelson missed the cut in his first start of the year was in 2009 at the Phoenix Open. He went on to match a career best with four victories that year. ... During his three-month break, Rory McIlroy and his wife took a road trip around Italy in a 1950s Mercedes convertible. ... Ryan Palmer earned 38 FedEx Cup points last week with his tie for 20th, more than enough for him to fulfill a minor medical extension and have full privileges the rest of the season.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>STAT OF THE WEEK: Of the 83 players who have finished runner-up to Tiger Woods around the world, 18 of them are at the Farmers Insurance Open.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>FINAL WORD: "I want to go places in the game." — Tommy Fleetwood.</p>
<p>HONOLULU (AP) — For more than a decade, Zach Johnson has held what amounts to an annual two-day summit to inspect every part of his game, figure out what needs to get better and make a plan going forward. He referred to the most recent meeting as the best one yet.</p>
<p>Johnson failed to reach the Tour Championship for the second straight year. He went a second straight season without winning, dating to his 2015 British Open title at St. Andrews. He was not at the Presidents Cup, ending a streak of five consecutive teams.</p>
<p>"I was frustrated because I thought my game was better," Johnson said. "What was good was that everyone threw it on the table. We mulled it over and said, 'OK, this is what we're going to do."</p>
<p>For all the stats that were analyzed, what stood out the most was that Johnson felt he wasn't as disciplined with his practice time and his focus. He did not describe any sense of urgency from going two years without a victory or failing to get to the FedEx Cup finale, though it raised questions.</p>
<p>"As a competitor, doubts creep in. 'Am I going to do it again? Do I need to make changes?'" he said. "It goes back to the basics. I have to do what I do well. Truth be told, what I'm practicing now is more on my strengths than my weaknesses. You know what you've got. Use it. It can work."</p>
<p>Another aspect of that meeting — and this surprised him — was that Johnson found he had become too emotional on the golf course. Not only was he getting frustrated when his game was not going well, he said he was getting overly excited over a good round, even a good shot.</p>
<p>"The emotion of this game is not necessary until the 73rd hole, after the tournament is over," Johnson said.</p>
<p>Even so, he had to contain some excitement leaving his two-day meeting last fall that included everyone involved with his game — swing, mental and fitness coaches, statisticians, his wife and caddie, friends that hold him accountable, even his financial adviser.</p>
<p>Johnson has high hopes for this year, and he was so eager to get going he played three times in the fall, finishing in the top 25 in all of them. He started this year with a pair of top 20s in the Sony Open and CareerBuilder Challenge.</p>
<p>Still to be determined is where it leads. Johnson might be the best proof that there is room for guys who don't blast it 300-plus yards off the tee. He has 12 victories, including major titles at Augusta and St. Andrews. He has played nine times in the Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup.</p>
<p>He'd like to be part of the next one, especially after watching the last one from home.</p>
<p>"I haven't missed many in my career, and it stinks," Johnson said. "It was hard in a good way. My mindset was, 'This is my team.' I'm not on the team, but it's my team. ... Once you're part of that team, you're always on the team. I hope I get many more opportunities."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>LPGA OPENER: The LPGA Tour season begins Thursday in the Bahamas, three weeks after the PGA Tour began in Hawaii. The concept of PGA Tour and LPGA Tour winners starting the year together at Kapalua lost traction last year, though it has not been ruled out.</p>
<p>"I think that's something we're still interested in," PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan said.</p>
<p>That starts, however, with Wisconsin-based Sentry Insurance, which took over as title sponsor this year at Kapalua. The focus was on Sentry getting through the first year, so whether it would be interested in hosting two tours was not even a topic.</p>
<p>"That's something that we'll continue to talk about as we go down the road," Monahan said. "And we'll continue to talk to the LPGA about it — if not here, how do we accomplish this at one of our tournaments?"</p>
<p>Monahan says he has spoken with LPGA Commissioner Mike Whan and "I would like to think that we'll get there at some point."</p>
<p>The only mixed events have been the Three-Tour Challenge in Las Vegas (PGA, LPGA, PGA Tour Champions), the Diamond Resorts Invitational (LPGA, PGA Tour Champions, celebrities) and the now-defunct J.C. Penney Classic, a mixed-team event back when there was a full plate of unofficial events in the offseason. Monahan said a mixed event for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo was discussed but didn't work out.</p>
<p>"We talked about the J.C. Penney format. That was a great event," Monahan said. "I think the reason discussions along those lines haven't progressed is because we've been focused on either this event (Kapalua) or different opportunities over that one. But that might be something that we do pursue."</p>
<p>There were 22 winners on the LPGA Tour. There was a 34-man winners-only field at Kapalua this year. Monahan said while the Sentry Tournament of Champions is not the only prospect, it is the most logical opportunity.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>RAHM'S OUTLOOK: Jon Rahm's passion is on full display on the golf course. He developed a more introspective side in the summer after his sophomore year at Arizona State, and he believes it allowed his career to blossom.</p>
<p>"A lot of people make the mistake that golf is their life. I was one of those people," Rahm said in an interview at Kapalua. "I do get mad on the golf course. When I'm done playing, one hour after, it's over. It's gone. I allow myself to be frustrated at the mistakes. After that, life moves on."</p>
<p>So he made a list of why he should be thankful and all the people who have helped him along the way.</p>
<p>"You realize how many people you have in your life," he said. "That makes you smile. There are so many things to be happy about. And once you separate them, it's better. I did that in the summer of 2014, and that's when my career really took off. The happier I am in life, the better golfer I will be, instead of thinking the better golf I play, the happier I will be. You can play great golf and be unhappy. It's what you do in life that's going to make you happy."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>GWAA AWARDS: Billy Payne, who retired last year as chairman of Augusta National Golf Club and the Masters, has been selected for the William D. Richardson Award for outstanding contributions to golf by the Golf Writers Association of America.</p>
<p>Payne, who promoted golf worldwide by helping launch the Asian Amateur and Latin American Amateur championships, will receive the award April 4 in Augusta.</p>
<p>The GWAA also voted Stacy Lewis as winner of the Ben Hogan Award for overcoming a serious illness or physical disability, and Ernie Els for the ASAP Sports/Jim Murray Award for his cooperation with the media.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>DIVOTS: Bernhard Langer tied for 16th in his title defense at the PGA Tour Champions opener in Hawaii. It was his worst finish since Langer tied for 18th in the U.S. Senior Open last July. ... In his preliminary spring schedule, Justin Rose left the Dell Technologies Match Play off his list for the second straight year. ... The last time Phil Mickelson missed the cut in his first start of the year was in 2009 at the Phoenix Open. He went on to match a career best with four victories that year. ... During his three-month break, Rory McIlroy and his wife took a road trip around Italy in a 1950s Mercedes convertible. ... Ryan Palmer earned 38 FedEx Cup points last week with his tie for 20th, more than enough for him to fulfill a minor medical extension and have full privileges the rest of the season.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>STAT OF THE WEEK: Of the 83 players who have finished runner-up to Tiger Woods around the world, 18 of them are at the Farmers Insurance Open.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>FINAL WORD: "I want to go places in the game." — Tommy Fleetwood.</p>
| false | 2 |
honolulu ap decade zach johnson held amounts annual twoday summit inspect every part game figure needs get better make plan going forward referred recent meeting best one yet johnson failed reach tour championship second straight year went second straight season without winning dating 2015 british open title st andrews presidents cup ending streak five consecutive teams frustrated thought game better johnson said good everyone threw table mulled said ok going stats analyzed stood johnson felt wasnt disciplined practice time focus describe sense urgency going two years without victory failing get fedex cup finale though raised questions competitor doubts creep going need make changes said goes back basics well truth told im practicing strengths weaknesses know youve got use work another aspect meeting surprised johnson found become emotional golf course getting frustrated game going well said getting overly excited good round even good shot emotion game necessary 73rd hole tournament johnson said even contain excitement leaving twoday meeting last fall included everyone involved game swing mental fitness coaches statisticians wife caddie friends hold accountable even financial adviser johnson high hopes year eager get going played three times fall finishing top 25 started year pair top 20s sony open careerbuilder challenge still determined leads johnson might best proof room guys dont blast 300plus yards tee 12 victories including major titles augusta st andrews played nine times ryder cup presidents cup hed like part next one especially watching last one home havent missed many career stinks johnson said hard good way mindset team im team team youre part team youre always team hope get many opportunities ___ lpga opener lpga tour season begins thursday bahamas three weeks pga tour began hawaii concept pga tour lpga tour winners starting year together kapalua lost traction last year though ruled think thats something still interested pga tour commissioner jay monahan said starts however wisconsinbased sentry insurance took title sponsor year kapalua focus sentry getting first year whether would interested hosting two tours even topic thats something well continue talk go road monahan said well continue talk lpga accomplish one tournaments monahan says spoken lpga commissioner mike whan would like think well get point mixed events threetour challenge las vegas pga lpga pga tour champions diamond resorts invitational lpga pga tour champions celebrities nowdefunct jc penney classic mixedteam event back full plate unofficial events offseason monahan said mixed event 2020 olympics tokyo discussed didnt work talked jc penney format great event monahan said think reason discussions along lines havent progressed weve focused either event kapalua different opportunities one might something pursue 22 winners lpga tour 34man winnersonly field kapalua year monahan said sentry tournament champions prospect logical opportunity ___ rahms outlook jon rahms passion full display golf course developed introspective side summer sophomore year arizona state believes allowed career blossom lot people make mistake golf life one people rahm said interview kapalua get mad golf course im done playing one hour gone allow frustrated mistakes life moves made list thankful people helped along way realize many people life said makes smile many things happy separate better summer 2014 thats career really took happier life better golfer instead thinking better golf play happier play great golf unhappy life thats going make happy ___ gwaa awards billy payne retired last year chairman augusta national golf club masters selected william richardson award outstanding contributions golf golf writers association america payne promoted golf worldwide helping launch asian amateur latin american amateur championships receive award april 4 augusta gwaa also voted stacy lewis winner ben hogan award overcoming serious illness physical disability ernie els asap sportsjim murray award cooperation media ___ divots bernhard langer tied 16th title defense pga tour champions opener hawaii worst finish since langer tied 18th us senior open last july preliminary spring schedule justin rose left dell technologies match play list second straight year last time phil mickelson missed cut first start year 2009 phoenix open went match career best four victories year threemonth break rory mcilroy wife took road trip around italy 1950s mercedes convertible ryan palmer earned 38 fedex cup points last week tie 20th enough fulfill minor medical extension full privileges rest season ___ stat week 83 players finished runnerup tiger woods around world 18 farmers insurance open ___ final word want go places game tommy fleetwood honolulu ap decade zach johnson held amounts annual twoday summit inspect every part game figure needs get better make plan going forward referred recent meeting best one yet johnson failed reach tour championship second straight year went second straight season without winning dating 2015 british open title st andrews presidents cup ending streak five consecutive teams frustrated thought game better johnson said good everyone threw table mulled said ok going stats analyzed stood johnson felt wasnt disciplined practice time focus describe sense urgency going two years without victory failing get fedex cup finale though raised questions competitor doubts creep going need make changes said goes back basics well truth told im practicing strengths weaknesses know youve got use work another aspect meeting surprised johnson found become emotional golf course getting frustrated game going well said getting overly excited good round even good shot emotion game necessary 73rd hole tournament johnson said even contain excitement leaving twoday meeting last fall included everyone involved game swing mental fitness coaches statisticians wife caddie friends hold accountable even financial adviser johnson high hopes year eager get going played three times fall finishing top 25 started year pair top 20s sony open careerbuilder challenge still determined leads johnson might best proof room guys dont blast 300plus yards tee 12 victories including major titles augusta st andrews played nine times ryder cup presidents cup hed like part next one especially watching last one home havent missed many career stinks johnson said hard good way mindset team im team team youre part team youre always team hope get many opportunities ___ lpga opener lpga tour season begins thursday bahamas three weeks pga tour began hawaii concept pga tour lpga tour winners starting year together kapalua lost traction last year though ruled think thats something still interested pga tour commissioner jay monahan said starts however wisconsinbased sentry insurance took title sponsor year kapalua focus sentry getting first year whether would interested hosting two tours even topic thats something well continue talk go road monahan said well continue talk lpga accomplish one tournaments monahan says spoken lpga commissioner mike whan would like think well get point mixed events threetour challenge las vegas pga lpga pga tour champions diamond resorts invitational lpga pga tour champions celebrities nowdefunct jc penney classic mixedteam event back full plate unofficial events offseason monahan said mixed event 2020 olympics tokyo discussed didnt work talked jc penney format great event monahan said think reason discussions along lines havent progressed weve focused either event kapalua different opportunities one might something pursue 22 winners lpga tour 34man winnersonly field kapalua year monahan said sentry tournament champions prospect logical opportunity ___ rahms outlook jon rahms passion full display golf course developed introspective side summer sophomore year arizona state believes allowed career blossom lot people make mistake golf life one people rahm said interview kapalua get mad golf course im done playing one hour gone allow frustrated mistakes life moves made list thankful people helped along way realize many people life said makes smile many things happy separate better summer 2014 thats career really took happier life better golfer instead thinking better golf play happier play great golf unhappy life thats going make happy ___ gwaa awards billy payne retired last year chairman augusta national golf club masters selected william richardson award outstanding contributions golf golf writers association america payne promoted golf worldwide helping launch asian amateur latin american amateur championships receive award april 4 augusta gwaa also voted stacy lewis winner ben hogan award overcoming serious illness physical disability ernie els asap sportsjim murray award cooperation media ___ divots bernhard langer tied 16th title defense pga tour champions opener hawaii worst finish since langer tied 18th us senior open last july preliminary spring schedule justin rose left dell technologies match play list second straight year last time phil mickelson missed cut first start year 2009 phoenix open went match career best four victories year threemonth break rory mcilroy wife took road trip around italy 1950s mercedes convertible ryan palmer earned 38 fedex cup points last week tie 20th enough fulfill minor medical extension full privileges rest season ___ stat week 83 players finished runnerup tiger woods around world 18 farmers insurance open ___ final word want go places game tommy fleetwood
| 1,424 |
<p>(Reuters) - Hedge fund managers Carl Icahn and Darwin Deason joined forces on Monday to push Xerox Corp ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=XRX.N" type="external">XRX.N</a>) to explore strategic options, oust its “old guard”, including its CEO, and negotiate better terms for its decades-long deal with Japan’s Fujifilm.</p> FILE PHOTO: Billionaire activist-investor Carl Icahn gives an interview on FOX Business Network's Neil Cavuto show in New York, U.S. on February 11, 2014. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo
<p>Icahn and Deason – respectively the No.1 and No.3 Xerox shareholders with a combined stake of over 15 percent – plan to nominate four board members if their demands were not met, they said in a joint letter to Xerox shareholders.</p>
<p>Xerox shares were up 2.5 percent in late afternoon trading on Monday.</p>
<p>Declining demand for office printing has limited prospects of the 50-year-old JV, which is 75 percent owned by Fujifilm Holdings Corp ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=4901.T" type="external">4901.T</a>) and sells photocopy products and services in the Asia-Pacific region.</p>
<p>Chief Executive Jeff Jacobson is “incapable” of leading Xerox or negotiating a better deal with Fujifilm, while the company’s veteran directors “are unwilling to make the tough decisions necessary to prevent the Xerox ship from sinking,” Icahn and Deason said.</p>
<p>Three of Xerox’s 10 board members have held their post for more than a decade. Jacobson, who joined Xerox in early 2012, is also a board member.</p>
<p>In a statement, Xerox said: “The Xerox Board of Directors and management are confident with the strategic direction in which the Company is heading and we will continue to take action to achieve our common goal of creating value for all Xerox shareholders.”</p> FILE PHOTO: The logo of Xerox company is seen on a building in Minsk, Belarus, March 21, 2016. REUTERS/Vasily Fedosenko/File Photo
<p>The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday Icahn and Deason were pushing the company to consider options, including selling itself.</p>
<p>Icahn’s interest in Xerox goes back to 2015, when he disclosed his stake and called the shares “undervalued”.</p>
<p>Jacobson became CEO in January last year after Xerox split itself in two. One part retained the legacy name and printer operations, and the other became a publicly listed business process outsourcing company called Conduent Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=CNDT.N" type="external">CNDT.N</a>).</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=XRX.N" type="external">Xerox Corp</a> 28.95 XRX.N New York Stock Exchange +0.10 (+0.35%) XRX.N 4901.T CNDT.N
<p>Since the split, Xerox has reported declining sales in every quarter.</p>
<p>Its shares have risen 38 percent since Jacobson took the reins, compared with the roughly 46 percent gain in the S&amp;P 500 technology index .SPLRCT over the same period.</p>
<p>But Xerox’s stock gains include a near 20-percent jump on the first trading day as the new Xerox.</p>
<p>The stock is also up about 7.5 percent since Jan. 10 when the Journal reported Xerox and Fujifilm were in deal talks that could include a change in control of Xerox, but not a full takeover.</p>
<p>Reporting by Muvija M in Bengaluru; Editing by Sayantani Ghosh and Savio D'Souza</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - Tesla Inc shares fell sharply again on Wednesday, reeling from a credit downgrade of the electric car maker by Moody’s Investors Service, federal probes of a fatal crash and concerns about Model 3 production.</p>
<p>Shares tumbled 9 percent before ending down 7.7 percent at $257.78. On Tuesday, Tesla tumbled 8.2 percent to its lowest close in almost a year after the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) opened a field investigation into a fatal crash and vehicle fire in California on March 23.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, a second federal regulator, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA), said it was sending a team to California to investigate the crash.</p> Related Coverage
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<a href="/article/us-tesla-crash/u-s-auto-safety-agency-to-probe-fatal-tesla-california-crash-idUSKBN1H42X1" type="external">U.S. auto safety agency to probe fatal Tesla California crash</a>
<p>Late on Tuesday, Moody’s Investors Service downgraded Tesla’s credit rating to B3 from B2, citing “the significant shortfall in the production rate of the company’s Model 3 electric vehicle.” It also noted “liquidity pressures due to its large negative free cash flow and the pending maturities of convertible bonds.”</p>
<p>Tesla has $230 million in convertible bonds maturing in November 2018 and $920 million in March 2019.</p>
<p>Moody’s said its negative outlook “reflects the likelihood that Tesla will have to undertake a large, near-term capital raise in order to refund maturing obligations and avoid a liquidity shortfall.”</p>
<p>It said Tesla’s weekly production target is now 2,500 Model 3 vehicles by the end of March, down sharply from its year-earlier target of 5,000 per week by the end of 2017. Tesla’s weekly target for the end of June is 5,000.</p>
<p>Tesla declined to comment on the downgrade. The company plans to provide an update on Model 3 production next week.</p>
<p>Tesla shares have experienced big swings in the past, as worries about losses have vied with enthusiasm for Chief Executive Elon Musk’s ambitious plans.</p>
<p>The sell-off has left Tesla’s stock market value at $44 billion, below General Motors Co’s $49 billion. Palo Alto, California-based Tesla has at times had a larger market value than GM, the largest U.S. automaker by vehicle sales.</p> A Tesla dealership is seen in West Drayton, just outside London, Britain, February 7, 2018. REUTERS/Hannah McKay
<p>Since the end of February, the median analyst price target for Tesla has dipped by $10 to $356, about 37 percent higher than Wednesday’s price, according to Thomson Reuters data. Nomura Securities analyst Romit Shah has the highest Tesla price target, $500, or nearly double the current price. All the targets were set before the March 23 crash.</p>
<p>In last week’s accident in which the Tesla struck a highway median, it was unclear if the vehicle’s automated control system called Autopilot was driving, the NTSB and police said.</p>
<p>The 38-year-old driver of the Tesla died at a nearby hospital shortly after the crash.</p>
<p>Late Tuesday, Tesla said in a blog post it does “not yet know what happened in the moments leading up to the crash,” but added that data shows Tesla owners have driven the same stretch of highway with Autopilot engaged “roughly 85,000 times ... and there has never been an accident that we know of.” The statement did not say if the crashed vehicle was in Autopilot mode.</p>
<p>Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington and Alexandria Sage and Noel Randewich in San Francisco; Editing by Dan Grebler and David Gregorio</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>WASHINGTON, (Reuters) - The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits fell to more than a 45-year low last week, suggesting the economy remains strong despite signs of a slowdown in the first quarter.</p> FILE PHOTO - A man holds his briefcase while waiting in line during a job fair in Melville, New York July 19, 2012. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
<p>Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 12,000 to a seasonally adjusted 215,000 for the week ended March 24, the lowest level since January 1973, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Data for the prior week were revised to show 2,000 fewer claims received than previously reported.</p>
<p>Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims falling to 230,000 in the latest week. The government released 2018 seasonal factors with the report and published revisions to the seasonal factors and data going back to 2013.</p>
<p>The revisions did not change the theme of tightening labor market conditions. Claims have now been below the 300,000 threshold, which is associated with a strong labor market, for 158 straight weeks. That is the longest such stretch since 1970, when the labor market was much smaller.</p> Job seekers line up at TechFair in Los Angeles, California, U.S. March 8, 2018. REUTERS/Monica Almeida
<p>The labor market is considered to be near or at full employment. The jobless rate is at a 17-year low of 4.1 percent, not too far from the Federal Reserve’s forecast of 3.8 percent by the end of this year.</p>
<p>The Labor Department said claims for Maine, Hawaii and Colorado were estimated last week. It also said claims-taking procedures in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands had still not returned to normal after the territories were devastated by Hurricanes Irma and Maria last year.</p>
<p>The four-week moving average of initial claims, viewed as a better measure of labor market trends as it irons out week-to-week volatility, slipped 500 to 224,500 last week.</p>
<p>Economists are optimistic that tightening labor market conditions will start boosting wage growth in the second half of this year. That should help to support consumer spending, which slowed at the start of the year.</p>
<p>The claims report also showed the number of people receiving benefits after an initial week of aid increased 35,000 to 1.87 million in the week ended March 17. The four-week moving average of the so-called continuing claims fell 12,750 to 1.86 million.</p>
<p>The continuing claims data covered the week of the household survey from which March’s unemployment rate will be calculated. The four-week average of continuing claims declined 46,000 between the February and March survey periods, suggesting little change in the jobless rate this month.</p>
<p>Reporting by Lucia Mutikani Editing by Paul Simao</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AMZN.O" type="external">AMZN.O</a>) shares fell almost 5 percent on Wednesday, wiping more than $30 billion off its market value, after news website Axios reported that U.S. President Donald Trump is obsessed with the world’s largest online retailer and wants to rein in its growing power.</p> The logo of Amazon is seen at the company logistics center in Lauwin-Planque, northern France, February 20, 2017. REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol
<p>Trump has talked about using antitrust law to “go after” the company because he is worried about mom-and-pop retailers being put out of business by Amazon, Axios reported, citing five sources it said had discussed the issue with him.</p> Related Coverage
<a href="/article/us-amazon-com-trump/no-u-s-policy-changes-on-amazon-at-the-moment-white-house-official-idUSKBN1H42IY" type="external">No U.S. policy changes on Amazon at the moment: White House official</a>
<p>Trump also wants to change Amazon’s tax treatment, the Axios report said, an issue the president raised publicly last year when he called for an internet tax for online retailers, even though Amazon already collects sales tax on items it sells direct to customers.</p>
<p>“The president has said many times before he’s always looking to create a level playing field for all businesses and this is no different,” said White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders, when asked about the Axios report. “He’s always going to look at different ways, but there aren’t any specific policies on the table at this time.”</p>
<p>Trump has been complaining about Amazon in private, believing the company has become too powerful, another administration official confirmed to Reuters.</p>
<p>The official said Trump links this to Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos’ private ownership of the Washington Post, which he has called “fake news” for its critical coverage of his administration. Trump regards the newspaper as a mouthpiece for Bezos’ business interests, calling it #AmazonWashingtonPost on Twitter.</p> The logo of the web service Amazon is pictured in this June 8, 2017 illustration photo. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso/Illustration
<p>Amazon did not reply to a request for comment on the Axios report.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AMZN.O" type="external">Amazon.com Inc</a> 1383.05 AMZN.O Nasdaq -48.37 (-3.38%) AMZN.O FB.O FAVORITE TARGET
<p>Trump has criticized Amazon over taxes and jobs in the past, without offering evidence. The president urging the use of antitrust law to selectively thwart a company would be unprecedented, according to Jeffrey Jacobovitz of the law firm Arnall Golden Gregory LLP.</p>
<p>Amazon’s stock, which fell as low as $1,386.17 on Wednesday, was last down 4.6 percent at $1,427.83. The shares have nearly quadrupled over the last three years.</p>
<p>Tech stocks have been under pressure after Facebook Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FB.O" type="external">FB.O</a>) acknowledged this month that user data had been improperly harvested by a consultancy.</p>
<p>“With Facebook and regulatory worries, the last thing nervous tech investors wanted to see was news that Trump is targeting Bezos and Amazon over the coming months as this remains a lingering cloud over the stock and heightens the risk profile in the eyes of the Street,” GBH Insights analyst Daniel Ives said.</p>
<p>Additional reporting by Sonam Rai in Bengaluru; Diane Bartz and Amanda Becker in Washington; Sinead Carew in New York; writing by Chris Sanders; editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and James Dalgleish</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
| false | 2 |
reuters hedge fund managers carl icahn darwin deason joined forces monday push xerox corp xrxn explore strategic options oust old guard including ceo negotiate better terms decadeslong deal japans fujifilm file photo billionaire activistinvestor carl icahn gives interview fox business networks neil cavuto show new york us february 11 2014 reutersbrendan mcdermidfile photo icahn deason respectively no1 no3 xerox shareholders combined stake 15 percent plan nominate four board members demands met said joint letter xerox shareholders xerox shares 25 percent late afternoon trading monday declining demand office printing limited prospects 50yearold jv 75 percent owned fujifilm holdings corp 4901t sells photocopy products services asiapacific region chief executive jeff jacobson incapable leading xerox negotiating better deal fujifilm companys veteran directors unwilling make tough decisions necessary prevent xerox ship sinking icahn deason said three xeroxs 10 board members held post decade jacobson joined xerox early 2012 also board member statement xerox said xerox board directors management confident strategic direction company heading continue take action achieve common goal creating value xerox shareholders file photo logo xerox company seen building minsk belarus march 21 2016 reutersvasily fedosenkofile photo wall street journal reported sunday icahn deason pushing company consider options including selling icahns interest xerox goes back 2015 disclosed stake called shares undervalued jacobson became ceo january last year xerox split two one part retained legacy name printer operations became publicly listed business process outsourcing company called conduent inc cndtn xerox corp 2895 xrxn new york stock exchange 010 035 xrxn 4901t cndtn since split xerox reported declining sales every quarter shares risen 38 percent since jacobson took reins compared roughly 46 percent gain sampp 500 technology index splrct period xeroxs stock gains include near 20percent jump first trading day new xerox stock also 75 percent since jan 10 journal reported xerox fujifilm deal talks could include change control xerox full takeover reporting muvija bengaluru editing sayantani ghosh savio dsouza standards thomson reuters trust principles new york reuters tesla inc shares fell sharply wednesday reeling credit downgrade electric car maker moodys investors service federal probes fatal crash concerns model 3 production shares tumbled 9 percent ending 77 percent 25778 tuesday tesla tumbled 82 percent lowest close almost year us national transportation safety board ntsb opened field investigation fatal crash vehicle fire california march 23 wednesday second federal regulator national highway transportation safety administration nhtsa said sending team california investigate crash related coverage extreme bearish options tesla making money stock dives us auto safety agency probe fatal tesla california crash late tuesday moodys investors service downgraded teslas credit rating b3 b2 citing significant shortfall production rate companys model 3 electric vehicle also noted liquidity pressures due large negative free cash flow pending maturities convertible bonds tesla 230 million convertible bonds maturing november 2018 920 million march 2019 moodys said negative outlook reflects likelihood tesla undertake large nearterm capital raise order refund maturing obligations avoid liquidity shortfall said teslas weekly production target 2500 model 3 vehicles end march sharply yearearlier target 5000 per week end 2017 teslas weekly target end june 5000 tesla declined comment downgrade company plans provide update model 3 production next week tesla shares experienced big swings past worries losses vied enthusiasm chief executive elon musks ambitious plans selloff left teslas stock market value 44 billion general motors cos 49 billion palo alto californiabased tesla times larger market value gm largest us automaker vehicle sales tesla dealership seen west drayton outside london britain february 7 2018 reutershannah mckay since end february median analyst price target tesla dipped 10 356 37 percent higher wednesdays price according thomson reuters data nomura securities analyst romit shah highest tesla price target 500 nearly double current price targets set march 23 crash last weeks accident tesla struck highway median unclear vehicles automated control system called autopilot driving ntsb police said 38yearold driver tesla died nearby hospital shortly crash late tuesday tesla said blog post yet know happened moments leading crash added data shows tesla owners driven stretch highway autopilot engaged roughly 85000 times never accident know statement say crashed vehicle autopilot mode reporting david shepardson washington alexandria sage noel randewich san francisco editing dan grebler david gregorio standards thomson reuters trust principles washington reuters number americans filing unemployment benefits fell 45year low last week suggesting economy remains strong despite signs slowdown first quarter file photo man holds briefcase waiting line job fair melville new york july 19 2012 reutersshannon stapleton initial claims state unemployment benefits dropped 12000 seasonally adjusted 215000 week ended march 24 lowest level since january 1973 labor department said thursday data prior week revised show 2000 fewer claims received previously reported economists polled reuters forecast claims falling 230000 latest week government released 2018 seasonal factors report published revisions seasonal factors data going back 2013 revisions change theme tightening labor market conditions claims 300000 threshold associated strong labor market 158 straight weeks longest stretch since 1970 labor market much smaller job seekers line techfair los angeles california us march 8 2018 reutersmonica almeida labor market considered near full employment jobless rate 17year low 41 percent far federal reserves forecast 38 percent end year labor department said claims maine hawaii colorado estimated last week also said claimstaking procedures puerto rico virgin islands still returned normal territories devastated hurricanes irma maria last year fourweek moving average initial claims viewed better measure labor market trends irons weektoweek volatility slipped 500 224500 last week economists optimistic tightening labor market conditions start boosting wage growth second half year help support consumer spending slowed start year claims report also showed number people receiving benefits initial week aid increased 35000 187 million week ended march 17 fourweek moving average socalled continuing claims fell 12750 186 million continuing claims data covered week household survey marchs unemployment rate calculated fourweek average continuing claims declined 46000 february march survey periods suggesting little change jobless rate month reporting lucia mutikani editing paul simao standards thomson reuters trust principles washington reuters amazoncom inc amzno shares fell almost 5 percent wednesday wiping 30 billion market value news website axios reported us president donald trump obsessed worlds largest online retailer wants rein growing power logo amazon seen company logistics center lauwinplanque northern france february 20 2017 reuterspascal rossignol trump talked using antitrust law go company worried momandpop retailers put business amazon axios reported citing five sources said discussed issue related coverage us policy changes amazon moment white house official trump also wants change amazons tax treatment axios report said issue president raised publicly last year called internet tax online retailers even though amazon already collects sales tax items sells direct customers president said many times hes always looking create level playing field businesses different said white house spokeswoman sarah sanders asked axios report hes always going look different ways arent specific policies table time trump complaining amazon private believing company become powerful another administration official confirmed reuters official said trump links amazon chief executive jeff bezos private ownership washington post called fake news critical coverage administration trump regards newspaper mouthpiece bezos business interests calling amazonwashingtonpost twitter logo web service amazon pictured june 8 2017 illustration photo reuterscarlos jassoillustration amazon reply request comment axios report amazoncom inc 138305 amzno nasdaq 4837 338 amzno fbo favorite target trump criticized amazon taxes jobs past without offering evidence president urging use antitrust law selectively thwart company would unprecedented according jeffrey jacobovitz law firm arnall golden gregory llp amazons stock fell low 138617 wednesday last 46 percent 142783 shares nearly quadrupled last three years tech stocks pressure facebook inc fbo acknowledged month user data improperly harvested consultancy facebook regulatory worries last thing nervous tech investors wanted see news trump targeting bezos amazon coming months remains lingering cloud stock heightens risk profile eyes street gbh insights analyst daniel ives said additional reporting sonam rai bengaluru diane bartz amanda becker washington sinead carew new york writing chris sanders editing jeffrey benkoe james dalgleish standards thomson reuters trust principles
| 1,310 |
<p>BERLIN (AP) — Chancellor Angela Merkel took a significant step toward ending Germany's lengthy political impasse by securing a preliminary agreement Friday to enter formal coalition talks with a center-left party. The deal was welcomed by Germany's European allies, but her prospective partner now faces a tough task to sell it to skeptical supporters.</p>
<p>Exhausted negotiators from Merkel's conservative Union bloc and the center-left Social Democrats presented their deal, which includes pledges to strengthen the European Union and keep a lid on the number of migrants entering Germany, following over 24 hours of non-stop talks to cap a week of wrangling.</p>
<p>"We have achieved outstanding results," said the Social Democrats' leader, Martin Schulz. But to make a new government a reality, he must first persuade a party congress Jan. 21 to agree to hold formal coalition negotiations. Then, if those talks are successful, he must steer a coalition deal through a ballot of the full party membership.</p>
<p>If things go well, a new government could be formed by Easter, said Horst Seehofer, the leader of the Christian Social Union — the Bavaria-only sister party to Merkel's Christian Democratic Union.</p>
<p>"If we succeed, these could be four very, very good years," Seehofer said. "I am already speaking of these years because I believe we will succeed."</p>
<p>The prospective partners have governed Germany together for the past four years but Schulz, Merkel's defeated challenger in Germany's Sept. 24 election, initially said after the Social Democrats crashed to a disastrous result that they would go into opposition. That decision was popular with members.</p>
<p>He reluctantly reconsidered after Merkel's coalition talks with two smaller parties collapsed in November.</p>
<p>The conservatives also performed poorly in the election, and the three coalition parties' support dropped by a total of nearly 14 percentage points.</p>
<p>"This election result was a signal to politicians that business as usual wouldn't work and that we must show the people in this country we understand," Seehofer said. "We made that the basis of our work."</p>
<p>Seehofer's CSU, which has taken a hard line on migration, has sought to reinforce its law-and-order profile in the face of a challenge from the nationalist Alternative for Germany party, which entered parliament for the first time in September.</p>
<p>Friday's agreement states that the number of new asylum-seekers shouldn't exceed a range of 180,000-220,000 annually. And there will be a 1,000-per-month limit on the number of close relatives allowed to join migrants in Germany who have a status below full asylum. That falls short of conservative demands for maintaining a block on such family reunification, but also is more limited than what the Social Democrats sought.</p>
<p>Schulz obtained a minor reform to how the public health insurance system is financed — far from his party's original proposal — as well as a commitment to guarantee the current level of pensions through 2025, among other things. He didn't secure an increase in the top income tax rate that his party proposed.</p>
<p>Merkel highlighted promises to hire 15,000 more police officers and 2,000 people to strengthen the justice system.</p>
<p>The three parties didn't officially give up Germany's target of a 40 percent cut in carbon dioxide emissions by 2020 compared with 1990, which a draft earlier this week had suggested they would.</p>
<p>The deal pledged that Germany will play an active role in the debate on the EU's future and strengthening European integration — an issue dear to Schulz, a former European Parliament president.</p>
<p>The parties pledged to fight tax dumping and evasion in Europe, pushing for "fair taxation of big companies" including internet giants Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon, and called for unspecified minimum rates for corporate tax. They said Germany wants to reform the eurozone in partnership with France and is prepared to pay more into the EU budget.</p>
<p>Merkel currently leads a caretaker government, limiting her ability to take major policy initiatives as French President Emmanuel Macron pushes an ambitious European reform agenda.</p>
<p>"We have, in what feels like a long time since the election, seen that the world will not wait for us," Merkel said. "We are convinced that we need a new awakening for Europe."</p>
<p>"So I have no worries about us finding common solutions with France," she added.</p>
<p>France and Bulgaria, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency, welcomed Friday's developments. Jean-Claude Juncker, the head of the EU's executive Commission, said the European part of the deal was "a significant, positive, constructive future-looking contribution to the European policy."</p>
<p>If the new coalition doesn't come together, the only remaining options would be an unprecedented minority government led by Merkel's conservatives or a new election. President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who alone has the power to dissolve parliament, has made clear he doesn't want a new vote — and polls so far suggest that the result wouldn't be significantly different.</p>
<p>Prominent Social Democrat opponents of a new "grand coalition" of Germany's biggest parties weren't placated by Friday's deal and vowed to keep fighting it.</p>
<p>Kevin Kuehnert, the head of the party's youth wing, criticized "cheap compromises." Left-leaning lawmaker Hilde Mattheis said the result was "disappointing" and would produce "no new policies for more fairness and solidarity." Another lawmaker, Frank Schwabe, described the deal on migrant's relatives as "shabby."</p>
<p>_____</p>
<p>David Rising and Frank Jordans in Berlin and Raf Casert in Sofia, Bulgaria, contributed to this story</p>
<p>BERLIN (AP) — Chancellor Angela Merkel took a significant step toward ending Germany's lengthy political impasse by securing a preliminary agreement Friday to enter formal coalition talks with a center-left party. The deal was welcomed by Germany's European allies, but her prospective partner now faces a tough task to sell it to skeptical supporters.</p>
<p>Exhausted negotiators from Merkel's conservative Union bloc and the center-left Social Democrats presented their deal, which includes pledges to strengthen the European Union and keep a lid on the number of migrants entering Germany, following over 24 hours of non-stop talks to cap a week of wrangling.</p>
<p>"We have achieved outstanding results," said the Social Democrats' leader, Martin Schulz. But to make a new government a reality, he must first persuade a party congress Jan. 21 to agree to hold formal coalition negotiations. Then, if those talks are successful, he must steer a coalition deal through a ballot of the full party membership.</p>
<p>If things go well, a new government could be formed by Easter, said Horst Seehofer, the leader of the Christian Social Union — the Bavaria-only sister party to Merkel's Christian Democratic Union.</p>
<p>"If we succeed, these could be four very, very good years," Seehofer said. "I am already speaking of these years because I believe we will succeed."</p>
<p>The prospective partners have governed Germany together for the past four years but Schulz, Merkel's defeated challenger in Germany's Sept. 24 election, initially said after the Social Democrats crashed to a disastrous result that they would go into opposition. That decision was popular with members.</p>
<p>He reluctantly reconsidered after Merkel's coalition talks with two smaller parties collapsed in November.</p>
<p>The conservatives also performed poorly in the election, and the three coalition parties' support dropped by a total of nearly 14 percentage points.</p>
<p>"This election result was a signal to politicians that business as usual wouldn't work and that we must show the people in this country we understand," Seehofer said. "We made that the basis of our work."</p>
<p>Seehofer's CSU, which has taken a hard line on migration, has sought to reinforce its law-and-order profile in the face of a challenge from the nationalist Alternative for Germany party, which entered parliament for the first time in September.</p>
<p>Friday's agreement states that the number of new asylum-seekers shouldn't exceed a range of 180,000-220,000 annually. And there will be a 1,000-per-month limit on the number of close relatives allowed to join migrants in Germany who have a status below full asylum. That falls short of conservative demands for maintaining a block on such family reunification, but also is more limited than what the Social Democrats sought.</p>
<p>Schulz obtained a minor reform to how the public health insurance system is financed — far from his party's original proposal — as well as a commitment to guarantee the current level of pensions through 2025, among other things. He didn't secure an increase in the top income tax rate that his party proposed.</p>
<p>Merkel highlighted promises to hire 15,000 more police officers and 2,000 people to strengthen the justice system.</p>
<p>The three parties didn't officially give up Germany's target of a 40 percent cut in carbon dioxide emissions by 2020 compared with 1990, which a draft earlier this week had suggested they would.</p>
<p>The deal pledged that Germany will play an active role in the debate on the EU's future and strengthening European integration — an issue dear to Schulz, a former European Parliament president.</p>
<p>The parties pledged to fight tax dumping and evasion in Europe, pushing for "fair taxation of big companies" including internet giants Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon, and called for unspecified minimum rates for corporate tax. They said Germany wants to reform the eurozone in partnership with France and is prepared to pay more into the EU budget.</p>
<p>Merkel currently leads a caretaker government, limiting her ability to take major policy initiatives as French President Emmanuel Macron pushes an ambitious European reform agenda.</p>
<p>"We have, in what feels like a long time since the election, seen that the world will not wait for us," Merkel said. "We are convinced that we need a new awakening for Europe."</p>
<p>"So I have no worries about us finding common solutions with France," she added.</p>
<p>France and Bulgaria, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency, welcomed Friday's developments. Jean-Claude Juncker, the head of the EU's executive Commission, said the European part of the deal was "a significant, positive, constructive future-looking contribution to the European policy."</p>
<p>If the new coalition doesn't come together, the only remaining options would be an unprecedented minority government led by Merkel's conservatives or a new election. President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who alone has the power to dissolve parliament, has made clear he doesn't want a new vote — and polls so far suggest that the result wouldn't be significantly different.</p>
<p>Prominent Social Democrat opponents of a new "grand coalition" of Germany's biggest parties weren't placated by Friday's deal and vowed to keep fighting it.</p>
<p>Kevin Kuehnert, the head of the party's youth wing, criticized "cheap compromises." Left-leaning lawmaker Hilde Mattheis said the result was "disappointing" and would produce "no new policies for more fairness and solidarity." Another lawmaker, Frank Schwabe, described the deal on migrant's relatives as "shabby."</p>
<p>_____</p>
<p>David Rising and Frank Jordans in Berlin and Raf Casert in Sofia, Bulgaria, contributed to this story</p>
| false | 2 |
berlin ap chancellor angela merkel took significant step toward ending germanys lengthy political impasse securing preliminary agreement friday enter formal coalition talks centerleft party deal welcomed germanys european allies prospective partner faces tough task sell skeptical supporters exhausted negotiators merkels conservative union bloc centerleft social democrats presented deal includes pledges strengthen european union keep lid number migrants entering germany following 24 hours nonstop talks cap week wrangling achieved outstanding results said social democrats leader martin schulz make new government reality must first persuade party congress jan 21 agree hold formal coalition negotiations talks successful must steer coalition deal ballot full party membership things go well new government could formed easter said horst seehofer leader christian social union bavariaonly sister party merkels christian democratic union succeed could four good years seehofer said already speaking years believe succeed prospective partners governed germany together past four years schulz merkels defeated challenger germanys sept 24 election initially said social democrats crashed disastrous result would go opposition decision popular members reluctantly reconsidered merkels coalition talks two smaller parties collapsed november conservatives also performed poorly election three coalition parties support dropped total nearly 14 percentage points election result signal politicians business usual wouldnt work must show people country understand seehofer said made basis work seehofers csu taken hard line migration sought reinforce lawandorder profile face challenge nationalist alternative germany party entered parliament first time september fridays agreement states number new asylumseekers shouldnt exceed range 180000220000 annually 1000permonth limit number close relatives allowed join migrants germany status full asylum falls short conservative demands maintaining block family reunification also limited social democrats sought schulz obtained minor reform public health insurance system financed far partys original proposal well commitment guarantee current level pensions 2025 among things didnt secure increase top income tax rate party proposed merkel highlighted promises hire 15000 police officers 2000 people strengthen justice system three parties didnt officially give germanys target 40 percent cut carbon dioxide emissions 2020 compared 1990 draft earlier week suggested would deal pledged germany play active role debate eus future strengthening european integration issue dear schulz former european parliament president parties pledged fight tax dumping evasion europe pushing fair taxation big companies including internet giants google apple facebook amazon called unspecified minimum rates corporate tax said germany wants reform eurozone partnership france prepared pay eu budget merkel currently leads caretaker government limiting ability take major policy initiatives french president emmanuel macron pushes ambitious european reform agenda feels like long time since election seen world wait us merkel said convinced need new awakening europe worries us finding common solutions france added france bulgaria currently holds rotating eu presidency welcomed fridays developments jeanclaude juncker head eus executive commission said european part deal significant positive constructive futurelooking contribution european policy new coalition doesnt come together remaining options would unprecedented minority government led merkels conservatives new election president frankwalter steinmeier alone power dissolve parliament made clear doesnt want new vote polls far suggest result wouldnt significantly different prominent social democrat opponents new grand coalition germanys biggest parties werent placated fridays deal vowed keep fighting kevin kuehnert head partys youth wing criticized cheap compromises leftleaning lawmaker hilde mattheis said result disappointing would produce new policies fairness solidarity another lawmaker frank schwabe described deal migrants relatives shabby _____ david rising frank jordans berlin raf casert sofia bulgaria contributed story berlin ap chancellor angela merkel took significant step toward ending germanys lengthy political impasse securing preliminary agreement friday enter formal coalition talks centerleft party deal welcomed germanys european allies prospective partner faces tough task sell skeptical supporters exhausted negotiators merkels conservative union bloc centerleft social democrats presented deal includes pledges strengthen european union keep lid number migrants entering germany following 24 hours nonstop talks cap week wrangling achieved outstanding results said social democrats leader martin schulz make new government reality must first persuade party congress jan 21 agree hold formal coalition negotiations talks successful must steer coalition deal ballot full party membership things go well new government could formed easter said horst seehofer leader christian social union bavariaonly sister party merkels christian democratic union succeed could four good years seehofer said already speaking years believe succeed prospective partners governed germany together past four years schulz merkels defeated challenger germanys sept 24 election initially said social democrats crashed disastrous result would go opposition decision popular members reluctantly reconsidered merkels coalition talks two smaller parties collapsed november conservatives also performed poorly election three coalition parties support dropped total nearly 14 percentage points election result signal politicians business usual wouldnt work must show people country understand seehofer said made basis work seehofers csu taken hard line migration sought reinforce lawandorder profile face challenge nationalist alternative germany party entered parliament first time september fridays agreement states number new asylumseekers shouldnt exceed range 180000220000 annually 1000permonth limit number close relatives allowed join migrants germany status full asylum falls short conservative demands maintaining block family reunification also limited social democrats sought schulz obtained minor reform public health insurance system financed far partys original proposal well commitment guarantee current level pensions 2025 among things didnt secure increase top income tax rate party proposed merkel highlighted promises hire 15000 police officers 2000 people strengthen justice system three parties didnt officially give germanys target 40 percent cut carbon dioxide emissions 2020 compared 1990 draft earlier week suggested would deal pledged germany play active role debate eus future strengthening european integration issue dear schulz former european parliament president parties pledged fight tax dumping evasion europe pushing fair taxation big companies including internet giants google apple facebook amazon called unspecified minimum rates corporate tax said germany wants reform eurozone partnership france prepared pay eu budget merkel currently leads caretaker government limiting ability take major policy initiatives french president emmanuel macron pushes ambitious european reform agenda feels like long time since election seen world wait us merkel said convinced need new awakening europe worries us finding common solutions france added france bulgaria currently holds rotating eu presidency welcomed fridays developments jeanclaude juncker head eus executive commission said european part deal significant positive constructive futurelooking contribution european policy new coalition doesnt come together remaining options would unprecedented minority government led merkels conservatives new election president frankwalter steinmeier alone power dissolve parliament made clear doesnt want new vote polls far suggest result wouldnt significantly different prominent social democrat opponents new grand coalition germanys biggest parties werent placated fridays deal vowed keep fighting kevin kuehnert head partys youth wing criticized cheap compromises leftleaning lawmaker hilde mattheis said result disappointing would produce new policies fairness solidarity another lawmaker frank schwabe described deal migrants relatives shabby _____ david rising frank jordans berlin raf casert sofia bulgaria contributed story
| 1,102 |
<p>ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistani and Indian troops traded gunfire in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir on Thursday, leaving three civilians and a soldier dead amid increasing tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbors, officials from both sides said.</p>
<p>In a statement, Pakistan's military accused Indian troops of initiating fire from across the border and targeting Pakistani villages along Kashmir, killing two civilians and wounding five others in the latest "unprovoked" cease-fire violation. Pakistan's foreign ministry later said the dead were women.</p>
<p>India quickly rejected the claim, saying in fact Pakistan initiated the fire, killing a teenage girl and a soldier on the Indian side of the volatile frontier.</p>
<p>Indian police officer S.D. Singh said at least six Indian civilians and a soldier were also wounded by Pakistani fire and that Indian paramilitary soldiers were "retaliating."</p>
<p>He said Pakistani soldiers fired mortars and automatic gunfire at at least 15 posts in the Jammu region.</p>
<p>In Islamabad, Pakistan's military in a statement said three women were included among the five villagers wounded by Indian fire. It said Pakistani troops "effectively responded" to the Indian fire near Sialkot, which lies in Pakistan's eastern Punjab province but shares a frontier with Kashmir.</p>
<p>Pakistani news channels showed damaged homes in villages on the Pakistani side of the frontier.</p>
<p>India and Pakistan often accuse each other of violating a 2003 cease-fire agreement.</p>
<p>Pakistan's foreign ministry this week said Indian forces carried out more than 100 ceasefire violations in Kashmir in January. It said the "unprecedented escalation in ceasefire violations" by India forces was continuing since 2017 when the Indian forces committed more than 1900 ceasefire violations and deliberately targeted civilian population.</p>
<p>Pakistan's Foreign Ministry on Thursday summoned an Indian diplomat and lodged a protest over the latest alleged cease-fire violation. In a statement, spokesman Mohammad Faisal said the violations have continued despite calls for restraint.</p>
<p>"The deliberate targeting of civilian populated areas is indeed deplorable and contrary to human dignity, international human rights and humanitarian laws. The ceasefire violations by India are a threat to regional peace and security and may lead to a strategic miscalculation," he said.</p>
<p>India and Pakistan have a long history of bitter relations over Kashmir, a Himalayan territory divided between them and claimed by both in its entirety.</p>
<p>The latest exchange of fire comes days after Islamabad accused Indian forces of killing four Pakistani soldiers in Kashmir, where rebel groups demand that Kashmir be united either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.</p>
<p>India accuses Pakistan of arming and training the rebels, which Pakistan denies.</p>
<p>Nearly 70,000 people have been killed in the uprising and the ensuing Indian military crackdown.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Hussain reported from Srinagar, India</p>
<p>ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistani and Indian troops traded gunfire in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir on Thursday, leaving three civilians and a soldier dead amid increasing tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbors, officials from both sides said.</p>
<p>In a statement, Pakistan's military accused Indian troops of initiating fire from across the border and targeting Pakistani villages along Kashmir, killing two civilians and wounding five others in the latest "unprovoked" cease-fire violation. Pakistan's foreign ministry later said the dead were women.</p>
<p>India quickly rejected the claim, saying in fact Pakistan initiated the fire, killing a teenage girl and a soldier on the Indian side of the volatile frontier.</p>
<p>Indian police officer S.D. Singh said at least six Indian civilians and a soldier were also wounded by Pakistani fire and that Indian paramilitary soldiers were "retaliating."</p>
<p>He said Pakistani soldiers fired mortars and automatic gunfire at at least 15 posts in the Jammu region.</p>
<p>In Islamabad, Pakistan's military in a statement said three women were included among the five villagers wounded by Indian fire. It said Pakistani troops "effectively responded" to the Indian fire near Sialkot, which lies in Pakistan's eastern Punjab province but shares a frontier with Kashmir.</p>
<p>Pakistani news channels showed damaged homes in villages on the Pakistani side of the frontier.</p>
<p>India and Pakistan often accuse each other of violating a 2003 cease-fire agreement.</p>
<p>Pakistan's foreign ministry this week said Indian forces carried out more than 100 ceasefire violations in Kashmir in January. It said the "unprecedented escalation in ceasefire violations" by India forces was continuing since 2017 when the Indian forces committed more than 1900 ceasefire violations and deliberately targeted civilian population.</p>
<p>Pakistan's Foreign Ministry on Thursday summoned an Indian diplomat and lodged a protest over the latest alleged cease-fire violation. In a statement, spokesman Mohammad Faisal said the violations have continued despite calls for restraint.</p>
<p>"The deliberate targeting of civilian populated areas is indeed deplorable and contrary to human dignity, international human rights and humanitarian laws. The ceasefire violations by India are a threat to regional peace and security and may lead to a strategic miscalculation," he said.</p>
<p>India and Pakistan have a long history of bitter relations over Kashmir, a Himalayan territory divided between them and claimed by both in its entirety.</p>
<p>The latest exchange of fire comes days after Islamabad accused Indian forces of killing four Pakistani soldiers in Kashmir, where rebel groups demand that Kashmir be united either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.</p>
<p>India accuses Pakistan of arming and training the rebels, which Pakistan denies.</p>
<p>Nearly 70,000 people have been killed in the uprising and the ensuing Indian military crackdown.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Hussain reported from Srinagar, India</p>
| false | 2 |
islamabad ap pakistani indian troops traded gunfire disputed himalayan region kashmir thursday leaving three civilians soldier dead amid increasing tensions two nucleararmed neighbors officials sides said statement pakistans military accused indian troops initiating fire across border targeting pakistani villages along kashmir killing two civilians wounding five others latest unprovoked ceasefire violation pakistans foreign ministry later said dead women india quickly rejected claim saying fact pakistan initiated fire killing teenage girl soldier indian side volatile frontier indian police officer sd singh said least six indian civilians soldier also wounded pakistani fire indian paramilitary soldiers retaliating said pakistani soldiers fired mortars automatic gunfire least 15 posts jammu region islamabad pakistans military statement said three women included among five villagers wounded indian fire said pakistani troops effectively responded indian fire near sialkot lies pakistans eastern punjab province shares frontier kashmir pakistani news channels showed damaged homes villages pakistani side frontier india pakistan often accuse violating 2003 ceasefire agreement pakistans foreign ministry week said indian forces carried 100 ceasefire violations kashmir january said unprecedented escalation ceasefire violations india forces continuing since 2017 indian forces committed 1900 ceasefire violations deliberately targeted civilian population pakistans foreign ministry thursday summoned indian diplomat lodged protest latest alleged ceasefire violation statement spokesman mohammad faisal said violations continued despite calls restraint deliberate targeting civilian populated areas indeed deplorable contrary human dignity international human rights humanitarian laws ceasefire violations india threat regional peace security may lead strategic miscalculation said india pakistan long history bitter relations kashmir himalayan territory divided claimed entirety latest exchange fire comes days islamabad accused indian forces killing four pakistani soldiers kashmir rebel groups demand kashmir united either pakistani rule independent country india accuses pakistan arming training rebels pakistan denies nearly 70000 people killed uprising ensuing indian military crackdown ___ hussain reported srinagar india islamabad ap pakistani indian troops traded gunfire disputed himalayan region kashmir thursday leaving three civilians soldier dead amid increasing tensions two nucleararmed neighbors officials sides said statement pakistans military accused indian troops initiating fire across border targeting pakistani villages along kashmir killing two civilians wounding five others latest unprovoked ceasefire violation pakistans foreign ministry later said dead women india quickly rejected claim saying fact pakistan initiated fire killing teenage girl soldier indian side volatile frontier indian police officer sd singh said least six indian civilians soldier also wounded pakistani fire indian paramilitary soldiers retaliating said pakistani soldiers fired mortars automatic gunfire least 15 posts jammu region islamabad pakistans military statement said three women included among five villagers wounded indian fire said pakistani troops effectively responded indian fire near sialkot lies pakistans eastern punjab province shares frontier kashmir pakistani news channels showed damaged homes villages pakistani side frontier india pakistan often accuse violating 2003 ceasefire agreement pakistans foreign ministry week said indian forces carried 100 ceasefire violations kashmir january said unprecedented escalation ceasefire violations india forces continuing since 2017 indian forces committed 1900 ceasefire violations deliberately targeted civilian population pakistans foreign ministry thursday summoned indian diplomat lodged protest latest alleged ceasefire violation statement spokesman mohammad faisal said violations continued despite calls restraint deliberate targeting civilian populated areas indeed deplorable contrary human dignity international human rights humanitarian laws ceasefire violations india threat regional peace security may lead strategic miscalculation said india pakistan long history bitter relations kashmir himalayan territory divided claimed entirety latest exchange fire comes days islamabad accused indian forces killing four pakistani soldiers kashmir rebel groups demand kashmir united either pakistani rule independent country india accuses pakistan arming training rebels pakistan denies nearly 70000 people killed uprising ensuing indian military crackdown ___ hussain reported srinagar india
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<p>by Richard Morin</p>
<p>Who knew Satan worked at the local mall?</p>
<p>While bars, cheap hotels and similar places of low repute may remain America’s favorite spots to sin, two economists say that giving people an extra day to shop at the mall also contributes significantly to wicked behavior — especially among people who are the most religious.</p>
<p>Jonathan Gruber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Daniel M. Hungerman of Notre Dame discovered the malevolent Mall Effect by studying what happened when states and counties repeal so-called blue laws. Those statutes prohibited the sale on Sunday of certain non-essential items such as clothing, appliances, furniture and jewelry typically sold in shopping malls, as well as liquor and cigarettes.</p>
<p>Gruber and Hungerman found that when states eliminated blue laws, church attendance declined while drinking and drug use increased significantly among young adults. Even more striking, the biggest change in bad behaviors was concentrated among those who frequently attended religious services, they report in a working paper titled “The Church vs. the Mall: What Happens When Religion Faces Increased Secular Competition?” published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.</p>
<p>At one time all but eight states had blue laws. Today 13 still have statewide Sunday selling bans on some products or leave it up to local jurisdictions to decide, with mall owners among those leading the fight to get these statutes off the books.</p>
<p>These researchers examined what happened in the 16 states that repealed blue laws from the mid-1950s through the 1990s. They used three different national data sets to compare church attendance and substance abuse in the years before and after the states changed their statutes.</p>
<p>They found church attendance declined after blue laws were repealed, with the biggest drop occurring among those who went to church at least once a week. Before repeal, on average about 37 percent of people in a state attend religious services at least weekly, Hungerman said. “After the laws are repealed it falls to 32 percent.” — a drop “not driven by declines in religiosity prior to the law change.”</p>
<p>Instead of going to church, many of the faithful were apparently going astray. Marijuana use increased: Before the blue laws were repealed, about 9 percent of weekly church-goers smoked pot compared with 18 percent of those who didn’t regularly attend services. After the laws were repealed, “the gap completely closed,” Hungerman said.</p>
<p>Cocaine use increased by nearly 4 percentage-points and heavy drinking also rose by about 5.5 percentage points among church-goers compared with those who never went to services, with frequent attenders even more likely to go on benders.</p>
<p>Hmmm. Interesting, but why would the elimination of blue laws suddenly provoke such an outburst of sinning among the religious? After all, six other days of the week were already available to shop (or drink) until you drop. And buying cocaine or marijuana is illegal on any day of the week.</p>
<p>“That’s the million-dollar question,” Hungerman said. He suspects that keeping business open on Sunday means that some religious young people have to work or choose to go shopping, which apparently increases their exposure to sinners or otherwise weakens their resistance to the dark side.</p>
<p>“Instead of being in church you’re working or shopping in the mall surrounded by ‘party animals,'” he speculated.</p>
<p>Corporations have spent millions of dollars on diversity training programs to make managers more sensitive to minorities but these efforts have “roundly failed” to eliminate bias or increase the number of minorities in management, according to a team of sociologists headed by Frank Dobbin of Harvard University.</p>
<p>Dobbin and his colleagues Alexandra Kalev of the University of California-Berkeley and Erin Kelly of the University of Minnesota examined a sampling of reports submitted to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission by private sector establishments and surveyed the history of their diversity programs. Touchy-feely programs that emphasize mentoring and networking failed to reduce bias complaints or increase the number of minority mangers. Only targeted programs in which senior managers were held accountable for increasing the number of women and minorities in management worked, they reported in the latest issue of the American Sociological Review.</p>
<p>In fact, they found diversity training may actually reduce diversity: Such programs were followed by a 6 percent decline in the proportion of black women in management, they found.</p>
<p>Dreamers, Lottery Winners and Folding Paper</p>
<p>“The Incidence of Having Dreamed and Conservative Political Attitudes” by Jerry Kroth et al. Psychological Reports Vol. 98 No. 3. A Santa Clara University psychologist and his colleagues find that politically conservative women were more likely to dream about falling, being chased or being famous than less conservative women.</p>
<p>“Money and Mental Wellbeing: A Longitudinal Study of Medium-Sized Lottery Wins” by Jonathan Gardner and Andrew J. Oswald. University of Warwick Economics Working Paper No. 754. British researchers find that people who won 1,000 pounds or more (about $1,900 U.S.) playing the lottery were significantly happier two years after winning than those who won less money or nothing at all.</p>
<p>“On the maximum number of folds of a piece of paper” by G. J. Rees. Philosophical Magazine Letters Vol. 86, No. 1. An engineering professor at the University of Sheffield finds that a piece of paper typically can be folded in half only six times.</p>
| false | 2 |
richard morin knew satan worked local mall bars cheap hotels similar places low repute may remain americas favorite spots sin two economists say giving people extra day shop mall also contributes significantly wicked behavior especially among people religious jonathan gruber massachusetts institute technology daniel hungerman notre dame discovered malevolent mall effect studying happened states counties repeal socalled blue laws statutes prohibited sale sunday certain nonessential items clothing appliances furniture jewelry typically sold shopping malls well liquor cigarettes gruber hungerman found states eliminated blue laws church attendance declined drinking drug use increased significantly among young adults even striking biggest change bad behaviors concentrated among frequently attended religious services report working paper titled church vs mall happens religion faces increased secular competition published national bureau economic research one time eight states blue laws today 13 still statewide sunday selling bans products leave local jurisdictions decide mall owners among leading fight get statutes books researchers examined happened 16 states repealed blue laws mid1950s 1990s used three different national data sets compare church attendance substance abuse years states changed statutes found church attendance declined blue laws repealed biggest drop occurring among went church least week repeal average 37 percent people state attend religious services least weekly hungerman said laws repealed falls 32 percent drop driven declines religiosity prior law change instead going church many faithful apparently going astray marijuana use increased blue laws repealed 9 percent weekly churchgoers smoked pot compared 18 percent didnt regularly attend services laws repealed gap completely closed hungerman said cocaine use increased nearly 4 percentagepoints heavy drinking also rose 55 percentage points among churchgoers compared never went services frequent attenders even likely go benders hmmm interesting would elimination blue laws suddenly provoke outburst sinning among religious six days week already available shop drink drop buying cocaine marijuana illegal day week thats milliondollar question hungerman said suspects keeping business open sunday means religious young people work choose go shopping apparently increases exposure sinners otherwise weakens resistance dark side instead church youre working shopping mall surrounded party animals speculated corporations spent millions dollars diversity training programs make managers sensitive minorities efforts roundly failed eliminate bias increase number minorities management according team sociologists headed frank dobbin harvard university dobbin colleagues alexandra kalev university californiaberkeley erin kelly university minnesota examined sampling reports submitted equal employment opportunity commission private sector establishments surveyed history diversity programs touchyfeely programs emphasize mentoring networking failed reduce bias complaints increase number minority mangers targeted programs senior managers held accountable increasing number women minorities management worked reported latest issue american sociological review fact found diversity training may actually reduce diversity programs followed 6 percent decline proportion black women management found dreamers lottery winners folding paper incidence dreamed conservative political attitudes jerry kroth et al psychological reports vol 98 3 santa clara university psychologist colleagues find politically conservative women likely dream falling chased famous less conservative women money mental wellbeing longitudinal study mediumsized lottery wins jonathan gardner andrew j oswald university warwick economics working paper 754 british researchers find people 1000 pounds 1900 us playing lottery significantly happier two years winning less money nothing maximum number folds piece paper g j rees philosophical magazine letters vol 86 1 engineering professor university sheffield finds piece paper typically folded half six times
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<p>LAS VEGAS (AP) — Thousands of people poured into a football stadium in Las Vegas on Sunday, the anniversary of women's marches around the world, to cap off a weekend of global demonstrations that participants hope will continue building momentum for equality, justice and an end to sexual harassment.</p>
<p>"This is a birthday party for a movement that has only begun to flex its power to change this democracy," Anna Galland, the executive director of the progressive group moveon.org, told the boisterous crowd.</p>
<p>Following marches that drew huge crowds across the U.S. on Saturday, one year after President Donald Trump's inauguration, protesters gathered Sunday on multiple continents, including in London, Paris, Sydney, Madrid and Buenos Aires.</p>
<p>The events culminated with the Las Vegas rally, which launched an effort to register 1 million voters and target swing states such as Nevada in the U.S. midterm elections later this year, which could shift control of Congress. Organizers said they are planning future events in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Texas.</p>
<p>Paula Beaty, 53, a tech worker from Durham, North Carolina, attended the Las Vegas rally wearing an outfit recalling the women's suffrage movement of the early 20th century. She cited the difference women made in helping Democrat Doug Jones upset conservative Republican Roy Moore for a Senate seat in Alabama in December.</p>
<p>"For us it's all about women's rights and we're seeing them be eroded with Trump in office," Beaty said. "The women made a difference in Alabama and we're hoping we can flip the House and Senate with the power of women."</p>
<p>There was also a push for women to not just register as voters, but as candidates. Democratic Idaho state Rep. Paulette Jordan, a member of the Coeur d'Alene Tribe, drew an immense cheer when she told the crowd she was running to be not only Idaho's first female governor, but the first Native American woman to be governor in any state. She implored other women to join her in running for office.</p>
<p>"This is Idaho's future. This is the future of America," she said.</p>
<p>The demonstrations came at a time of reckoning for many men in Hollywood, the media and other industries as women speak out about sexual misconduct and inequity in general. Among the speakers in Las Vegas was singer and actress Cher.</p>
<p>"This is one of the worst times in our history and that's why I honestly believe that women are going to be the ones that fix it," Cher told the crowd. "Stay strong and remember if you don't have a vote, you don't have a voice."</p>
<p>Those who took part in this year's events said they were galvanized by an avalanche of political and gender issues over the past year, as well as the #MeToo movement, which has been credited with countering widespread sexual abuse and misconduct.</p>
<p>Many of the marchers not only supported women's rights, but also denounced Trump's views on issues including immigration, abortion and LGBT rights. Demonstrators denounced Trump's views with colorful signs and even saltier language.</p>
<p>Trump dismissed the suggestion that his presidency has been bad for women. He tweeted Saturday that it was a "perfect day" for women to march to celebrate the "economic success and wealth creation" of his first year in office.</p>
<p>"Get out there now to celebrate the historic milestones and unprecedented economic success and wealth creation that has taken place over the last 12 months," the Republican wrote. "Lowest female unemployment in 18 years!"</p>
<p>In Palm Beach, Florida, home to Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, several hundred people marched Saturday carrying anti-Trump signs. A group of women wearing red cloaks and white hats like the characters in the book and television versions of "The Handmaid's Tale," which imagines a future in which women's rights have been strictly limited, walked in formation with their heads bowed.</p>
<p>In the British capital Sunday, demonstrators carried placards reading "We Are Powerful" and "Time's Up" and chanted outside Prime Minister Theresa May's office as they raised grievances ranging from workplace inequities to misogynistic abuse on social media.</p>
<p>"Today is a call for action to bring about change," London protest co-organizer Shola Mos-Shogbamimu said. "This is so much more than Trump.'"</p>
<p>The London event drew thousands of people despite sleet and snow. Heavy rain fell on Paris protesters who gathered near the Eiffel Tower, which could have been a factor in the small number of participants compared to the U.S. marches on Saturday.</p>
<p>"It doesn't matter if the weather is like this," Maggie Kim, who was one of the more than 100 people who didn't let the rain and cold deter them. "We're still coming together, and we're going to still fight against Trump and his agenda."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>This story has been updated to correct the last name of a protester to Kim, not Kan.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Gene Johnson in Seattle, Danica Kirka in London, Sylvie Corbet in Paris, Chris Blake in Sydney and Jo Kearney in London contributed to this story.</p>
<p>LAS VEGAS (AP) — Thousands of people poured into a football stadium in Las Vegas on Sunday, the anniversary of women's marches around the world, to cap off a weekend of global demonstrations that participants hope will continue building momentum for equality, justice and an end to sexual harassment.</p>
<p>"This is a birthday party for a movement that has only begun to flex its power to change this democracy," Anna Galland, the executive director of the progressive group moveon.org, told the boisterous crowd.</p>
<p>Following marches that drew huge crowds across the U.S. on Saturday, one year after President Donald Trump's inauguration, protesters gathered Sunday on multiple continents, including in London, Paris, Sydney, Madrid and Buenos Aires.</p>
<p>The events culminated with the Las Vegas rally, which launched an effort to register 1 million voters and target swing states such as Nevada in the U.S. midterm elections later this year, which could shift control of Congress. Organizers said they are planning future events in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Texas.</p>
<p>Paula Beaty, 53, a tech worker from Durham, North Carolina, attended the Las Vegas rally wearing an outfit recalling the women's suffrage movement of the early 20th century. She cited the difference women made in helping Democrat Doug Jones upset conservative Republican Roy Moore for a Senate seat in Alabama in December.</p>
<p>"For us it's all about women's rights and we're seeing them be eroded with Trump in office," Beaty said. "The women made a difference in Alabama and we're hoping we can flip the House and Senate with the power of women."</p>
<p>There was also a push for women to not just register as voters, but as candidates. Democratic Idaho state Rep. Paulette Jordan, a member of the Coeur d'Alene Tribe, drew an immense cheer when she told the crowd she was running to be not only Idaho's first female governor, but the first Native American woman to be governor in any state. She implored other women to join her in running for office.</p>
<p>"This is Idaho's future. This is the future of America," she said.</p>
<p>The demonstrations came at a time of reckoning for many men in Hollywood, the media and other industries as women speak out about sexual misconduct and inequity in general. Among the speakers in Las Vegas was singer and actress Cher.</p>
<p>"This is one of the worst times in our history and that's why I honestly believe that women are going to be the ones that fix it," Cher told the crowd. "Stay strong and remember if you don't have a vote, you don't have a voice."</p>
<p>Those who took part in this year's events said they were galvanized by an avalanche of political and gender issues over the past year, as well as the #MeToo movement, which has been credited with countering widespread sexual abuse and misconduct.</p>
<p>Many of the marchers not only supported women's rights, but also denounced Trump's views on issues including immigration, abortion and LGBT rights. Demonstrators denounced Trump's views with colorful signs and even saltier language.</p>
<p>Trump dismissed the suggestion that his presidency has been bad for women. He tweeted Saturday that it was a "perfect day" for women to march to celebrate the "economic success and wealth creation" of his first year in office.</p>
<p>"Get out there now to celebrate the historic milestones and unprecedented economic success and wealth creation that has taken place over the last 12 months," the Republican wrote. "Lowest female unemployment in 18 years!"</p>
<p>In Palm Beach, Florida, home to Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, several hundred people marched Saturday carrying anti-Trump signs. A group of women wearing red cloaks and white hats like the characters in the book and television versions of "The Handmaid's Tale," which imagines a future in which women's rights have been strictly limited, walked in formation with their heads bowed.</p>
<p>In the British capital Sunday, demonstrators carried placards reading "We Are Powerful" and "Time's Up" and chanted outside Prime Minister Theresa May's office as they raised grievances ranging from workplace inequities to misogynistic abuse on social media.</p>
<p>"Today is a call for action to bring about change," London protest co-organizer Shola Mos-Shogbamimu said. "This is so much more than Trump.'"</p>
<p>The London event drew thousands of people despite sleet and snow. Heavy rain fell on Paris protesters who gathered near the Eiffel Tower, which could have been a factor in the small number of participants compared to the U.S. marches on Saturday.</p>
<p>"It doesn't matter if the weather is like this," Maggie Kim, who was one of the more than 100 people who didn't let the rain and cold deter them. "We're still coming together, and we're going to still fight against Trump and his agenda."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>This story has been updated to correct the last name of a protester to Kim, not Kan.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Gene Johnson in Seattle, Danica Kirka in London, Sylvie Corbet in Paris, Chris Blake in Sydney and Jo Kearney in London contributed to this story.</p>
| false | 2 |
las vegas ap thousands people poured football stadium las vegas sunday anniversary womens marches around world cap weekend global demonstrations participants hope continue building momentum equality justice end sexual harassment birthday party movement begun flex power change democracy anna galland executive director progressive group moveonorg told boisterous crowd following marches drew huge crowds across us saturday one year president donald trumps inauguration protesters gathered sunday multiple continents including london paris sydney madrid buenos aires events culminated las vegas rally launched effort register 1 million voters target swing states nevada us midterm elections later year could shift control congress organizers said planning future events pennsylvania ohio texas paula beaty 53 tech worker durham north carolina attended las vegas rally wearing outfit recalling womens suffrage movement early 20th century cited difference women made helping democrat doug jones upset conservative republican roy moore senate seat alabama december us womens rights seeing eroded trump office beaty said women made difference alabama hoping flip house senate power women also push women register voters candidates democratic idaho state rep paulette jordan member coeur dalene tribe drew immense cheer told crowd running idahos first female governor first native american woman governor state implored women join running office idahos future future america said demonstrations came time reckoning many men hollywood media industries women speak sexual misconduct inequity general among speakers las vegas singer actress cher one worst times history thats honestly believe women going ones fix cher told crowd stay strong remember dont vote dont voice took part years events said galvanized avalanche political gender issues past year well metoo movement credited countering widespread sexual abuse misconduct many marchers supported womens rights also denounced trumps views issues including immigration abortion lgbt rights demonstrators denounced trumps views colorful signs even saltier language trump dismissed suggestion presidency bad women tweeted saturday perfect day women march celebrate economic success wealth creation first year office get celebrate historic milestones unprecedented economic success wealth creation taken place last 12 months republican wrote lowest female unemployment 18 years palm beach florida home trumps maralago estate several hundred people marched saturday carrying antitrump signs group women wearing red cloaks white hats like characters book television versions handmaids tale imagines future womens rights strictly limited walked formation heads bowed british capital sunday demonstrators carried placards reading powerful times chanted outside prime minister theresa mays office raised grievances ranging workplace inequities misogynistic abuse social media today call action bring change london protest coorganizer shola mosshogbamimu said much trump london event drew thousands people despite sleet snow heavy rain fell paris protesters gathered near eiffel tower could factor small number participants compared us marches saturday doesnt matter weather like maggie kim one 100 people didnt let rain cold deter still coming together going still fight trump agenda ___ story updated correct last name protester kim kan ___ gene johnson seattle danica kirka london sylvie corbet paris chris blake sydney jo kearney london contributed story las vegas ap thousands people poured football stadium las vegas sunday anniversary womens marches around world cap weekend global demonstrations participants hope continue building momentum equality justice end sexual harassment birthday party movement begun flex power change democracy anna galland executive director progressive group moveonorg told boisterous crowd following marches drew huge crowds across us saturday one year president donald trumps inauguration protesters gathered sunday multiple continents including london paris sydney madrid buenos aires events culminated las vegas rally launched effort register 1 million voters target swing states nevada us midterm elections later year could shift control congress organizers said planning future events pennsylvania ohio texas paula beaty 53 tech worker durham north carolina attended las vegas rally wearing outfit recalling womens suffrage movement early 20th century cited difference women made helping democrat doug jones upset conservative republican roy moore senate seat alabama december us womens rights seeing eroded trump office beaty said women made difference alabama hoping flip house senate power women also push women register voters candidates democratic idaho state rep paulette jordan member coeur dalene tribe drew immense cheer told crowd running idahos first female governor first native american woman governor state implored women join running office idahos future future america said demonstrations came time reckoning many men hollywood media industries women speak sexual misconduct inequity general among speakers las vegas singer actress cher one worst times history thats honestly believe women going ones fix cher told crowd stay strong remember dont vote dont voice took part years events said galvanized avalanche political gender issues past year well metoo movement credited countering widespread sexual abuse misconduct many marchers supported womens rights also denounced trumps views issues including immigration abortion lgbt rights demonstrators denounced trumps views colorful signs even saltier language trump dismissed suggestion presidency bad women tweeted saturday perfect day women march celebrate economic success wealth creation first year office get celebrate historic milestones unprecedented economic success wealth creation taken place last 12 months republican wrote lowest female unemployment 18 years palm beach florida home trumps maralago estate several hundred people marched saturday carrying antitrump signs group women wearing red cloaks white hats like characters book television versions handmaids tale imagines future womens rights strictly limited walked formation heads bowed british capital sunday demonstrators carried placards reading powerful times chanted outside prime minister theresa mays office raised grievances ranging workplace inequities misogynistic abuse social media today call action bring change london protest coorganizer shola mosshogbamimu said much trump london event drew thousands people despite sleet snow heavy rain fell paris protesters gathered near eiffel tower could factor small number participants compared us marches saturday doesnt matter weather like maggie kim one 100 people didnt let rain cold deter still coming together going still fight trump agenda ___ story updated correct last name protester kim kan ___ gene johnson seattle danica kirka london sylvie corbet paris chris blake sydney jo kearney london contributed story
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<p>Hey Ellen,After 9/11/01, when the world was reeling in shock from the hideous attacks on the World Trade Center, I wrote a column&#160;about what it was like being a&#160;book editor during&#160;a time of intense breaking news. "While my colleagues were busy covering the horrific events of this past week, reporting on rescue efforts, chasing down local reaction and writing commentary," I wrote, "I felt adrift. As a book editor, what could I add to the cacophony of voices expressing disbelief and grief that would help us get through this extraordinary moment in our history?"I couldn't help but think of that column as we faced news of truly biblical proportions last week.In that&#160;post-9/11 column, I concluded that there was one thing I could offer during such incomprehensible times: the solace of literature.&#160;Many people, I pointed out, were quoting&#160;these lines&#160;from&#160; <a href="http://www.poets.org/poems/poems.cfm?prmID=1369" type="external">W.B. Yeats' poem "The Second Coming"</a> in an attempt to express how they were feeling: "Things fall apart, the center cannot hold;/&#160;Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,/The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere/The ceremony of innocence is drowned;/The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity.''The Irish author's terrifying poem imagined an inhumane world&#160;about to be born, and his words, although written 80 years before, seemed to be speaking about current events. That, of course, is what great literature can do --&#160;allow us to share in our common humanity across time.&#160;Yeats wrote "The Second Coming" at the end of World War I, when Europe was facing the rise of fascism. Thirty years later, an African writer, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/0030554381/104-4450203-6317514?%5Fencoding=UTF8" type="external">Chinua Achebe, wrote a novel using one of Yeats' phrases&#160;-- "Things Fall Apart"</a>&#160;-- to describe the wrenching dislocations and losses his people were feeling as the evils of colonialism broke apart his continent's traditional societies. The particulars in each case were different, but the&#160;emotions of loss and confusion remained stubbornly the same. And that, to me was&#160;the strangely comforting solace of literature.But can&#160;literature&#160;offer any&#160;solace in the face of the most recent global disaster, which, after all, was not caused by any human failing? I could think of only one book I had recently read that might be of some comfort: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0670033235/104-4450203-6317514?v=glance" type="external">"The Myth of Solid Ground:&#160;Earthquakes, Prediction, and the Fault Line Between Reason and Faith," by David L. Ulin</a>. Ulin, shaken himself by a 1994 earthquake in California, interviews seismologists as well as earthquake&#160;"predictors," only to conclude that earthquakes are not about us. They belong&#160;to cosmic, not human, time.&#160;Although&#160;that may not offer much comfort, it does tell&#160;us to keep on keeping on --&#160;because there's nothing you can do about it anyway. Can you think of any other book&#160;to recommend?&#160;</p>
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<p>Hi Margo,"The Myth of Solid Ground" holds special interest for me, given that, like Ulin,&#160;I sit&#160;atop the "Ring of Fire," the earthquake-prone Pacific Rim.&#160;But his&#160;book&#160;about&#160;the unsteady nature of the planet, while containing literary elements,&#160;remains non-fiction -- the form&#160;better equipped to answer the "what" than the "why" of&#160;natural events that result in extreme human misery. There may be no real explanation for last week's disaster beyond the "what," of course,&#160;unless you&#160;ascribe such events to the wrath of the Divine. But even&#160;then, it seems to me, it's presumptuous to assume His reasoning. <a href="http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/lear/section7.rhtml" type="external">"As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; They kill us for their sport"</a>: That's Shakespeare's famous, shoulder-shrugging line. Still,&#160;I believe some literature&#160;CAN throw us a lifeline&#160;for exploring&#160;the mystery.For example: I've been thinking about Nobel Prize winner <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0156007754/104-4450203-6317514?v=glance" type="external">Jose Saramago's novel, "Blindness."</a> In the tradition of Dante's "Inferno" and Camus' "The Plague," Saramago's book is a master&#160;of postapocalyptic literature. "Blindness" revolves&#160;around an epidemic of&#160;sight loss&#160;that begins to inflict a nameless city and ironically "sees" the&#160;unfolding events&#160;through an ophthalmologist who&#160;becomes blind and his wife, who does not. So what the heck does this have to do with current headlines? A lot, actually. Saramago's fictional&#160;epidemic is both a plague AND a leveler, because&#160;no one is immune. The book explores not only&#160;the common humanity you mention but also our individual responsibility to those who suffer.This is my context for contrasting&#160;the natural disasters in Southeast Asia with manmade tragedies unfolding in&#160;Sudan and Iraq. There is nothing about the tsunami itself that is good. And yet,&#160;in the face of&#160;the terrible&#160;destruction wrought by&#160;nature, we see&#160;survivors' responses that demonstrate&#160;incredible&#160;kindness and sacrifice (even among those of us so far away who have felt compelled to make a&#160;donation to the humanitarian work that must be done). We see&#160;healing hands, and the best part of&#160;OUR natures coming forth. For me, this contrasts dramatically&#160;with those other events,&#160;which show the&#160;HUMAN capacity (hunger?) to destroy, the places where&#160;the center cannot hold.&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;I have watched and read with fascination about the tsunami&#160;and the response. I have searched, mostly in vain,&#160;for thoughtful op-ed pieces&#160;that&#160;grapple with the more metaphysical aspects of&#160;the tsunami. (The best I've found so far, to run on page&#160;one of the New York Observer Jan. 10: Ron Rosenbaum's commentary, " <a href="http://www.observer.com/pages/frontpage3.asp" type="external">Disaster Ignites Debate: Was God in the Tsunami?</a>")&#160;At this point, I don't need to hear from one more earthquake expert or&#160;track the death count. Facts and numbers can't address the more fundamental questions that roll in like rogue waves&#160;after the first initial shock. As you so rightly&#160;point out,&#160;literature can.Dear Ellen,Journalists do seem obsessed during these times of disaster with numbers: how many killed, how much money pledged, etc. We either get "human interest" stories of loss or survival or we get a tallying of figures. I agree that fiction is especially well-equipped to get beneath the facts -- and go beyond the merely voyeuristic -- but don't count out non-fiction that is willing to ask deeper, more philosophical questions. Journalists tend to want answers, which is why they usually have a hard time covering science. As one scientist told Ulin in "The Myth of Solid Ground," "Science is not about answers. It's about questions. After you know an answer, it's not science anymore."</p>
<p>I don't think journalists should shy away from trying to place their investigations into larger contexts, even philosophical contexts, as Ulin has done in "The Myth of Solid Ground." He was willing to&#160;back away from the human perspective and its narrow view of time and take a look at earthquakes on a cosmic scale. "To live with earthquakes,'' he concludes, "is to have one foot in the present and the other in the deepest reaches of the past. It is to find a balance, to understand that everything is always up for grabs."</p>
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hey ellenafter 91101 world reeling shock hideous attacks world trade center wrote column160about like a160book editor during160a time intense breaking news colleagues busy covering horrific events past week reporting rescue efforts chasing local reaction writing commentary wrote felt adrift book editor could add cacophony voices expressing disbelief grief would help us get extraordinary moment historyi couldnt help think column faced news truly biblical proportions last weekin that160post911 column concluded one thing could offer incomprehensible times solace literature160many people pointed quoting160these lines160from160 wb yeats poem second coming attempt express feeling things fall apart center hold160mere anarchy loosed upon worldthe blooddimmed tide loosed everywherethe ceremony innocence drownedthe best lack conviction worstare full passionate intensitythe irish authors terrifying poem imagined inhumane world160about born words although written 80 years seemed speaking current events course great literature 160allow us share common humanity across time160yeats wrote second coming end world war europe facing rise fascism thirty years later african writer chinua achebe wrote novel using one yeats phrases160 things fall apart160 describe wrenching dislocations losses people feeling evils colonialism broke apart continents traditional societies particulars case different the160emotions loss confusion remained stubbornly was160the strangely comforting solace literaturebut can160literature160offer any160solace face recent global disaster caused human failing could think one book recently read might comfort myth solid ground160earthquakes prediction fault line reason faith david l ulin ulin shaken 1994 earthquake california interviews seismologists well earthquake160predictors conclude earthquakes us belong160to cosmic human time160although160that may offer much comfort tell160us keep keeping 160because theres nothing anyway think book160to recommend160 hi margothe myth solid ground holds special interest given like ulin160i sit160atop ring fire earthquakeprone pacific rim160but his160book160about160the unsteady nature planet containing literary elements160remains nonfiction form160better equipped answer of160natural events result extreme human misery may real explanation last weeks disaster beyond course160unless you160ascribe events wrath divine even160then seems presumptuous assume reasoning flies wanton boys gods kill us sport thats shakespeares famous shouldershrugging line still160i believe literature160can throw us lifeline160for exploring160the mysteryfor example ive thinking nobel prize winner jose saramagos novel blindness tradition dantes inferno camus plague saramagos book master160of postapocalyptic literature blindness revolves160around epidemic of160sight loss160that begins inflict nameless city ironically sees the160unfolding events160through ophthalmologist who160becomes blind wife heck current headlines lot actually saramagos fictional160epidemic plague leveler because160no one immune book explores only160the common humanity mention also individual responsibility sufferthis context contrasting160the natural disasters southeast asia manmade tragedies unfolding in160sudan iraq nothing tsunami good yet160in face of160the terrible160destruction wrought by160nature see160survivors responses demonstrate160incredible160kindness sacrifice even among us far away felt compelled make a160donation humanitarian work must done see160healing hands best part of160our natures coming forth contrasts dramatically160with events160which show the160human capacity hunger destroy places where160the center hold160160160160i watched read fascination tsunami160and response searched mostly vain160for thoughtful oped pieces160that160grapple metaphysical aspects of160the tsunami best ive found far run page160one new york observer jan 10 ron rosenbaums commentary disaster ignites debate god tsunami160at point dont need hear one earthquake expert or160track death count facts numbers cant address fundamental questions roll like rogue waves160after first initial shock rightly160point out160literature candear ellenjournalists seem obsessed times disaster numbers many killed much money pledged etc either get human interest stories loss survival get tallying figures agree fiction especially wellequipped get beneath facts go beyond merely voyeuristic dont count nonfiction willing ask deeper philosophical questions journalists tend want answers usually hard time covering science one scientist told ulin myth solid ground science answers questions know answer science anymore dont think journalists shy away trying place investigations larger contexts even philosophical contexts ulin done myth solid ground willing to160back away human perspective narrow view time take look earthquakes cosmic scale live earthquakes concludes one foot present deepest reaches past find balance understand everything always grabs
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<p>KIGALI, Jan 18 (Reuters) - Germany’s Volkswagen AG said on Thursday it would start assembling three vehicle models at a new plant in Rwanda in May for local sale and use in its own new ride-sharing service.</p>
<p>The company said it planned to spend $20 million to start developing the assembly plant and ride-hailing service - part of a push into sub-Saharan Africa.</p>
<p>Thomas Schaefer, chief executive of Volkswagen Group South Africa, said they were trying to wean East African drivers off second-hand imports.</p>
<p>“We are trying to break this thought-pattern that Africa is poor; they can’t afford (new) cars,” he told a news conference.</p>
<p>Volkswagen will produce three models; the Hatchback Polo, the Passat and possibly the Teramont, a large sports utility vehicle, it said in a statement.</p>
<p>The carmaker said it had registered a local company to run its ride-sharing service and signed up a local software firm to develop a smartphone application to hail rides.</p>
<p>Global ride-sharing companies such as Uber have not yet moved into Rwanda.</p>
<p>Volkswagen said 500-1,000 jobs would be created in the first phase of the investment, including the drivers of the first batch of cars for the ride-hailing service.</p>
<p>Schaefer said the service will feed demand for the assembly plant, since vehicles in the scheme will be driven all the time, forcing the need for constant replacement.</p>
<p>There were 300,000 cars in Rwanda last year, in a country of 12 million people, the CEO of the Rwanda Development Board, Clare Akamanzi, said as she welcomed the deal. Most of the cars on the roads are second-hand imports from countries such as Japan. (Writing by Duncan Miriri)</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices rose on Friday, making the largest weekly gain since July, supported by concerns about the possibility of Western military action in Syria and reports of dwindling global oil inventories.</p> FILE PHOTO: A gas station attendant pumps fuel into a customer's car at a gas station in Shanghai, China November 17, 2017. REUTERS/Aly Song/File Photo
<p>The prospect of military action in Syria that could lead to confrontation with Russia hung over the Middle East but there was no sign a U.S.-led attack was imminent.</p>
<p>Traders sought to lock in long crude oil positions ahead of the weekend, said John Kilduff, Partner at hedge fund Again Capital Management.</p>
<p>“The geopolitical jitters just keep getting priced in here more and more, as we get closer to the moment of the strikes, if there are any,” Kilduff said, noting Syria posed a risk to global stability because of its relationship with other powerful oil producers.</p>
<p>“Syria is a client state of both Russia and Iran and the risk for escalation is quite high and I think that is what the market is worried about.”</p>
<p>Brent crude LCOc1 recovered from losses early in the session and settled up 56 cents at $72.58 a barrel, with a $5.48 weekly gain, or 8 percent.</p>
<p>U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude CLc1 futures rose 32 cents to $67.39 a barrel, up 8 percent for the week.</p>
<p>Hedge funds and money managers cut their bullish wagers on U.S. crude for the second week in a row in the week to April 10, data showed on Friday. The move came even as prices rose, according to data released by the CFTC.</p>
<p>On Wednesday this week, both oil benchmarks hit their highest since late 2014 after U.S. President Donald Trump warned missiles “will be coming” in response to a suspected gas attack in Syria and after Saudi Arabia said it intercepted missiles over Riyadh.</p>
<p>On Thursday, Trump tweeted that an attack on Syria “could be very soon or not so soon at all.”</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GE.N" type="external">General Electric Co</a> 13.5 GE.N New York Stock Exchange +0.32 (+2.43%) GE.N
<p>“The Syrian escalation risk cannot be fully written off, but we view that it deserves less of a premium than three days ago,” Petromatrix said in a note.</p>
<p>A surplus in global oil inventories is also close to evaporating, OPEC said on Thursday, adding its collective output fell to 31.96 million barrels per day (bpd) in March, down 201,000 bpd from February.</p>
<p>Vienna-based OPEC and its oil producer allies are expected to extend their supply reduction pact into 2019 even though the global glut of crude looks set to be eradicated by September, OPEC Secretary-General Mohammad Barkindo told Reuters.</p>
<p>The International Energy Agency (IEA), which coordinates the energy policies of industrialized nations, signaled on Friday that markets could become too tight if supply remains restrained.</p>
<p>“It is not for us to declare on behalf of the Vienna agreement countries that it is ‘mission accomplished’, but if our outlook is accurate, it certainly looks very much like it,” the IEA said.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, China’s March crude oil imports climbed to the second-highest level on record.</p>
<p>U.S. drillers added seven oil rigs in the week to April 13, bringing the total count to 815, the highest since March 2015, General Electric Co’s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GE.N" type="external">GE.N</a>) Baker Hughes energy services firm said in its closely followed report on Friday.</p>
<p>Additional reporting by Stephanie Kelly in New York, Osamu Tsukimori in Tokyo and Shadia Nasralla in London; Editing by Clive McKeef</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>(Reuters) - Two multi-billion dollar takeovers of semiconductor makers are being stalled by Chinese regulatory reviews amid rising U.S.-China trade tensions, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday, citing people familiar with the matter.</p> FILE PHOTO: A sign on the Qualcomm campus is seen in San Diego, California, U.S. November 6, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo
<p>Qualcomm Inc’s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=QCOM.O" type="external">QCOM.O</a>) proposed $44 billion purchase of Dutch chip maker NXP Semiconductors NV ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=NXPI.O" type="external">NXPI.O</a>) could be at risk due to the delayed review. China is the only country that has not yet signed off on the deal, or on Toshiba Corp’s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=6502.T" type="external">6502.T</a>) planned $19 billion sale of its chip unit to a Bain Capital consortium, according to the newspaper.</p> Slideshow (2 Images)
<p>Qualcomm’s merger agreement with NXP was extended for a second time in January, giving the two until to April 25, although the parties could decide to extend the deadline.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=QCOM.O" type="external">Qualcomm Inc</a> 55.73 QCOM.O Nasdaq +0.53 (+0.96%) QCOM.O NXPI.O 6502.T
<p>China’s Vice President, Wang Qishan, last month assured Qualcomm Chief Executive Steve Mollenkopf that the review would not be affected by politics, the newspaper said.</p>
<p>Qualcomm and Toshiba did not immediately respond to requests for comment.</p>
<p>In a move to force China to lower its $375 billion trade surplus with the U.S., the Trump administration this month unveiled tariffs representing about $50 billion on Chinese technology, transport and medical products, drawing an immediate threat of retaliatory action from Beijing.</p>
<p>At the same time, China pledged to further open the country’s economy and lower import tariffs on certain products, moves it said were unrelated to the trade spat.</p>
<p>Reporting by Gary McWilliams; editing by Diane Craft</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>CARACAS (Reuters) - President Nicolas Maduro has decreed extra powers to his oil czar Manuel Quevedo to try and halt sliding crude output in crisis-hit Venezuela, which has sunk to its lowest level since the 1950s.</p> FILE PHOTO: Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro gestures during a TV show with National Constituent Assembly member Diosdado Cabello in Caracas, Venezuela April 11, 2018. Miraflores Palace/Handout via REUTERS
<p>Struggling with a deep economic recession, failed socialist policies, debt default, and U.S. financial sanctions, Venezuela’s crude production slipped to 1.586 million barrels per day in February, according to OPEC.</p>
<p>Maduro’s decree, seen by Reuters, gives Quevedo, a major general, powers to “create, annul or modify” deals involving state energy company PDVSA and its subsidiaries. The oil minister is also head of PDVSA.</p>
<p>It was not immediately clear what that might mean for PDVSA’s joint ventures. But Quevedo met late on Friday with some foreign partners including representatives of Total ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TOTF.PA" type="external">TOTF.PA</a>), Statoil ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=STL.OL" type="external">STL.OL</a>), Chevron ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=CVX.N" type="external">CVX.N</a>), Rosneft ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=ROSN.MM" type="external">ROSN.MM</a>) and China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC).</p> FILE PHOTO: Venezuela's Oil Minister and President of the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA Manuel Quevedo attends the event launching the new Venezuelan cryptocurrency "Petro" in Caracas, Venezuela February 20, 2018. REUTERS/Marco Bello
<p>In a statement, PDVSA said the new measure would enable a reorganization of operations and minimization of bureaucracy.</p>
<p>“We are going to work with PDVSA to implement the measures and increase production,” Rosneft representative Pavel Kamenets was quoted as saying in the PDVSA statement.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TOTF.PA" type="external">Total SA</a> 48.6 TOTF.PA Paris Stock Exchange -0.29 (-0.60%) TOTF.PA STL.OL CVX.N ROSN.MM
<p>The decree creates a “special regime” in the sector until Dec. 31, with the possibility of a year’s extension. “The Oil Minister will be able to ... establish norms and special contract procedures for products, assets and services,” it said.</p>
<p>One clause ordered all specialized personnel, on national or international assignments, to return to original workplaces.</p>
<p>Socialist leader Maduro has promised a vast anti-corruption purge to cleanse the oil industry of “mafias”.</p>
<p>At least 70 executives have been detained in recent months, panicking PDVSA workers, depriving the industry of much of its top brass and stalling decision-making in the company overseeing the world’s biggest crude reserves, insiders have said.</p>
<p>The opposition dismisses the probe as a power struggle within government, noting that the industry has been under tight control of the Socialist Party since early in former president Hugo Chavez’s 14-year rule.</p>
<p>Reporting by Deisy Buitrago; Writing by Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by David Gregorio</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>MEXICO CITY/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. trade negotiators have significantly softened their demands to increase regional automotive content under a reworked NAFTA trade pact in an effort to move more quickly towards a deal in the next few weeks, auto industry executives said on Friday.</p> FILE PHOTO: Eduardo Solis, President of the Mexican Automotive Industry Association (AMIA), speaks during an interview with Reuters in Mexico City, Mexico May 22, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso/File Photo
<p>A deal on automotive content rules would remove one of the biggest sticking points in talks to update the 24-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement.</p>
<p>The Trump administration had initially demanded that North American-built vehicles contain 85 percent content made in NAFTA countries by value, up from the current 62.5 percent, along with half the value coming from the United States - levels that Canada, Mexico and automotive groups had said was unworkable.</p>
<p>But this has been cut by 10 percentage points, and the U.S. specific percentage demand dropped, industry officials said.</p>
<p>“The U.S. put on the table 75 percent instead of 85 percent for the regional content value of the vehicle and its core components,” said Eduardo Solis, head of Mexico’s AMIA automotive industry association.</p>
<p>“All of this is being carefully analyzed and specific questions are being asked during this round of the U.S. negotiators (in charge of) rules of origin,” Solis said in a statement.</p>
<p>The 75 percent regional content is for major components such as engines, drivetrains, axles, suspensions and body panels. Aluminum and steel would go into a bucket of other parts and materials requiring 70 percent regional content, while a third bucket of lesser parts would require 65 percent regional content.</p>
<p>“From the parts manufacturer perspective this is a significant step in the right direction, compared to where we were,” said Ann Wilson, head of government affairs at the Motor and Equipment Manufacturers Association.</p>
<p>“But it does appear that this will creates significantly more paperwork for smaller suppliers to have to certify their parts,” Wilson added. “I think there’s a lot of room yet to improve this.”</p>
<p>Negotiators from the three nations were due to discuss the new U.S. proposals at talks this week in Washington. Talks on rules of origin were due to take place on both Friday and Saturday, according to a schedule seen by Reuters.</p>
<p>A senior union leader who spoke to the Canadian negotiating team on Friday said the talks were progressing slowly.</p>
<p>“We really still are far, far, far away on the issues that are keeping us apart and frankly there has been very little discussion on them this week,” Unifor President Jerry Dias told Canada’s CTV network, citing the U.S. stance on dispute resolution and labor standards.</p>
<p>U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has been pushing for a deal-in-principle on NAFTA in the next few weeks as the Mexico’s presidential election campaign officially gets underway. President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he thought negotiators were “pretty close” to a deal, but that he was in no hurry for a conclusion.</p>
<p>“Unless the United States makes some meaningful major changes in the short term, for anybody to think this is getting done by the end of April is pushing their luck,” said Dias.</p>
<p>U.S. negotiators had also recently floated the idea that 40 percent of automotive production must occur in areas paying wages of between $16 to $19 per hour. Some auto industry officials briefed on the U.S. plan said the latest version would require an average wage rate of $16 an hour for a finished vehicle.</p>
<p>Setting wage minimum wage thresholds for the auto industry could benefit the United States and Canada, whose trade unions say that lower Mexican pay has prompted manufacturing capacity to move south of the Rio Grande.</p>
<p>Talks to rework NAFTA, which underpins $1.2 trillion in annual trade, began last year after President Donald Trump took office promising to abandon the 1994 agreement if it could not be reworked to better serve American interests.</p>
<p>Reporting by Anthony Esposito and David Lawder; Additional reporting by David Ljunggren in Ottawa; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Cynthia Osterman</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
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kigali jan 18 reuters germanys volkswagen ag said thursday would start assembling three vehicle models new plant rwanda may local sale use new ridesharing service company said planned spend 20 million start developing assembly plant ridehailing service part push subsaharan africa thomas schaefer chief executive volkswagen group south africa said trying wean east african drivers secondhand imports trying break thoughtpattern africa poor cant afford new cars told news conference volkswagen produce three models hatchback polo passat possibly teramont large sports utility vehicle said statement carmaker said registered local company run ridesharing service signed local software firm develop smartphone application hail rides global ridesharing companies uber yet moved rwanda volkswagen said 5001000 jobs would created first phase investment including drivers first batch cars ridehailing service schaefer said service feed demand assembly plant since vehicles scheme driven time forcing need constant replacement 300000 cars rwanda last year country 12 million people ceo rwanda development board clare akamanzi said welcomed deal cars roads secondhand imports countries japan writing duncan miriri standards thomson reuters trust principles new york reuters oil prices rose friday making largest weekly gain since july supported concerns possibility western military action syria reports dwindling global oil inventories file photo gas station attendant pumps fuel customers car gas station shanghai china november 17 2017 reutersaly songfile photo prospect military action syria could lead confrontation russia hung middle east sign usled attack imminent traders sought lock long crude oil positions ahead weekend said john kilduff partner hedge fund capital management geopolitical jitters keep getting priced get closer moment strikes kilduff said noting syria posed risk global stability relationship powerful oil producers syria client state russia iran risk escalation quite high think market worried brent crude lcoc1 recovered losses early session settled 56 cents 7258 barrel 548 weekly gain 8 percent us west texas intermediate wti crude clc1 futures rose 32 cents 6739 barrel 8 percent week hedge funds money managers cut bullish wagers us crude second week row week april 10 data showed friday move came even prices rose according data released cftc wednesday week oil benchmarks hit highest since late 2014 us president donald trump warned missiles coming response suspected gas attack syria saudi arabia said intercepted missiles riyadh thursday trump tweeted attack syria could soon soon general electric co 135 gen new york stock exchange 032 243 gen syrian escalation risk fully written view deserves less premium three days ago petromatrix said note surplus global oil inventories also close evaporating opec said thursday adding collective output fell 3196 million barrels per day bpd march 201000 bpd february viennabased opec oil producer allies expected extend supply reduction pact 2019 even though global glut crude looks set eradicated september opec secretarygeneral mohammad barkindo told reuters international energy agency iea coordinates energy policies industrialized nations signaled friday markets could become tight supply remains restrained us declare behalf vienna agreement countries mission accomplished outlook accurate certainly looks much like iea said meanwhile chinas march crude oil imports climbed secondhighest level record us drillers added seven oil rigs week april 13 bringing total count 815 highest since march 2015 general electric cos gen baker hughes energy services firm said closely followed report friday additional reporting stephanie kelly new york osamu tsukimori tokyo shadia nasralla london editing clive mckeef standards thomson reuters trust principles reuters two multibillion dollar takeovers semiconductor makers stalled chinese regulatory reviews amid rising uschina trade tensions wall street journal reported saturday citing people familiar matter file photo sign qualcomm campus seen san diego california us november 6 2017 reutersmike blakefile photo qualcomm incs qcomo proposed 44 billion purchase dutch chip maker nxp semiconductors nv nxpio could risk due delayed review china country yet signed deal toshiba corps 6502t planned 19 billion sale chip unit bain capital consortium according newspaper slideshow 2 images qualcomms merger agreement nxp extended second time january giving two april 25 although parties could decide extend deadline qualcomm inc 5573 qcomo nasdaq 053 096 qcomo nxpio 6502t chinas vice president wang qishan last month assured qualcomm chief executive steve mollenkopf review would affected politics newspaper said qualcomm toshiba immediately respond requests comment move force china lower 375 billion trade surplus us trump administration month unveiled tariffs representing 50 billion chinese technology transport medical products drawing immediate threat retaliatory action beijing time china pledged open countrys economy lower import tariffs certain products moves said unrelated trade spat reporting gary mcwilliams editing diane craft standards thomson reuters trust principles caracas reuters president nicolas maduro decreed extra powers oil czar manuel quevedo try halt sliding crude output crisishit venezuela sunk lowest level since 1950s file photo venezuelas president nicolas maduro gestures tv show national constituent assembly member diosdado cabello caracas venezuela april 11 2018 miraflores palacehandout via reuters struggling deep economic recession failed socialist policies debt default us financial sanctions venezuelas crude production slipped 1586 million barrels per day february according opec maduros decree seen reuters gives quevedo major general powers create annul modify deals involving state energy company pdvsa subsidiaries oil minister also head pdvsa immediately clear might mean pdvsas joint ventures quevedo met late friday foreign partners including representatives total totfpa statoil stlol chevron cvxn rosneft rosnmm china national petroleum corp cnpc file photo venezuelas oil minister president venezuelan state oil company pdvsa manuel quevedo attends event launching new venezuelan cryptocurrency petro caracas venezuela february 20 2018 reutersmarco bello statement pdvsa said new measure would enable reorganization operations minimization bureaucracy going work pdvsa implement measures increase production rosneft representative pavel kamenets quoted saying pdvsa statement total sa 486 totfpa paris stock exchange 029 060 totfpa stlol cvxn rosnmm decree creates special regime sector dec 31 possibility years extension oil minister able establish norms special contract procedures products assets services said one clause ordered specialized personnel national international assignments return original workplaces socialist leader maduro promised vast anticorruption purge cleanse oil industry mafias least 70 executives detained recent months panicking pdvsa workers depriving industry much top brass stalling decisionmaking company overseeing worlds biggest crude reserves insiders said opposition dismisses probe power struggle within government noting industry tight control socialist party since early former president hugo chavezs 14year rule reporting deisy buitrago writing andrew cawthorne editing david gregorio standards thomson reuters trust principles mexico citywashington reuters us trade negotiators significantly softened demands increase regional automotive content reworked nafta trade pact effort move quickly towards deal next weeks auto industry executives said friday file photo eduardo solis president mexican automotive industry association amia speaks interview reuters mexico city mexico may 22 2017 reuterscarlos jassofile photo deal automotive content rules would remove one biggest sticking points talks update 24yearold north american free trade agreement trump administration initially demanded north americanbuilt vehicles contain 85 percent content made nafta countries value current 625 percent along half value coming united states levels canada mexico automotive groups said unworkable cut 10 percentage points us specific percentage demand dropped industry officials said us put table 75 percent instead 85 percent regional content value vehicle core components said eduardo solis head mexicos amia automotive industry association carefully analyzed specific questions asked round us negotiators charge rules origin solis said statement 75 percent regional content major components engines drivetrains axles suspensions body panels aluminum steel would go bucket parts materials requiring 70 percent regional content third bucket lesser parts would require 65 percent regional content parts manufacturer perspective significant step right direction compared said ann wilson head government affairs motor equipment manufacturers association appear creates significantly paperwork smaller suppliers certify parts wilson added think theres lot room yet improve negotiators three nations due discuss new us proposals talks week washington talks rules origin due take place friday saturday according schedule seen reuters senior union leader spoke canadian negotiating team friday said talks progressing slowly really still far far far away issues keeping us apart frankly little discussion week unifor president jerry dias told canadas ctv network citing us stance dispute resolution labor standards us trade representative robert lighthizer pushing dealinprinciple nafta next weeks mexicos presidential election campaign officially gets underway president donald trump said thursday thought negotiators pretty close deal hurry conclusion unless united states makes meaningful major changes short term anybody think getting done end april pushing luck said dias us negotiators also recently floated idea 40 percent automotive production must occur areas paying wages 16 19 per hour auto industry officials briefed us plan said latest version would require average wage rate 16 hour finished vehicle setting wage minimum wage thresholds auto industry could benefit united states canada whose trade unions say lower mexican pay prompted manufacturing capacity move south rio grande talks rework nafta underpins 12 trillion annual trade began last year president donald trump took office promising abandon 1994 agreement could reworked better serve american interests reporting anthony esposito david lawder additional reporting david ljunggren ottawa editing chizu nomiyama cynthia osterman standards thomson reuters trust principles
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<p>(Adds details on new Pemex CFO)</p>
<p>MEXICO CITY, Jan 24 (Reuters) - Former finance ministry official Irene Espinosa was on Wednesday confirmed by Congress as the first woman to serve on the board of the Mexican central bank, taking the seat previously occupied by the bank’s new governor.</p>
<p>Longstanding central bank chief Agustin Carstens stood down at the end of November 2017, and was replaced by board member and deputy governor Alejandro Diaz de Leon.</p>
<p>Espinosa, whose designation was comfortably voted through by the permanent commission of Congress, assumes the seat vacated by Diaz de Leon, the government said.</p>
<p>The sister of former foreign minister Patricia Espinosa, Irene Espinosa is an economist who served as treasurer at the finance ministry from 2009. Before that, Espinosa worked at the Inter-American Development Bank and Mexico’s prestigious ITAM university.</p>
<p>The central bank has been battling Mexico’s highest inflation in over 16 years. Although inflation slowed in the first half of January, the board is still expected to raise its benchmark lending rate in February.</p>
<p>Separately, Congress also approved the appointment of Miguel Messmacher as new deputy finance minister, and Alberto Torres Garcia as the new deputy minister for revenue.</p>
<p>The reshuffling follows the move of the former director of state-run oil company Pemex, Jose Gonzalez Anaya, to head the finance ministry after Jose Antonio Meade stepped down late last year to seek the presidential candidacy for the ruling party.</p>
<p>Also on Wednesday, new Pemex chief Carlos Trevino named Pemex executive David Ruelas to take over as the company’s chief financial officer, subject to approval by the Pemex board, the company said in a statement. (Reporting by Mexico City Newsroom; Editing by Dave Graham and Rosalba O’Brien)</p> Our Standards:
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<p>MIAMI (Reuters) - A newly erected pedestrian bridge spanning several lanes of traffic collapsed at Florida International University on Thursday, killing four people, Miami-Dade County Fire Chief Dave Downey said.</p>
<p>Emergency personnel with sniffer dogs searched for signs of life amid the wreckage of concrete slabs and twisted metal after the 950-ton bridge crushed vehicles on one of the busiest roads in South Florida.</p>
<p>At least eight vehicles were trapped in the wreckage of the bridge and at least 10 people have been transported to hospitals, officials and doctors told news conferences.</p>
<p>Witnesses told local media the vehicles were stopped at a traffic light when the bridge collapsed on top of them at around 1:30 p.m. ET (1730 GMT).</p>
<p>“We’re working our way into the pile trying to create holes that we can actually physically see,” Miami-Dade Fire Department Division Chief Paul Estopian told reporters.</p>
<p>At one point, police requested television helicopters leave the area so rescuers could hear for any sounds of people crying for help from beneath the collapsed structure, CBS Miami television said.</p>
<p>Complicating the rescue effort was the uncertainty about the integrity of the bridge, parts of which remained off the ground, much of it inclined, local media reported.</p>
<p>The 174-feet (53-meter) long bridge connects the university with the city of Sweetwater and was installed on Saturday in six hours over the eight-lane highway, according to a report posted on the university’s website.</p>
<p>“If anybody has done anything wrong, we will hold them accountable,” said Florida Governor Rick Scott, at a Thursday night press conference, after his office issued statement saying a company contracted to inspect the bridge was not pre-qualified by the state.</p>
<p>The bridge was intended to provide a walkway over the busy street where an 18-year-old female FIU student from San Diego was killed while trying to cross last August, according to local media reports.</p>
<p>Students at FIU are currently on their spring break vacation, which runs from March 12 to March 17.</p> ‘A MIRACLE’
<p>Student Aura Martinez was having lunch in a nearby restaurant with her mother when a waitress told her the bridge had collapsed. She ran outside and helped pull a woman out of her car, most of which was flattened by the bridge.</p> First responders are shown as rescue efforts continue after a pedestrian bridge collapsed at Florida International University in Miami, Florida, U.S., March 15, 2018. REUTERS/Joe Skipper
<p>“Her car, it was literally a miracle of God, her car got squished by the bridge from the back, so she was able to get out and she was on the floor and it was just very traumatic,” she told the local CBS affiliate.</p>
<p>To keep the inevitable disruption of traffic associated with bridge construction to a minimum, the 174-foot portion of the bridge was built adjacent to Southwest 8th Street using a method called Accelerated Bridge Construction (ABC). It was driven into its perpendicular position across the road by a rig in only six hours on Saturday, according to a statement released by the university.</p>
<p>The $14.2 million bridge was designed to withstand a Category 5 hurricane, the most dangerous measure by the National Hurricane Center, and built to last 100 years, the university said. ( <a href="http://bit.ly/2tQ2ARg" type="external">bit.ly/2tQ2ARg</a>)</p>
<p>The National Transportation Safety Board was sending a team to investigate why it collapsed.</p> Slideshow (13 Images)
<p>President Donald Trump thanked first responders for their courage on Twitter. Along with Governor Scott, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio went to the scene of the collapse.</p>
<p>Munilla Construction Management, which installed the bridge was founded in 1983 and owned by five brothers, according to its website. In addition to its Florida operations, the company also has divisions in Texas and Panama and employs 500 people.</p>
<p>“Munilla Construction Management is a family business and we are all devastated and doing everything we can to assist,” the company said in a statement.</p>
<p>FIGG Engineering said it took part in the bridge project and the collapse was a first in its 40-year history.</p> Related Coverage
<a href="/article/us-florida-bridge-construction-factbox/factbox-how-the-collapsed-florida-bridge-was-erected-in-six-hours-idUSKCN1GR3AM" type="external">Factbox: How the collapsed Florida bridge was erected in six hours</a>
<p>Both companies said they would cooperate fully with investigators.</p>
<p>Colorado-based engineering company BDI said in a tweet on March 12 that it was “thrilled” to have conducted structural monitoring during the “spectacular” process of moving the bridge into place. The company removed the tweet on Thursday and said in a statement it did so out of respect for individuals affected by the collapse.</p>
<p>Scott’s office said FIU picked a firm that was not pre-qualified to check the design of the bridge, which was required because it was such a long pedestrian bridge and other unique characteristics.</p>
<p>“The firm selected, Louis Berger, was not FDOT pre-qualified for this service, which is required under FIU’s agreement with the state. FIU’s design build team is responsible for selecting a pre-qualified firm and ensuring this process is followed,” the governor said in a statement.</p>
<p>Officials at the Miami office of global engineering services firm Louis Berger were not immediately available for comment.</p>
<p>Reporting by Zachary Fagenson; Additional reporting by Gina Cherelus, Joseph Ax, Daniel Wallis and Andrew Hay in New York, Scott Malone in Boston, Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, James Oliphant in Washington, Keith Coffman in Colorado and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Lisa Shumaker</p> Our Standards:
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<p>SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean officials began preparations on Friday for a summit next month with North Korea aimed at reducing tensions on the peninsula, as a report showed the North had probably begun testing a nuclear reactor as recently as late February.</p> South Korean President Moon Jae-in delivers a speech during a ceremony celebrating the 99th anniversary of the March First Independence Movement against Japanese colonial rule, at Seodaemun Prison History Hall in Seoul, South Korea, March 1, 2018. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji
<p>The report by intelligence analysts at Jane’s by IHS Markit said satellite imagery from Feb. 25 showed emissions of non-condensable gases from a stack at the North’s experimental light water reactor (ELWR) at the Yongbyon Atomic Energy Research Center, suggesting preliminary testing had likely begun.</p>
<p>The reactor could be used to produce weapons-grade plutonium, but North Korea is believed to already have enough fissile material for multiple nuclear bombs, according to Joshua Pollack, a senior research associate at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.</p>
<p>Meantime, South Korean officials were set to convene their first meeting at the presidential Blue House to prepare for a summit between President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un late next month.</p>
<p>Headed by Moon’s chief of staff Im Jong-seok, former prominent democracy activist, the team will hammer out plans for the summit, including when to contact the North and what will be discussed between Kim and Moon.</p>
<p>U.S. President Donald Trump also accepted a summit invitation from Kim Jong Un, after a South Korean envoy told him earlier this month that the North’s leader was prepared to discuss denuclearization. Trump and Kim are expected to meet sometime in May although a location has not been set yet.</p>
<p>Although North Korea’s state media has yet to comment on the pending summits with Moon and Trump, its foreign minister Ri Yong Ho is visiting Sweden for talks with his Swedish counterpart Margot Wallstrom. Ri’s trip prompted speculation it could lay the groundwork for the summit in Sweden between Trump and Kim Jong Un.</p> North Korean leader Kim Jong Un waves to people attending a military parade marking the 105th birth anniversary of country's founding father, Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang, April 15, 2017. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj
<p>The push for these summits came after the North Korean leader said in a New Year’s address that he wanted to improve relations with the South following a year of heightened tensions brought on by the North’s nuclear and missile tests.</p> “WORK GOES ON”
<p>North Korea completed construction of the Yongbyon ELWR in 2013. It was optimized for civilian electricity production, and although it is not yet operational, it could start running with “little warning” later in 2018 or 2019, the Jane’s report said.</p>
<p>The experimental reactor is likely too small to provide much in the way of electricity, but is part of a “long-running effort” to develop a light-water reactor after a deal by an international consortium, including the United States, to provide two such nuclear power reactors in the 1990s fell apart, Pollack said.</p>
<p>“It’s their way of saying, ‘see, since you won’t give us what you promised, we’ll do it ourselves’,” Pollack said. “They haven’t made any agreements lately with the U.S., so the work goes on.”</p>
<p>An official at the South’s defense ministry said authorities were aware of the Jane’s report, which follows a similar one released on the 38 North website earlier this month that said a nearby reactor had also continued to show signs of operation.</p>
<p>The isolated state has maintained it will continue developing its nuclear program but later added it was open to abandoning the program if the security of its regime was guaranteed, according to South Korea.</p>
<p>Reporting by Christine Kim; Additional reporting by Josh Smith; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The head of the most influential U.S. business lobbying group warned the Trump administration that unilateral tariffs on Chinese goods could lead to a destructive trade war that will hurt American consumers and U.S. economic growth.</p> U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Thomas Donohue attends an event with the Mexican Chamber of Commerce in Mexico City, Mexico October 10, 2017. REUTERS/Ginnette Riquelme
<p>U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue said in a statement on Thursday that such tariffs, associated with a probe of China’s intellectual property practices, would be “damaging taxes on American consumers.”</p>
<p>His comments came after White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said that Trump would in coming weeks get options to address China’s “theft and forced transfer” of American intellectual property as part of the investigation under Section 301 of the U.S. Trade Act of 1974.</p>
<p>Reuters reported on Tuesday that Trump was considering tariffs on up to $60 billion worth of Chinese information technology, telecommunications and consumer products, along with U.S. investment restrictions for Chinese companies.</p>
<p>Donohue said the Trump administration was right to focus on the negative economic impact of China’s industrial policies and unfair trade practices, but said tariffs were the wrong approach to dealing with these.</p>
<p>“Tariffs of $30 billion a year would wipe out over a third of the savings American families received from the doubling of the standard deduction in tax reform,” Donohue said. “If the tariffs reach $60 billion, which has been rumored, the impact would be even more devastating.”</p>
<p>He urged the administration not to proceed with such a plan.</p> U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during his meeting with Ireland's Prime Minister, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, U.S., March 15, 2018. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
<p>“Tariffs could lead to a destructive trade war with serious consequences for U.S. economic growth and job creation,” hurting consumers, businesses, farmers and ranchers.</p>
<p>Navarro, speaking on CNBC television, said the remedies in the “Section 301” probe were among “many steps that the president is courageously going to take in order to address unfair trade practices.”</p>
<p>“I don’t think there’s a single person... on Wall Street that will oppose cracking down on China’s theft of our intellectual property or their forced transfer,” Navarro added.</p>
<p>But Navarro, a key architect of steel and aluminum tariffs announced last week by Trump, said that tariffs will not necessarily provoke a trade war.</p>
<p>“We can obviously do it in a way that can be good for the American people and good for the global trading system,” he said. “We can do this in a way that is peaceful and will improve and strengthen the trading system... Everybody on Wall Street needs to understand: Just relax.”</p>
<p>China has repeatedly said that there would be no winners in a trade war, but that it would protect its interests in the face of U.S. trade action.</p>
<p>China wouldn’t allow itself to become “the target for the arrows of adversity”, the official China Daily newspaper warned in an editorial late on Thursday.</p>
<p>“It should be borne in mind that even the most playful cat will scratch if you provoke it beyond a certain point,” the newspaper said.</p>
<p>Reporting by David Lawder and Lisa Lambert; Additional reporting by Michael Martina in BEIJING; Editing by James Dalgleish and Richard Borsuk</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian stocks slid on Friday as reports of more chaos in the Trump administration tested investors’ nerves, already frayed by fears that U.S. tariffs could hurt the global economy and trigger a trade war.</p> FILE PHOTO - A man walks past an electronic stock quotation board outside a brokerage in Tokyo, Japan, February 9, 2018. REUTERS/Toru Hanai
<p>MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS slipped 0.2 percent in early trade. Japan's Nikkei <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.N225" type="external">.N225</a> was down 0.3 percent.</p>
<p>On Wall Street, the S&amp;P 500 <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.SPX" type="external">.SPX</a> edged 0.08 percent lower on Thursday, marking its first four-day losing streak of 2018.</p>
<p>It hit a session low soon after the New York Times reported that U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller had issued a subpoena for documents related to U.S. President Donald Trump’s businesses.</p>
<p>The Washington Post, meanwhile, reported that President Donald Trump has decided to remove H.R. McMaster as his national security advisor.</p>
<p>The news came just days after following the recent departure of two key officials, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and top economic advisor Gary Cohn, from the Trump administration.</p>
<p>Together with the report earlier this week that Trump is seeking to impose tariffs on up to $60 billion of Chinese imports, they cemented investor concerns that the administration is increasingly leaning toward protectionism.</p>
<p>“Trade frictions look set to grow. The next week could see more details of Trump’s tariff plans on China, and there will likely be sectors that fall to victim,” said Norihiro Fujito, senior investment strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley.</p>
<p>Already shares of steelmakers have been battered since Trump announced tariffs on steel and aluminum exports.</p>
<p>Fears that the tariffs could disrupt synchronized global growth dwarfed recent strong economic data, including a fall in U.S. jobless claims.</p>
<p>“It seems as if for Trump, only ‘America First’ policies are left to boost his popularity and to get re-elected,” said Hiroko Iwaki, senior strategist at Mizuho Securities.</p>
<p>“It is hard to expect political uncertainties to disappear soon. That will underpin bonds,” she added.</p>
<p>U.S. Treasuries yield stood little changed at 2.822 percent US10YT=RR in Asia after having hit a near two-week low of 2.797 percent on Thursday.</p>
<p>In contrast, short-term bond yields rose as investors braced for a widely expected rate hike by the Federal Reserve next week, with the two-year yield hitting a 9 1/2-year high of 2.295 percent US2YT=RR.</p>
<a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.N225" type="external">Nikkei Inc</a> 21657.81 .N225 Nikkei Index -146.14 (-0.67%) .N225 .SPX
<p>In Europe, the German Bund yield DE10YT=TWEB hit a six-week low of 0.566 percent.</p>
<p>Political uncertainties are mounting in Japan, where Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is under pressure for suspicions of a cover-up in a controversial land sale.</p>
<p>In the currency market, rising risk aversion pushed the dollar lower against the safe haven yen to 105.94 yen <a href="/finance/currencies/quote?srcCurr=JPY&amp;destCurr=USD" type="external">JPY=</a> down 0.4 percent.</p>
<p>The euro was little changed at $1.2303 <a href="/finance/currencies/quote?srcCurr=EUR&amp;destCurr=USD" type="external">EUR=</a>, having slipped 0.5 percent the previous day.</p>
<p>Subdued risk sentiment kept the dollar supported against riskier currencies, such as commodity-linked currencies and emerging market currencies.</p>
<p>The Canadian dollar <a href="/finance/currencies/quote?srcCurr=CAD&amp;destCurr=USD" type="external">CAD=D4</a>, which has been hit also by worries Trump may pull out from NAFTA, hit a nine-month low of C$1.3072 to the dollar.</p>
<p>Oil prices were little changed after ending choppy Thursday trade higher as the International Energy Agency said global oil demand is expected to pick up this year, but warned supply is growing at a faster pace.</p>
<p>Brent futures LCOc1 stood flat at $65.11 per barrel.</p>
<p>Editing by Sam Holmes and KIm Coghill</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
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adds details new pemex cfo mexico city jan 24 reuters former finance ministry official irene espinosa wednesday confirmed congress first woman serve board mexican central bank taking seat previously occupied banks new governor longstanding central bank chief agustin carstens stood end november 2017 replaced board member deputy governor alejandro diaz de leon espinosa whose designation comfortably voted permanent commission congress assumes seat vacated diaz de leon government said sister former foreign minister patricia espinosa irene espinosa economist served treasurer finance ministry 2009 espinosa worked interamerican development bank mexicos prestigious itam university central bank battling mexicos highest inflation 16 years although inflation slowed first half january board still expected raise benchmark lending rate february separately congress also approved appointment miguel messmacher new deputy finance minister alberto torres garcia new deputy minister revenue reshuffling follows move former director staterun oil company pemex jose gonzalez anaya head finance ministry jose antonio meade stepped late last year seek presidential candidacy ruling party also wednesday new pemex chief carlos trevino named pemex executive david ruelas take companys chief financial officer subject approval pemex board company said statement reporting mexico city newsroom editing dave graham rosalba obrien standards thomson reuters trust principles miami reuters newly erected pedestrian bridge spanning several lanes traffic collapsed florida international university thursday killing four people miamidade county fire chief dave downey said emergency personnel sniffer dogs searched signs life amid wreckage concrete slabs twisted metal 950ton bridge crushed vehicles one busiest roads south florida least eight vehicles trapped wreckage bridge least 10 people transported hospitals officials doctors told news conferences witnesses told local media vehicles stopped traffic light bridge collapsed top around 130 pm et 1730 gmt working way pile trying create holes actually physically see miamidade fire department division chief paul estopian told reporters one point police requested television helicopters leave area rescuers could hear sounds people crying help beneath collapsed structure cbs miami television said complicating rescue effort uncertainty integrity bridge parts remained ground much inclined local media reported 174feet 53meter long bridge connects university city sweetwater installed saturday six hours eightlane highway according report posted universitys website anybody done anything wrong hold accountable said florida governor rick scott thursday night press conference office issued statement saying company contracted inspect bridge prequalified state bridge intended provide walkway busy street 18yearold female fiu student san diego killed trying cross last august according local media reports students fiu currently spring break vacation runs march 12 march 17 miracle student aura martinez lunch nearby restaurant mother waitress told bridge collapsed ran outside helped pull woman car flattened bridge first responders shown rescue efforts continue pedestrian bridge collapsed florida international university miami florida us march 15 2018 reutersjoe skipper car literally miracle god car got squished bridge back able get floor traumatic told local cbs affiliate keep inevitable disruption traffic associated bridge construction minimum 174foot portion bridge built adjacent southwest 8th street using method called accelerated bridge construction abc driven perpendicular position across road rig six hours saturday according statement released university 142 million bridge designed withstand category 5 hurricane dangerous measure national hurricane center built last 100 years university said bitly2tq2arg national transportation safety board sending team investigate collapsed slideshow 13 images president donald trump thanked first responders courage twitter along governor scott us senator marco rubio went scene collapse munilla construction management installed bridge founded 1983 owned five brothers according website addition florida operations company also divisions texas panama employs 500 people munilla construction management family business devastated everything assist company said statement figg engineering said took part bridge project collapse first 40year history related coverage factbox collapsed florida bridge erected six hours companies said would cooperate fully investigators coloradobased engineering company bdi said tweet march 12 thrilled conducted structural monitoring spectacular process moving bridge place company removed tweet thursday said statement respect individuals affected collapse scotts office said fiu picked firm prequalified check design bridge required long pedestrian bridge unique characteristics firm selected louis berger fdot prequalified service required fius agreement state fius design build team responsible selecting prequalified firm ensuring process followed governor said statement officials miami office global engineering services firm louis berger immediately available comment reporting zachary fagenson additional reporting gina cherelus joseph ax daniel wallis andrew hay new york scott malone boston bernie woodall fort lauderdale james oliphant washington keith coffman colorado dan whitcomb los angeles writing jon herskovitz editing lisa shumaker standards thomson reuters trust principles seoul reuters south korean officials began preparations friday summit next month north korea aimed reducing tensions peninsula report showed north probably begun testing nuclear reactor recently late february south korean president moon jaein delivers speech ceremony celebrating 99th anniversary march first independence movement japanese colonial rule seodaemun prison history hall seoul south korea march 1 2018 reuterskim hongji report intelligence analysts janes ihs markit said satellite imagery feb 25 showed emissions noncondensable gases stack norths experimental light water reactor elwr yongbyon atomic energy research center suggesting preliminary testing likely begun reactor could used produce weaponsgrade plutonium north korea believed already enough fissile material multiple nuclear bombs according joshua pollack senior research associate middlebury institute international studies monterey meantime south korean officials set convene first meeting presidential blue house prepare summit president moon jaein north korean leader kim jong un late next month headed moons chief staff im jongseok former prominent democracy activist team hammer plans summit including contact north discussed kim moon us president donald trump also accepted summit invitation kim jong un south korean envoy told earlier month norths leader prepared discuss denuclearization trump kim expected meet sometime may although location set yet although north koreas state media yet comment pending summits moon trump foreign minister ri yong ho visiting sweden talks swedish counterpart margot wallstrom ris trip prompted speculation could lay groundwork summit sweden trump kim jong un north korean leader kim jong un waves people attending military parade marking 105th birth anniversary countrys founding father kim il sung pyongyang april 15 2017 reutersdamir sagolj push summits came north korean leader said new years address wanted improve relations south following year heightened tensions brought norths nuclear missile tests work goes north korea completed construction yongbyon elwr 2013 optimized civilian electricity production although yet operational could start running little warning later 2018 2019 janes report said experimental reactor likely small provide much way electricity part longrunning effort develop lightwater reactor deal international consortium including united states provide two nuclear power reactors 1990s fell apart pollack said way saying see since wont give us promised well pollack said havent made agreements lately us work goes official souths defense ministry said authorities aware janes report follows similar one released 38 north website earlier month said nearby reactor also continued show signs operation isolated state maintained continue developing nuclear program later added open abandoning program security regime guaranteed according south korea reporting christine kim additional reporting josh smith editing simon cameronmoore standards thomson reuters trust principles washington reuters head influential us business lobbying group warned trump administration unilateral tariffs chinese goods could lead destructive trade war hurt american consumers us economic growth us chamber commerce president ceo thomas donohue attends event mexican chamber commerce mexico city mexico october 10 2017 reutersginnette riquelme us chamber commerce president thomas donohue said statement thursday tariffs associated probe chinas intellectual property practices would damaging taxes american consumers comments came white house trade adviser peter navarro said trump would coming weeks get options address chinas theft forced transfer american intellectual property part investigation section 301 us trade act 1974 reuters reported tuesday trump considering tariffs 60 billion worth chinese information technology telecommunications consumer products along us investment restrictions chinese companies donohue said trump administration right focus negative economic impact chinas industrial policies unfair trade practices said tariffs wrong approach dealing tariffs 30 billion year would wipe third savings american families received doubling standard deduction tax reform donohue said tariffs reach 60 billion rumored impact would even devastating urged administration proceed plan us president donald trump speaks meeting irelands prime minister taoiseach leo varadkar oval office white house washington us march 15 2018 reuterskevin lamarque tariffs could lead destructive trade war serious consequences us economic growth job creation hurting consumers businesses farmers ranchers navarro speaking cnbc television said remedies section 301 probe among many steps president courageously going take order address unfair trade practices dont think theres single person wall street oppose cracking chinas theft intellectual property forced transfer navarro added navarro key architect steel aluminum tariffs announced last week trump said tariffs necessarily provoke trade war obviously way good american people good global trading system said way peaceful improve strengthen trading system everybody wall street needs understand relax china repeatedly said would winners trade war would protect interests face us trade action china wouldnt allow become target arrows adversity official china daily newspaper warned editorial late thursday borne mind even playful cat scratch provoke beyond certain point newspaper said reporting david lawder lisa lambert additional reporting michael martina beijing editing james dalgleish richard borsuk standards thomson reuters trust principles tokyo reuters asian stocks slid friday reports chaos trump administration tested investors nerves already frayed fears us tariffs could hurt global economy trigger trade war file photo man walks past electronic stock quotation board outside brokerage tokyo japan february 9 2018 reuterstoru hanai mscis broadest index asiapacific shares outside japan miapj0000pus slipped 02 percent early trade japans nikkei n225 03 percent wall street sampp 500 spx edged 008 percent lower thursday marking first fourday losing streak 2018 hit session low soon new york times reported us special counsel robert mueller issued subpoena documents related us president donald trumps businesses washington post meanwhile reported president donald trump decided remove hr mcmaster national security advisor news came days following recent departure two key officials former secretary state rex tillerson top economic advisor gary cohn trump administration together report earlier week trump seeking impose tariffs 60 billion chinese imports cemented investor concerns administration increasingly leaning toward protectionism trade frictions look set grow next week could see details trumps tariff plans china likely sectors fall victim said norihiro fujito senior investment strategist mitsubishi ufj morgan stanley already shares steelmakers battered since trump announced tariffs steel aluminum exports fears tariffs could disrupt synchronized global growth dwarfed recent strong economic data including fall us jobless claims seems trump america first policies left boost popularity get reelected said hiroko iwaki senior strategist mizuho securities hard expect political uncertainties disappear soon underpin bonds added us treasuries yield stood little changed 2822 percent us10ytrr asia hit near twoweek low 2797 percent thursday contrast shortterm bond yields rose investors braced widely expected rate hike federal reserve next week twoyear yield hitting 9 12year high 2295 percent us2ytrr nikkei inc 2165781 n225 nikkei index 14614 067 n225 spx europe german bund yield de10yttweb hit sixweek low 0566 percent political uncertainties mounting japan prime minister shinzo abe pressure suspicions coverup controversial land sale currency market rising risk aversion pushed dollar lower safe yen 10594 yen jpy 04 percent euro little changed 12303 eur slipped 05 percent previous day subdued risk sentiment kept dollar supported riskier currencies commoditylinked currencies emerging market currencies canadian dollar cadd4 hit also worries trump may pull nafta hit ninemonth low c13072 dollar oil prices little changed ending choppy thursday trade higher international energy agency said global oil demand expected pick year warned supply growing faster pace brent futures lcoc1 stood flat 6511 per barrel editing sam holmes kim coghill standards thomson reuters trust principles
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<p>BEIJING (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday he hopes to forge a partnership with China on climate, security and other issues during a visit to expand European ties with Beijing.</p>
<p>The trip comes as Britain's impending departure from the EU and the more inward-looking policies of U.S. President Donald Trump have raised the prospect of a possible realignment of global influence. China and France have promoted themselves as leaders on global warming after Trump pulled out of the Paris climate agreement.</p>
<p>"I hope to strengthen our mutual trust during this visit and to use the five years of my term in office to promote Franco-Chinese relations and European-Chinese relations," said Macron, standing with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, ahead of a meeting at a government guesthouse. Macron said he wanted to "strengthen collective security" and promote joint efforts to fight climate change.</p>
<p>Xi welcomed Macron in unusually effusive language. He noted France was the first Western country to form diplomatic ties with the Communist Beijing government and recalled that then-President Charles de Gaulle and Chinese leader Mao Zedong met in 1964.</p>
<p>"China and France are both great countries with splendid histories and the exchange and influence between us has deep historical significance for the world," Xi said.</p>
<p>During their meeting, Macron and Xi discussed climate change, Chinese-French relations and Xi's "Belt and Road Initiative" to build railways and other infrastructure across Asia and Europe, state television reported. The French leader said ahead of the meeting he wanted to talk about North Korea and fighting terrorist financing, but there was no immediate word on whether those were discussed.</p>
<p>Despite their public warmth, Macron's visit is overshadowed by mounting trade tensions.</p>
<p>Britain's departure from the EU will deprive Beijing of a prominent ally in opposing demands for tougher European anti-dumping measures against low-cost Chinese products.</p>
<p>Other EU members including France and Germany are pressing Beijing to give their companies reciprocity, or the same access to its state-dominated economy that Chinese companies enjoy abroad.</p>
<p>Macron, traveling with a French business delegation, wants to secure deals his government hopes will produce greater access to China's growing market.</p>
<p>The two governments are expected to announce a Franco-Chinese investment fund of more than 1 billion euros ($1.2 billion).</p>
<p>China is France's biggest Asian trading partner but the French side reported a 30 billion euro ($36 billion) trade deficit last year.</p>
<p>Earlier Monday, Macron began his visit in the western city of Xi'an, where he said he would propose to Xi a joint "year of ecological transition" to mobilize their governments and companies.</p>
<p>"I will ask President Xi to take a new step in our French-Chinese relationship, to engage in a climate battle," Macron said in a speech.</p>
<p>Macron said France could help, especially in Africa, with "Belt and Road," Xi's signature foreign initiative.</p>
<p>"France has the experience of unilateral imperialism in Africa, which sometimes led to the worst," he said. "And today, with the new Silk Road being created, I think that the partnership between France and China can avoid repeating these mistakes."</p>
<p>The French Development Agency and the state-run China Development Bank are to sign a cooperation agreement for co-financing of projects to fight climate change in Africa.</p>
<p>British Prime Minister Theresa May is to visit Beijing this month as part of her government's effort to nurture a new global role following its departure from the EU in 2019.</p>
<p>That comes after a British-Chinese economic dialogue in December at which the two sides pledged to promote London as a center for transactions in China's yuan currency.</p>
<p>Also this week, a former British prime minister, David Cameron, is scheduled to meet Chinese leaders as head of a 750 million pound ($1 billion) fund to invest in railways, ports and other facilities between China and Britain.</p>
<p>BEIJING (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday he hopes to forge a partnership with China on climate, security and other issues during a visit to expand European ties with Beijing.</p>
<p>The trip comes as Britain's impending departure from the EU and the more inward-looking policies of U.S. President Donald Trump have raised the prospect of a possible realignment of global influence. China and France have promoted themselves as leaders on global warming after Trump pulled out of the Paris climate agreement.</p>
<p>"I hope to strengthen our mutual trust during this visit and to use the five years of my term in office to promote Franco-Chinese relations and European-Chinese relations," said Macron, standing with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, ahead of a meeting at a government guesthouse. Macron said he wanted to "strengthen collective security" and promote joint efforts to fight climate change.</p>
<p>Xi welcomed Macron in unusually effusive language. He noted France was the first Western country to form diplomatic ties with the Communist Beijing government and recalled that then-President Charles de Gaulle and Chinese leader Mao Zedong met in 1964.</p>
<p>"China and France are both great countries with splendid histories and the exchange and influence between us has deep historical significance for the world," Xi said.</p>
<p>During their meeting, Macron and Xi discussed climate change, Chinese-French relations and Xi's "Belt and Road Initiative" to build railways and other infrastructure across Asia and Europe, state television reported. The French leader said ahead of the meeting he wanted to talk about North Korea and fighting terrorist financing, but there was no immediate word on whether those were discussed.</p>
<p>Despite their public warmth, Macron's visit is overshadowed by mounting trade tensions.</p>
<p>Britain's departure from the EU will deprive Beijing of a prominent ally in opposing demands for tougher European anti-dumping measures against low-cost Chinese products.</p>
<p>Other EU members including France and Germany are pressing Beijing to give their companies reciprocity, or the same access to its state-dominated economy that Chinese companies enjoy abroad.</p>
<p>Macron, traveling with a French business delegation, wants to secure deals his government hopes will produce greater access to China's growing market.</p>
<p>The two governments are expected to announce a Franco-Chinese investment fund of more than 1 billion euros ($1.2 billion).</p>
<p>China is France's biggest Asian trading partner but the French side reported a 30 billion euro ($36 billion) trade deficit last year.</p>
<p>Earlier Monday, Macron began his visit in the western city of Xi'an, where he said he would propose to Xi a joint "year of ecological transition" to mobilize their governments and companies.</p>
<p>"I will ask President Xi to take a new step in our French-Chinese relationship, to engage in a climate battle," Macron said in a speech.</p>
<p>Macron said France could help, especially in Africa, with "Belt and Road," Xi's signature foreign initiative.</p>
<p>"France has the experience of unilateral imperialism in Africa, which sometimes led to the worst," he said. "And today, with the new Silk Road being created, I think that the partnership between France and China can avoid repeating these mistakes."</p>
<p>The French Development Agency and the state-run China Development Bank are to sign a cooperation agreement for co-financing of projects to fight climate change in Africa.</p>
<p>British Prime Minister Theresa May is to visit Beijing this month as part of her government's effort to nurture a new global role following its departure from the EU in 2019.</p>
<p>That comes after a British-Chinese economic dialogue in December at which the two sides pledged to promote London as a center for transactions in China's yuan currency.</p>
<p>Also this week, a former British prime minister, David Cameron, is scheduled to meet Chinese leaders as head of a 750 million pound ($1 billion) fund to invest in railways, ports and other facilities between China and Britain.</p>
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beijing ap french president emmanuel macron said monday hopes forge partnership china climate security issues visit expand european ties beijing trip comes britains impending departure eu inwardlooking policies us president donald trump raised prospect possible realignment global influence china france promoted leaders global warming trump pulled paris climate agreement hope strengthen mutual trust visit use five years term office promote francochinese relations europeanchinese relations said macron standing chinese counterpart xi jinping ahead meeting government guesthouse macron said wanted strengthen collective security promote joint efforts fight climate change xi welcomed macron unusually effusive language noted france first western country form diplomatic ties communist beijing government recalled thenpresident charles de gaulle chinese leader mao zedong met 1964 china france great countries splendid histories exchange influence us deep historical significance world xi said meeting macron xi discussed climate change chinesefrench relations xis belt road initiative build railways infrastructure across asia europe state television reported french leader said ahead meeting wanted talk north korea fighting terrorist financing immediate word whether discussed despite public warmth macrons visit overshadowed mounting trade tensions britains departure eu deprive beijing prominent ally opposing demands tougher european antidumping measures lowcost chinese products eu members including france germany pressing beijing give companies reciprocity access statedominated economy chinese companies enjoy abroad macron traveling french business delegation wants secure deals government hopes produce greater access chinas growing market two governments expected announce francochinese investment fund 1 billion euros 12 billion china frances biggest asian trading partner french side reported 30 billion euro 36 billion trade deficit last year earlier monday macron began visit western city xian said would propose xi joint year ecological transition mobilize governments companies ask president xi take new step frenchchinese relationship engage climate battle macron said speech macron said france could help especially africa belt road xis signature foreign initiative france experience unilateral imperialism africa sometimes led worst said today new silk road created think partnership france china avoid repeating mistakes french development agency staterun china development bank sign cooperation agreement cofinancing projects fight climate change africa british prime minister theresa may visit beijing month part governments effort nurture new global role following departure eu 2019 comes britishchinese economic dialogue december two sides pledged promote london center transactions chinas yuan currency also week former british prime minister david cameron scheduled meet chinese leaders head 750 million pound 1 billion fund invest railways ports facilities china britain beijing ap french president emmanuel macron said monday hopes forge partnership china climate security issues visit expand european ties beijing trip comes britains impending departure eu inwardlooking policies us president donald trump raised prospect possible realignment global influence china france promoted leaders global warming trump pulled paris climate agreement hope strengthen mutual trust visit use five years term office promote francochinese relations europeanchinese relations said macron standing chinese counterpart xi jinping ahead meeting government guesthouse macron said wanted strengthen collective security promote joint efforts fight climate change xi welcomed macron unusually effusive language noted france first western country form diplomatic ties communist beijing government recalled thenpresident charles de gaulle chinese leader mao zedong met 1964 china france great countries splendid histories exchange influence us deep historical significance world xi said meeting macron xi discussed climate change chinesefrench relations xis belt road initiative build railways infrastructure across asia europe state television reported french leader said ahead meeting wanted talk north korea fighting terrorist financing immediate word whether discussed despite public warmth macrons visit overshadowed mounting trade tensions britains departure eu deprive beijing prominent ally opposing demands tougher european antidumping measures lowcost chinese products eu members including france germany pressing beijing give companies reciprocity access statedominated economy chinese companies enjoy abroad macron traveling french business delegation wants secure deals government hopes produce greater access chinas growing market two governments expected announce francochinese investment fund 1 billion euros 12 billion china frances biggest asian trading partner french side reported 30 billion euro 36 billion trade deficit last year earlier monday macron began visit western city xian said would propose xi joint year ecological transition mobilize governments companies ask president xi take new step frenchchinese relationship engage climate battle macron said speech macron said france could help especially africa belt road xis signature foreign initiative france experience unilateral imperialism africa sometimes led worst said today new silk road created think partnership france china avoid repeating mistakes french development agency staterun china development bank sign cooperation agreement cofinancing projects fight climate change africa british prime minister theresa may visit beijing month part governments effort nurture new global role following departure eu 2019 comes britishchinese economic dialogue december two sides pledged promote london center transactions chinas yuan currency also week former british prime minister david cameron scheduled meet chinese leaders head 750 million pound 1 billion fund invest railways ports facilities china britain
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<p>Rio Rancho’s Devin Paredes (312) keeps his lead as Albuquerque Academy’s Jordan Lesansee tries to edge him at the finish line at the Metro Cross-Country Championships last month. (Jim Thompson/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>The schools are separated by 95 miles of highway, by the colors red and green. One calls the Jemez Mountains home; the other sits just off a busy city street. But running binds them.</p>
<p>The boys cross-country runners from Albuquerque Academy and their counterparts from Los Alamos have engendered perhaps the most competitive rivalry in New Mexico high school sports.</p>
<p>Since 1998, Academy has won nine Class 4A cross-country titles and two 3A crowns, while Los Alamos has won five 4A titles, including the last three. Every year Academy won, Los Alamos finished second. Every year the Hilltoppers won, the Chargers were second. That’s 16 years in a row.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“It is the ultimate high school rivalry in New Mexico,” Academy coach Adam Kedge said.</p>
<p />
<p>And it is a rivalry without animosity.</p>
<p>“It’s been a terrific rivalry,” said Rob Hipwood, who is Los Alamos’ co-head coach along with his wife, Kathy. “It epitomizes everything that sports should be about. The teams do everything they can to beat each other. Then, when it ends, they are the first to congratulate us, and hopefully, we’re the first to congratulate them.”</p>
<p>Class 4A is now 5A, but Saturday’s boys race is again expected to come down to Los Alamos and Academy.</p>
<p>Kedge said: “(The Hipwoods) are close friends of mine, as much as I want to kick them in the pants on Saturday. … I have great respect for Rob and Kathy. We talk all the time about kids, workouts, running, about people in general.”</p>
<p>Kedge ran for Española Valley, while Rob Hipwood was a Hilltopper.</p>
<p>“Rob and I have known each other 30 years,” Kedge said. “We ran against each other in high school. Nine times out of 10, he got the better part of me.”</p>
<p>“He gives me too much credit,” Hipwood said. “He was a much better middle-distance runner than I was.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Kedge ran for the University of New Mexico, while Hipwood went to Adams State. At Adams State, he met fellow runner Kathy, and after four years they began to date.</p>
<p>“Kathy knew before I did that she wanted to coach,” Rob said.</p>
<p>Kathy assisted at Adams State and Alamosa (Colo.) High before the newlyweds moved to Los Alamos. When the Los Alamos cross-country job opened, they applied – with the condition that they be named co-head coaches.</p>
<p>“And 21 years later, we’re still here,” Hipwood said. “It’s a great place to live and a wonderful place to coach.”</p>
<p>The girls cross-country team was fairly established as a state title contender when they took over. The boys were not.</p>
<p>At the 1997 meet, the Hilltoppers boys finished 11th. On the road home from Gallup, one of the boys wandered to the front of the bus and asked the Hipwoods what they could do to be better.</p>
<p>“They hadn’t bought into the idea they had to work really hard to be one of the teams competing to be on the podium,” Hipwood said.</p>
<p>He credits two of the younger runners from that team with turning it around – Brad Skidmore (who now coaches the midschool team) and Kit Werley.</p>
<p>“They had a significant impact in changing the culture,” Hipwood said. “Even as eighth- and ninth-graders, they didn’t care what the other boys were doing. They ran day after day.”</p>
<p>The next year, the Hilltoppers finished second. They have not finished worse than second since.</p>
<p>“I don’t think we ever imagined, that many years ago, that we would have had this kind of success,” Hipwood said.</p>
<p>Kedge had similar thoughts when he took over the boys program at Academy 20 years ago.</p>
<p>“I never imagined that cross-country would take such importance in our school and within our state,” Kedge said. “I never dreamed it would be so. Twenty years ago, I was hoping I could prove we were good enough to win a title. To have the numbers we have, I’m still flabbergasted.”</p>
<p>He had been working at Eldorado when the position opened. Academy also hired him to teach ninth-grade science.</p>
<p>“It’s the best job in the world,” Kedge said.</p>
<p>The Chargers were moderately successful runners when Kedge took over. But he fueled it with numbers. The program has grown from about 40 boys and girls then to 96 this season.</p>
<p>“I will take anyone who wears a smile,” Kedge said. “I prefer if they are handsome or good-looking. Two legs is optional. Anybody who has a good attitude. Athletic ability is secondary. If they are dedicated and work hard, I’m sure they’ll have some success in the program. I don’t need tall, short, skinny, fat. I say I want them handsome, but I’ll take them even if they’re not.”</p>
<p>Neither Kedge nor Hipwood take the success for granted. They will savor Saturday. Then the work starts all over, with one eye on the other.</p>
<p>STATE MEET: While the Hilltoppers and Chargers appear to be the clear front-runners in the boys meet, Los Alamos and Academy could be challenged by St. Pius in the girls race. Jordyn DiLorenzo is the District 5-5A champ. Madison Foley leads the Hilltoppers, while the Chargers have Lillian Brunacini and Dara Procell.</p>
<p>Academy boys Jordan Lesansee, Cody Bratzler, Carlos C de Baca, Aric Kedge and Will Stanopiewicz swept the 5-5A race. Cameron Staples, John Rees, Connor Bailey and Greg Ahlers are among the top Hilltopers. Miyamura’s Niles Thomas won the Rio Rancho Jamboree (on the same course the state meet will be run) and the Academy and Lobo Invitationals.</p>
<p>In Class 6A girls, La Cueva’s Natasha Bernal, La Cueva’s Mason Swanson, Rio Rancho’s Molly Klein and Reina Paredes, and Oñate’s Meghan Aguilera and Renee Baldwin are among the contenders. Rio Rancho won the Rio Rancho Jamboree, while Eldorado took the Academy Invitational.</p>
<p>In 6A boys, Devin Paredes and Michael Goke of Rio Rancho; Carlos Oregon, Manuel Parras, Andrew Bosquez and Jessie Madrid of Hobbs; Tom Hiett of La Cueva; Chris Harlow of Cibola; and Jericho Cleveland of Volcano Vista appear to be in top form. Rio Rancho won its Jamboree and was second in the Lobo Invitational.</p>
<p>Taos, East Mountain and St. Michael’s swept district boys and girls titles in 4A. The boys and girls from Jemez Valley and Cimarron won district titles in 1A/2A.</p>
<p>The Laguna-Acoma boys, led by Jacob Sanchez, swept the top six spots at the District 5/6-3A meet, while the Navajo Prep girls, with Sarah Chacon in front, dominated the District 1-3A meet. Hope Christian’s Peter Siminski has fared well against big-school competition.</p>
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rio ranchos devin paredes 312 keeps lead albuquerque academys jordan lesansee tries edge finish line metro crosscountry championships last month jim thompsonalbuquerque journal schools separated 95 miles highway colors red green one calls jemez mountains home sits busy city street running binds boys crosscountry runners albuquerque academy counterparts los alamos engendered perhaps competitive rivalry new mexico high school sports since 1998 academy nine class 4a crosscountry titles two 3a crowns los alamos five 4a titles including last three every year academy los alamos finished second every year hilltoppers chargers second thats 16 years row advertisement ultimate high school rivalry new mexico academy coach adam kedge said rivalry without animosity terrific rivalry said rob hipwood los alamos cohead coach along wife kathy epitomizes everything sports teams everything beat ends first congratulate us hopefully first congratulate class 4a 5a saturdays boys race expected come los alamos academy kedge said hipwoods close friends mine much want kick pants saturday great respect rob kathy talk time kids workouts running people general kedge ran española valley rob hipwood hilltopper rob known 30 years kedge said ran high school nine times 10 got better part gives much credit hipwood said much better middledistance runner advertisement kedge ran university new mexico hipwood went adams state adams state met fellow runner kathy four years began date kathy knew wanted coach rob said kathy assisted adams state alamosa colo high newlyweds moved los alamos los alamos crosscountry job opened applied condition named cohead coaches 21 years later still hipwood said great place live wonderful place coach girls crosscountry team fairly established state title contender took boys 1997 meet hilltoppers boys finished 11th road home gallup one boys wandered front bus asked hipwoods could better hadnt bought idea work really hard one teams competing podium hipwood said credits two younger runners team turning around brad skidmore coaches midschool team kit werley significant impact changing culture hipwood said even eighth ninthgraders didnt care boys ran day day next year hilltoppers finished second finished worse second since dont think ever imagined many years ago would kind success hipwood said kedge similar thoughts took boys program academy 20 years ago never imagined crosscountry would take importance school within state kedge said never dreamed would twenty years ago hoping could prove good enough win title numbers im still flabbergasted working eldorado position opened academy also hired teach ninthgrade science best job world kedge said chargers moderately successful runners kedge took fueled numbers program grown 40 boys girls 96 season take anyone wears smile kedge said prefer handsome goodlooking two legs optional anybody good attitude athletic ability secondary dedicated work hard im sure theyll success program dont need tall short skinny fat say want handsome ill take even theyre neither kedge hipwood take success granted savor saturday work starts one eye state meet hilltoppers chargers appear clear frontrunners boys meet los alamos academy could challenged st pius girls race jordyn dilorenzo district 55a champ madison foley leads hilltoppers chargers lillian brunacini dara procell academy boys jordan lesansee cody bratzler carlos c de baca aric kedge stanopiewicz swept 55a race cameron staples john rees connor bailey greg ahlers among top hilltopers miyamuras niles thomas rio rancho jamboree course state meet run academy lobo invitationals class 6a girls la cuevas natasha bernal la cuevas mason swanson rio ranchos molly klein reina paredes oñates meghan aguilera renee baldwin among contenders rio rancho rio rancho jamboree eldorado took academy invitational 6a boys devin paredes michael goke rio rancho carlos oregon manuel parras andrew bosquez jessie madrid hobbs tom hiett la cueva chris harlow cibola jericho cleveland volcano vista appear top form rio rancho jamboree second lobo invitational taos east mountain st michaels swept district boys girls titles 4a boys girls jemez valley cimarron district titles 1a2a lagunaacoma boys led jacob sanchez swept top six spots district 563a meet navajo prep girls sarah chacon front dominated district 13a meet hope christians peter siminski fared well bigschool competition
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<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - Got a dusty old binder with your will and estate plan? Even if you had your paperwork set up a few years ago, all of your documents are now out of date, thanks to new tax laws that went into effect at the turn of the year.</p> A generic picture of a some office folders or binders. OFFPO REUTERS/Catherine Benson
<p>“Blow the dust off and see if it’s even needed anymore,” said certified financial planner Leon LaBrecque, who is also a tax attorney, a certified public accountant and a chartered financial analyst in Troy, Michigan.</p>
<p>Strategies that financial planners and trust attorneys have been using for years to help families avoid paying estate taxes may now fall by the wayside, because the exemption for the size of estates has doubled to $22 million for couples, from $11 million. It was just $600,000 in 1997.</p>
<p>“Not a lot of planners have clients worth more than $22 million, said LaBrecque.</p>
<p>Those who have ultra-high-net-worth clients can still employ the same playbook of trusts to avoid taxes, but those with estates worth less than $22 million will not need to bother with things like credit-bypass trusts, qualified terminable interest property trusts and many life insurance trusts.</p>
<p>But that does not mean trusts will fade away and that all estate planning can just cease. The most important parts of the process have to do with your financial health while you are still alive: You need power of attorney forms and healthcare proxies in case you are incapacitated.</p>
<p>You also need to make sure your beneficiaries are updated on all your accounts, especially life insurance policies and 401(k)s from old jobs.</p>
<p>“It’s still staggering how many people with real means have no documents. Now that they don’t need to pay tax, we worry they won’t do the things they need to do,” said Jill Schlesinger, a personal finance expert who serves as the Senior CFP Board Ambassador.</p> REASONS TO PLAN
<p>Estate planning at its core is about keeping control over your assets even after you die.</p>
<p>“Maybe you want to make sure that your kids receive your money in a certain way,” said Schlesinger. “Maybe you don’t want sister-in-law or daughter-in-law to be involved. Maybe you want it to jump a generation. Maybe you need a special needs trust. There are all sorts of rationales for creating a document.”</p>
<p>Austin Frye, a financial planner based in Aventura, Florida, said his practice does more trusts now than ever, and he expects that to continue.</p>
<p>“They are for protective reasons and not for tax savings,” Frye said. “A rise in the diagnosis of autism, special needs, drug and alcohol addictions, Alzheimer’s, and other problems including multiple marriages and non-traditional relationships - these have kept our trust department busier than ever.”</p>
<p>Another reason for trusts is to keep the state out of your affairs after you die. Property that is not jointly owned or set up to transfer directly to a beneficiary - like a bank account- can end up being evaluated in an expensive and time-consuming probate process. This often includes things like a vacation property in another state, a piece of expensive art or a stamp collection, or a stock portfolio with no named beneficiary.</p>
<p>“Everything needs to be in some kind of trust,” Frye said.</p> GIVING IT AWAY
<p>Even with the doubling of the estate tax limit, charitable trusts can help with your tax burden.</p>
<p>Houston financial planner Scott Bishop said that by leaving a substantial IRA to charity through a trust you can avoid the taxes your heirs would pay when they liquidate the account.</p>
<p>Giving appreciated stock to a charity through a trust or a donor-advised fund can bypass capital gains taxes and still offset income in the year you donate if you itemize deductions, Bishop added.</p>
<p>With all of these changes, planners said to keep in mind the new law sunset in 2025.</p>
<p>Frye’s pro tip for riding the roller coaster: “Simplify and review.”</p>
<p>Editing by Bernadette Baum</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S., British and French forces pounded Syria with air strikes early on Saturday in response to a poison gas attack that killed dozens of people last week, in the biggest intervention by Western powers against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.</p>
<p>U.S. President Donald Trump announced the military action from the White House late on Friday. As he spoke, explosions rocked Damascus. Trump said he was prepared to sustain the response until Assad’s government stopped its use of chemical weapons.</p>
<p>British Prime Minister Theresa May and French President Emmanuel Macron said the UK and France had joined in the attack.</p>
<p>Syria’s seven-year-old civil war has pitted the United States and its allies against Russia, which itself intervened in the war in 2015 to back Assad.</p>
<p>Syrian state media said the attack would fail and called it a “flagrant violation of international law.” Russia’s ambassador to the United States said Moscow had warned that “such actions will not be left without consequences”.</p> Related Coverage
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<p>In a televised address from the White House, Trump said he had ordered U.S. armed forces to launch “precision strikes” associated with Assad’s chemical weapons capabilities.</p>
<p>“The combined American, British, and French response to these atrocities will integrate all instruments of our national power — military, economic, and diplomatic. We are prepared to sustain this response until the Syrian regime stops its use of prohibited chemical agents,” Trump said.</p>
<p>Speaking of Assad and his suspected role in last week’s chemical weapons attack, Trump said, “These are not the actions of a man. They are crimes of a monster instead.”</p>
<p>At least six loud explosions were heard in Damascus in the early hours of Saturday and smoke was seen rising over the Syrian capital, a Reuters witness said. A second witness said the Barzah district of Damascus had been hit in the strikes. Barzah is the location of a major Syrian scientific research center.</p>
<p>At a Pentagon briefing, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford said the targets included a Syrian research facility and a chemical weapons storage facility.</p>
<p>The combined U.S., British and French assault appeared to be more intense than the strike Trump ordered almost exactly a year ago against a Syrian airbase in retaliation for an earlier chemical weapons attack that Washington attributed to Assad.</p>
<p>Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said twice as many weapons were used in the strikes on Saturday compared to last April’s strike.</p>
<p>Mattis, who U.S. officials said had earlier warned in internal debates against too large an attack that would risk confrontation with Russia, described the strikes as a “one time shot” to dissuade Assad from “doing this again.”</p>
<p>Asked what chemicals were used in the weekend attack, Mattis confirmed that chlorine gas had been used and did not rule out the nerve agent sarin.</p>
<p>Dunford said that manned U.S. aircraft were used in the military operation and that the strike was planned to minimize the risk of casualties among Russia’s military forces in Syria. A U.S. official told Reuters that Tomahawk cruise missiles also were involved.</p>
<p>Syrian air defenses shot down 13 missiles fired in the U.S.-led attack on the country on Saturday, Syrian state TV said. The missiles had been shot down in the Kiswah area south of the capital Damascus, it said.</p>
<p>The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a total of three scientific research centers had been hit in the attacks, two in Damascus and one in the Homs area, in addition to military bases in Damascus.</p>
<p>In his televised address, Trump said, “The purpose of our actions tonight is to establish a strong deterrent against the production, spread and use of chemical weapons.”</p> Anti-aircraft fire is seen over Damascus,Syria early April 14, 2018. REUTERS/Feras Makdesi
<p>The U.S. president, who has tried to build good relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, had sharply critical words for Russia and Iran, which have backed Assad’s government.</p>
<p>“To Iran and to Russia, I ask, what kind of a nation wants to be associated with the mass murder of innocent men, women and children?” Trump said.</p>
<p>UK Prime Minister Theresa May said she had authorized British armed forces “to conduct coordinated and targeted strikes to degrade the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons capability.” She described it as a “limited and targeted strike” aimed at minimizing civilian casualties.</p>
<p>Trump made clear in his eight-minute televised address that he was wary of a deeper entanglement in Syria, where about 2,000 U.S. troops have been deployed to fight Islamic State.</p>
<p>Last year, the United States fired 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles from the guided missile destroyers USS Porter and the USS Ross that struck the Shayrat air base. The targets of that strike included Syrian aircraft, aircraft shelters, petroleum and logistical storage facilities, ammunition supply bunkers, air defense systems and radar. At the time, the Pentagon claimed that a fifth of Syria’s operational aircraft were either damaged or destroyed.</p> Slideshow (8 Images)
<p>A U.S.-led attack on Syria will be seen as limited if it is now over and there is no second round of strikes, said a senior official in the regional alliance that has supported President Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian war.</p>
<p>“If it is finished, and there is no second round, it will be considered limited,” the official told Reuters.</p>
<p>The air strikes, however, risk dragging the United States further into Syria’s civil war, particularly if Russia, Iran and Assad opt to retaliate.</p>
<p>Reporting by Steve Holland, Phil Stewart; Additional reporting by Tim Ahmann, Eric Beech, Lesley Wroughton, Lucia Mutikani, Idrees Ali and Patricia Zengerle in Washington, Samia Nakhoul, Tom Perry, Laila Bassam in Beirut, Michael Holden and Guy Faulconbridge in London, and Jean-Baptiste Vey, Geert de Clerq and Matthias Blamont in Paris; Writing by Yara Bayoumy and Warren Strobel; Editing by Clive McKeef</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - About 10 days ago, U.S. President Donald Trump told national security aides that he wanted U.S. forces out of Syria in six months or so, adamant that it was time to bring them home after largely defeating Islamic State militants.</p> U.S. President Donald Trump makes a statement about Syria at the White House in Washington, U.S., April 13, 2018. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas
<p>“Very soon, very soon, we’re coming out,” Trump said in telegraphing his thoughts to a crowd in Richfield, Ohio, on March 30. “We’re going to get back to our country, where we belong, where we want to be.”</p>
<p>Now, Trump has abruptly deepened U.S. involvement in Syria, mustering a coalition of U.S., French and British forces to attack Syrian facilities related to production of chemical weapons after a poison gas attack last week killed dozens of people in Douma, Syria.</p>
<p>Aides said Trump’s attitude changed when he was shown images of Syrians killed by the chemical weapons last Saturday, about a year after he first ordered air strikes against Syrian targets to retaliate for an earlier use of the banned substances.</p>
<p>“When he sees these sorts of things, they outrage him,” said a source familiar with the internal debate at the White House.</p>
<p>Trump had also grown exasperated with Russia for doing nothing to stop the Syrian government from using the weapons.</p> A plane prepares to take off as part of the joint airstrike operation by the British, French and U.S. militaries in Syria, in this still image from video footage obtained on April 14, 2018 from social media. courtesy Elysee/Twitter/via REUTERS
<p>He first made clear that he intended to launch new attacks in a series of tweets earlier this week, issuing warnings against not only Syrian President Bashar al-Assad but also Russia and Iran.</p>
<p>It was an unusual strategy, a departure from the usual U.S. practice of launching surprise attacks.</p>
<p>Hounded by controversies related to a federal investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, Trump stayed out of the public eye much of this week, locked in White House Situation Room meetings about Syria.</p>
<p>Defense Secretary James Mattis, new national security adviser John Bolton, Vice President Mike Pence and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley were all involved in the talks.</p>
<p>Behind closed doors, Trump pushed for a more aggressive response than the one taken last year, wanting options that would involve attacks on targets in Syria associated with Russia and Iran, officials said.</p>
<p>His generals pushed back, not wanting to escalate tensions with those two countries, the officials said.</p>
<p>Hours after the first missiles fell on Friday night, it was not yet clear how extensive the attacks were.</p>
<p>Mattis described them as a “one-time shot” to send a strong message to Assad not to use chemical weapons again.</p> Syria air defences strike back after air strikes by U.S., British and French forces in Damascus, Syria in this still image obtained from video dated early April 14, 2018. SYRIA TV via Reuters TV
<p>That appeared to contradict Trump’s own pledge that the United States, France and Britain would sustain the military campaign until Assad stops using prohibited chemical agents.</p>
<p>While Trump was determined to respond to the chemical attack, he also said the United States “does not seek an indefinite presence in Syria, under no circumstances.”</p>
<p>As Trump announced the military action, Pence was in Peru attending the Summit of the Americas. Trump had been scheduled to attend but stayed in Washington to focus on Syria.</p>
<p>Pence abruptly left the summit’s opening ceremonies and returned to his hotel in time to make secure phone calls to congressional leaders to tell them about the strikes.</p>
<p>Pence was in constant contact with Washington on his trip, speaking multiple times to Trump and also to Bolton. He again spoke to Trump after the attacks were launched, an aide said.</p>
<p>Reporting By Steve Holland in Washington and Roberta Rampton with Pence in Lima, Peru; Editing by Kieran Murray, Toni Reinhold</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States and its allies waged more than 100 strikes on Syria on Friday in a “one time shot” that the Pentagon said followed conclusive evidence that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was responsible for a chemical weapons attack using at least chlorine gas.</p> FILE PHOTO - U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis testifies to the House Armed Services Committee on "The FY 2019 National Defense Authorization Budget Request from the Department of Defense" on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., April 12, 2018. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
<p>U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Marine General Joseph Dunford said three main chemical weapons facilities were targeted by both missiles from the sea and fired from aircraft, which triggered Syrian air defenses.</p>
<p>The Pentagon could not confirm how many missiles hit their targets.</p>
<p>Mattis and Dunford acknowledged the strike was designed to degrade Syria’s chemical weapons capability without killing civilians or the many foreign fighters in Syria’s multi-sided civil war, particularly those from Russia.</p>
<p>“We specifically identified these targets to mitigate the risk of Russian forces being involved,” Dunford told reporters, adding the U.S. military advised Russia of airspace that would be used in the strike but did not “pre-notify them.”</p>
<p>Mattis acknowledged that the United States waged the attacks only with conclusive evidence that chlorine gas was used in the April 7 attack in Syria.</p>
<p>Allegations of Assad’s chlorine use are frequent in Syria’s conflict, raising questions about whether Washington had lowered the threshold for military action in Syria by now deciding to strike after a chlorine gas attack.</p>
<p>Last year, the United States only waged strikes on Syria after determining that more deadly sarin gas was used and some U.S. media had reported that Washington was confident Assad had also used sarin on April 7.</p>
<p>Mattis, however, suggested the evidence of sarin was so far inconclusive.</p>
<p>“We are very confident that chlorine was used. We are not ruling out sarin right now,” Mattis said.</p>
<p>The Pentagon said one of the targets was a scientific research center located in the greater Damascus area, which it described as a Syrian center for the research, development, production and testing of chemical and biological weaponry.</p>
<p>The second target was a chemical weapons storage facility west of the city of Homs.</p>
<p>“We assess that this was the primary location of Syrian sarin and precursor production equipment,” Dunford said.</p>
<p>The third target, which was also near Homs, contained both a chemical weapons equipment storage facility and a command post.</p>
<p>Additional reporting by Lucia Mutikani; editing by Richard Pullin</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>BEIRUT (Reuters) - The Syrian government and its allies have absorbed a U.S.-led attack on Saturday and the targeted sites were evacuated days ago thanks to a warning from Russia, a senior official in a regional alliance that backs Damascus said.</p> Syria air defences strike back after air strikes by U.S., British and French forces in Damascus, Syria in this still image obtained from video dated early April 14, 2018. SYRIA TV via Reuters TV
<p>“We have absorbed the strike”, the official told Reuters.</p>
<p>“We had an early warning of the strike from the Russians ... and all military bases were evacuated a few days ago,” the official said. Around 30 missiles were fired in the attack, and a third of them were shot down, the official said.</p>
<p>“We are carrying out an assessment of the material damages,” the official added.</p>
<p>Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has been backed in the seven-year-long Syrian war by Russia, Iran, and Iran-backed Shi’ite groups from across the region, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah.</p>
<p>Reporting by Laila Bassam; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Samia Nakhoul</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
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new york reuters got dusty old binder estate plan even paperwork set years ago documents date thanks new tax laws went effect turn year generic picture office folders binders offpo reuterscatherine benson blow dust see even needed anymore said certified financial planner leon labrecque also tax attorney certified public accountant chartered financial analyst troy michigan strategies financial planners trust attorneys using years help families avoid paying estate taxes may fall wayside exemption size estates doubled 22 million couples 11 million 600000 1997 lot planners clients worth 22 million said labrecque ultrahighnetworth clients still employ playbook trusts avoid taxes estates worth less 22 million need bother things like creditbypass trusts qualified terminable interest property trusts many life insurance trusts mean trusts fade away estate planning cease important parts process financial health still alive need power attorney forms healthcare proxies case incapacitated also need make sure beneficiaries updated accounts especially life insurance policies 401ks old jobs still staggering many people real means documents dont need pay tax worry wont things need said jill schlesinger personal finance expert serves senior cfp board ambassador reasons plan estate planning core keeping control assets even die maybe want make sure kids receive money certain way said schlesinger maybe dont want sisterinlaw daughterinlaw involved maybe want jump generation maybe need special needs trust sorts rationales creating document austin frye financial planner based aventura florida said practice trusts ever expects continue protective reasons tax savings frye said rise diagnosis autism special needs drug alcohol addictions alzheimers problems including multiple marriages nontraditional relationships kept trust department busier ever another reason trusts keep state affairs die property jointly owned set transfer directly beneficiary like bank account end evaluated expensive timeconsuming probate process often includes things like vacation property another state piece expensive art stamp collection stock portfolio named beneficiary everything needs kind trust frye said giving away even doubling estate tax limit charitable trusts help tax burden houston financial planner scott bishop said leaving substantial ira charity trust avoid taxes heirs would pay liquidate account giving appreciated stock charity trust donoradvised fund bypass capital gains taxes still offset income year donate itemize deductions bishop added changes planners said keep mind new law sunset 2025 fryes pro tip riding roller coaster simplify review editing bernadette baum standards thomson reuters trust principles washington reuters us british french forces pounded syria air strikes early saturday response poison gas attack killed dozens people last week biggest intervention western powers syrian president bashar alassad us president donald trump announced military action white house late friday spoke explosions rocked damascus trump said prepared sustain response assads government stopped use chemical weapons british prime minister theresa may french president emmanuel macron said uk france joined attack syrias sevenyearold civil war pitted united states allies russia intervened war 2015 back assad syrian state media said attack would fail called flagrant violation international law russias ambassador united states said moscow warned actions left without consequences related coverage russias us ambassador warns consequences syria strikes western attack struck syrian research centre targets britain choice conduct missile strikes syria pm may says televised address white house trump said ordered us armed forces launch precision strikes associated assads chemical weapons capabilities combined american british french response atrocities integrate instruments national power military economic diplomatic prepared sustain response syrian regime stops use prohibited chemical agents trump said speaking assad suspected role last weeks chemical weapons attack trump said actions man crimes monster instead least six loud explosions heard damascus early hours saturday smoke seen rising syrian capital reuters witness said second witness said barzah district damascus hit strikes barzah location major syrian scientific research center pentagon briefing chairman joint chiefs staff general joseph dunford said targets included syrian research facility chemical weapons storage facility combined us british french assault appeared intense strike trump ordered almost exactly year ago syrian airbase retaliation earlier chemical weapons attack washington attributed assad defense secretary jim mattis said twice many weapons used strikes saturday compared last aprils strike mattis us officials said earlier warned internal debates large attack would risk confrontation russia described strikes one time shot dissuade assad asked chemicals used weekend attack mattis confirmed chlorine gas used rule nerve agent sarin dunford said manned us aircraft used military operation strike planned minimize risk casualties among russias military forces syria us official told reuters tomahawk cruise missiles also involved syrian air defenses shot 13 missiles fired usled attack country saturday syrian state tv said missiles shot kiswah area south capital damascus said syrian observatory human rights said total three scientific research centers hit attacks two damascus one homs area addition military bases damascus televised address trump said purpose actions tonight establish strong deterrent production spread use chemical weapons antiaircraft fire seen damascussyria early april 14 2018 reutersferas makdesi us president tried build good relations russian president vladimir putin sharply critical words russia iran backed assads government iran russia ask kind nation wants associated mass murder innocent men women children trump said uk prime minister theresa may said authorized british armed forces conduct coordinated targeted strikes degrade syrian regimes chemical weapons capability described limited targeted strike aimed minimizing civilian casualties trump made clear eightminute televised address wary deeper entanglement syria 2000 us troops deployed fight islamic state last year united states fired 59 tomahawk cruise missiles guided missile destroyers uss porter uss ross struck shayrat air base targets strike included syrian aircraft aircraft shelters petroleum logistical storage facilities ammunition supply bunkers air defense systems radar time pentagon claimed fifth syrias operational aircraft either damaged destroyed slideshow 8 images usled attack syria seen limited second round strikes said senior official regional alliance supported president bashar alassad syrian war finished second round considered limited official told reuters air strikes however risk dragging united states syrias civil war particularly russia iran assad opt retaliate reporting steve holland phil stewart additional reporting tim ahmann eric beech lesley wroughton lucia mutikani idrees ali patricia zengerle washington samia nakhoul tom perry laila bassam beirut michael holden guy faulconbridge london jeanbaptiste vey geert de clerq matthias blamont paris writing yara bayoumy warren strobel editing clive mckeef standards thomson reuters trust principles washington reuters 10 days ago us president donald trump told national security aides wanted us forces syria six months adamant time bring home largely defeating islamic state militants us president donald trump makes statement syria white house washington us april 13 2018 reutersyuri gripas soon soon coming trump said telegraphing thoughts crowd richfield ohio march 30 going get back country belong want trump abruptly deepened us involvement syria mustering coalition us french british forces attack syrian facilities related production chemical weapons poison gas attack last week killed dozens people douma syria aides said trumps attitude changed shown images syrians killed chemical weapons last saturday year first ordered air strikes syrian targets retaliate earlier use banned substances sees sorts things outrage said source familiar internal debate white house trump also grown exasperated russia nothing stop syrian government using weapons plane prepares take part joint airstrike operation british french us militaries syria still image video footage obtained april 14 2018 social media courtesy elyseetwittervia reuters first made clear intended launch new attacks series tweets earlier week issuing warnings syrian president bashar alassad also russia iran unusual strategy departure usual us practice launching surprise attacks hounded controversies related federal investigation russian meddling 2016 us election trump stayed public eye much week locked white house situation room meetings syria defense secretary james mattis new national security adviser john bolton vice president mike pence us ambassador united nations nikki haley involved talks behind closed doors trump pushed aggressive response one taken last year wanting options would involve attacks targets syria associated russia iran officials said generals pushed back wanting escalate tensions two countries officials said hours first missiles fell friday night yet clear extensive attacks mattis described onetime shot send strong message assad use chemical weapons syria air defences strike back air strikes us british french forces damascus syria still image obtained video dated early april 14 2018 syria tv via reuters tv appeared contradict trumps pledge united states france britain would sustain military campaign assad stops using prohibited chemical agents trump determined respond chemical attack also said united states seek indefinite presence syria circumstances trump announced military action pence peru attending summit americas trump scheduled attend stayed washington focus syria pence abruptly left summits opening ceremonies returned hotel time make secure phone calls congressional leaders tell strikes pence constant contact washington trip speaking multiple times trump also bolton spoke trump attacks launched aide said reporting steve holland washington roberta rampton pence lima peru editing kieran murray toni reinhold standards thomson reuters trust principles washington reuters united states allies waged 100 strikes syria friday one time shot pentagon said followed conclusive evidence syrian president bashar alassad responsible chemical weapons attack using least chlorine gas file photo us secretary defense james mattis testifies house armed services committee fy 2019 national defense authorization budget request department defense capitol hill washington us april 12 2018 reutersjoshua roberts us defense secretary jim mattis marine general joseph dunford said three main chemical weapons facilities targeted missiles sea fired aircraft triggered syrian air defenses pentagon could confirm many missiles hit targets mattis dunford acknowledged strike designed degrade syrias chemical weapons capability without killing civilians many foreign fighters syrias multisided civil war particularly russia specifically identified targets mitigate risk russian forces involved dunford told reporters adding us military advised russia airspace would used strike prenotify mattis acknowledged united states waged attacks conclusive evidence chlorine gas used april 7 attack syria allegations assads chlorine use frequent syrias conflict raising questions whether washington lowered threshold military action syria deciding strike chlorine gas attack last year united states waged strikes syria determining deadly sarin gas used us media reported washington confident assad also used sarin april 7 mattis however suggested evidence sarin far inconclusive confident chlorine used ruling sarin right mattis said pentagon said one targets scientific research center located greater damascus area described syrian center research development production testing chemical biological weaponry second target chemical weapons storage facility west city homs assess primary location syrian sarin precursor production equipment dunford said third target also near homs contained chemical weapons equipment storage facility command post additional reporting lucia mutikani editing richard pullin standards thomson reuters trust principles beirut reuters syrian government allies absorbed usled attack saturday targeted sites evacuated days ago thanks warning russia senior official regional alliance backs damascus said syria air defences strike back air strikes us british french forces damascus syria still image obtained video dated early april 14 2018 syria tv via reuters tv absorbed strike official told reuters early warning strike russians military bases evacuated days ago official said around 30 missiles fired attack third shot official said carrying assessment material damages official added syrian president bashar alassad backed sevenyearlong syrian war russia iran iranbacked shiite groups across region including lebanons hezbollah reporting laila bassam writing tom perry editing samia nakhoul standards thomson reuters trust principles
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<p>BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Relatives of some of the 44 crew members aboard an Argentine submarine that went missing in the South Atlantic asked Russia on Monday to carry on with the search two months after the vessel disappeared.</p>
<p>An explosion occurred near the time and place where the ARA San Juan vanished Nov. 15. Argentina has given up hope of finding survivors, but the navy has continued hunting for the vessel.</p>
<p>Russia is now the last of 18 foreign country that have assisted the search in an area of some 1,500 square miles (4,000 square kilometers).</p>
<p>The Argentine navy says that it is looking for options, including hiring private companies, in case Russia withdraws.</p>
<p>Families of the crew gathered outside the Russian Embassy in Buenos Aires Monday and made a desperate plea to Russia, asking it to continue searching for their loved ones with ships that carry remotely operated vehicles capable of deep seafloor searches.</p>
<p>“We’ve come to thank Russia and ask that it doesn’t withdraw. I have hope and faith that they’re still floating there,” said Antonio Niz, father of crew member Luis Niz.</p>
<p>The Russian government has not announced an end date for its assistance.</p>
<p>The German-built TR-1700 class submarine disappeared as it was sailing from the southernmost port of Ushuaia to Mar del Plata after a patrol.</p>
<p>The navy says that the vessel’s captain reported on Nov. 15 that water entered the snorkel and caused one of the sub’s batteries to short-circuit. The captain later communicated that it had been contained.</p>
<p>Some hours later, an explosion was detected near the time and place where the San Juan was last heard from. The navy says the blast could have been caused by a “concentration of hydrogen” triggered by the battery problem reported by the captain.</p>
<p>President Mauricio Macri has vowed a full investigation, and last month, the government dismissed the head of its navy as part of the probe into the disappearance.</p>
<p>But families and some experts say it’s not enough, and some suggest the search should be widened.</p>
<p>“I suspect that it didn’t sink but that it kept sailing, neither afloat nor sunk, and it was carried adrift with the current,” said Alejandro Kalfayan, a merchant marine captain who specializes in the search of submerged objects. He suggested the search should focus instead some 100 to 200 nautical miles (185 to 370 kilometers) northeast of the current area.</p>
<p>Navy spokesman Enrique Balbi said that finding the submarine has been as “difficult as trying to find a 6-centimeter (2-inch) cigarette in a soccer field.”</p>
<p>Family members and friends of the San Juan crew recently sent a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin asking him to support the search “until the very end.”</p>
<p>__</p>
<p>Associated Press journalists Debora Rey and Leo La Valle contributed to this report.</p>
<p>BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Relatives of some of the 44 crew members aboard an Argentine submarine that went missing in the South Atlantic asked Russia on Monday to carry on with the search two months after the vessel disappeared.</p>
<p>An explosion occurred near the time and place where the ARA San Juan vanished Nov. 15. Argentina has given up hope of finding survivors, but the navy has continued hunting for the vessel.</p>
<p>Russia is now the last of 18 foreign country that have assisted the search in an area of some 1,500 square miles (4,000 square kilometers).</p>
<p>The Argentine navy says that it is looking for options, including hiring private companies, in case Russia withdraws.</p>
<p>Families of the crew gathered outside the Russian Embassy in Buenos Aires Monday and made a desperate plea to Russia, asking it to continue searching for their loved ones with ships that carry remotely operated vehicles capable of deep seafloor searches.</p>
<p>“We’ve come to thank Russia and ask that it doesn’t withdraw. I have hope and faith that they’re still floating there,” said Antonio Niz, father of crew member Luis Niz.</p>
<p>The Russian government has not announced an end date for its assistance.</p>
<p>The German-built TR-1700 class submarine disappeared as it was sailing from the southernmost port of Ushuaia to Mar del Plata after a patrol.</p>
<p>The navy says that the vessel’s captain reported on Nov. 15 that water entered the snorkel and caused one of the sub’s batteries to short-circuit. The captain later communicated that it had been contained.</p>
<p>Some hours later, an explosion was detected near the time and place where the San Juan was last heard from. The navy says the blast could have been caused by a “concentration of hydrogen” triggered by the battery problem reported by the captain.</p>
<p>President Mauricio Macri has vowed a full investigation, and last month, the government dismissed the head of its navy as part of the probe into the disappearance.</p>
<p>But families and some experts say it’s not enough, and some suggest the search should be widened.</p>
<p>“I suspect that it didn’t sink but that it kept sailing, neither afloat nor sunk, and it was carried adrift with the current,” said Alejandro Kalfayan, a merchant marine captain who specializes in the search of submerged objects. He suggested the search should focus instead some 100 to 200 nautical miles (185 to 370 kilometers) northeast of the current area.</p>
<p>Navy spokesman Enrique Balbi said that finding the submarine has been as “difficult as trying to find a 6-centimeter (2-inch) cigarette in a soccer field.”</p>
<p>Family members and friends of the San Juan crew recently sent a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin asking him to support the search “until the very end.”</p>
<p>__</p>
<p>Associated Press journalists Debora Rey and Leo La Valle contributed to this report.</p>
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buenos aires argentina ap relatives 44 crew members aboard argentine submarine went missing south atlantic asked russia monday carry search two months vessel disappeared explosion occurred near time place ara san juan vanished nov 15 argentina given hope finding survivors navy continued hunting vessel russia last 18 foreign country assisted search area 1500 square miles 4000 square kilometers argentine navy says looking options including hiring private companies case russia withdraws families crew gathered outside russian embassy buenos aires monday made desperate plea russia asking continue searching loved ones ships carry remotely operated vehicles capable deep seafloor searches weve come thank russia ask doesnt withdraw hope faith theyre still floating said antonio niz father crew member luis niz russian government announced end date assistance germanbuilt tr1700 class submarine disappeared sailing southernmost port ushuaia mar del plata patrol navy says vessels captain reported nov 15 water entered snorkel caused one subs batteries shortcircuit captain later communicated contained hours later explosion detected near time place san juan last heard navy says blast could caused concentration hydrogen triggered battery problem reported captain president mauricio macri vowed full investigation last month government dismissed head navy part probe disappearance families experts say enough suggest search widened suspect didnt sink kept sailing neither afloat sunk carried adrift current said alejandro kalfayan merchant marine captain specializes search submerged objects suggested search focus instead 100 200 nautical miles 185 370 kilometers northeast current area navy spokesman enrique balbi said finding submarine difficult trying find 6centimeter 2inch cigarette soccer field family members friends san juan crew recently sent letter russian president vladimir putin asking support search end __ associated press journalists debora rey leo la valle contributed report buenos aires argentina ap relatives 44 crew members aboard argentine submarine went missing south atlantic asked russia monday carry search two months vessel disappeared explosion occurred near time place ara san juan vanished nov 15 argentina given hope finding survivors navy continued hunting vessel russia last 18 foreign country assisted search area 1500 square miles 4000 square kilometers argentine navy says looking options including hiring private companies case russia withdraws families crew gathered outside russian embassy buenos aires monday made desperate plea russia asking continue searching loved ones ships carry remotely operated vehicles capable deep seafloor searches weve come thank russia ask doesnt withdraw hope faith theyre still floating said antonio niz father crew member luis niz russian government announced end date assistance germanbuilt tr1700 class submarine disappeared sailing southernmost port ushuaia mar del plata patrol navy says vessels captain reported nov 15 water entered snorkel caused one subs batteries shortcircuit captain later communicated contained hours later explosion detected near time place san juan last heard navy says blast could caused concentration hydrogen triggered battery problem reported captain president mauricio macri vowed full investigation last month government dismissed head navy part probe disappearance families experts say enough suggest search widened suspect didnt sink kept sailing neither afloat sunk carried adrift current said alejandro kalfayan merchant marine captain specializes search submerged objects suggested search focus instead 100 200 nautical miles 185 370 kilometers northeast current area navy spokesman enrique balbi said finding submarine difficult trying find 6centimeter 2inch cigarette soccer field family members friends san juan crew recently sent letter russian president vladimir putin asking support search end __ associated press journalists debora rey leo la valle contributed report
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<p>NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The Tennessee Titans have kicked their youth movement into high gear with rookie Zach Mettenberger starting at quarterback against the Houston Texans on Sunday.</p>
<p>Jake Locker has missed three of the past four games with injuries, and coach Ken Whisenhunt said Thursday that the decision to go with Mettenberger was made Tuesday. The coach said this is an opportunity to see what the sixth-round draft pick out of LSU can do with the Titans struggling at 2-5.</p>
<p>“No question he’s a talented, young player, and maybe it’ll give us a spark,” Whisenhunt said. “Offensively, we haven’t exactly been lighting it up, so that’s part of it in consideration.”</p>
<p>Whisenhunt waited to announce the change to make sure Locker — who has been sidelined with an injured thumb — is healthy enough to back up Mettenberger. The coach also was trying to buy a day to slow down the Texans’ preparation for the rookie. The shake-up dropped Charlie Whitehurst, who started three of the past four games with the Titans losing two of those, to third on the depth chart.</p>
<p>Mounting losses and injuries seemed to make the change inevitable.</p>
<p>The Titans had stuck with Locker, the eighth pick overall in 2011, since hiring Whisenhunt in January. But Locker has missed 17 of a possible 39 starts and finished only three games this season because of injuries.</p>
<p>Mettenberger will become the fourth rookie quarterback to start in the NFL this season, the third quarterback for Whisenhunt. The Titans already are starting left tackle Taylor Lewan, linebacker Avery Williamson and running back Bishop Sankey with Mettenberger the fourth of six draft picks to start this season.</p>
<p>The quarterback dropped to the sixth round after tearing his left ACL on Nov. 29 playing for LSU but led the NFL this preseason with 659 yards passing. The rookie shaved the beard he started growing during training camp after practice just before talking to reporters.</p>
<p>“By no means am I a Tom Brady or a Peyton Manning,” Mettenberger said as he leaned back against his locker. “This is going to be my first game, so really I just got to get the ball out of my hands quick, avoid turnovers and put the ball in the (hands of) guys who can make plays for us. Really that’s the biggest thing a young guy’s got to do.”</p>
<p>Whisenhunt had promised he would be more patient with quarterbacks in his second time around as a head coach. He reached the 2009 Super Bowl in Arizona with Kurt Warner, but the coach cycled through quarterbacks after the veteran left. Whisenhunt started Kevin Kolb, John Skelton, Ryan Lindley and finally Brian Hoyer in his final season in 2012.</p>
<p>Once in Tennessee, he inherited Locker who was coming off a Lisfranc injury to his right foot that cost him the final seven games of the 2013 season. The Titans did not pick up Locker’s option for 2015 in May, even as they stood behind him as their starter.</p>
<p>But Locker hurt his right wrist in a loss at Cincinnati on Sept. 21. He missed a loss at Indianapolis and then started Oct. 5 against Cleveland where he threw for a touchdown and ran for another TD before hurting his right thumb on a helmet.</p>
<p>“I understood after last year I didn’t know kind of how it would go and coming into this year they gave me an opportunity,” Locker said. “I haven’t been in. I haven’t played. That’s been kind of one of those things that I’ve dealt with throughout my career, and I imagine it has something to do with that.”</p>
<p>Fans have been clamoring to see Mettenberger with the Titans losing five of their last six. This franchise also needs to give people a reason to use their tickets and come to the stadium where they have won only two of their last nine home games.</p>
<p>Mettenberger fits the profile of the quarterback Whisenhunt has had the most success with: Pittsburgh’s Ben Roethlisberger. Mettenberger is 6-foot-5 and 224 pounds who can stand in the pocket, and he has a strong arm throwing for 3,082 yards last season at LSU. With Locker’s injured thumb, Mettenberger also had taken some practice work with the starters over the past two weeks.</p>
<p>He will be the first rookie this franchise has started since 2010. Rusty Smith started at Houston after Vince Young was placed on injured reserve and veteran Kerry Collins was hurt. Smith and the Titans lost 20-0.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Online:</p>
<p>AP NFL website: www.pro32.ap.org and www.twitter.com/AP_NFL</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Teresa M. Walker at <a href="http://www.twitter.com/teresamwalker" type="external">www.twitter.com/teresamwalker</a></p>
<p>NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The Tennessee Titans have kicked their youth movement into high gear with rookie Zach Mettenberger starting at quarterback against the Houston Texans on Sunday.</p>
<p>Jake Locker has missed three of the past four games with injuries, and coach Ken Whisenhunt said Thursday that the decision to go with Mettenberger was made Tuesday. The coach said this is an opportunity to see what the sixth-round draft pick out of LSU can do with the Titans struggling at 2-5.</p>
<p>“No question he’s a talented, young player, and maybe it’ll give us a spark,” Whisenhunt said. “Offensively, we haven’t exactly been lighting it up, so that’s part of it in consideration.”</p>
<p>Whisenhunt waited to announce the change to make sure Locker — who has been sidelined with an injured thumb — is healthy enough to back up Mettenberger. The coach also was trying to buy a day to slow down the Texans’ preparation for the rookie. The shake-up dropped Charlie Whitehurst, who started three of the past four games with the Titans losing two of those, to third on the depth chart.</p>
<p>Mounting losses and injuries seemed to make the change inevitable.</p>
<p>The Titans had stuck with Locker, the eighth pick overall in 2011, since hiring Whisenhunt in January. But Locker has missed 17 of a possible 39 starts and finished only three games this season because of injuries.</p>
<p>Mettenberger will become the fourth rookie quarterback to start in the NFL this season, the third quarterback for Whisenhunt. The Titans already are starting left tackle Taylor Lewan, linebacker Avery Williamson and running back Bishop Sankey with Mettenberger the fourth of six draft picks to start this season.</p>
<p>The quarterback dropped to the sixth round after tearing his left ACL on Nov. 29 playing for LSU but led the NFL this preseason with 659 yards passing. The rookie shaved the beard he started growing during training camp after practice just before talking to reporters.</p>
<p>“By no means am I a Tom Brady or a Peyton Manning,” Mettenberger said as he leaned back against his locker. “This is going to be my first game, so really I just got to get the ball out of my hands quick, avoid turnovers and put the ball in the (hands of) guys who can make plays for us. Really that’s the biggest thing a young guy’s got to do.”</p>
<p>Whisenhunt had promised he would be more patient with quarterbacks in his second time around as a head coach. He reached the 2009 Super Bowl in Arizona with Kurt Warner, but the coach cycled through quarterbacks after the veteran left. Whisenhunt started Kevin Kolb, John Skelton, Ryan Lindley and finally Brian Hoyer in his final season in 2012.</p>
<p>Once in Tennessee, he inherited Locker who was coming off a Lisfranc injury to his right foot that cost him the final seven games of the 2013 season. The Titans did not pick up Locker’s option for 2015 in May, even as they stood behind him as their starter.</p>
<p>But Locker hurt his right wrist in a loss at Cincinnati on Sept. 21. He missed a loss at Indianapolis and then started Oct. 5 against Cleveland where he threw for a touchdown and ran for another TD before hurting his right thumb on a helmet.</p>
<p>“I understood after last year I didn’t know kind of how it would go and coming into this year they gave me an opportunity,” Locker said. “I haven’t been in. I haven’t played. That’s been kind of one of those things that I’ve dealt with throughout my career, and I imagine it has something to do with that.”</p>
<p>Fans have been clamoring to see Mettenberger with the Titans losing five of their last six. This franchise also needs to give people a reason to use their tickets and come to the stadium where they have won only two of their last nine home games.</p>
<p>Mettenberger fits the profile of the quarterback Whisenhunt has had the most success with: Pittsburgh’s Ben Roethlisberger. Mettenberger is 6-foot-5 and 224 pounds who can stand in the pocket, and he has a strong arm throwing for 3,082 yards last season at LSU. With Locker’s injured thumb, Mettenberger also had taken some practice work with the starters over the past two weeks.</p>
<p>He will be the first rookie this franchise has started since 2010. Rusty Smith started at Houston after Vince Young was placed on injured reserve and veteran Kerry Collins was hurt. Smith and the Titans lost 20-0.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Online:</p>
<p>AP NFL website: www.pro32.ap.org and www.twitter.com/AP_NFL</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Teresa M. Walker at <a href="http://www.twitter.com/teresamwalker" type="external">www.twitter.com/teresamwalker</a></p>
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nashville tenn ap tennessee titans kicked youth movement high gear rookie zach mettenberger starting quarterback houston texans sunday jake locker missed three past four games injuries coach ken whisenhunt said thursday decision go mettenberger made tuesday coach said opportunity see sixthround draft pick lsu titans struggling 25 question hes talented young player maybe itll give us spark whisenhunt said offensively havent exactly lighting thats part consideration whisenhunt waited announce change make sure locker sidelined injured thumb healthy enough back mettenberger coach also trying buy day slow texans preparation rookie shakeup dropped charlie whitehurst started three past four games titans losing two third depth chart mounting losses injuries seemed make change inevitable titans stuck locker eighth pick overall 2011 since hiring whisenhunt january locker missed 17 possible 39 starts finished three games season injuries mettenberger become fourth rookie quarterback start nfl season third quarterback whisenhunt titans already starting left tackle taylor lewan linebacker avery williamson running back bishop sankey mettenberger fourth six draft picks start season quarterback dropped sixth round tearing left acl nov 29 playing lsu led nfl preseason 659 yards passing rookie shaved beard started growing training camp practice talking reporters means tom brady peyton manning mettenberger said leaned back locker going first game really got get ball hands quick avoid turnovers put ball hands guys make plays us really thats biggest thing young guys got whisenhunt promised would patient quarterbacks second time around head coach reached 2009 super bowl arizona kurt warner coach cycled quarterbacks veteran left whisenhunt started kevin kolb john skelton ryan lindley finally brian hoyer final season 2012 tennessee inherited locker coming lisfranc injury right foot cost final seven games 2013 season titans pick lockers option 2015 may even stood behind starter locker hurt right wrist loss cincinnati sept 21 missed loss indianapolis started oct 5 cleveland threw touchdown ran another td hurting right thumb helmet understood last year didnt know kind would go coming year gave opportunity locker said havent havent played thats kind one things ive dealt throughout career imagine something fans clamoring see mettenberger titans losing five last six franchise also needs give people reason use tickets come stadium two last nine home games mettenberger fits profile quarterback whisenhunt success pittsburghs ben roethlisberger mettenberger 6foot5 224 pounds stand pocket strong arm throwing 3082 yards last season lsu lockers injured thumb mettenberger also taken practice work starters past two weeks first rookie franchise started since 2010 rusty smith started houston vince young placed injured reserve veteran kerry collins hurt smith titans lost 200 ___ online ap nfl website wwwpro32aporg wwwtwittercomap_nfl ___ follow teresa walker wwwtwittercomteresamwalker nashville tenn ap tennessee titans kicked youth movement high gear rookie zach mettenberger starting quarterback houston texans sunday jake locker missed three past four games injuries coach ken whisenhunt said thursday decision go mettenberger made tuesday coach said opportunity see sixthround draft pick lsu titans struggling 25 question hes talented young player maybe itll give us spark whisenhunt said offensively havent exactly lighting thats part consideration whisenhunt waited announce change make sure locker sidelined injured thumb healthy enough back mettenberger coach also trying buy day slow texans preparation rookie shakeup dropped charlie whitehurst started three past four games titans losing two third depth chart mounting losses injuries seemed make change inevitable titans stuck locker eighth pick overall 2011 since hiring whisenhunt january locker missed 17 possible 39 starts finished three games season injuries mettenberger become fourth rookie quarterback start nfl season third quarterback whisenhunt titans already starting left tackle taylor lewan linebacker avery williamson running back bishop sankey mettenberger fourth six draft picks start season quarterback dropped sixth round tearing left acl nov 29 playing lsu led nfl preseason 659 yards passing rookie shaved beard started growing training camp practice talking reporters means tom brady peyton manning mettenberger said leaned back locker going first game really got get ball hands quick avoid turnovers put ball hands guys make plays us really thats biggest thing young guys got whisenhunt promised would patient quarterbacks second time around head coach reached 2009 super bowl arizona kurt warner coach cycled quarterbacks veteran left whisenhunt started kevin kolb john skelton ryan lindley finally brian hoyer final season 2012 tennessee inherited locker coming lisfranc injury right foot cost final seven games 2013 season titans pick lockers option 2015 may even stood behind starter locker hurt right wrist loss cincinnati sept 21 missed loss indianapolis started oct 5 cleveland threw touchdown ran another td hurting right thumb helmet understood last year didnt know kind would go coming year gave opportunity locker said havent havent played thats kind one things ive dealt throughout career imagine something fans clamoring see mettenberger titans losing five last six franchise also needs give people reason use tickets come stadium two last nine home games mettenberger fits profile quarterback whisenhunt success pittsburghs ben roethlisberger mettenberger 6foot5 224 pounds stand pocket strong arm throwing 3082 yards last season lsu lockers injured thumb mettenberger also taken practice work starters past two weeks first rookie franchise started since 2010 rusty smith started houston vince young placed injured reserve veteran kerry collins hurt smith titans lost 200 ___ online ap nfl website wwwpro32aporg wwwtwittercomap_nfl ___ follow teresa walker wwwtwittercomteresamwalker
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<p>Jackson-Winkeljohn MMA general manager Ricky Kottenstette is one of the people behind the scenes who takes care of the business side of operating one of the world’s top professional mixed martial arts gyms. (Dean Hanson/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>Dana White, the UFC’s outspoken president, likes to call Albuquerque’s Greg Jackson “a businessman.”</p>
<p>If that’s true, he’s a reluctant one.</p>
<p>“I can’t stand it,” Jackson, one of the world’s most successful MMA trainers, says regarding the financial aspects of running one of the world’s most successful MMA gyms.</p>
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<p>“I can’t stand any of it. I just want to do the part that I love (training fighters).”</p>
<p>Fortunately, regarding the business, Jackson has plenty of help.</p>
<p>His wife, Stephanie, keeps the books.</p>
<p>“I manage the finances, yeah,” she says. “Greg has never cared about the financial side of it.”</p>
<p>Ricky Kottenstette, general manager at Jackson-Winkeljohn Mixed Martial Arts, runs the gym.</p>
<p>“Basically,” Kottenstette says, “I’m coordinating between managers, agents, fight promotions, the gym, coaches, monies, the financial side. I basically traffic-direct all that stuff.”</p>
<p>Mike Winkeljohn, the other half of Jackson-Winkeljohn, makes sure fighters pay their dues.</p>
<p>“I don’t like that dynamic between me and the fighters,” Jackson says. “I don’t like asking them for money. Thank goodness, Wink’s taken a lot of it over. I’m so happy about that, because Wink, he is a business guy. He wakes up for it and goes to bed the same way.”</p>
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<p>While there might be tons of money to be made in MMA, Stephanie Jackson says, her husband isn’t making as much of it as some might think – at least, not from the pro gym itself.</p>
<p>“Not at all,” she says, when asked if Greg Jackson is getting rich from the profits at Jackson-Winkeljohn. “… I don’t know any coaches that make a lot of money.”</p>
<p>Fighters’ purses vary widely from organization to organization, and even within the UFC. There is no typical payment.</p>
<p>Jackson-Winkeljohn’s Jon Jones, the UFC light heavyweight champion and generally acknowledged as the best fighter pound for pound in the sport, made a reported $400,000 for his victory in April over Glover Teixeira.</p>
<p>At the June 7 UFC Fight Night Card at Tingley Coliseum, Albuquerque’s Diego Sanchez was paid $140,000 – half of that for fighting, the other half for taking a victory by hotly disputed decision over Englishman Ross Pearson.</p>
<p>John Dodson, Sanchez and Jones’ Jackson-Winkeljohn teammate, is the No. 1 UFC challenger in his weight class. But he made only $40,000 – $20,000 for fighting, $20,000 for winning – for his June 7 victory over John Moraga.</p>
<p>Winkeljohn and Greg Jackson typically get 10 to 15 percent of a fighter’s official earnings, Stephanie Jackson says. Customarily, they’ll share that split with Brandon Gibson and Mike Valle, who also coach at Jackson-Winkeljohn.</p>
<p>“It doesn’t add up to Greg making a lot of money,” Stephanie Jackson says.</p>
<p>Nor, says Kottenstette, is the gym itself a gold mine.</p>
<p>Kottenstette came to Jackson as a student in 1997. Not always able to pay, he made himself useful by helping organize Jackson’s finances at his old gym on San Mateo Place Northeast.</p>
<p>“I helped him set up his first billing system, because he never had one,” Kottenstette says. “Everything was just, ‘Hey, pay me when you can.'”</p>
<p>Things are far more structured now, Kottenstette says, but the bottom line hasn’t changed all that much.</p>
<p>“Most people think we’re rolling in money,” he said. “But with the bigger operation and the bigger amount of people that are in here, it takes more people to run it.</p>
<p>“A certain portion of (the gym dues) goes to the overhead – lighting, electricity, insurance. You’d be surprised at how much insurance costs in a facility where guys beat the crap out of each other.”</p>
<p>Yet, Jackson has other revenue streams.</p>
<p>He conducts seminars. He’s a published author, having written two books on MMA: “The Ground Game” and “The Standup Game.” He teaches self-defense to military and police, and has been an advisor on movie sets and TV productions.</p>
<p>In addition to their pro gym in southeast Albuquerque, the Jacksons have their Martial Arts &amp; Fitness Academy in the Northeast Heights.</p>
<p>“Those are two separate entities, two separate businesses,” Kottenstette says.</p>
<p>There’s also the Jackson’s MMA Association, founded to distribute an MMA curriculum Jackson has developed.</p>
<p>“We developed this curriculum and we started selling it around the world,” Kottenstette says. “Jackson’s MMA Association enables people from all around the world, at a very reasonable price, to come together to learn Greg’s knowledge.”</p>
<p>When White called Jackson a businessman, he didn’t mean it as a compliment. He was suggesting that the Albuquerquean’s reputation as an almost monastic devotee of the martial arts was a fraud.</p>
<p>Not so, say those close to him. He’s a teacher first, they say, a competitor second, a businessman somewhere far down the line.</p>
<p>“Greg is such a nice guy,” says Kottenstette, “that a lot of these (fighters) will come to him, and say, ‘Hey, Greg, I’ve got this going on in my life, this is happening in my personal life and I can’t catch a break.’</p>
<p>“Greg never got into the sport for money, so he’ll give every single one of those guys a pass in there.”</p>
<p>If there’s a businessman within the tandem of Jackson and Winkeljohn, it’s not Jackson.</p>
<p>Winkeljohn and his wife, Heather, have their own gym in far Northeast Albuquerque, where they teach MMA and self-defense. Winkeljohn has a degree in business administration from the University of New Mexico and operates a commercial contracting business.</p>
<p>“Wink will put the hammer down and say (to fighters), ‘Hey, you’ve got to pay,'” Kottenstette says. “Since Wink’s kind of started to head that part of the program up, a lot more guys are paying now.</p>
<p>“Our goal is to have 100 percent on that, but at the same time, that goes against what Greg has always been about, and that’s helping people.”</p>
<p>Helping fighters would be an easier task in a bigger, newer expanse than is provided by the current, cramped, dark and dingy pro gym on Acoma SE. Winkeljohn is in charge of that project, as well.</p>
<p>“Our hopes and dreams,” Winkeljohn says, “are early next year to have a new, modern facility that shows Albuquerque what the rest of the world already knows: that this is where people come to train for MMA.”</p>
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jacksonwinkeljohn mma general manager ricky kottenstette one people behind scenes takes care business side operating one worlds top professional mixed martial arts gyms dean hansonalbuquerque journal dana white ufcs outspoken president likes call albuquerques greg jackson businessman thats true hes reluctant one cant stand jackson one worlds successful mma trainers says regarding financial aspects running one worlds successful mma gyms advertisement cant stand want part love training fighters fortunately regarding business jackson plenty help wife stephanie keeps books manage finances yeah says greg never cared financial side ricky kottenstette general manager jacksonwinkeljohn mixed martial arts runs gym basically kottenstette says im coordinating managers agents fight promotions gym coaches monies financial side basically trafficdirect stuff mike winkeljohn half jacksonwinkeljohn makes sure fighters pay dues dont like dynamic fighters jackson says dont like asking money thank goodness winks taken lot im happy wink business guy wakes goes bed way advertisement might tons money made mma stephanie jackson says husband isnt making much might think least pro gym says asked greg jackson getting rich profits jacksonwinkeljohn dont know coaches make lot money fighters purses vary widely organization organization even within ufc typical payment jacksonwinkeljohns jon jones ufc light heavyweight champion generally acknowledged best fighter pound pound sport made reported 400000 victory april glover teixeira june 7 ufc fight night card tingley coliseum albuquerques diego sanchez paid 140000 half fighting half taking victory hotly disputed decision englishman ross pearson john dodson sanchez jones jacksonwinkeljohn teammate 1 ufc challenger weight class made 40000 20000 fighting 20000 winning june 7 victory john moraga winkeljohn greg jackson typically get 10 15 percent fighters official earnings stephanie jackson says customarily theyll share split brandon gibson mike valle also coach jacksonwinkeljohn doesnt add greg making lot money stephanie jackson says says kottenstette gym gold mine kottenstette came jackson student 1997 always able pay made useful helping organize jacksons finances old gym san mateo place northeast helped set first billing system never one kottenstette says everything hey pay things far structured kottenstette says bottom line hasnt changed much people think rolling money said bigger operation bigger amount people takes people run certain portion gym dues goes overhead lighting electricity insurance youd surprised much insurance costs facility guys beat crap yet jackson revenue streams conducts seminars hes published author written two books mma ground game standup game teaches selfdefense military police advisor movie sets tv productions addition pro gym southeast albuquerque jacksons martial arts amp fitness academy northeast heights two separate entities two separate businesses kottenstette says theres also jacksons mma association founded distribute mma curriculum jackson developed developed curriculum started selling around world kottenstette says jacksons mma association enables people around world reasonable price come together learn gregs knowledge white called jackson businessman didnt mean compliment suggesting albuquerqueans reputation almost monastic devotee martial arts fraud say close hes teacher first say competitor second businessman somewhere far line greg nice guy says kottenstette lot fighters come say hey greg ive got going life happening personal life cant catch break greg never got sport money hell give every single one guys pass theres businessman within tandem jackson winkeljohn jackson winkeljohn wife heather gym far northeast albuquerque teach mma selfdefense winkeljohn degree business administration university new mexico operates commercial contracting business wink put hammer say fighters hey youve got pay kottenstette says since winks kind started head part program lot guys paying goal 100 percent time goes greg always thats helping people helping fighters would easier task bigger newer expanse provided current cramped dark dingy pro gym acoma se winkeljohn charge project well hopes dreams winkeljohn says early next year new modern facility shows albuquerque rest world already knows people come train mma
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<p>It wasn’t the first time her connection to a high-profile but flawed older man had sucked her too far and too notoriously into a dysfunctional world.</p>
<p>In March 2008, she had been the much younger paramour of disgraced former state District Judge W. John Brennan – she was 25, he was 61 – for about seven months when her screams for help from the second floor of Brennan’s Las Lomas NE home brought Albuquerque police and front-page news over accusations that he had become rough with her after she refused to have sex with him and a prostitute.</p>
<p>The felony domestic violence charges against Brennan, who had resigned as chief judge from the 2nd Judicial District in 2004 after his arrest for DWI and cocaine possession, were later reduced to false imprisonment and misdemeanor battery and then dismissed altogether, largely she says now on her decision to protect him, not help in his prosecution.</p>
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<p>Her compassion, much to her surprise, raised questions of her mental stability.</p>
<p>“I was the victim,” she said. “But I was made to look like the crazy bad guy.”</p>
<p>This January, there she was again in the public eye with a well-known man in trouble.</p>
<p>“I’m a loyal person,” she said. “Sometimes that’s not a good thing.”</p>
<p>Marsella Duarte.</p>
<p>Marc Saavedra, a longtime friend of Duarte’s, made headlines after his July 23 arrest on a drunken driving charge. It was his third DWI arrest – and it ruined his last chance to keep his job as a high-paid and well-respected lobbyist for the University of New Mexico. He resigned effective Aug. 8.</p>
<p>Saavedra’s DWI arrest dredged up a Jan. 8 brush with the law that had, until then, escaped the media’s attention. That incident involved accusations that Saavedra and a young woman, described in a criminal complaint as “very intoxicated,” had stiffed a taxi driver out of a $28 fare.</p>
<p>The woman with Saavedra that night was Duarte.</p>
<p>Both Duarte and Saavedra, 42, were charged with falsely obtaining services or accommodations, a misdemeanor – and, Duarte said, a complete misunderstanding.</p>
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<p>Duarte was also charged with resisting arrest, though she said all she was resisting was a humiliating pat-down and being hurt when tossed into a jail transport van.</p>
<p>Charges against her and Saavedra were dismissed in June because the arresting officer failed to show up in court.</p>
<p>The Journal’s story on the taxi incident did not include what, according to the criminal complaint, the taxi driver said he heard Duarte say to Saavedra that night: “How are you going to pay me?”</p>
<p>Still, Duarte said people knew about that comment. Many assumed the worst.</p>
<p>“They thought it was about payment for sex, which is laughable,” she said. “What I said was, ‘You better pay me back’ for the cab fare.”</p>
<p>So, enough. After years of staying silent, lying low and licking her wounds in private, Duarte said she is ready to set the record straight. She is honest about the poorer choices she’s made, strong-willed, still loyal to her friends and, yes, a little amazed that her life needs any explanation.</p>
<p>“John was wrong. Marc was wrong. I was wrong,” she said. “We all make mistakes in life. Mine are just more animated.”</p>
<p>She is 32 now but considers herself an old soul who grew up fast in a family involved in politics, government and law. Her mother is Romaine Serna, a former top official with the state Children, Youth and Families Department. Her father is Leroy Duarte, a criminal defense attorney. Her uncle is former insurance superintendent Eric Serna.</p>
<p>“As a child, I handed out campaign buttons for Bruce King,” she said. “Politics is in my blood.”</p>
<p>She has always been drawn to an older, more established circle of friends – her “people,” as she likes to call them.</p>
<p>“So many have been amazing mentors, amazing people, men and women, Democrat and Republican, who have taught me so much,” she said. “They are still my friends.”</p>
<p>But she has also been drawn to powerful, imperfect folks.</p>
<p>“I’m a nurturer,” she said. “If I find someone to fix who’s broken, then I’m not broken.”</p>
<p>That was true for Brennan. Duarte said she willingly signed an affidavit saying that he had not harmed her that night. But she said she was blindsided by news accounts of a psychological evaluation, conducted at the request of Brennan’s attorney, that portrayed her as having “a number of severe psychiatric disorders.”</p>
<p>That evaluation, conducted by Samuel Roll, a professor emeritus of the University of New Mexico psychology department, was based not on a personal evaluation but on statements she made to Albuquerque police.</p>
<p>“He never spoke to me,” she said.</p>
<p>Duarte said the fallout was so painful that she went into hiding in Las Cruces.</p>
<p>Still, she remains protective of Brennan, and she said she would still likely sacrifice her reputation to save him.</p>
<p>“I’m not going to send someone to prison,” she said. “If that means I have to be called a nut job in the newspaper, then I’m going to take that jab.”</p>
<p>As for Saavedra, Duarte said that January night both had been among a group of lawyers and politicos having a few – perhaps a few too many – drinks at Sister Bar in Downtown Albuquerque. Duarte said she and Saavedra decided to share a cab rather than drive home – he was going to his apartment near 14th and Central NW, she was going to stay with a friend near 14th and Lomas NW.</p>
<p>“It was my decision to baby-sit him, to fix him,” she said.</p>
<p>The original cab fare to Saavedra’s apartment was $9, she said. But Saavedra had no money and she had $5. Duarte said she asked the driver to take them to an ATM near Rio Grande and Mountain NW so she could withdraw money to pay the fare.</p>
<p>She was at the ATM when Saavedra ran, she said.</p>
<p>“So he’s running across Rio Grande in traffic, and I ran after him because I was afraid he would get run over,” she said. “I wasn’t trying to ditch the taxi driver.”</p>
<p>She said she doesn’t know what happened to Saavedra that night. She said the taxi driver spoke with a heavy accent and she assumed English was not his first language, which is why he misunderstood her “pay me” comment.</p>
<p>She and Saavedra remain friends, she said.</p>
<p>These days, Duarte lives a quiet but busy life with her mother and her dogs on Albuquerque’s West Side. She works in her father’s law office and contracts with other lawyers for office work. She plans on going to law school out of state.</p>
<p>She does not consider herself a party girl. The only party she cares about is the Democratic one. She serves on the board of the Young Democrats of New Mexico, and last September she and her mother were honored by the Democratic Party of New Mexico as the best mother-daughter team.</p>
<p>She has learned that sometimes when you fly too close to the flame of power and politics you get burned, and she has. But oh, what a brilliant light it gives. And maybe that is too hard to give up completely.</p>
<p>UpFront is a daily front-page news and opinion column. Comment directly to Joline at 823-3603, <a href="" type="internal">[email protected]</a> or follow her on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/jolinegkg" type="external">@jolinegkg</a>. Go to <a href="" type="internal">ABQjournal.com/letters/new</a> to submit a letter to the editor.</p>
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wasnt first time connection highprofile flawed older man sucked far notoriously dysfunctional world march 2008 much younger paramour disgraced former state district judge w john brennan 25 61 seven months screams help second floor brennans las lomas ne home brought albuquerque police frontpage news accusations become rough refused sex prostitute felony domestic violence charges brennan resigned chief judge 2nd judicial district 2004 arrest dwi cocaine possession later reduced false imprisonment misdemeanor battery dismissed altogether largely says decision protect help prosecution advertisement compassion much surprise raised questions mental stability victim said made look like crazy bad guy january public eye wellknown man trouble im loyal person said sometimes thats good thing marsella duarte marc saavedra longtime friend duartes made headlines july 23 arrest drunken driving charge third dwi arrest ruined last chance keep job highpaid wellrespected lobbyist university new mexico resigned effective aug 8 saavedras dwi arrest dredged jan 8 brush law escaped medias attention incident involved accusations saavedra young woman described criminal complaint intoxicated stiffed taxi driver 28 fare woman saavedra night duarte duarte saavedra 42 charged falsely obtaining services accommodations misdemeanor duarte said complete misunderstanding advertisement duarte also charged resisting arrest though said resisting humiliating patdown hurt tossed jail transport van charges saavedra dismissed june arresting officer failed show court journals story taxi incident include according criminal complaint taxi driver said heard duarte say saavedra night going pay still duarte said people knew comment many assumed worst thought payment sex laughable said said better pay back cab fare enough years staying silent lying low licking wounds private duarte said ready set record straight honest poorer choices shes made strongwilled still loyal friends yes little amazed life needs explanation john wrong marc wrong wrong said make mistakes life mine animated 32 considers old soul grew fast family involved politics government law mother romaine serna former top official state children youth families department father leroy duarte criminal defense attorney uncle former insurance superintendent eric serna child handed campaign buttons bruce king said politics blood always drawn older established circle friends people likes call many amazing mentors amazing people men women democrat republican taught much said still friends also drawn powerful imperfect folks im nurturer said find someone fix whos broken im broken true brennan duarte said willingly signed affidavit saying harmed night said blindsided news accounts psychological evaluation conducted request brennans attorney portrayed number severe psychiatric disorders evaluation conducted samuel roll professor emeritus university new mexico psychology department based personal evaluation statements made albuquerque police never spoke said duarte said fallout painful went hiding las cruces still remains protective brennan said would still likely sacrifice reputation save im going send someone prison said means called nut job newspaper im going take jab saavedra duarte said january night among group lawyers politicos perhaps many drinks sister bar downtown albuquerque duarte said saavedra decided share cab rather drive home going apartment near 14th central nw going stay friend near 14th lomas nw decision babysit fix said original cab fare saavedras apartment 9 said saavedra money 5 duarte said asked driver take atm near rio grande mountain nw could withdraw money pay fare atm saavedra ran said hes running across rio grande traffic ran afraid would get run said wasnt trying ditch taxi driver said doesnt know happened saavedra night said taxi driver spoke heavy accent assumed english first language misunderstood pay comment saavedra remain friends said days duarte lives quiet busy life mother dogs albuquerques west side works fathers law office contracts lawyers office work plans going law school state consider party girl party cares democratic one serves board young democrats new mexico last september mother honored democratic party new mexico best motherdaughter team learned sometimes fly close flame power politics get burned oh brilliant light gives maybe hard give completely upfront daily frontpage news opinion column comment directly joline 8233603 jkruegerabqjournalcom follow twitter jolinegkg go abqjournalcomlettersnew submit letter editor
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<p>George Limperis, a realtor with Paragon Real Estate Group, walks in the backyard of a property in the Noe Valley neighborhood in San Francisco, Wednesday, July 30, 2014. In the souped-up world of San Francisco real estate, where the median selling price for homes and condominiums hit seven figures for the first time last month, the cool million that would fetch a mansion on a few acres elsewhere will now barely cover the cost of an 800-square foot starter home that needs work and may or may not include private parking. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)</p>
<p>SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco Association of Realtors President Betty Taisch has two words of advice for those who want to live here and think $1 million will buy them their dream house: think again.</p>
<p>In the souped-up world of San Francisco real estate, where the median selling price for houses and condominiums last month hit seven figures for the first time, the cool million that would fetch a mansion on a few acres elsewhere will now barely cover the cost of an 800-square foot starter home that needs work and may or may not include private parking.</p>
<p>Taisch, a veteran broker who is used to managing her clients’ expectations, has experienced first-hand the heartbreak and hair-pulling inherent to house-hunting in what she considers one of the world’s “most desirable, fabulous cities.” She put her professional skills to work this summer on behalf of her adult son and his family, who had outgrown their one-bedroom apartment. After three unsuccessful offers, they ended up paying $913,000 for a two-bedroom, one-bath house with an outdated kitchen, a yard that can charitably be called overgrown, and a big basement that Taisch counts as its most attractive feature.</p>
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<p>“It certainly is a milestone. It’s like, ‘Wow!”‘,” she said of the city’s new million-dollar median. “Everybody thinks San Francisco is all Pacific Heights Victorians, and it’s not. There are many areas of the city that are just normal, single-family homes that are small and not posh at all.”</p>
<p>The technology’s industry’s rapid growth coupled with 49-square-mile San Francisco’s constrained supply of housing is a big part of the story behind the city’s ascension to a rarified real estate bracket already occupied by New York City, but Silicon Valley wealth also is stoking the market in the greater San Francisco Bay Area, according to Andrew LePage, an analyst with CoreLogic DataQuick, a real estate research firm in Irvine, California.</p>
<p>Between April and June, the Bay Area saw a record number of homes and condos going for $1 million and above, and they accounted for one-quarter of all sales in the region, CoreLogic DataQuick said in a report released Thursday. During the same three-month period, six of the Bay Area’s nine counties set records for the number of homes and condos selling for over $2 million, as did California as a whole, the report said.</p>
<p>“The robust tech economy and the overall economy mean the Bay Area has been doing better than most for years now,” LePage said. “It already was expensive, and a lot of these high-end markets weren’t hammered as hard during the downturn because they weren’t exposed to subprime mortgages, so they had less ground to recover in the first place.”</p>
<p>George Limperis, an agent with Paragon Real Estate Group in San Francisco, agrees that freshly minted technology millionaires who can afford to bid up a property until they win it with an all-cash offer are helping to drive up demand. But unlike during the city’s first tech boom in the late 1990s, the buyers prepared to lay down more than $1 million on a fixer-upper in a neighborhood within walking distance of shops and restaurants also include Asian investors and retirees from other major cities who already are accustomed to skyscraper prices for shoebox dwellings, Limperis said.</p>
<p>“It feels like a very different city than it certainly did even 15 years ago. There is money coming from so many places now,” he said. “So many of these buyers today, they have lived in London, they have lived in Hong Kong, they have lived in New York, and to them these prices are parallel. We can’t compare San Francisco with median housing prices even elsewhere in California because this is an international level we are dealing with.”</p>
<p>Limperis this month represented the sellers of a 1,200-square-foot, two-bedroom home “in poor condition” that had been in their family for generations. Located on a commercial street in San Francisco’s Noe Valley neighborhood, an area prized for its modest Victorians, the home was listed for a little under $1.2 million. By the end of its first week on the market, 10 people had submitted all-cash offers. The house sold for $1.8 million to a developer who plans to convert it into condos.</p>
<p>“Everyone is aghast at what these things sell for, but as long as the economy keeps going it like it does, these numbers do make sense,” Limperis said.</p>
<p>Being prepared to go well over a home’s asking price and willing to sacrifice style or a second bathroom are some of the pointers that Kelly Kang, a colleague of Limperis’ at Paragon, gives to buyers.</p>
<p>Kang just represented a young couple with a child who were interested in a 756-square-foot, two-bedroom, one-bath row house built in 1950 in a newly hot neighborhood near a park and public transit that was listed at a little more than $1 million after having sold for $710,000 five years ago. The couple offered $1.2 million and wrote a “love letter” about the house explaining why it was just right for their family. They got the house.</p>
<p>“People that want to stay in San Francisco really love the city, so what they are buying is the city more than the property,” Kang said.</p>
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george limperis realtor paragon real estate group walks backyard property noe valley neighborhood san francisco wednesday july 30 2014 soupedup world san francisco real estate median selling price homes condominiums hit seven figures first time last month cool million would fetch mansion acres elsewhere barely cover cost 800square foot starter home needs work may may include private parking ap photojeff chiu san francisco san francisco association realtors president betty taisch two words advice want live think 1 million buy dream house think soupedup world san francisco real estate median selling price houses condominiums last month hit seven figures first time cool million would fetch mansion acres elsewhere barely cover cost 800square foot starter home needs work may may include private parking taisch veteran broker used managing clients expectations experienced firsthand heartbreak hairpulling inherent househunting considers one worlds desirable fabulous cities put professional skills work summer behalf adult son family outgrown onebedroom apartment three unsuccessful offers ended paying 913000 twobedroom onebath house outdated kitchen yard charitably called overgrown big basement taisch counts attractive feature advertisement certainly milestone like wow said citys new milliondollar median everybody thinks san francisco pacific heights victorians many areas city normal singlefamily homes small posh technologys industrys rapid growth coupled 49squaremile san franciscos constrained supply housing big part story behind citys ascension rarified real estate bracket already occupied new york city silicon valley wealth also stoking market greater san francisco bay area according andrew lepage analyst corelogic dataquick real estate research firm irvine california april june bay area saw record number homes condos going 1 million accounted onequarter sales region corelogic dataquick said report released thursday threemonth period six bay areas nine counties set records number homes condos selling 2 million california whole report said robust tech economy overall economy mean bay area better years lepage said already expensive lot highend markets werent hammered hard downturn werent exposed subprime mortgages less ground recover first place george limperis agent paragon real estate group san francisco agrees freshly minted technology millionaires afford bid property win allcash offer helping drive demand unlike citys first tech boom late 1990s buyers prepared lay 1 million fixerupper neighborhood within walking distance shops restaurants also include asian investors retirees major cities already accustomed skyscraper prices shoebox dwellings limperis said feels like different city certainly even 15 years ago money coming many places said many buyers today lived london lived hong kong lived new york prices parallel cant compare san francisco median housing prices even elsewhere california international level dealing limperis month represented sellers 1200squarefoot twobedroom home poor condition family generations located commercial street san franciscos noe valley neighborhood area prized modest victorians home listed little 12 million end first week market 10 people submitted allcash offers house sold 18 million developer plans convert condos everyone aghast things sell long economy keeps going like numbers make sense limperis said prepared go well homes asking price willing sacrifice style second bathroom pointers kelly kang colleague limperis paragon gives buyers kang represented young couple child interested 756squarefoot twobedroom onebath row house built 1950 newly hot neighborhood near park public transit listed little 1 million sold 710000 five years ago couple offered 12 million wrote love letter house explaining right family got house people want stay san francisco really love city buying city property kang said
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<p>Multitasker.</p>
<p>It hasn’t been all that long since Rod Williams moved into the football office at Cibola High School, but like most new head coaches, you learn quickly that coaching is just one hat on a large hat rack.</p>
<p>Rod Williams oversees a weight room session earlier this month. (Jim Thompson/Albuquerque Journal.)</p>
<p>“You never realize,” he said, “how much goes into it, administratively.”</p>
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<p>The stuff on the periphery has surely sapped the spirits of an untold number of men and women in this profession, people who desperately want to coach but despise the myriad distractions that usually ride co-pilot.</p>
<p>The way Williams described it, being an assistant coach was like being an uncle.</p>
<p>Being a head coach, he said, is like having a child of your own.</p>
<p>The 35-year-old Williams was hired earlier this year to take over Cibola’s struggling program. The Del Norte High and New Mexico Highlands grad had been an assistant at Volcano Vista since that school opened.</p>
<p>As he embarks on this task to rebuild the Cibola program — after state semifinal berths in 2006 and 2007, the program has labored to be playoff-worthy — Williams is clear on the land mines that line this road.</p>
<p>“Traditionally, I think Cibola has always had good talent, and I think you (as a coach) can go anywhere and win,” Williams, who is in the process of getting his master’s from Highlands in sports administration later this summer, said.</p>
<p>“With the right philosophy, if you stick with it and do it the right way, you can win.”</p>
<p>Perhaps the first thing Williams had to do was chase athletes.</p>
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<p>Find them at Cibola. Scout middle schools. Call them. Sit down with them. Visit their homes, if necessary. Expend whatever energy is required to keep Cibola athletes in this district, and get them to commit to being a part of Williams’ vision for rebuilding.</p>
<p>“I’ve got to work hard to get kids to stay here,” he said.</p>
<p>In this social media world, the quick fix is all the rage, which complicates Williams’ job. Athletes may be inclined to transfer out to a local rival such as Volcano Vista or Rio Rancho.</p>
<p>But Williams sounds as if he won’t be deterred.</p>
<p>“At some point,” he said, “you’ll want to be part of something new. People are hungry for a winner here. And I feel like I’m a guy people can get behind.”</p>
<p>Cibola does, he correctly points out, have tradition on its side.</p>
<p>Volcano Vista, even with two state semifinal appearances since it opened, is new.</p>
<p>Cleveland, the 2011 Class 5A state champion, is even newer.</p>
<p>Rio Rancho, which opened in 1997, is still trying to find the right formula and has just one semifinal appearance to its name.</p>
<p>But, as everyone well knows, Cibola — which has the most established community in its district — is at the moment lagging behind all three of its district rivals. As Williams was part of the genesis at Volcano Vista, he knows full well that getting incoming freshmen to play football, and playing football for four years, is vital. This was crucial for Volcano Vista in its rapid development.</p>
<p>“The other schools definitely have an advantage over us,” Williams said. “But we don’t need to feel sorry for ourselves. They’re good. But we’re good, too.”</p>
<p>Although Cibola finished 2-8 last season, the Cougars were competitive with just about everyone on their schedule. Cibola was one of the best first-half teams in 5A, and the Cougars created headaches for a lot of very good teams, like 5A state runner-up Sandia, for example. But Cibola often could not keep up in the second half.</p>
<p>“The cupboard is not bare,” Williams said. “Our motto is that we’re gonna be fast, we’re gonna be physical, we’re gonna be tenacious, and we’ve gotta finish. They have not had the attitude of finishing.”</p>
<p>Cibola’s situation is not altogether different from the difficulties that Del Norte has faced. The Knights were once one of the state’s truly great programs. But as boundaries changed and new schools opened (like La Cueva), Del Norte lost athletes and their athletic program has suffered.</p>
<p>Rio Rancho and Volcano Vista both siphoned athletes away from Cibola when they opened, and the Cougars have yet to find the solution. In football, anyway. (We won’t even discuss Cibola’s schedule, which is harsh beyond belief. Too harsh.)</p>
<p>“We’re not shiny and new,” Williams said. “So we have to do things other schools don’t need to do.”</p>
<p>Which is where recruiting becomes such a factor. Other schools barely have enough space to accommodate their athletes; that is not the case at Cibola. Not anymore.</p>
<p>I asked him if he was also an optimist. He didn’t answer yes or no, but read what he said and you’ll understand.</p>
<p>“It’s just in my nature,” he said. “I feel like we will work it out if you trust me. We will find a way to be successful.”</p>
<p>Recruiter. Politician. Father. Student. Coach.Multitasker.It hasn’t been all that long since Rod Williams moved into the football office at Cibola High School, but like most new head coaches, you learn quickly that coaching is just one hat on a large hat rack.“You never realize,” he said, “how much goes into it, administratively.”The stuff on the periphery has surely sapped the spirits of an untold number of men and women in this profession, people who desperately want to coach but despise the myriad distractions that usually ride co-pilot.The way Williams described it, being an assistant coach was like being an uncle.Being a head coach, he said, is like having a child of your own.The 35-year-old Williams was hired earlier this year to take over Cibola’s struggling program. The Del Norte High and New Mexico Highlands grad had been an assistant at Volcano Vista since that school opened.As he embarks on this task to rebuild the Cibola program — after state semifinal berths in 2006 and 2007, the program has labored to be playoff-worthy — Williams is clear on the land mines that line this road.“Traditionally, I think Cibola has always had good talent, and I think you (as a coach) can go anywhere and win,” Williams, who is in the process of getting his master’s from Highlands in sports administration later this summer, said.“With the right philosophy, if you stick with it and do it the right way, you can win.”Perhaps the first thing Williams had to do was chase athletes.Find them at Cibola. Scout middle schools. Call them. Sit down with them. Visit their homes, if necessary. Expend whatever energy is required to keep Cibola athletes in this district, and get them to commit to being a part of Williams’ vision for rebuilding.“I’ve got to work hard to get kids to stay here,” he said.In this social media world, the quick fix is all the rage, which complicates Williams’ job. Athletes may be inclined to transfer out to a local rival such as Volcano Vista or Rio Rancho.But Williams sounds as if he won’t be deterred.“At some point,” he said, “you’ll want to be part of something new. People are hungry for a winner here. And I feel like I’m a guy people can get behind.”Cibola does, he correctly points out, have tradition on its side.Volcano Vista, even with two state semifinal appearances since it opened, is new.Cleveland, the 2011 Class 5A state champion, is even newer.Rio Rancho, which opened in 1997, is still trying to find the right formula and has just one semifinal appearance to its name.But, as everyone well knows, Cibola — which has the most established community in its district — is at the moment lagging behind all three of its district rivals. As Williams was part of the genesis at Volcano Vista, he knows full well that getting incoming freshmen to play football, and playing football for four years, is vital. This was crucial for Volcano Vista in its rapid development.“The other schools definitely have an advantage over us,” Williams said. “But we don’t need to feel sorry for ourselves. They’re good. But we’re good, too.”Although Cibola finished 2-8 last season, the Cougars were competitive with just about everyone on their schedule. Cibola was one of the best first-half teams in 5A, and the Cougars created headaches for a lot of very good teams, like 5A state runner-up Sandia, for example. But Cibola often could not keep up in the second half.“The cupboard is not bare,” Williams said. “Our motto is that we’re gonna be fast, we’re gonna be physical, we’re gonna be tenacious, and we’ve gotta finish. They have not had the attitude of finishing.”Cibola’s situation is not altogether different from the difficulties that Del Norte has faced. The Knights were once one of the state’s truly great programs. But as boundaries changed and new schools opened (like La Cueva), Del Norte lost athletes and their athletic program has suffered.Rio Rancho and Volcano Vista both siphoned athletes away from Cibola when they opened, and the Cougars have yet to find the solution. In football, anyway. (We won’t even discuss Cibola’s schedule, which is harsh beyond belief. Too harsh.)“We’re not shiny and new,” Williams said. “So we have to do things other schools don’t need to do.”Which is where recruiting becomes such a factor. Other schools barely have enough space to accommodate their athletes; that is not the case at Cibola. Not anymore.I asked him if he was also an optimist. He didn’t answer yes or no, but read what he said and you’ll understand.“It’s just in my nature,” he said. “I feel like we will work it out if you trust me. We will find a way to be successful.”</p>
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multitasker hasnt long since rod williams moved football office cibola high school like new head coaches learn quickly coaching one hat large hat rack rod williams oversees weight room session earlier month jim thompsonalbuquerque journal never realize said much goes administratively advertisement stuff periphery surely sapped spirits untold number men women profession people desperately want coach despise myriad distractions usually ride copilot way williams described assistant coach like uncle head coach said like child 35yearold williams hired earlier year take cibolas struggling program del norte high new mexico highlands grad assistant volcano vista since school opened embarks task rebuild cibola program state semifinal berths 2006 2007 program labored playoffworthy williams clear land mines line road traditionally think cibola always good talent think coach go anywhere win williams process getting masters highlands sports administration later summer said right philosophy stick right way win perhaps first thing williams chase athletes advertisement find cibola scout middle schools call sit visit homes necessary expend whatever energy required keep cibola athletes district get commit part williams vision rebuilding ive got work hard get kids stay said social media world quick fix rage complicates williams job athletes may inclined transfer local rival volcano vista rio rancho williams sounds wont deterred point said youll want part something new people hungry winner feel like im guy people get behind cibola correctly points tradition side volcano vista even two state semifinal appearances since opened new cleveland 2011 class 5a state champion even newer rio rancho opened 1997 still trying find right formula one semifinal appearance name everyone well knows cibola established community district moment lagging behind three district rivals williams part genesis volcano vista knows full well getting incoming freshmen play football playing football four years vital crucial volcano vista rapid development schools definitely advantage us williams said dont need feel sorry theyre good good although cibola finished 28 last season cougars competitive everyone schedule cibola one best firsthalf teams 5a cougars created headaches lot good teams like 5a state runnerup sandia example cibola often could keep second half cupboard bare williams said motto gon na fast gon na physical gon na tenacious weve got ta finish attitude finishing cibolas situation altogether different difficulties del norte faced knights one states truly great programs boundaries changed new schools opened like la cueva del norte lost athletes athletic program suffered rio rancho volcano vista siphoned athletes away cibola opened cougars yet find solution football anyway wont even discuss cibolas schedule harsh beyond belief harsh shiny new williams said things schools dont need recruiting becomes factor schools barely enough space accommodate athletes case cibola anymore asked also optimist didnt answer yes read said youll understand nature said feel like work trust find way successful recruiter politician father student coachmultitaskerit hasnt long since rod williams moved football office cibola high school like new head coaches learn quickly coaching one hat large hat rackyou never realize said much goes administrativelythe stuff periphery surely sapped spirits untold number men women profession people desperately want coach despise myriad distractions usually ride copilotthe way williams described assistant coach like unclebeing head coach said like child ownthe 35yearold williams hired earlier year take cibolas struggling program del norte high new mexico highlands grad assistant volcano vista since school openedas embarks task rebuild cibola program state semifinal berths 2006 2007 program labored playoffworthy williams clear land mines line roadtraditionally think cibola always good talent think coach go anywhere win williams process getting masters highlands sports administration later summer saidwith right philosophy stick right way winperhaps first thing williams chase athletesfind cibola scout middle schools call sit visit homes necessary expend whatever energy required keep cibola athletes district get commit part williams vision rebuildingive got work hard get kids stay saidin social media world quick fix rage complicates williams job athletes may inclined transfer local rival volcano vista rio ranchobut williams sounds wont deterredat point said youll want part something new people hungry winner feel like im guy people get behindcibola correctly points tradition sidevolcano vista even two state semifinal appearances since opened newcleveland 2011 class 5a state champion even newerrio rancho opened 1997 still trying find right formula one semifinal appearance namebut everyone well knows cibola established community district moment lagging behind three district rivals williams part genesis volcano vista knows full well getting incoming freshmen play football playing football four years vital crucial volcano vista rapid developmentthe schools definitely advantage us williams said dont need feel sorry theyre good good tooalthough cibola finished 28 last season cougars competitive everyone schedule cibola one best firsthalf teams 5a cougars created headaches lot good teams like 5a state runnerup sandia example cibola often could keep second halfthe cupboard bare williams said motto gon na fast gon na physical gon na tenacious weve got ta finish attitude finishingcibolas situation altogether different difficulties del norte faced knights one states truly great programs boundaries changed new schools opened like la cueva del norte lost athletes athletic program sufferedrio rancho volcano vista siphoned athletes away cibola opened cougars yet find solution football anyway wont even discuss cibolas schedule harsh beyond belief harshwere shiny new williams said things schools dont need dowhich recruiting becomes factor schools barely enough space accommodate athletes case cibola anymorei asked also optimist didnt answer yes read said youll understandits nature said feel like work trust find way successful
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<p>The Huskies will play second-seeded Shiprock, a 61-56 overtime winner over No. 3 Robertson, in Friday’s 3:30 p.m. final at the Pit.</p>
<p>No. 1 HOPE CHRISTIAN 55, No. 4 PORTALES 40: Senior Hanna Valencia scored a game-high 18 points as the Huskies (28-2) dispatched the Rams (18-11). “I loved the atmosphere today. Our team did so well with keeping up the energy and that really helped all of us to play well,” Valencia said. Fellow seniors Christine Heisey and Brielle Milford added 12 and 11 points, respectively. Rams coach Wade Fraze said his team’s strategy was to slow down Hope, which worked to an extent early. The Huskies were held to just eight points in the first quarter. Unfortunately for the Rams, Hope held them to just two points on 0-for-6 shooting. “It was our intention to make them play defense for a long period of time,” Fraze said. “They got a point here and there and put us in a bit deeper hole than I wanted.” The Huskies built a 19-9 lead by halftime and the Rams never got any closer in the second half. “We preach that defense is going to win when you’re off on offense, when you’re not shooting well,” Hope coach Terry Heisey said. “We knew Portales was going to be pretty deliberate against our offense, try to keep it as low scoring as possible. Fortunately, we were able to come out and take the early lead.” — Chris Jackson</p>
<p>No. 1 HOPE CHRISTIAN 55, No. 4 PORTALES 40 PORTALES (18-11) Sarah Lovato 6, Zamorye Cox 10, Alexis Garcia 2, Jessie Campbell 2, Kiahna Helsley 2, Codi Flores 0, Kelly Fraze 0, Lindsay Blakey 7, Sky Marianito 4, Aaliyah Austin 0, Abree Aldaz 0, Taylee Rippee 7. Totals 11-FG 17-26-FT 40. HOPE (28-2) Anna Kenderdine 0, Addison Franse 0, Charity Murphy 5, Haile’ Chase-The Boy 0, Jenna Hijar 2, Alivia Lewis 7, Christine Heisey 12, Destiny Holien 0, Brielle Milford 11, Hanna Valencia 18. Totals 16-FG 20-34 FT 55. Portales 2 7 12 19—40 Hope 8 11 20 16—55 3-Point FG: P 1 (Lovato); HC 3 (Heisey, Milford, Murphy). Team Fouls: P 27, HC 17. Fouled Out: P, Cox, Campbell.</p>
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<p>No. 2 Shiprock 61, No. 3 Robertson 56, OT: The Chieftains (25-5) scored seven points from the line in the overtime session, and that was enough to overcome the Cardinals (22-7).</p>
<p>Tanisha Begay scored 24 points for Shiprock and Paige Dale added 15 with eight rebounds. Maria Barela and Angelica Montoya each scored 16 for Robertson, and Jazmyne Jenkins had 15 boards.</p>
<p>“We had to bond as a team to pull out a win,” Begay said. “There was no selfishness. Most of credit to my teammates. They were the ones that passed me the ball. Those were their assists. Keeping your composure and knowing you’re still in the game to the finish is the mentality that we had.”</p>
<p>The game was tight throughout, but in the overtime period, Robertson, which has no seniors, turned it over four times, and Shiprock was able to capitalize.</p>
<p>“We’ve been here several times,” Chieftains coach Larenson Henderson said. “I think our experience kind of helped us.”</p>
<p>Robertson ended up with 20 turnovers.</p>
<p>Still, Shiprock was off its game, he said.</p>
<p>“We stopped attacking,” Henderson said. “But we had some big shots go in at the end. I know the girls are capable of shooting the basketball. If we’re going to have a shooting contest between us, I think we win regardless.”</p>
<p>— Glen Rosales</p>
<p>No. 2. SHIPROCK 61, No. 3 ROBERTSON 56, OT ROBERTSON (22-6): Tessa Ortiz 6, Gabriela Trujillo 0, Alianza Darley 10, Maria Barela 16, Savannah Sena 0, Jazmyne Jenkins 8, Angelica Montoya 16. Totals: 20-55 10-22 57. SHIPROCK (24-5): Kylie McKinley 2, Melanie Secody 10, Tiontai Woods 8, Paige Dale 15, Chamika Begaye 0, Tanisha Begay 24, Tierra Clichee 0, Kacy Begay 0, Evette Lansing 2. Totals 20-59 12-1861. Robertson&#160;&#160;&#160; 16&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160; 11&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160; 13&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160; 12&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160; 4 — 56 Shiprock&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160; 12&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160; 20&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160; 12&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160; 8&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160; 9 — 61 3-point FGs:&#160; R 6 (Barela 3, Oritz 2, Darley); S 9 (Begay 4, Secody 3, Woods 2). Rebounds: R 51 (Jenkins 15); S 41 (Dale 8). Assists: R 14 (Darley 5); S 14 (Secody 3, Begay 3). Turnovers: R 20, S 14. Steals: R 9; S 9. Blocks: R 6; S 4. Total fouls: R 16; S 17. Fouled out: R, Darley.</p>
| false | 2 |
huskies play secondseeded shiprock 6156 overtime winner 3 robertson fridays 330 pm final pit 1 hope christian 55 4 portales 40 senior hanna valencia scored gamehigh 18 points huskies 282 dispatched rams 1811 loved atmosphere today team well keeping energy really helped us play well valencia said fellow seniors christine heisey brielle milford added 12 11 points respectively rams coach wade fraze said teams strategy slow hope worked extent early huskies held eight points first quarter unfortunately rams hope held two points 0for6 shooting intention make play defense long period time fraze said got point put us bit deeper hole wanted huskies built 199 lead halftime rams never got closer second half preach defense going win youre offense youre shooting well hope coach terry heisey said knew portales going pretty deliberate offense try keep low scoring possible fortunately able come take early lead chris jackson 1 hope christian 55 4 portales 40 portales 1811 sarah lovato 6 zamorye cox 10 alexis garcia 2 jessie campbell 2 kiahna helsley 2 codi flores 0 kelly fraze 0 lindsay blakey 7 sky marianito 4 aaliyah austin 0 abree aldaz 0 taylee rippee 7 totals 11fg 1726ft 40 hope 282 anna kenderdine 0 addison franse 0 charity murphy 5 haile chasethe boy 0 jenna hijar 2 alivia lewis 7 christine heisey 12 destiny holien 0 brielle milford 11 hanna valencia 18 totals 16fg 2034 ft 55 portales 2 7 12 1940 hope 8 11 20 1655 3point fg p 1 lovato hc 3 heisey milford murphy team fouls p 27 hc 17 fouled p cox campbell 160 2 shiprock 61 3 robertson 56 ot chieftains 255 scored seven points line overtime session enough overcome cardinals 227 tanisha begay scored 24 points shiprock paige dale added 15 eight rebounds maria barela angelica montoya scored 16 robertson jazmyne jenkins 15 boards bond team pull win begay said selfishness credit teammates ones passed ball assists keeping composure knowing youre still game finish mentality game tight throughout overtime period robertson seniors turned four times shiprock able capitalize weve several times chieftains coach larenson henderson said think experience kind helped us robertson ended 20 turnovers still shiprock game said stopped attacking henderson said big shots go end know girls capable shooting basketball going shooting contest us think win regardless glen rosales 2 shiprock 61 3 robertson 56 ot robertson 226 tessa ortiz 6 gabriela trujillo 0 alianza darley 10 maria barela 16 savannah sena 0 jazmyne jenkins 8 angelica montoya 16 totals 2055 1022 57 shiprock 245 kylie mckinley 2 melanie secody 10 tiontai woods 8 paige dale 15 chamika begaye 0 tanisha begay 24 tierra clichee 0 kacy begay 0 evette lansing 2 totals 2059 121861 robertson160160160 16160160160160160 11160160160160160 13160160160160160 12160160160160160 4 56 shiprock160160160160160 12160160160160160 20160160160160160 12160160160160160 8160160160160160160160 9 61 3point fgs160 r 6 barela 3 oritz 2 darley 9 begay 4 secody 3 woods 2 rebounds r 51 jenkins 15 41 dale 8 assists r 14 darley 5 14 secody 3 begay 3 turnovers r 20 14 steals r 9 9 blocks r 6 4 total fouls r 16 17 fouled r darley
| 516 |
<p>Jan 19 (Reuters) - Food Empire Holdings Ltd:</p>
<p>* EXPECTED LOSS DUE TO ‍EXPOSURE OF AROUND USD10 MILLION TO ITS ASSOCIATED COMPANY ​</p> * ‍EXPECTED TO RECORD A LOSS BEFORE TAXATION FOR 4Q2017​
<p>* ‍EXPECTS TO REPORT A PROFIT FOR FULL YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2017​ Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage: ([email protected])</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>BEIRUT (Reuters) - A Syrian rebel group accused government forces on Saturday of dropping a barrel bomb containing poisonous chemicals on civilians in eastern Ghouta, and a medical relief organization said 35 people had been killed in chemical attacks on the area.</p>
<p>Syrian state media denied government forces had launched any chemical attack as soon as the reports began circulating and said rebels in the eastern Ghouta town of Douma were in a state of collapse and spreading false news.</p>
<p>The U.S. State Department said on Saturday reports of mass casualties from an alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma were “horrifying” and would, if confirmed, “demand an immediate response by the international community”.</p> Related Coverage
<a href="/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-attack-usa/u-s-says-reports-of-chemical-attack-in-syria-horrifying-if-confirmed-calls-for-response-idUSKBN1HF02N" type="external">U.S. says reports of chemical attack in Syria 'horrifying' if confirmed, calls for response</a>
<p>The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 11 people had died in Douma as a result of suffocation caused by the smoke from conventional weapons being dropped by the government. It said a total of 70 people suffered breathing difficulties.</p>
<p>Rami Abdulrahman, the Observatory director, said he could not confirm if chemical weapons had been used.</p>
<p>Medical relief organization Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) said a chlorine bomb hit Douma hospital, killing six people, and a second attack with “mixed agents” including nerve agents had hit a nearby building.</p>
<p>Basel Termanini, the U.S.-based vice president of SAMS, told Reuters the total death toll in the chemical attacks was 35. “We are contacting the U.N. and the U.S. government and the European governments,” he said by telephone.</p>
<p>Reuters could not independently verify the reports.</p>
<p>Syrian state news agency SANA said the rebel group in Douma, Jaish al-Islam, was making “chemical attack fabrications in an exposed and failed attempt to obstruct advances by the Syrian Arab army,” citing an official source.</p>
<p>“The Assad regime and its backers must be held accountable and any further attacks prevented immediately”, said U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauret, recalling a 2017 sarin gas attack that the West and the United Nations blamed on Assad’s government.</p>
<p>“The United States calls on Russia to end this unmitigated support immediately and work with the international community to prevent further, barbaric chemical weapons attacks,” Nauert said in a statement.</p>
<p>The Syrian government has repeatedly denied using chemical weapons during the conflict.</p>
<p>Reporting by Dahlia Nehme and Mustafa Hashem; Additional reporting by Patrick Rucker and Tim Ahmann in Washington; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Sandra Maler</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department said on Saturday reports of mass casualties from an alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma, Syria, were “horrifying” and would demand an international response if confirmed.</p>
<p>“These reports, if confirmed, are horrifying and demand an immediate response by the international community,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement.</p>
<p>Citing a history of chemical weapons use by the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Nauert said Assad’s government and its backer Russia needed to be held accountable and “any further attacks prevented immediately.”</p>
<p>“Russia, with its unwavering support for the regime ultimately bears responsibility for these brutal attacks,” Nauert said.</p>
<p>Reporting by Tim Ahmann; Editing by Michael Perry</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - One man was killed and six firefighters received minor injuries in an apartment fire on the 50th floor of Trump Tower in New York on Saturday, in a blaze that was quickly extinguished, fire officials said.</p>
<p>The victim, Todd Brassner, 67, was found unresponsive and unconscious in his 50th floor apartment and was pronounced dead at an area hospital, police said.</p>
<p>No information about the cause of the fire was available late Saturday night.</p>
<p>U.S. President Donald Trump, who has an office and a private residence in the midtown Manhattan structure, was not in the building at the time.</p>
<p>“Fire at Trump Tower is out. Very confined (well built building). Firemen (and women) did a great job. THANK YOU!” Trump tweeted.</p>
<p>Fire officials said no member of the Trump family was in the building at the time.</p>
<p>“This was a very difficult fire. As you can imagine, the apartment is quite large, we are 50 stories up. The rest of the building had a considerable amount of smoke,” Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said on Twitter.</p> Trump Tower is pictured during a fire in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S., April 7, 2018. REUTERS/Catherine Koppel
<p>About 200 fire personnel responded to the incident that the department said was a four-alarm fire.</p>
<p>Video on social media showed flames outside of a few windows and black smoke billowing up from the high-rise.</p>
<p>In January, three people were injured in an early-morning fire at the top of Trump Tower. One firefighter was hospitalized while two people received minor injuries that were treated at the scene, the New York Fire Department said.</p> Slideshow (13 Images)
<p>In addition to the president’s 66th-floor penthouse, Trump Tower houses the headquarters of the Trump Organization as well as other residences, offices and stores.</p>
<p>Reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas and Meredith Mazzilli in New York, additional reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Sandra Maler</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>HUMBOLDT, Saskatchewan (Reuters) - Fifteen people were killed when a bus carrying a Canadian junior ice hockey team collided with a truck in Saskatchewan province, police said on Saturday, in one of the worst disasters to strike Canada’s sporting community.</p>
<p>The tragedy sent shock waves through the hockey-loving country and engulfed the home of the Humboldt Broncos hockey team, a small farming town of fewer than 6,000 people, in grief. Fourteen survivors were still in hospital, with some in critical condition, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said.</p>
<p>The accident occurred at about 5 p.m. on Friday near the Tisdale area, around 185 miles (300 km) north of Regina.</p>
<p>“Our Broncos family is in shock as we try to come to grips with our incredible loss,” Kevin Garinger, the team’s president, said in a statement.</p>
<p>The players had been on their way to compete in Game 5 of a playoff series against the Nipawin Hawks when the bus they were traveling in collided with a semi-trailer.</p> Related Coverage
<a href="/article/us-canada-crash-icehockey/ice-hockey-world-shocked-by-fatal-junior-team-crash-in-canada-idUSKBN1HE0U6" type="external">Ice hockey world shocked by fatal junior team crash in Canada</a>
<p>The Hawks’ president, Darren Opp, told the Globe and Mail newspaper that the truck T-boned the players’ bus. “It’s a horrible accident, my God,” he said. “It’s very, very bad.”</p>
<p>The driver of the tractor trailer was not injured in the crash, RCMP Saskatchewan assistant commissioner Curtis Zablocki told a media conference. He said the driver was initially detained, but later released.</p>
<p>Zablocki said it was too early to comment on the cause of the collision and that the RCMP is continuing its investigation, which will examine the road, weather and mechanical condition of both vehicles.</p>
<p>Citing relatives, the Canadian Press reported that the Broncos’ head coach Darcy Haugan and the team’s 20-year-old captain, Logan Schatz, were among those killed.</p>
<p>Many social media users posted Haugan’s photograph alongside messages of shock and sympathy, and the hashtags #prayersforhumboldt and #humboldtstrong.</p>
<p>“God bless Darcy Haugan for being an incredible mentor and coach to young hockey players and prayers for his family to help cope with their immense loss,” the Western Provinces Hockey Association wrote on Twitter.</p>
<p>National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Bettman said the NHL mourned the passing of those who died “and offers strength and comfort to those injured while traveling to play and be part of a game they loved.”</p>
<p>Ice hockey teams around the world expressed shock and paid tribute to the Broncos.</p> ‘HEARTBROKEN’
<p>A steady stream of people arrived at Humboldt’s Elgar Petersen sports arena on Saturday, consoling the grieving families and offering flowers. Counseling services for the victims’ relatives were offered nearby.</p>
<p>“We woke up to the reality of what happened last night,” Humboldt Mayor Rob Muench told Reuters. “It has been a tragedy nobody would have imagined. It’s very tough, but I have been trying to get the message out that we will get through this, we will see the light at the end of the tunnel.”</p>
<p>Condolences poured in from both current and former players, sports organizations and political leaders.</p>
<p>Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the entire country was in shock and mourning as the details of the tragedy emerged. Canada’s hockey family was a close one, he said.</p> The 2017-2018 Humboldt Broncos Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League team is pictured in this undated handout photo. Amanda Brochu/Handout via REUTERS
<p>“We are heartbroken knowing many of those we lost had their entire lives in front of them,” he said in a statement.</p>
<p>U.S. President Donald Trump said in a Twitter post that he spoke with Trudeau “to pay my highest respect and condolences to the families of the terrible Humboldt Team tragedy. May God be with them all!”</p>
<p>Pastor Jordan Gadsby of Nipawin’s Apostolic Church said hundreds of people, including parents and relatives of players on the bus, had gathered at the church late on Friday to seek information and solace.</p>
<p>“The worst part of the night was watching parents waiting for news of their kids,” he said. “There’s not a lot we can do. It’s a terrible thing that happened.”</p>
<p>For some, the tragedy revived painful memories of a bus crash in the province in December 1986 that killed four young players from the Swift Current Broncos ice hockey team.</p> Slideshow (20 Images)
<p>An online fundraising campaign for the affected players and their families was set up late on Friday by the mother of a former Broncos teammate with an initial target of $10,000.</p>
<p>By Saturday evening, it had raised more than $2.1 million. ( <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/funds-for-humboldt-broncos" type="external">here</a>)</p>
<p>“Stay Hockey family strong,” wrote one donor on the GoFundMe site who said he was a coach from rural Saskatchewan.</p>
<p>Reporting by Matt Smith in Humboldt; Additional reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee and Frank Pingue in Augusta, Georgia; Writing by Denny Thomas and Daniel Wallis; Editing by Tom Brown and G Crosse</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
| false | 2 |
jan 19 reuters food empire holdings ltd expected loss due exposure around usd10 million associated company expected record loss taxation 4q2017 expects report profit full year ended 31 december 2017 source text eikon company coverage bangalorenewsroomthomsonreuterscom standards thomson reuters trust principles beirut reuters syrian rebel group accused government forces saturday dropping barrel bomb containing poisonous chemicals civilians eastern ghouta medical relief organization said 35 people killed chemical attacks area syrian state media denied government forces launched chemical attack soon reports began circulating said rebels eastern ghouta town douma state collapse spreading false news us state department said saturday reports mass casualties alleged chemical weapons attack douma horrifying would confirmed demand immediate response international community related coverage us says reports chemical attack syria horrifying confirmed calls response syrian observatory human rights said 11 people died douma result suffocation caused smoke conventional weapons dropped government said total 70 people suffered breathing difficulties rami abdulrahman observatory director said could confirm chemical weapons used medical relief organization syrian american medical society sams said chlorine bomb hit douma hospital killing six people second attack mixed agents including nerve agents hit nearby building basel termanini usbased vice president sams told reuters total death toll chemical attacks 35 contacting un us government european governments said telephone reuters could independently verify reports syrian state news agency sana said rebel group douma jaish alislam making chemical attack fabrications exposed failed attempt obstruct advances syrian arab army citing official source assad regime backers must held accountable attacks prevented immediately said us state department spokeswoman heather nauret recalling 2017 sarin gas attack west united nations blamed assads government united states calls russia end unmitigated support immediately work international community prevent barbaric chemical weapons attacks nauert said statement syrian government repeatedly denied using chemical weapons conflict reporting dahlia nehme mustafa hashem additional reporting patrick rucker tim ahmann washington editing hugh lawson sandra maler standards thomson reuters trust principles washington reuters us state department said saturday reports mass casualties alleged chemical weapons attack douma syria horrifying would demand international response confirmed reports confirmed horrifying demand immediate response international community state department spokeswoman heather nauert said statement citing history chemical weapons use government syrian president bashar alassad nauert said assads government backer russia needed held accountable attacks prevented immediately russia unwavering support regime ultimately bears responsibility brutal attacks nauert said reporting tim ahmann editing michael perry standards thomson reuters trust principles new york reuters one man killed six firefighters received minor injuries apartment fire 50th floor trump tower new york saturday blaze quickly extinguished fire officials said victim todd brassner 67 found unresponsive unconscious 50th floor apartment pronounced dead area hospital police said information cause fire available late saturday night us president donald trump office private residence midtown manhattan structure building time fire trump tower confined well built building firemen women great job thank trump tweeted fire officials said member trump family building time difficult fire imagine apartment quite large 50 stories rest building considerable amount smoke fire commissioner daniel nigro said twitter trump tower pictured fire manhattan borough new york city new york us april 7 2018 reuterscatherine koppel 200 fire personnel responded incident department said fouralarm fire video social media showed flames outside windows black smoke billowing highrise january three people injured earlymorning fire top trump tower one firefighter hospitalized two people received minor injuries treated scene new york fire department said slideshow 13 images addition presidents 66thfloor penthouse trump tower houses headquarters trump organization well residences offices stores reporting jon herskovitz austin texas meredith mazzilli new york additional reporting rich mckay atlanta editing sandra maler standards thomson reuters trust principles humboldt saskatchewan reuters fifteen people killed bus carrying canadian junior ice hockey team collided truck saskatchewan province police said saturday one worst disasters strike canadas sporting community tragedy sent shock waves hockeyloving country engulfed home humboldt broncos hockey team small farming town fewer 6000 people grief fourteen survivors still hospital critical condition royal canadian mounted police rcmp said accident occurred 5 pm friday near tisdale area around 185 miles 300 km north regina broncos family shock try come grips incredible loss kevin garinger teams president said statement players way compete game 5 playoff series nipawin hawks bus traveling collided semitrailer related coverage ice hockey world shocked fatal junior team crash canada hawks president darren opp told globe mail newspaper truck tboned players bus horrible accident god said bad driver tractor trailer injured crash rcmp saskatchewan assistant commissioner curtis zablocki told media conference said driver initially detained later released zablocki said early comment cause collision rcmp continuing investigation examine road weather mechanical condition vehicles citing relatives canadian press reported broncos head coach darcy haugan teams 20yearold captain logan schatz among killed many social media users posted haugans photograph alongside messages shock sympathy hashtags prayersforhumboldt humboldtstrong god bless darcy haugan incredible mentor coach young hockey players prayers family help cope immense loss western provinces hockey association wrote twitter national hockey league commissioner gary bettman said nhl mourned passing died offers strength comfort injured traveling play part game loved ice hockey teams around world expressed shock paid tribute broncos heartbroken steady stream people arrived humboldts elgar petersen sports arena saturday consoling grieving families offering flowers counseling services victims relatives offered nearby woke reality happened last night humboldt mayor rob muench told reuters tragedy nobody would imagined tough trying get message get see light end tunnel condolences poured current former players sports organizations political leaders canadian prime minister justin trudeau said entire country shock mourning details tragedy emerged canadas hockey family close one said 20172018 humboldt broncos saskatchewan junior hockey league team pictured undated handout photo amanda brochuhandout via reuters heartbroken knowing many lost entire lives front said statement us president donald trump said twitter post spoke trudeau pay highest respect condolences families terrible humboldt team tragedy may god pastor jordan gadsby nipawins apostolic church said hundreds people including parents relatives players bus gathered church late friday seek information solace worst part night watching parents waiting news kids said theres lot terrible thing happened tragedy revived painful memories bus crash province december 1986 killed four young players swift current broncos ice hockey team slideshow 20 images online fundraising campaign affected players families set late friday mother former broncos teammate initial target 10000 saturday evening raised 21 million stay hockey family strong wrote one donor gofundme site said coach rural saskatchewan reporting matt smith humboldt additional reporting brendan obrien milwaukee frank pingue augusta georgia writing denny thomas daniel wallis editing tom brown g crosse standards thomson reuters trust principles
| 1,083 |
<p>VATICAN CITY (AP) - The Latest on the Epiphany observances Christians in many parts of the world are holding: (all times local):</p>
<p>11:20 p.m.</p>
<p>Unusually cold temperatures in Florida from a monster winter storm didn't dissuade more than 50 boys from making their annual plunge in a bayou as part of the largest epiphany celebration in the United States.</p>
<p>Some 57 boys wearing only t-shirts and shorts dove into the chilly waters Saturday in Tarpon Springs, Florida, to retrieve a cross. Snow prevented the attendance of an archbishop from New York.</p>
<p>The tradition is to honor the baptism of Jesus.</p>
<p>A member of the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Cathedral's epiphany dive committee, Emmanuel Gombos, says paramedics were nearby. Tens of thousands of spectators shouted "wow" as the group made the plunge in 50-degree Fahrenheit (10 Celsius) weather.</p>
<p>Moments later, one popped up and kissed the white cross. He was greeted by a warm towel.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>7:45 p.m.</p>
<p>In Mexico City, aid workers brought toys and other gifts to brighten the Epiphany holiday for children living in dozens of makeshift tent camps more than three months after a deadly earthquake.</p>
<p>The date - Jan. 6 - is commonly known as "Day of the Magi" in Latin America, and it's when children traditionally unwrap holiday gifts rather than on Christmas Day.</p>
<p>Uriel Martinez is an 8-year-old whose family lost their home in the Sept. 19 quake. They've been staying in a small camp in southern Mexico City, a motley assortment of tents pitched on boards with tarps strung overhead to keep out the overnight chill.</p>
<p>Martinez woke up early Saturday to find a toy gun had been left for him. That made him happy because he wants to be a soldier when he grows up.</p>
<p>He says "I heard the kings come, but then I went back to sleep."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>3:55 p.m.</p>
<p>The head of the Catholic Church in Warsaw has spoken out in support of migrants during an Epiphany procession in the Polish capital that was part of nationwide celebrations.</p>
<p>The procession Saturday in Warsaw was held under the motto "God is for everyone" and Warsaw Archbishop Cardinal Kazimierz Nycz says that means no one should be seen as an "alien."</p>
<p>His words seemed directed at the conservative Polish government, which has many officials who are Catholic but refuse to accept Muslim migrants from the Middle East or Africa.</p>
<p>Warsaw's 10th annual procession featured camels and richly-clad Three Magi. A few thousand adults and children marched in it, wearing paper crowns. President Andrzej Duda led another procession in Skoczow, in southern Poland.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>1:20 p.m.</p>
<p>The Greek Orthodox Christian community in Istanbul has celebrated Epiphany with the traditional blessing of the waters.</p>
<p>Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of Orthodox Christians around the world and the archbishop of Constantinople, led the liturgy on Saturday at the Patriarchal Church of St. George.</p>
<p>The Eastern Orthodox Church commemorates Jesus' baptism on Epiphany. Several blessings of the waters took place across Istanbul. The ceremony consists of a cross being tossed into the water to be retrieved by swimmers.</p>
<p>The patriarch threw the blessed cross into the waters of Istanbul's Golden Horn as the faithful jumped into the sea.</p>
<p>Nikos Solis, 29, a personal trainer from Greece, retrieved the wooden cross three years in a row.</p>
<p>Bartholomew presented Solis with a golden crucifix on a chain.</p>
<p>_____</p>
<p>1:10 p.m.</p>
<p>Pope Francis told tens of thousands of faithful gathered in St. Peter's Square that some Christians prefer to live with indifference toward Jesus and his teachings.</p>
<p>Francis said during an Epiphany appearance from his studio window overlooking the square that such individuals follow worldly principles which satisfy "the inclinations toward arrogance, the thirst for power and for riches" instead of acting "in coherence with their own Christian faith."</p>
<p>He prayed that instead that "the world makes progress down the path of justice and of peace."</p>
<p>Francis noted that some Eastern Rite Catholic and Orthodox churches are celebrating Christmas this weekend. In expressing cordial wishes to these believers, Francis added, "May this glorious celebration be a source of new spiritual vigor and of communion among us Christians."</p>
<p>He also recalled the traditions such as in Poland, where many families join in processions recalling the three wise men. In some countries, Epiphany and not Christmas, is the holiday when loved ones exchange gifts.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>11:50 a.m.</p>
<p>Pope Francis is advising against making the pursuit of money, a career or success the basis for one's whole life.</p>
<p>Francis said during a homily on Saturday to mark Epiphany that people "often make do" with having "health, a little money and a bit of entertainment."</p>
<p>He urged helping the poor and other needy communities instead, while giving freely without expecting anything in return.</p>
<p>Most Christian religions observe Epiphany to recall the three wise men who followed a star to find baby Jesus. Francis suggested asking "what star we have chosen to follow in our lives."</p>
<p>He said: "Some stars may be bright, but do not point the way. So it is with success, money, career, honors and pleasures when these become our lives."</p>
<p>That path, he says, won't ensure peace and joy.</p>
<p>VATICAN CITY (AP) - The Latest on the Epiphany observances Christians in many parts of the world are holding: (all times local):</p>
<p>11:20 p.m.</p>
<p>Unusually cold temperatures in Florida from a monster winter storm didn't dissuade more than 50 boys from making their annual plunge in a bayou as part of the largest epiphany celebration in the United States.</p>
<p>Some 57 boys wearing only t-shirts and shorts dove into the chilly waters Saturday in Tarpon Springs, Florida, to retrieve a cross. Snow prevented the attendance of an archbishop from New York.</p>
<p>The tradition is to honor the baptism of Jesus.</p>
<p>A member of the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Cathedral's epiphany dive committee, Emmanuel Gombos, says paramedics were nearby. Tens of thousands of spectators shouted "wow" as the group made the plunge in 50-degree Fahrenheit (10 Celsius) weather.</p>
<p>Moments later, one popped up and kissed the white cross. He was greeted by a warm towel.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>7:45 p.m.</p>
<p>In Mexico City, aid workers brought toys and other gifts to brighten the Epiphany holiday for children living in dozens of makeshift tent camps more than three months after a deadly earthquake.</p>
<p>The date - Jan. 6 - is commonly known as "Day of the Magi" in Latin America, and it's when children traditionally unwrap holiday gifts rather than on Christmas Day.</p>
<p>Uriel Martinez is an 8-year-old whose family lost their home in the Sept. 19 quake. They've been staying in a small camp in southern Mexico City, a motley assortment of tents pitched on boards with tarps strung overhead to keep out the overnight chill.</p>
<p>Martinez woke up early Saturday to find a toy gun had been left for him. That made him happy because he wants to be a soldier when he grows up.</p>
<p>He says "I heard the kings come, but then I went back to sleep."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>3:55 p.m.</p>
<p>The head of the Catholic Church in Warsaw has spoken out in support of migrants during an Epiphany procession in the Polish capital that was part of nationwide celebrations.</p>
<p>The procession Saturday in Warsaw was held under the motto "God is for everyone" and Warsaw Archbishop Cardinal Kazimierz Nycz says that means no one should be seen as an "alien."</p>
<p>His words seemed directed at the conservative Polish government, which has many officials who are Catholic but refuse to accept Muslim migrants from the Middle East or Africa.</p>
<p>Warsaw's 10th annual procession featured camels and richly-clad Three Magi. A few thousand adults and children marched in it, wearing paper crowns. President Andrzej Duda led another procession in Skoczow, in southern Poland.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>1:20 p.m.</p>
<p>The Greek Orthodox Christian community in Istanbul has celebrated Epiphany with the traditional blessing of the waters.</p>
<p>Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of Orthodox Christians around the world and the archbishop of Constantinople, led the liturgy on Saturday at the Patriarchal Church of St. George.</p>
<p>The Eastern Orthodox Church commemorates Jesus' baptism on Epiphany. Several blessings of the waters took place across Istanbul. The ceremony consists of a cross being tossed into the water to be retrieved by swimmers.</p>
<p>The patriarch threw the blessed cross into the waters of Istanbul's Golden Horn as the faithful jumped into the sea.</p>
<p>Nikos Solis, 29, a personal trainer from Greece, retrieved the wooden cross three years in a row.</p>
<p>Bartholomew presented Solis with a golden crucifix on a chain.</p>
<p>_____</p>
<p>1:10 p.m.</p>
<p>Pope Francis told tens of thousands of faithful gathered in St. Peter's Square that some Christians prefer to live with indifference toward Jesus and his teachings.</p>
<p>Francis said during an Epiphany appearance from his studio window overlooking the square that such individuals follow worldly principles which satisfy "the inclinations toward arrogance, the thirst for power and for riches" instead of acting "in coherence with their own Christian faith."</p>
<p>He prayed that instead that "the world makes progress down the path of justice and of peace."</p>
<p>Francis noted that some Eastern Rite Catholic and Orthodox churches are celebrating Christmas this weekend. In expressing cordial wishes to these believers, Francis added, "May this glorious celebration be a source of new spiritual vigor and of communion among us Christians."</p>
<p>He also recalled the traditions such as in Poland, where many families join in processions recalling the three wise men. In some countries, Epiphany and not Christmas, is the holiday when loved ones exchange gifts.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>11:50 a.m.</p>
<p>Pope Francis is advising against making the pursuit of money, a career or success the basis for one's whole life.</p>
<p>Francis said during a homily on Saturday to mark Epiphany that people "often make do" with having "health, a little money and a bit of entertainment."</p>
<p>He urged helping the poor and other needy communities instead, while giving freely without expecting anything in return.</p>
<p>Most Christian religions observe Epiphany to recall the three wise men who followed a star to find baby Jesus. Francis suggested asking "what star we have chosen to follow in our lives."</p>
<p>He said: "Some stars may be bright, but do not point the way. So it is with success, money, career, honors and pleasures when these become our lives."</p>
<p>That path, he says, won't ensure peace and joy.</p>
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vatican city ap latest epiphany observances christians many parts world holding times local 1120 pm unusually cold temperatures florida monster winter storm didnt dissuade 50 boys making annual plunge bayou part largest epiphany celebration united states 57 boys wearing tshirts shorts dove chilly waters saturday tarpon springs florida retrieve cross snow prevented attendance archbishop new york tradition honor baptism jesus member st nicholas greek orthodox cathedrals epiphany dive committee emmanuel gombos says paramedics nearby tens thousands spectators shouted wow group made plunge 50degree fahrenheit 10 celsius weather moments later one popped kissed white cross greeted warm towel ___ 745 pm mexico city aid workers brought toys gifts brighten epiphany holiday children living dozens makeshift tent camps three months deadly earthquake date jan 6 commonly known day magi latin america children traditionally unwrap holiday gifts rather christmas day uriel martinez 8yearold whose family lost home sept 19 quake theyve staying small camp southern mexico city motley assortment tents pitched boards tarps strung overhead keep overnight chill martinez woke early saturday find toy gun left made happy wants soldier grows says heard kings come went back sleep ___ 355 pm head catholic church warsaw spoken support migrants epiphany procession polish capital part nationwide celebrations procession saturday warsaw held motto god everyone warsaw archbishop cardinal kazimierz nycz says means one seen alien words seemed directed conservative polish government many officials catholic refuse accept muslim migrants middle east africa warsaws 10th annual procession featured camels richlyclad three magi thousand adults children marched wearing paper crowns president andrzej duda led another procession skoczow southern poland ___ 120 pm greek orthodox christian community istanbul celebrated epiphany traditional blessing waters ecumenical patriarch bartholomew spiritual leader orthodox christians around world archbishop constantinople led liturgy saturday patriarchal church st george eastern orthodox church commemorates jesus baptism epiphany several blessings waters took place across istanbul ceremony consists cross tossed water retrieved swimmers patriarch threw blessed cross waters istanbuls golden horn faithful jumped sea nikos solis 29 personal trainer greece retrieved wooden cross three years row bartholomew presented solis golden crucifix chain _____ 110 pm pope francis told tens thousands faithful gathered st peters square christians prefer live indifference toward jesus teachings francis said epiphany appearance studio window overlooking square individuals follow worldly principles satisfy inclinations toward arrogance thirst power riches instead acting coherence christian faith prayed instead world makes progress path justice peace francis noted eastern rite catholic orthodox churches celebrating christmas weekend expressing cordial wishes believers francis added may glorious celebration source new spiritual vigor communion among us christians also recalled traditions poland many families join processions recalling three wise men countries epiphany christmas holiday loved ones exchange gifts ___ 1150 pope francis advising making pursuit money career success basis ones whole life francis said homily saturday mark epiphany people often make health little money bit entertainment urged helping poor needy communities instead giving freely without expecting anything return christian religions observe epiphany recall three wise men followed star find baby jesus francis suggested asking star chosen follow lives said stars may bright point way success money career honors pleasures become lives path says wont ensure peace joy vatican city ap latest epiphany observances christians many parts world holding times local 1120 pm unusually cold temperatures florida monster winter storm didnt dissuade 50 boys making annual plunge bayou part largest epiphany celebration united states 57 boys wearing tshirts shorts dove chilly waters saturday tarpon springs florida retrieve cross snow prevented attendance archbishop new york tradition honor baptism jesus member st nicholas greek orthodox cathedrals epiphany dive committee emmanuel gombos says paramedics nearby tens thousands spectators shouted wow group made plunge 50degree fahrenheit 10 celsius weather moments later one popped kissed white cross greeted warm towel ___ 745 pm mexico city aid workers brought toys gifts brighten epiphany holiday children living dozens makeshift tent camps three months deadly earthquake date jan 6 commonly known day magi latin america children traditionally unwrap holiday gifts rather christmas day uriel martinez 8yearold whose family lost home sept 19 quake theyve staying small camp southern mexico city motley assortment tents pitched boards tarps strung overhead keep overnight chill martinez woke early saturday find toy gun left made happy wants soldier grows says heard kings come went back sleep ___ 355 pm head catholic church warsaw spoken support migrants epiphany procession polish capital part nationwide celebrations procession saturday warsaw held motto god everyone warsaw archbishop cardinal kazimierz nycz says means one seen alien words seemed directed conservative polish government many officials catholic refuse accept muslim migrants middle east africa warsaws 10th annual procession featured camels richlyclad three magi thousand adults children marched wearing paper crowns president andrzej duda led another procession skoczow southern poland ___ 120 pm greek orthodox christian community istanbul celebrated epiphany traditional blessing waters ecumenical patriarch bartholomew spiritual leader orthodox christians around world archbishop constantinople led liturgy saturday patriarchal church st george eastern orthodox church commemorates jesus baptism epiphany several blessings waters took place across istanbul ceremony consists cross tossed water retrieved swimmers patriarch threw blessed cross waters istanbuls golden horn faithful jumped sea nikos solis 29 personal trainer greece retrieved wooden cross three years row bartholomew presented solis golden crucifix chain _____ 110 pm pope francis told tens thousands faithful gathered st peters square christians prefer live indifference toward jesus teachings francis said epiphany appearance studio window overlooking square individuals follow worldly principles satisfy inclinations toward arrogance thirst power riches instead acting coherence christian faith prayed instead world makes progress path justice peace francis noted eastern rite catholic orthodox churches celebrating christmas weekend expressing cordial wishes believers francis added may glorious celebration source new spiritual vigor communion among us christians also recalled traditions poland many families join processions recalling three wise men countries epiphany christmas holiday loved ones exchange gifts ___ 1150 pope francis advising making pursuit money career success basis ones whole life francis said homily saturday mark epiphany people often make health little money bit entertainment urged helping poor needy communities instead giving freely without expecting anything return christian religions observe epiphany recall three wise men followed star find baby jesus francis suggested asking star chosen follow lives said stars may bright point way success money career honors pleasures become lives path says wont ensure peace joy
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<p>Scientists continued to fight over an evaluation of 100 psychological studies, a majority of which could not be reproduced. Critics have cast doubt on a widely believed psychological theory of human willpower.</p>
<p>So yes, science is fallible. Scientists are only human and science is not a synonym for truth. It's a bumpy, meandering road that heads in that general direction.</p>
<p>That makes skepticism good, up to a point. Beyond that point lie nonsense and superstition. The Earth really is round. So how do you tell what to believe?</p>
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<p>It's a very old question. But there's no need to go back to Plato. Let's just start in the early 1950s, when the Nobel Prize-winning chemist Irving Langmuir laid out a set of warning signs about identifying scientific ideas that might not conform to reality.</p>
<p>He gave a few examples of what he called pathological science, including N-rays and mitogenic rays, neither of which exists despite being observed and measured in dozens of peer-reviewed experiments.</p>
<p>Something similar may be happening now with a psychological phenomenon known as ego depletion.</p>
<p>The theory holds that humans can store up limited supplies of self-control. In the seminal 1997 experiment that seemed to confirm this theory, students who were allowed to eat radishes while forgoing a plate of cookies did worse on a subsequent task than students who were allowed to eat the cookies.</p>
<p>Many more studies appeared to confirm the conclusion that willpower weakens as it's used, like a tired muscle. But a new paper reports that recent attempts to replicate the evidence turned up no effect at all.</p>
<p>An article in Slate last week called this cause for alarm: "If something this well-established could fall apart, then what's next? That's not just worrying. It's terrifying."</p>
<p>The situation with N-rays was pretty similar, according to Langmuir. Multiple experiments not only appeared to confirm their existence but break them down into different components whose optical parameters were measured with great precision. And in the 1920s, hundreds of papers were published on mitogenic rays, which scientists thought radiated from plants.</p>
<p>But scientists in physics and chemistry have learned from their mistakes. Langmuir saw a pattern to suspect science, which he reduced to six symptoms. One of the most relevant pertains to statistics - essentially that findings that are later discredited tend to be subtle effects, hard to distinguish mathematically from random noise. Modern statistical tools can tease out subtle phenomena, but if not used carefully they can also fool people into seeing patterns that aren't there.</p>
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<p>The American Statistical Association came out this week with a statement outlining ways that scientists were using statistical tools incorrectly. The association's director, Ron Wasserstein, said the statement was prompted by concerns that misuse of statistics was contributing to a proliferation of questionable results, especially in social sciences.</p>
<p>It was, however, the psychology community that recognized there might be a problem. In 2010, a paper claiming evidence for extrasensory perception got into a respected journal. Alarmed psychologists wondered whether other unlikely results had squeezed through the filters.</p>
<p>Sure enough, a controversial paper published last summer claimed that of 100 psychology experiments, only 39 could be replicated. That figure has been disputed, ironically, on the grounds that the replicating team made statistical errors.</p>
<p>It's not that social scientists are bad at math. They're not. But statistical analysis can fail from wishful thinking and subtler forms of self-delusion. Physical science has been around longer and has had more time to learn from past mistakes.</p>
<p>It's also harder for social scientists to recognize another of Langmuir's symptoms of pathology: "fantastic theories contrary to experience." This is related to the mantra that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, which was apparently conceived of by the 18th century philosopher David Hume but articulated succinctly by the 20th century celebrity astronomer Carl Sagan.</p>
<p>Physicists today have broad, well-tested theoretical frameworks, and if a claim falls outside, they give it a closer look before believing it. That gives them an efficient means of expelling bunk.</p>
<p>For example, several years ago, physicists reported that a particle called a neutrino might have moved faster than the speed of light. Because this would violate Einstein's theory of relativity, the community was skeptical despite mathematical calculations showing high statistical significance. The experimenters took a closer look and found a loose cable. Fixing it showed the neutrinos followed the laws of physics after all.</p>
<p>Last month, scientists claimed they confirmed Einstein's theory in the form of gravitational waves, and that result has been more readily accepted. Climate change, while still uncertain in some of the details, is widely accepted because it's consistent with well-known physics and chemistry, not just because of some published papers.</p>
<p>Social science doesn't have that kind of framework. Theories have limited domains. ESP sets off alarm bells because it would require some extraordinary physical mechanism. Ego depletion's extraordinariness is harder to gauge.</p>
<p>The psychologist George Loewenstein, who has also written on the reproducibility problem, says the recent attention is already catalyzing better practices. That was the purpose of Langmuir's warning half a century ago. He was not trying to flag cheating, but to explain instances in which scientists were "led astray by subjective effects, wishful thinking or threshold interactions."</p>
<p>Loewenstein tells his students to consider not just how to look for evidence that an idea is right, but how they might discover it's wrong. That's a critical thinking skill we all can use.</p>
<p>Faye Flam writes about science, mathematics and medicine. She has been a staff writer for Science magazine and a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer. She is author of "The Score: How the Quest for Sex has Shaped the Modern Man."</p>
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scientists continued fight evaluation 100 psychological studies majority could reproduced critics cast doubt widely believed psychological theory human willpower yes science fallible scientists human science synonym truth bumpy meandering road heads general direction makes skepticism good point beyond point lie nonsense superstition earth really round tell believe advertisement old question theres need go back plato lets start early 1950s nobel prizewinning chemist irving langmuir laid set warning signs identifying scientific ideas might conform reality gave examples called pathological science including nrays mitogenic rays neither exists despite observed measured dozens peerreviewed experiments something similar may happening psychological phenomenon known ego depletion theory holds humans store limited supplies selfcontrol seminal 1997 experiment seemed confirm theory students allowed eat radishes forgoing plate cookies worse subsequent task students allowed eat cookies many studies appeared confirm conclusion willpower weakens used like tired muscle new paper reports recent attempts replicate evidence turned effect article slate last week called cause alarm something wellestablished could fall apart whats next thats worrying terrifying situation nrays pretty similar according langmuir multiple experiments appeared confirm existence break different components whose optical parameters measured great precision 1920s hundreds papers published mitogenic rays scientists thought radiated plants scientists physics chemistry learned mistakes langmuir saw pattern suspect science reduced six symptoms one relevant pertains statistics essentially findings later discredited tend subtle effects hard distinguish mathematically random noise modern statistical tools tease subtle phenomena used carefully also fool people seeing patterns arent advertisement american statistical association came week statement outlining ways scientists using statistical tools incorrectly associations director ron wasserstein said statement prompted concerns misuse statistics contributing proliferation questionable results especially social sciences however psychology community recognized might problem 2010 paper claiming evidence extrasensory perception got respected journal alarmed psychologists wondered whether unlikely results squeezed filters sure enough controversial paper published last summer claimed 100 psychology experiments 39 could replicated figure disputed ironically grounds replicating team made statistical errors social scientists bad math theyre statistical analysis fail wishful thinking subtler forms selfdelusion physical science around longer time learn past mistakes also harder social scientists recognize another langmuirs symptoms pathology fantastic theories contrary experience related mantra extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence apparently conceived 18th century philosopher david hume articulated succinctly 20th century celebrity astronomer carl sagan physicists today broad welltested theoretical frameworks claim falls outside give closer look believing gives efficient means expelling bunk example several years ago physicists reported particle called neutrino might moved faster speed light would violate einsteins theory relativity community skeptical despite mathematical calculations showing high statistical significance experimenters took closer look found loose cable fixing showed neutrinos followed laws physics last month scientists claimed confirmed einsteins theory form gravitational waves result readily accepted climate change still uncertain details widely accepted consistent wellknown physics chemistry published papers social science doesnt kind framework theories limited domains esp sets alarm bells would require extraordinary physical mechanism ego depletions extraordinariness harder gauge psychologist george loewenstein also written reproducibility problem says recent attention already catalyzing better practices purpose langmuirs warning half century ago trying flag cheating explain instances scientists led astray subjective effects wishful thinking threshold interactions loewenstein tells students consider look evidence idea right might discover wrong thats critical thinking skill use faye flam writes science mathematics medicine staff writer science magazine columnist philadelphia inquirer author score quest sex shaped modern man
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<p>It would end about six weeks later, with two of the largest excavation sites for human remains ever, forensic anthropologist experts said, a demonstration of effort by multiple agencies and community members to find Kelli Ann Cox and Jessica Cain. Both disappeared in the summer of 1997.</p>
<p>While the Texas Rangers have led the criminal investigation, the Friendswood Police Department oversaw the excavation operation at sites in Brazoria County and Houston - from digging methods to flying in specialized dogs from California to enlisting help from volunteers who donated construction equipment.</p>
<p>The FBI, La Marque and Denton police departments, and Brazoria County and Galveston County sheriff's offices, along with Texas Equusearch, a nonprofit dedicated to finding missing people, also helped at the sites.</p>
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<p>Friendswood police Capt. Josh Rogers, who coordinated excavation efforts at both sites, remembers an outpouring of community involvement in the initial searches in 1997, when Cain vanished and Laura Smither, a 12-year-old Friendswood girl, disappeared and was later found dead.</p>
<p>"What's kind of interesting is that's the way it happened over the past couple of months, too," Rogers told The Galveston County Daily News ( <a href="http://bit.ly/21q4v5l" type="external">http://bit.ly/21q4v5l</a> ).</p>
<p>Rogers and those who donated time and resources to the recovery of Cox and Cain were scheduled to be recognized at a Friendswood City Council meeting.</p>
<p>On Feb. 15, investigators and William Lewis Reece, a convicted kidnapper serving a 60-year prison sentence, went to a field off state Highway 288 and County Road 51 in Brazoria County. Earlier that day, Reece had been released from prison in Huntsville on a bench warrant to assist in the investigation. They didn't plan to find anything as the evening grew dark, but law enforcement needed to move quickly after an interview with Reece, Rogers said.</p>
<p>"When someone is cooperating, you want to adjust your schedule to theirs," he said. "You do it when they're ready to cooperate."</p>
<p>A multiyear investigation in Oklahoma led to that first night of digging in Brazoria County. In September, prosecutors in Oklahoma County had charged Reece with murder and kidnapping in the July 1997 death of 19-year-old Tiffany Johnston, whose body was found alongside a road in Canadian County, Okla., which borders Oklahoma County.</p>
<p>Oklahoma investigators and the Friendswood Police Department have been communicating since August 2014, Police Chief Bob Wieners said. Oklahoma law enforcement requested information from Friendswood police, who had a timeline of Reece's whereabouts in 1997 because the agency had investigated the death of Smither, Wieners said.</p>
<p>For years, investigators have considered Reece a "person of interest" in the deaths of both Smither and Cain.</p>
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<p>Initially, investigators searched the rough terrain of the Brazoria County field, using shovels, a small track hoe and small excavator. It became clear the search would take more than a few hours or couple of days, Rogers said. Eventually, the field in Brazoria County would yield the bones of Cox, a 20-year-old woman who disappeared from Denton in July 1997.</p>
<p>But after the first week of unsuccessful searching, the multiagency team moved its operation to a horse pasture about 30 miles north in Houston to search for Cain.</p>
<p>The Houston search began with Reece pointing to specific areas on the ground, Rogers said. But in the last two decades, the site has changed; the property had been divided into three parcels, and structures and fence lines were moved, Rogers said. Overlaying aerial photography from 1997 on top of images from the current layout, investigators tried to narrow down a location. They also used cadaver dogs and ground-penetrating radar.</p>
<p>But the strategy changed to a systematic "strip-mining" technique over a 75,000-square-foot area - significantly larger than the size of a football field. In some places, they dug as deep as 8 feet. By the fourth week of searching, a movement was underway to borrow larger excavators from construction contractors in the area.</p>
<p>Mark Boyer, who owns Houston-based Boyer Inc., donated equipment.</p>
<p>"It was quite an endeavor - like looking for a needle in a haystack," Boyer said. "I know it's tough on budgets, and these people have limited resources."</p>
<p>Because the normal cadaver dogs didn't turn up anything, California-based Institute for Canine Forensics sent two border collies and their owners to search the site. The dogs are trained to detect the scent of human bones buried for many years. A local resident who works for Southwest Airlines donated plane tickets to fly them from across the country, and business owners paid for lodging during their five-day stay, Wieners said.</p>
<p>However, the dogs were unable to detect any remains. It was methodical digging that eventually completed the search.</p>
<p>"We were looking at every bucket and had been for weeks on end, thinking that every bucket was going to be the one where we located something," Rogers said.</p>
<p>After 25 days of digging in Houston, a La Marque police officer spotted what appeared to be bones in an excavator bucket pulled from the ground on the afternoon of March 18. The Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences confirmed the remains were human and recovered the bones from the ground. On April 14, the University of North Texas Health Science Center confirmed they belonged to Cain.</p>
<p>In the meantime, the multiagency team returned to Brazoria County, where they found remains confirmed to be Cox's on April 1.</p>
<p>Harrell Gill-King directs the laboratory of forensic anthropology at the Center for Human Identification at the University of North Texas. The center houses the FBI's nationwide DNA database, a nationwide missing-person database and the forensic anthropology lab.</p>
<p>Gill-King, who helped law enforcement during the investigation, called the size of the search areas "stunning." He compared it to the size of archaeological dig sites the Middle East or mass graves from military conflicts in South America.</p>
<p>Additionally, the high clay content of the soil - sometimes called black gumbo - doesn't drain well, making it difficult to search, he said.</p>
<p>"I've rarely seen that kind of motivation," he said. "They were going to find her or else."</p>
<p>No charges have been filed against Reece in the deaths of Cox, Cain or Smither.</p>
<p>Galveston County District Attorney Jack Roady said his prosecutors continue to coordinate the investigation with Brazoria, Denton and Oklahoma counties. Roady has said any charges related to Cain's death would be prosecuted in Galveston County.</p>
<p>Oklahoma County First Assistant District Attorney Scott Rowland, whose office charged Reece with murder and kidnapping, has said that Texas officials asked whether Reece could avoid the death penalty if he led investigators to Cain's remains. The office made no such promises and would have no decision on seeking the death penalty against Reece until he is extradited to Oklahoma for his arraignment in Johnston's killing, Rowland said.</p>
<p>Investigators have been gathering evidence from the past 19 years, and they're wrapping up that process, Roady said. However, Roady did not disclose a potential timeline for when charges would be filed.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The Galveston County Daily News, <a href="http://www.galvnews.com" type="external">http://www.galvnews.com</a></p>
<p>This is an AP Member Exchange shared by The Galveston County Daily News</p>
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would end six weeks later two largest excavation sites human remains ever forensic anthropologist experts said demonstration effort multiple agencies community members find kelli ann cox jessica cain disappeared summer 1997 texas rangers led criminal investigation friendswood police department oversaw excavation operation sites brazoria county houston digging methods flying specialized dogs california enlisting help volunteers donated construction equipment fbi la marque denton police departments brazoria county galveston county sheriffs offices along texas equusearch nonprofit dedicated finding missing people also helped sites advertisement friendswood police capt josh rogers coordinated excavation efforts sites remembers outpouring community involvement initial searches 1997 cain vanished laura smither 12yearold friendswood girl disappeared later found dead whats kind interesting thats way happened past couple months rogers told galveston county daily news httpbitly21q4v5l rogers donated time resources recovery cox cain scheduled recognized friendswood city council meeting feb 15 investigators william lewis reece convicted kidnapper serving 60year prison sentence went field state highway 288 county road 51 brazoria county earlier day reece released prison huntsville bench warrant assist investigation didnt plan find anything evening grew dark law enforcement needed move quickly interview reece rogers said someone cooperating want adjust schedule said theyre ready cooperate multiyear investigation oklahoma led first night digging brazoria county september prosecutors oklahoma county charged reece murder kidnapping july 1997 death 19yearold tiffany johnston whose body found alongside road canadian county okla borders oklahoma county oklahoma investigators friendswood police department communicating since august 2014 police chief bob wieners said oklahoma law enforcement requested information friendswood police timeline reeces whereabouts 1997 agency investigated death smither wieners said years investigators considered reece person interest deaths smither cain advertisement initially investigators searched rough terrain brazoria county field using shovels small track hoe small excavator became clear search would take hours couple days rogers said eventually field brazoria county would yield bones cox 20yearold woman disappeared denton july 1997 first week unsuccessful searching multiagency team moved operation horse pasture 30 miles north houston search cain houston search began reece pointing specific areas ground rogers said last two decades site changed property divided three parcels structures fence lines moved rogers said overlaying aerial photography 1997 top images current layout investigators tried narrow location also used cadaver dogs groundpenetrating radar strategy changed systematic stripmining technique 75000squarefoot area significantly larger size football field places dug deep 8 feet fourth week searching movement underway borrow larger excavators construction contractors area mark boyer owns houstonbased boyer inc donated equipment quite endeavor like looking needle haystack boyer said know tough budgets people limited resources normal cadaver dogs didnt turn anything californiabased institute canine forensics sent two border collies owners search site dogs trained detect scent human bones buried many years local resident works southwest airlines donated plane tickets fly across country business owners paid lodging fiveday stay wieners said however dogs unable detect remains methodical digging eventually completed search looking every bucket weeks end thinking every bucket going one located something rogers said 25 days digging houston la marque police officer spotted appeared bones excavator bucket pulled ground afternoon march 18 harris county institute forensic sciences confirmed remains human recovered bones ground april 14 university north texas health science center confirmed belonged cain meantime multiagency team returned brazoria county found remains confirmed coxs april 1 harrell gillking directs laboratory forensic anthropology center human identification university north texas center houses fbis nationwide dna database nationwide missingperson database forensic anthropology lab gillking helped law enforcement investigation called size search areas stunning compared size archaeological dig sites middle east mass graves military conflicts south america additionally high clay content soil sometimes called black gumbo doesnt drain well making difficult search said ive rarely seen kind motivation said going find else charges filed reece deaths cox cain smither galveston county district attorney jack roady said prosecutors continue coordinate investigation brazoria denton oklahoma counties roady said charges related cains death would prosecuted galveston county oklahoma county first assistant district attorney scott rowland whose office charged reece murder kidnapping said texas officials asked whether reece could avoid death penalty led investigators cains remains office made promises would decision seeking death penalty reece extradited oklahoma arraignment johnstons killing rowland said investigators gathering evidence past 19 years theyre wrapping process roady said however roady disclose potential timeline charges would filed ___ information galveston county daily news httpwwwgalvnewscom ap member exchange shared galveston county daily news
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<p>BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Relatives of some of the 44 crew members aboard an Argentine submarine that went missing in the South Atlantic asked Russia on Monday to carry on with the search two months after the vessel disappeared.</p>
<p>An explosion occurred near the time and place where the ARA San Juan vanished Nov. 15. Argentina has given up hope of finding survivors, but the navy has continued hunting for the vessel.</p>
<p>Russia is now the last of 18 foreign country that have assisted the search in an area of some 1,500 square miles (4,000 square kilometers).</p>
<p>The Argentine navy says that it is looking for options, including hiring private companies, in case Russia withdraws.</p>
<p>Families of the crew gathered outside the Russian Embassy in Buenos Aires Monday and made a desperate plea to Russia, asking it to continue searching for their loved ones with ships that carry remotely operated vehicles capable of deep seafloor searches.</p>
<p>"We've come to thank Russia and ask that it doesn't withdraw. I have hope and faith that they're still floating there," said Antonio Niz, father of crew member Luis Niz.</p>
<p>The Russian government has not announced an end date for its assistance.</p>
<p>The German-built TR-1700 class submarine disappeared as it was sailing from the southernmost port of Ushuaia to Mar del Plata after a patrol.</p>
<p>The navy says that the vessel's captain reported on Nov. 15 that water entered the snorkel and caused one of the sub's batteries to short-circuit. The captain later communicated that it had been contained.</p>
<p>Some hours later, an explosion was detected near the time and place where the San Juan was last heard from. The navy says the blast could have been caused by a "concentration of hydrogen" triggered by the battery problem reported by the captain.</p>
<p>President Mauricio Macri has vowed a full investigation, and last month, the government dismissed the head of its navy as part of the probe into the disappearance.</p>
<p>But families and some experts say it's not enough, and some suggest the search should be widened.</p>
<p>"I suspect that it didn't sink but that it kept sailing, neither afloat nor sunk, and it was carried adrift with the current," said Alejandro Kalfayan, a merchant marine captain who specializes in the search of submerged objects. He suggested the search should focus instead some 100 to 200 nautical miles (185 to 370 kilometers) northeast of the current area.</p>
<p>Navy spokesman Enrique Balbi said that finding the submarine has been as "difficult as trying to find a 6-centimeter (2-inch) cigarette in a soccer field."</p>
<p>Family members and friends of the San Juan crew recently sent a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin asking him to support the search "until the very end."</p>
<p>__</p>
<p>Associated Press journalists Debora Rey and Leo La Valle contributed to this report.</p>
<p>BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Relatives of some of the 44 crew members aboard an Argentine submarine that went missing in the South Atlantic asked Russia on Monday to carry on with the search two months after the vessel disappeared.</p>
<p>An explosion occurred near the time and place where the ARA San Juan vanished Nov. 15. Argentina has given up hope of finding survivors, but the navy has continued hunting for the vessel.</p>
<p>Russia is now the last of 18 foreign country that have assisted the search in an area of some 1,500 square miles (4,000 square kilometers).</p>
<p>The Argentine navy says that it is looking for options, including hiring private companies, in case Russia withdraws.</p>
<p>Families of the crew gathered outside the Russian Embassy in Buenos Aires Monday and made a desperate plea to Russia, asking it to continue searching for their loved ones with ships that carry remotely operated vehicles capable of deep seafloor searches.</p>
<p>"We've come to thank Russia and ask that it doesn't withdraw. I have hope and faith that they're still floating there," said Antonio Niz, father of crew member Luis Niz.</p>
<p>The Russian government has not announced an end date for its assistance.</p>
<p>The German-built TR-1700 class submarine disappeared as it was sailing from the southernmost port of Ushuaia to Mar del Plata after a patrol.</p>
<p>The navy says that the vessel's captain reported on Nov. 15 that water entered the snorkel and caused one of the sub's batteries to short-circuit. The captain later communicated that it had been contained.</p>
<p>Some hours later, an explosion was detected near the time and place where the San Juan was last heard from. The navy says the blast could have been caused by a "concentration of hydrogen" triggered by the battery problem reported by the captain.</p>
<p>President Mauricio Macri has vowed a full investigation, and last month, the government dismissed the head of its navy as part of the probe into the disappearance.</p>
<p>But families and some experts say it's not enough, and some suggest the search should be widened.</p>
<p>"I suspect that it didn't sink but that it kept sailing, neither afloat nor sunk, and it was carried adrift with the current," said Alejandro Kalfayan, a merchant marine captain who specializes in the search of submerged objects. He suggested the search should focus instead some 100 to 200 nautical miles (185 to 370 kilometers) northeast of the current area.</p>
<p>Navy spokesman Enrique Balbi said that finding the submarine has been as "difficult as trying to find a 6-centimeter (2-inch) cigarette in a soccer field."</p>
<p>Family members and friends of the San Juan crew recently sent a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin asking him to support the search "until the very end."</p>
<p>__</p>
<p>Associated Press journalists Debora Rey and Leo La Valle contributed to this report.</p>
| false | 2 |
buenos aires argentina ap relatives 44 crew members aboard argentine submarine went missing south atlantic asked russia monday carry search two months vessel disappeared explosion occurred near time place ara san juan vanished nov 15 argentina given hope finding survivors navy continued hunting vessel russia last 18 foreign country assisted search area 1500 square miles 4000 square kilometers argentine navy says looking options including hiring private companies case russia withdraws families crew gathered outside russian embassy buenos aires monday made desperate plea russia asking continue searching loved ones ships carry remotely operated vehicles capable deep seafloor searches weve come thank russia ask doesnt withdraw hope faith theyre still floating said antonio niz father crew member luis niz russian government announced end date assistance germanbuilt tr1700 class submarine disappeared sailing southernmost port ushuaia mar del plata patrol navy says vessels captain reported nov 15 water entered snorkel caused one subs batteries shortcircuit captain later communicated contained hours later explosion detected near time place san juan last heard navy says blast could caused concentration hydrogen triggered battery problem reported captain president mauricio macri vowed full investigation last month government dismissed head navy part probe disappearance families experts say enough suggest search widened suspect didnt sink kept sailing neither afloat sunk carried adrift current said alejandro kalfayan merchant marine captain specializes search submerged objects suggested search focus instead 100 200 nautical miles 185 370 kilometers northeast current area navy spokesman enrique balbi said finding submarine difficult trying find 6centimeter 2inch cigarette soccer field family members friends san juan crew recently sent letter russian president vladimir putin asking support search end __ associated press journalists debora rey leo la valle contributed report buenos aires argentina ap relatives 44 crew members aboard argentine submarine went missing south atlantic asked russia monday carry search two months vessel disappeared explosion occurred near time place ara san juan vanished nov 15 argentina given hope finding survivors navy continued hunting vessel russia last 18 foreign country assisted search area 1500 square miles 4000 square kilometers argentine navy says looking options including hiring private companies case russia withdraws families crew gathered outside russian embassy buenos aires monday made desperate plea russia asking continue searching loved ones ships carry remotely operated vehicles capable deep seafloor searches weve come thank russia ask doesnt withdraw hope faith theyre still floating said antonio niz father crew member luis niz russian government announced end date assistance germanbuilt tr1700 class submarine disappeared sailing southernmost port ushuaia mar del plata patrol navy says vessels captain reported nov 15 water entered snorkel caused one subs batteries shortcircuit captain later communicated contained hours later explosion detected near time place san juan last heard navy says blast could caused concentration hydrogen triggered battery problem reported captain president mauricio macri vowed full investigation last month government dismissed head navy part probe disappearance families experts say enough suggest search widened suspect didnt sink kept sailing neither afloat sunk carried adrift current said alejandro kalfayan merchant marine captain specializes search submerged objects suggested search focus instead 100 200 nautical miles 185 370 kilometers northeast current area navy spokesman enrique balbi said finding submarine difficult trying find 6centimeter 2inch cigarette soccer field family members friends san juan crew recently sent letter russian president vladimir putin asking support search end __ associated press journalists debora rey leo la valle contributed report
| 556 |
<p>NEW YORK (AP) — The news about Kawhi Leonard was bad, though at least there’s some consolation for the San Antonio Spurs.</p>
<p>The way LaMarcus Aldridge is playing, they might be able to hang on until their other star forward gets back.</p>
<p>Aldridge scored 34 points and the Spurs responded to the latest absence of Leonard by beating the Brooklyn Nets 100-95 on Wednesday night.</p>
<p>“L.A. is the reason we’ve kept a pretty good record and stayed in the hunt with so many injuries, in-and-outs, Kawhi and Tony (Parker) being gone so long,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. “It’s L.A. every night. Maybe somebody else will step up with him, but he’s been a warrior for sure. We’d be in deep kimchi if he isn’t playing the way he is.”</p>
<p>The Spurs announced earlier Wednesday that Leonard would be out indefinitely so he can continue rehabilitating from the right thigh injury that forced him to miss the start of the season.</p>
<p>“We didn’t feel he was ready. His confidence level wasn’t there, so we decided to give it some more time,” Popovich said.</p>
<p>They were fine without him Wednesday, thanks also to Patty Mills’ seven 3-pointers and 25 points, and Pau Gasol’s 13 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists.</p>
<p>“It was one of those things that we got told this morning and it was like, we can’t do anything about it, we can’t control it, so this is the group,” Mills said. “We don’t know how long he’s going to be out for, but this is our group and we’ve got go and get the job done.”</p>
<p>Mills combined with Aldridge on the most important moment of the game, a three-point play for Aldridge with 53 seconds remaining on a pass from the reserve guard after the Nets had cut a 17-point deficit to three.</p>
<p>Allen Crabbe scored 20 points and Joe Harris had 18 for the Nets, who lost their third straight.</p>
<p>“Obviously they get the ball to Aldridge and Gasol and then they obviously make plays to their shooters off the post-up actions, and Patty Mills had a great day today as well,” Nets point guard Spencer Dinwiddie said.</p>
<p>Mills went 5 for 5 off the bench in the first half, all 3-pointers, and finished with the most 3-pointers by a Spurs player this season.</p>
<p>TIP-INS</p>
<p>Spurs: San Antonio was also without Manu Ginobili because of a bruised right thigh. ... Ginobili and Davis Bertans had shared the Spurs’ high of six 3-pointers in a game this season.</p>
<p>Nets: Brooklyn has lost five straight at home. ... The Nets have dropped the last six meetings.</p>
<p>KAWHI’S CONCERNS</p>
<p>Leonard has played in just nine games after missing the beginning of the season because of right quadriceps tendinopathy. He also was sidelined briefly because of a shoulder injury. Popovich said Leonard hadn’t sustained another injury, but also didn’t seem confident in his ability to play at the level that had him finishing third in the voting for NBA MVP last season.</p>
<p>“He didn’t reinjure it or anything but he was having pain, but not right after games, but maybe the next day at noon or that kind of thing and so the pain wasn’t dissipating,” Popovich said. “It wasn’t going in the right direction, it was going the other way and you’ve got to be confident in your body to go out there and play at the level that he’s expected to play.”</p>
<p>POPOVICH ON ...</p>
<p>PLAYER ALTERCATIONS: “NBA fights are the silliest, namby-pambiest things I’ve ever seen in my life. Except there was that one in the stands a few years ago. That one got ugly.”</p>
<p>RESPONDING TO REFEREES: “It evens out, it’s just that we’re all so prejudice it’s ridiculous. We think we’re the ones getting screwed all the time. So referees cannot win. I don’t care what happens, they will never win. Everybody’s always going to (complain) about them, so it’s best to just play the game, don’t cry about it and move on.”</p>
<p>STRUGGLING SPENCER</p>
<p>Dinwiddie shot 3 for 13 from the field and is 9 for 43 in the last three games.</p>
<p>UP NEXT</p>
<p>Spurs: Visit Toronto on Friday night.</p>
<p>Nets: Host Miami on Friday night.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>More AP basketball: <a href="" type="internal" /> <a href="" type="internal">https://apnews.com/tag/NBAbasketball</a></p>
<p>NEW YORK (AP) — The news about Kawhi Leonard was bad, though at least there’s some consolation for the San Antonio Spurs.</p>
<p>The way LaMarcus Aldridge is playing, they might be able to hang on until their other star forward gets back.</p>
<p>Aldridge scored 34 points and the Spurs responded to the latest absence of Leonard by beating the Brooklyn Nets 100-95 on Wednesday night.</p>
<p>“L.A. is the reason we’ve kept a pretty good record and stayed in the hunt with so many injuries, in-and-outs, Kawhi and Tony (Parker) being gone so long,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. “It’s L.A. every night. Maybe somebody else will step up with him, but he’s been a warrior for sure. We’d be in deep kimchi if he isn’t playing the way he is.”</p>
<p>The Spurs announced earlier Wednesday that Leonard would be out indefinitely so he can continue rehabilitating from the right thigh injury that forced him to miss the start of the season.</p>
<p>“We didn’t feel he was ready. His confidence level wasn’t there, so we decided to give it some more time,” Popovich said.</p>
<p>They were fine without him Wednesday, thanks also to Patty Mills’ seven 3-pointers and 25 points, and Pau Gasol’s 13 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists.</p>
<p>“It was one of those things that we got told this morning and it was like, we can’t do anything about it, we can’t control it, so this is the group,” Mills said. “We don’t know how long he’s going to be out for, but this is our group and we’ve got go and get the job done.”</p>
<p>Mills combined with Aldridge on the most important moment of the game, a three-point play for Aldridge with 53 seconds remaining on a pass from the reserve guard after the Nets had cut a 17-point deficit to three.</p>
<p>Allen Crabbe scored 20 points and Joe Harris had 18 for the Nets, who lost their third straight.</p>
<p>“Obviously they get the ball to Aldridge and Gasol and then they obviously make plays to their shooters off the post-up actions, and Patty Mills had a great day today as well,” Nets point guard Spencer Dinwiddie said.</p>
<p>Mills went 5 for 5 off the bench in the first half, all 3-pointers, and finished with the most 3-pointers by a Spurs player this season.</p>
<p>TIP-INS</p>
<p>Spurs: San Antonio was also without Manu Ginobili because of a bruised right thigh. ... Ginobili and Davis Bertans had shared the Spurs’ high of six 3-pointers in a game this season.</p>
<p>Nets: Brooklyn has lost five straight at home. ... The Nets have dropped the last six meetings.</p>
<p>KAWHI’S CONCERNS</p>
<p>Leonard has played in just nine games after missing the beginning of the season because of right quadriceps tendinopathy. He also was sidelined briefly because of a shoulder injury. Popovich said Leonard hadn’t sustained another injury, but also didn’t seem confident in his ability to play at the level that had him finishing third in the voting for NBA MVP last season.</p>
<p>“He didn’t reinjure it or anything but he was having pain, but not right after games, but maybe the next day at noon or that kind of thing and so the pain wasn’t dissipating,” Popovich said. “It wasn’t going in the right direction, it was going the other way and you’ve got to be confident in your body to go out there and play at the level that he’s expected to play.”</p>
<p>POPOVICH ON ...</p>
<p>PLAYER ALTERCATIONS: “NBA fights are the silliest, namby-pambiest things I’ve ever seen in my life. Except there was that one in the stands a few years ago. That one got ugly.”</p>
<p>RESPONDING TO REFEREES: “It evens out, it’s just that we’re all so prejudice it’s ridiculous. We think we’re the ones getting screwed all the time. So referees cannot win. I don’t care what happens, they will never win. Everybody’s always going to (complain) about them, so it’s best to just play the game, don’t cry about it and move on.”</p>
<p>STRUGGLING SPENCER</p>
<p>Dinwiddie shot 3 for 13 from the field and is 9 for 43 in the last three games.</p>
<p>UP NEXT</p>
<p>Spurs: Visit Toronto on Friday night.</p>
<p>Nets: Host Miami on Friday night.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>More AP basketball: <a href="" type="internal" /> <a href="" type="internal">https://apnews.com/tag/NBAbasketball</a></p>
| false | 2 |
new york ap news kawhi leonard bad though least theres consolation san antonio spurs way lamarcus aldridge playing might able hang star forward gets back aldridge scored 34 points spurs responded latest absence leonard beating brooklyn nets 10095 wednesday night la reason weve kept pretty good record stayed hunt many injuries inandouts kawhi tony parker gone long spurs coach gregg popovich said la every night maybe somebody else step hes warrior sure wed deep kimchi isnt playing way spurs announced earlier wednesday leonard would indefinitely continue rehabilitating right thigh injury forced miss start season didnt feel ready confidence level wasnt decided give time popovich said fine without wednesday thanks also patty mills seven 3pointers 25 points pau gasols 13 points 12 rebounds seven assists one things got told morning like cant anything cant control group mills said dont know long hes going group weve got go get job done mills combined aldridge important moment game threepoint play aldridge 53 seconds remaining pass reserve guard nets cut 17point deficit three allen crabbe scored 20 points joe harris 18 nets lost third straight obviously get ball aldridge gasol obviously make plays shooters postup actions patty mills great day today well nets point guard spencer dinwiddie said mills went 5 5 bench first half 3pointers finished 3pointers spurs player season tipins spurs san antonio also without manu ginobili bruised right thigh ginobili davis bertans shared spurs high six 3pointers game season nets brooklyn lost five straight home nets dropped last six meetings kawhis concerns leonard played nine games missing beginning season right quadriceps tendinopathy also sidelined briefly shoulder injury popovich said leonard hadnt sustained another injury also didnt seem confident ability play level finishing third voting nba mvp last season didnt reinjure anything pain right games maybe next day noon kind thing pain wasnt dissipating popovich said wasnt going right direction going way youve got confident body go play level hes expected play popovich player altercations nba fights silliest nambypambiest things ive ever seen life except one stands years ago one got ugly responding referees evens prejudice ridiculous think ones getting screwed time referees win dont care happens never win everybodys always going complain best play game dont cry move struggling spencer dinwiddie shot 3 13 field 9 43 last three games next spurs visit toronto friday night nets host miami friday night ___ ap basketball httpsapnewscomtagnbabasketball new york ap news kawhi leonard bad though least theres consolation san antonio spurs way lamarcus aldridge playing might able hang star forward gets back aldridge scored 34 points spurs responded latest absence leonard beating brooklyn nets 10095 wednesday night la reason weve kept pretty good record stayed hunt many injuries inandouts kawhi tony parker gone long spurs coach gregg popovich said la every night maybe somebody else step hes warrior sure wed deep kimchi isnt playing way spurs announced earlier wednesday leonard would indefinitely continue rehabilitating right thigh injury forced miss start season didnt feel ready confidence level wasnt decided give time popovich said fine without wednesday thanks also patty mills seven 3pointers 25 points pau gasols 13 points 12 rebounds seven assists one things got told morning like cant anything cant control group mills said dont know long hes going group weve got go get job done mills combined aldridge important moment game threepoint play aldridge 53 seconds remaining pass reserve guard nets cut 17point deficit three allen crabbe scored 20 points joe harris 18 nets lost third straight obviously get ball aldridge gasol obviously make plays shooters postup actions patty mills great day today well nets point guard spencer dinwiddie said mills went 5 5 bench first half 3pointers finished 3pointers spurs player season tipins spurs san antonio also without manu ginobili bruised right thigh ginobili davis bertans shared spurs high six 3pointers game season nets brooklyn lost five straight home nets dropped last six meetings kawhis concerns leonard played nine games missing beginning season right quadriceps tendinopathy also sidelined briefly shoulder injury popovich said leonard hadnt sustained another injury also didnt seem confident ability play level finishing third voting nba mvp last season didnt reinjure anything pain right games maybe next day noon kind thing pain wasnt dissipating popovich said wasnt going right direction going way youve got confident body go play level hes expected play popovich player altercations nba fights silliest nambypambiest things ive ever seen life except one stands years ago one got ugly responding referees evens prejudice ridiculous think ones getting screwed time referees win dont care happens never win everybodys always going complain best play game dont cry move struggling spencer dinwiddie shot 3 13 field 9 43 last three games next spurs visit toronto friday night nets host miami friday night ___ ap basketball httpsapnewscomtagnbabasketball
| 788 |
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks dropped about 2 percent on Friday, with the Dow falling more than 570 points, as U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest tariff threat on Chinese imports fueled increasing concern over a U.S. trade war with China.</p>
<p>Stocks added to losses and hit session lows in afternoon trading after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the U.S. central bank will likely need to keep hiking interest rates to keep inflation under control and said it was too soon to know if rising trade tensions would hit the U.S. economy.</p>
<p>Fears of a trade war since Trump announced tariffs on steel and aluminum imports more than a month ago have kept investors on edge over concerns that such protectionist measures would hit global economic growth.</p>
<p>“It’s a reaction to concerns about the administration’s approach to trade. The market has vacillated between writing it off as just talk and assuming there could be a serious problem,” said Rick Meckler, president of investment firm LibertyView Capital Management in Jersey City, New Jersey.</p>
<p>He and others said investors also appeared to be reducing risk ahead of the weekend.</p>
<p>“If the market is down it often tends to accelerate on Friday. Investors don’t want to take the risk of coming in Monday after having something happen over the weekend,” Meckler said.</p>
<p>Trump late Thursday threatened to slap $100 billion more in tariffs on Chinese imports, while Beijing said it was fully prepared to respond with a “fierce counter strike”.</p>
<p>U.S. companies seen as more likely to be hit by trade tensions with China were among the biggest drags on the Dow, including Boeing ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BA.N" type="external">BA.N</a>), down 3.1 percent. The S&amp;P 500 industrials index .SPLRCI, down 2.7 percent, had the biggest losses among sectors, though selling was broad-based.</p>
<p>Chipmakers, which as a group rely on China for about a quarter of their revenue, also declined. The Philadelphia semiconductor index .SOX fell 3.1 percent.</p>
<p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.DJI" type="external">.DJI</a> fell 572.46 points, or 2.34 percent, to 23,932.76, the S&amp;P 500 <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.SPX" type="external">.SPX</a> lost 58.37 points, or 2.19 percent, to 2,604.47 and the Nasdaq Composite <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.IXIC" type="external">.IXIC</a> dropped 161.44 points, or 2.28 percent, to 6,915.11.</p>
<p>The trade war worries continued to pressure stocks even as Trump administration officials sought to dampen concerns. Trump’s top economic adviser Larry Kudlow said in various interviews that he learned of the new tariffs on Thursday night, but also said there are ongoing talks on trade between the United States and China.</p>
<p>U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin in an interview on CNBC said he was cautiously hopeful the United States will reach an agreement with China on trade.</p>
<p>The S&amp;P 500 ended just above its 200-day moving average after trading well below that key support level that is watched by technical analysts.</p> Slideshow (5 Images)
<p>Powell, who was speaking on the U.S. economic outlook in Chicago, also said the labor market appeared close to full employment. It was his first speech on the economic outlook since taking over as chairman on Feb. 5.</p>
<p>Before the session started, a Labor Department report showed nonfarm payrolls increased by a smaller-than-expected 103,000 last month. While annual growth in average hourly earnings rose to 2.7 percent, it stayed below the 3 percent that economists estimate is needed to lift inflation toward the Federal Reserve’s 2-percent target.</p>
<p>“There was a hope that if he had a more dovish tone that that might be a counterbalance to the trade headwinds out there,” said Michael O’Rourke, chief market strategist at JonesTrading in Greenwich, Connecticut.</p>
<p>For the week, the S&amp;P 500 was down 1.4 percent, the Dow was down 0.7 percent and the Nasdaq was down 2.1 percent.</p>
<p>Facebook ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FB.O" type="external">FB.O</a>) share were down 1.3 percent. It backed for the first time proposed legislation requiring social media sites to disclose the identities of buyers of online political campaign ads and introduced a new verification process for people buying “issue” ads, which have been used to sow discord online.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BA.N" type="external">Boeing Co</a> 326.12 BA.N New York Stock Exchange -10.28 (-3.06%) BA.N .DJI .SPX .IXIC FB.O
<p>Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 3.77-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 3.59-to-1 ratio favored decliners.</p>
<p>The S&amp;P 500 posted two new 52-week highs and seven new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 40 new highs and 64 new lows.</p>
<p>About 7.2 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges. That compares with the 7.3 billion daily average for the past 20 trading days, according to Thomson Reuters data.</p>
<p>Additional reporting by Sinead Carew in New York, and Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru, Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and James Dalgleish</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>(Reuters) - Netflix Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=NFLX.O" type="external">NFLX.O</a>) is offering more than $300 million to buy a company that owns billboards across Los Angeles, including on West Hollywood’s famed Sunset Strip, a move that could help it save money maintaining a high profile in the world’s entertainment capital, according to people familiar with the matter.</p>
<p>The purchase of Regency Outdoor Advertising, if successful, would be the largest yet for the fast-growing Silicon Valley streaming video company, which has a studio in Hollywood and is now one of the world’s biggest film and TV producers.</p>
<p>Netflix’s motivation was not immediately clear, but it could save money over time with the deal, according to industry analysts, as it ramps up spending on marketing for its original shows and movies to $2 billion this year. Netflix used Regency Outdoor billboards to promote its “Stranger Things” and “The Crown” drama series.</p>
<p>A billboard ad on Los Angeles’s Sunset Strip can cost $140,000 per month, said Barry Lowenthal, president of The Media Kitchen, a New York-based media buyer.</p>
<p>“This is a smart move for Netflix because it is a very important viewing market,” Lowenthal said. “Los Angeles matters to the people in the industry.”</p>
<p>Tech firms Amazon.com Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AMZN.O" type="external">AMZN.O</a>), Hulu and Facebook Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FB.O" type="external">FB.O</a>) and traditional media companies such as Walt Disney Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=DIS.N" type="external">DIS.N</a>) are all vying with Netflix to win subscribers.</p>
<p>Netflix is just one of the bidders for Los Angeles-based Regency Outdoor and there is no certainty that its offer will prevail, the sources said this week, asking not to be identified because the matter is confidential.</p>
<p>Netflix declined to comment. Its shares were close to unchanged in a slightly lower market. Regency Outdoor did not respond to a request for comment.</p> ANALOG ADS, DIGITAL CONTENT
<p>The world’s leading streaming media company still uses physical advertising space such as billboards to promote its shows. Billboards are holding their own compared to other forms of traditional advertising such as ads in newspapers or TV that are easy to skip.</p> The Netflix logo is pictured on a television in this illustration photograph taken in Encinitas, California, U.S., January 18, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake
<p>Regency Outdoor, owned by brothers Drake and Brian Kennedy, owns billboards on Sunset Strip, a portion of Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles known for its live music and night clubs and filled with splashy billboards promoting upcoming TV shows and movies.</p>
<p>It also has billboards at Los Angeles International Airport, on major freeways, near the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) campus, and close to the Los Angeles Angels baseball stadium, according to the company’s website.</p>
<p>Netflix said in a letter to shareholders earlier this year that its marketing spending was growing “a little faster” than its revenue.</p>
<p>As a result of the bigger marketing expenditure, Netflix’s expenses per subscriber will jump around 25 percent to $16 per subscriber, up from $13 per subscriber, according to a recent MoffettNathanson report. The company reported it had 117.6 million worldwide streaming subscribers at the end of 2017, more than any direct competitor.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=NFLX.O" type="external">Netflix Inc</a> 288.85 NFLX.O Nasdaq -5.12 (-1.74%) NFLX.O AMZN.O FB.O DIS.N
<p>“As the marketplace for original content becomes more crowded, Netflix is turning up the volume to promote the increasing number of Netflix originals,” Michael Nathanson, a MoffettNathanson analyst, wrote in the research note.</p>
<p>Netflix’s first known acquisition was last year’s purchase of comic book publisher Millarworld for an undisclosed sum.</p>
<p>Reporting By Liana B. Baker and Jessica Toonkel in New York; Additional reporting by Lisa Richwine in Los Angeles; Editing by Bill Rigby</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Thursday directed U.S. trade officials to identify tariffs on $100 billion more Chinese imports, upping the ante in an already high-stakes trade confrontation between the world’s two largest economies.</p>
<p>The further tariffs were being considered “in light of China’s unfair retaliation” against earlier U.S. trade actions, which included a proposed $50 billion of tariffs on Chinese goods, Trump said in a White House statement.</p>
<p>“This is what a trade war looks like, and what we have warned against from the start,” said National Retail Federation President and CEO Matthew Shay.</p>
<p>“We are on a dangerous downward spiral and American families will be on the losing end,” Shay added in a statement, urging Trump “to stop playing a game of chicken with the U.S. economy.”</p>
<p>Financial markets, roiled for days by the trade fight and Trump’s management of it, whipsawed again on the new threat. After a bullish regular trading day, U.S. equity futures sold off sharply in after-market-hours trading.</p>
<p>U.S. stock futures ESc1 slid 1 percent and the dollar dipped against other major currencies .DXY, while Asian shares flitted in and out of positive territory. Chinese markets were closed for a holiday.</p> Related Coverage
<a href="/article/us-usa-trade-china-state-media/chinese-state-media-slams-latest-u-s-tariff-call-as-ridiculous-attempt-at-intimidation-idUSKCN1HD0BV" type="external">Chinese state media slams latest U.S. tariff call as 'ridiculous' attempt at intimidation</a>
<a href="/article/us-usa-trade-china-timeline/key-events-in-rapid-escalation-of-u-s-china-trade-dispute-idUSKCN1HD071" type="external">Key events in rapid escalation of U.S.-China trade dispute</a>
<a href="/article/us-usa-trade-china-measures/china-says-will-take-new-measures-if-u-s-sticks-to-protectionist-trade-stance-idUSKCN1HD0G9" type="external">China says will take new measures if U.S. sticks to protectionist trade stance</a>
<p>Doug Kass, who runs hedge fund Seabreeze Partners Management Inc, added: “Our president is going to make market volatility and economic uncertainty great again.”</p>
<p>In his statement, Trump said the U.S. Trade Representative had determined that China “has repeatedly engaged in practices to unfairly obtain America’s intellectual property.”</p>
<p>The tit-for-tat escalation of tariff announcements, which have stirred fears that trade unfolded surprisingly rapidly . They have stirred fears that the two countries will spiral into a trade war that will crush global growth.</p>
<p>Chinese state media slammed Trump’s threat of more trade action against China as “ridiculous”.</p>
<p>“This latest intimidation reflects the deep arrogance of some American elites in their attitude towards China,” the state-run Global Times said in an editorial.</p>
<p>On Tuesday, USTR proposed 25 percent tariffs on more than 1,300 Chinese industrial and other products from flat-panel televisions to electronic components. China shot back 11 hours later with a list of proposed duties on $50 billion of American imports, including soybeans, aircraft, cars, beef and chemicals.</p>
<p>“Rather than remedy its misconduct, China has chosen to harm our farmers and manufacturers,” the Republican president said.</p>
<p>Republican lawmakers from Western and Midwestern states have voiced worries about a big hit to U.S. farming exporters.</p> ‘THIS IS NUTS’
<p>On the new tariff threat, Republican Senator Ben Sasse said in a statement: “Hopefully the president is just blowing off steam again but, if he’s even half-serious, this is nuts.</p>
<p>“Let’s absolutely take on Chinese bad behavior, but with a plan that punishes them instead of us. This is the dumbest possible way to do this,” said the lawmaker from the farm-belt state of Nebraska.</p>
<p>The U.S. Department of Agriculture is looking for ways to assist farmers affected by China’s tariffs, USDA undersecretary Bill Northey told Reuters, but did not offer specifics.</p>
<p>White House officials have suggested throughout the week that talks with the Chinese could help resolve trade issues between the two countries. China ran a $375 billion goods trade surplus with the United States in 2017. Trump has demanded that China cut the trade gap by $100 billion.</p>
<p>A senior U.S. official who requested anonymity told Reuters no formal negotiating sessions had yet been set, but that the United States was willing to negotiate with China.</p>
<p>The U.S. tariffs are aimed at forcing changes to Chinese government policies designed to transfer U.S. intellectual property to Chinese companies and allow them to seize leadership in key high-technology industries of the future.</p>
<p>The USTR’s “Section 301” investigation authorizing the tariffs alleges China has systematically sought to misappropriate U.S. intellectual property through joint venture requirements that often cannot be negotiated without technology transfers, something China denies.</p> FILE PHOTO: Containers are seen at the Yangshan Deep Water Port, part of the Shanghai Free Trade Zone, in Shanghai, China March 14, 2018. REUTERS/Aly Song TARIFF TARGETS NOT YET CHOSEN
<p>A USTR spokeswoman said that the $100 billion second-round of potential tariffs had not been determined yet and would be selected by USTR career staff - not political appointees - along with economists and trade experts.</p>
<p>The new list will be proposed in the same manner as the first round and will go through a similar public comment period before any of them are activated, the spokeswoman said.</p>
<p>A further $100 billion in tariffs on Chinese goods would likely expand the scope of Trump’s attack to more consumer goods. The first round of $50 billion in tariffs mostly targeted industrial goods and electronic components.</p>
<p>The two biggest categories of U.S. imports from China last year were communications and computer equipment, totaling $137 billion according to U.S. Census data. Cellphones and computers, key portions of these categories, were spared from the initial tariffs list.</p>
<p>Apparel and footwear, both labor-intensive industries in China, made up a combined $39 billion in U.S. imports.</p> Slideshow (2 Images)
<p>Dean Garfield, chief executive of the Information Technology Industry Council, a tech industry lobbying group in Washington, said the additional tariffs were “irresponsible and destabilizing.”</p>
<p>“We need the U.S and China to come to the table and identify solutions to these serious problems,” he added.</p>
<p>Reporting by Steve Holland and David Lawder; Additional reporting by Eric Beech, Ginger Gibson and Caren Bohan in Washington and Jennifer Ablan, Caroline Valetkevitch, Trevor Hunnicutt and Daniel Bases in New York; Writing by Chris Sanders; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh, Peter Cooney &amp; Shri Navaratnam</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - Crude oil and global equity markets tumbled on Friday after U.S. President Donald Trump upped the ante in a trade dispute with China, reviving investor jitters about the impact a tariff war could have on the world economy.</p> A trader on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange watches the stock market drop on his screen shortly before the closing bell in New York, U.S., April 6, 2018. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
<p>MSCI’s gauge of worldwide equity markets fell more than 1 percent and stocks on Wall Street skidded more than 2 percent after Trump threatened late on Thursday to add another $100 billion of tariffs on Chinese goods.</p>
<p>China warned it was fully prepared to respond with a “fierce counter strike” of fresh trade measures if the United States follows through on Trump’s latest threat.</p>
<p>The U.S. equity rout picked up during a speech by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell in Chicago on the U.S. economy. Powell said it was too early to tell if the threatened tariffs would materialize or the effect they might have.</p>
<p>“What Powell is signaling to market participants is that the Fed is not swayed or rattled by equity market volatility at this point. That’s the reason for the additional selling pressure,” said Chad Morganlander, a portfolio manager at Washington Crossing Advisors in Florham Park, New Jersey.</p>
<p>“The Fed has the intestinal fortitude to wait until it creeps into credit conditions and causes financial stress,” he said.</p>
<p>The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index, which closed before Powell’s speech, fell 0.4 percent but ended the week 1.15 percent higher.</p>
<p>The STOXX Europe index of companies in 17 European countries fell 0.35 percent, with the trade-exposed auto sector the leading sectoral loser, down 1.7 percent.</p>
<p>Earlier in Asia, Japan’s Nikkei nudged down slightly to regain a measure of calm after an initial knee-jerk reaction to Trump’s latest tariff proposal.</p>
<p>Defensive stocks such as utilities or telecoms were among a handful of European sectors to end the day in higher.</p>
<p>MSCI’s all-country index of stock performance in 47 countries fell 1.2 percent, led lower by Apple, Microsoft, Amazon.com and JPMorgan - the same as on the benchmark S&amp;P 500 index.</p>
<p>On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 572.46 points, or 2.34 percent, to 23,932.76. The S&amp;P 500 lost 58.37 points, or 2.19 percent, to 2,604.47 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 161.44 points, or 2.28 percent, to 6,915.11.</p>
<p>The market’s decline is due more to its current vulnerable state than the prospect of a trade war, said Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist at The Leuthold Group in Minneapolis.</p>
<p>“It’s got higher values; financial liquidity is contracting. You came into the year with a little too much optimism. You got rising rates going on, you got rising inflation fears,” he said.</p>
<p>Powell said the U.S. central bank will likely need to keep raising interest rates to keep inflation under control.</p>
<p>A weak U.S. unemployment report, which nonetheless highlighted underlying labor market strength, helped push U.S. Treasury prices higher as the economy created the fewest jobs in six months in March.</p> Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange shortly before the closing bell in New York, U.S., April 6, 2018. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
<p>Oil prices tumbled, with U.S. crude falling more than 2 percent.</p>
<p>Brent crude futures fell $1.22 to settle at $67.11 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures settled down $1.48 at $62.06.</p>
<p>U.S. Treasury and euro zone government bond yields dipped as the trade spat raised the prospect of a full-blown trade war between the world’s two largest economies.</p>
<p>The yield on 10-year German government debt, the euro zone benchmark, dipped 2.7 basis points in late trading to 0.494 percent, erasing much of Thursday’s rise.</p>
<p>Benchmark 10-year notes last rose 15/32 in price to push yields down to 2.7753 percent.</p>
<p>Mike Terwilliger, portfolio manager of Resource Liquid Alternatives for the Resource Credit Income Fund, said nearly every news event seems to register on the market’s Richter scale, though investors have been dealing with some relatively weighty challenges this year.</p>
<p>“The recent decline in Treasuries is largely ‘Tweet related’ versus some fundamental shift in the view of inflation or economic growth,” he said.</p>
<p>The dollar index fell 0.37 percent, with the euro up 0.36 percent to $1.2282. The Japanese yen firmed 0.45 percent at 106.90 per dollar.</p>
<p>U.S. gold futures for June delivery settled up 0.6 percent at $1,336.10 an ounce.</p>
<p>Reporting by Herbert Lash; additional reporting by April Joyner in New York; Editing by Dan Grebler</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
| false | 2 |
thomson reuters trust principles new york reuters us stocks dropped 2 percent friday dow falling 570 points us president donald trumps latest tariff threat chinese imports fueled increasing concern us trade war china stocks added losses hit session lows afternoon trading federal reserve chairman jerome powell said us central bank likely need keep hiking interest rates keep inflation control said soon know rising trade tensions would hit us economy fears trade war since trump announced tariffs steel aluminum imports month ago kept investors edge concerns protectionist measures would hit global economic growth reaction concerns administrations approach trade market vacillated writing talk assuming could serious problem said rick meckler president investment firm libertyview capital management jersey city new jersey others said investors also appeared reducing risk ahead weekend market often tends accelerate friday investors dont want take risk coming monday something happen weekend meckler said trump late thursday threatened slap 100 billion tariffs chinese imports beijing said fully prepared respond fierce counter strike us companies seen likely hit trade tensions china among biggest drags dow including boeing ban 31 percent sampp 500 industrials index splrci 27 percent biggest losses among sectors though selling broadbased chipmakers group rely china quarter revenue also declined philadelphia semiconductor index sox fell 31 percent dow jones industrial average dji fell 57246 points 234 percent 2393276 sampp 500 spx lost 5837 points 219 percent 260447 nasdaq composite ixic dropped 16144 points 228 percent 691511 trade war worries continued pressure stocks even trump administration officials sought dampen concerns trumps top economic adviser larry kudlow said various interviews learned new tariffs thursday night also said ongoing talks trade united states china us treasury secretary steve mnuchin interview cnbc said cautiously hopeful united states reach agreement china trade sampp 500 ended 200day moving average trading well key support level watched technical analysts slideshow 5 images powell speaking us economic outlook chicago also said labor market appeared close full employment first speech economic outlook since taking chairman feb 5 session started labor department report showed nonfarm payrolls increased smallerthanexpected 103000 last month annual growth average hourly earnings rose 27 percent stayed 3 percent economists estimate needed lift inflation toward federal reserves 2percent target hope dovish tone might counterbalance trade headwinds said michael orourke chief market strategist jonestrading greenwich connecticut week sampp 500 14 percent dow 07 percent nasdaq 21 percent facebook fbo share 13 percent backed first time proposed legislation requiring social media sites disclose identities buyers online political campaign ads introduced new verification process people buying issue ads used sow discord online boeing co 32612 ban new york stock exchange 1028 306 ban dji spx ixic fbo declining issues outnumbered advancing ones nyse 377to1 ratio nasdaq 359to1 ratio favored decliners sampp 500 posted two new 52week highs seven new lows nasdaq composite recorded 40 new highs 64 new lows 72 billion shares changed hands us exchanges compares 73 billion daily average past 20 trading days according thomson reuters data additional reporting sinead carew new york sruthi shankar bengaluru editing sriraj kalluvila james dalgleish standards thomson reuters trust principles reuters netflix inc nflxo offering 300 million buy company owns billboards across los angeles including west hollywoods famed sunset strip move could help save money maintaining high profile worlds entertainment capital according people familiar matter purchase regency outdoor advertising successful would largest yet fastgrowing silicon valley streaming video company studio hollywood one worlds biggest film tv producers netflixs motivation immediately clear could save money time deal according industry analysts ramps spending marketing original shows movies 2 billion year netflix used regency outdoor billboards promote stranger things crown drama series billboard ad los angeless sunset strip cost 140000 per month said barry lowenthal president media kitchen new yorkbased media buyer smart move netflix important viewing market lowenthal said los angeles matters people industry tech firms amazoncom inc amzno hulu facebook inc fbo traditional media companies walt disney co disn vying netflix win subscribers netflix one bidders los angelesbased regency outdoor certainty offer prevail sources said week asking identified matter confidential netflix declined comment shares close unchanged slightly lower market regency outdoor respond request comment analog ads digital content worlds leading streaming media company still uses physical advertising space billboards promote shows billboards holding compared forms traditional advertising ads newspapers tv easy skip netflix logo pictured television illustration photograph taken encinitas california us january 18 2017 reutersmike blake regency outdoor owned brothers drake brian kennedy owns billboards sunset strip portion sunset boulevard los angeles known live music night clubs filled splashy billboards promoting upcoming tv shows movies also billboards los angeles international airport major freeways near university california los angeles ucla campus close los angeles angels baseball stadium according companys website netflix said letter shareholders earlier year marketing spending growing little faster revenue result bigger marketing expenditure netflixs expenses per subscriber jump around 25 percent 16 per subscriber 13 per subscriber according recent moffettnathanson report company reported 1176 million worldwide streaming subscribers end 2017 direct competitor netflix inc 28885 nflxo nasdaq 512 174 nflxo amzno fbo disn marketplace original content becomes crowded netflix turning volume promote increasing number netflix originals michael nathanson moffettnathanson analyst wrote research note netflixs first known acquisition last years purchase comic book publisher millarworld undisclosed sum reporting liana b baker jessica toonkel new york additional reporting lisa richwine los angeles editing bill rigby standards thomson reuters trust principles washington reuters president donald trump thursday directed us trade officials identify tariffs 100 billion chinese imports upping ante already highstakes trade confrontation worlds two largest economies tariffs considered light chinas unfair retaliation earlier us trade actions included proposed 50 billion tariffs chinese goods trump said white house statement trade war looks like warned start said national retail federation president ceo matthew shay dangerous downward spiral american families losing end shay added statement urging trump stop playing game chicken us economy financial markets roiled days trade fight trumps management whipsawed new threat bullish regular trading day us equity futures sold sharply aftermarkethours trading us stock futures esc1 slid 1 percent dollar dipped major currencies dxy asian shares flitted positive territory chinese markets closed holiday related coverage chinese state media slams latest us tariff call ridiculous attempt intimidation key events rapid escalation uschina trade dispute china says take new measures us sticks protectionist trade stance doug kass runs hedge fund seabreeze partners management inc added president going make market volatility economic uncertainty great statement trump said us trade representative determined china repeatedly engaged practices unfairly obtain americas intellectual property titfortat escalation tariff announcements stirred fears trade unfolded surprisingly rapidly stirred fears two countries spiral trade war crush global growth chinese state media slammed trumps threat trade action china ridiculous latest intimidation reflects deep arrogance american elites attitude towards china staterun global times said editorial tuesday ustr proposed 25 percent tariffs 1300 chinese industrial products flatpanel televisions electronic components china shot back 11 hours later list proposed duties 50 billion american imports including soybeans aircraft cars beef chemicals rather remedy misconduct china chosen harm farmers manufacturers republican president said republican lawmakers western midwestern states voiced worries big hit us farming exporters nuts new tariff threat republican senator ben sasse said statement hopefully president blowing steam hes even halfserious nuts lets absolutely take chinese bad behavior plan punishes instead us dumbest possible way said lawmaker farmbelt state nebraska us department agriculture looking ways assist farmers affected chinas tariffs usda undersecretary bill northey told reuters offer specifics white house officials suggested throughout week talks chinese could help resolve trade issues two countries china ran 375 billion goods trade surplus united states 2017 trump demanded china cut trade gap 100 billion senior us official requested anonymity told reuters formal negotiating sessions yet set united states willing negotiate china us tariffs aimed forcing changes chinese government policies designed transfer us intellectual property chinese companies allow seize leadership key hightechnology industries future ustrs section 301 investigation authorizing tariffs alleges china systematically sought misappropriate us intellectual property joint venture requirements often negotiated without technology transfers something china denies file photo containers seen yangshan deep water port part shanghai free trade zone shanghai china march 14 2018 reutersaly song tariff targets yet chosen ustr spokeswoman said 100 billion secondround potential tariffs determined yet would selected ustr career staff political appointees along economists trade experts new list proposed manner first round go similar public comment period activated spokeswoman said 100 billion tariffs chinese goods would likely expand scope trumps attack consumer goods first round 50 billion tariffs mostly targeted industrial goods electronic components two biggest categories us imports china last year communications computer equipment totaling 137 billion according us census data cellphones computers key portions categories spared initial tariffs list apparel footwear laborintensive industries china made combined 39 billion us imports slideshow 2 images dean garfield chief executive information technology industry council tech industry lobbying group washington said additional tariffs irresponsible destabilizing need us china come table identify solutions serious problems added reporting steve holland david lawder additional reporting eric beech ginger gibson caren bohan washington jennifer ablan caroline valetkevitch trevor hunnicutt daniel bases new york writing chris sanders editing kevin drawbaugh peter cooney amp shri navaratnam standards thomson reuters trust principles new york reuters crude oil global equity markets tumbled friday us president donald trump upped ante trade dispute china reviving investor jitters impact tariff war could world economy trader floor new york stock exchange watches stock market drop screen shortly closing bell new york us april 6 2018 reuterslucas jackson mscis gauge worldwide equity markets fell 1 percent stocks wall street skidded 2 percent trump threatened late thursday add another 100 billion tariffs chinese goods china warned fully prepared respond fierce counter strike fresh trade measures united states follows trumps latest threat us equity rout picked speech federal reserve chairman jerome powell chicago us economy powell said early tell threatened tariffs would materialize effect might powell signaling market participants fed swayed rattled equity market volatility point thats reason additional selling pressure said chad morganlander portfolio manager washington crossing advisors florham park new jersey fed intestinal fortitude wait creeps credit conditions causes financial stress said paneuropean ftseurofirst 300 index closed powells speech fell 04 percent ended week 115 percent higher stoxx europe index companies 17 european countries fell 035 percent tradeexposed auto sector leading sectoral loser 17 percent earlier asia japans nikkei nudged slightly regain measure calm initial kneejerk reaction trumps latest tariff proposal defensive stocks utilities telecoms among handful european sectors end day higher mscis allcountry index stock performance 47 countries fell 12 percent led lower apple microsoft amazoncom jpmorgan benchmark sampp 500 index wall street dow jones industrial average closed 57246 points 234 percent 2393276 sampp 500 lost 5837 points 219 percent 260447 nasdaq composite dropped 16144 points 228 percent 691511 markets decline due current vulnerable state prospect trade war said jim paulsen chief investment strategist leuthold group minneapolis got higher values financial liquidity contracting came year little much optimism got rising rates going got rising inflation fears said powell said us central bank likely need keep raising interest rates keep inflation control weak us unemployment report nonetheless highlighted underlying labor market strength helped push us treasury prices higher economy created fewest jobs six months march traders work floor new york stock exchange shortly closing bell new york us april 6 2018 reuterslucas jackson oil prices tumbled us crude falling 2 percent brent crude futures fell 122 settle 6711 barrel us west texas intermediate wti crude futures settled 148 6206 us treasury euro zone government bond yields dipped trade spat raised prospect fullblown trade war worlds two largest economies yield 10year german government debt euro zone benchmark dipped 27 basis points late trading 0494 percent erasing much thursdays rise benchmark 10year notes last rose 1532 price push yields 27753 percent mike terwilliger portfolio manager resource liquid alternatives resource credit income fund said nearly every news event seems register markets richter scale though investors dealing relatively weighty challenges year recent decline treasuries largely tweet related versus fundamental shift view inflation economic growth said dollar index fell 037 percent euro 036 percent 12282 japanese yen firmed 045 percent 10690 per dollar us gold futures june delivery settled 06 percent 133610 ounce reporting herbert lash additional reporting april joyner new york editing dan grebler standards thomson reuters trust principles
| 2,036 |
<p>ATLANTA (AP) — Unlike the Bowl Championship Series, the College Football Playoff was built to withstand criticism instead of shifting to respond to yearly griping.</p>
<p>That structure is standing strong despite some blowback.</p>
<p>Two <a href="https://collegefootball.ap.org/article/s-e-c-s-e-c-alabama-vs-georgia-national-championship" type="external">Southeastern Conference teams playing for the championship</a> on Monday night in Atlanta? Not a problem. Two Power Five conferences left out of the final four, including Big Ten champ and bluest of blue bloods Ohio State? That's OK. Undefeated UCF never getting serious consideration for spot in the playoff? Congratulations on a great season, but that's just the way it goes, Knights.</p>
<p>Despite this storm, the playoff is what it is for the foreseeable future. No one in position to fight for changes has given any indication tweaks are coming. Especially not expansion.</p>
<p>"The CFP was built on a more long-term foundation than the BCS was," College Football Playoff executive director Bill Hancock said Wednesday.</p>
<p>The playoff management committee is made up of the FBS conference commissioners and Notre Dame's athletic director, but the architects were mostly the commissioners of the Power Five conferences. Final approval was given by a panel of university presidents representing each conference. The system was locked into place with a 12-year television contract with ESPN. This is year four of that agreement.</p>
<p>"The BCS contracts were four years," Hancock said. "After two years of every agreement it was time to begin thinking about the next agreement."</p>
<p>The reality is if the commissioners wanted to expand, ESPN would not stop them, but the contract showed a commitment to the CFP that was often lacking in the BCS. Frequently with the BCS, debates about which teams did or did not make the championship game or the other BCS bowls led to changes to the selection process.</p>
<p>Good intentions, but not good optics.</p>
<p>Hancock said when reacting to complaints the goal was to make the BCS better, but "in hindsight that was not the best approach because it contributed to the public not understanding how it worked or the perceived mystery about it. And also led people to believe that the people who owned and operated it weren't really confident about it."</p>
<p>A month ago, on selection Sunday, after Georgia and Alabama (which did not even play in the SEC title game), were chosen by the selection committee to play in the semifinals, Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany expressed full confidence in the playoff and the committee. Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott, whose conference was also left out, said he believed there was no reason to begin talking about expansion.</p>
<p>SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey, Atlantic Coast Conference Commissioner John Swofford and Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby have all echoed those sentiments. Same goes for American Athletic Conference commissioner Mike Aresco, who watched his league member, <a href="https://collegefootball.ap.org/article/milton-powers-no-10-ucf-34-27-peach-bowl-win-over-auburn" type="external">UCF, finish the season 13-0 with a victory against Auburn</a> in the Peach Bowl on Jan. 1.</p>
<p>Auburn beat both Georgia and Alabama in the regular season.</p>
<p>"At this point I still don't favor expansion," Aresco said. "I do think our teams need to get a better shake, but that's a separate issue."</p>
<p>UCF athletic director Danny White doesn't agree; he wants changes.</p>
<p>White said he does not question the selection committee's integrity, but he does believe it has a bias against teams from outside the Power Five. UCF was never ranked higher than No. 12 in the selection committee's rankings. White wants a return to the BCS selection process, which used a combination of media and coaches' polls and computer ratings. The BCS rankings were usually kinder to teams from outside what at the time was six automatic qualifying conferences.</p>
<p>"You look at a Utah and a TCU and Hawaii. Boise. They had years like we had they were somewhere near the top five. And we're 12th," White said. "I just think that's a disservice. Because it doesn't solve the second part that I think needs to change and that's I think the playoff needs to be at least eight teams if we're going to call it a true national champion, because it's not inclusive enough."</p>
<p>And since White does not believe the playoff crowns a true champion, <a href="https://collegefootball.ap.org/article/ucf-getting-recognition-worthy-national-champions" type="external">UCF has declared itself national champs</a> . UCF football's official Twitter account has the title 2017 National Champions. School officials plan to hang a championship banner and have a parade in nearby Disney World for the team. White even said he planned to pay former coach Scott Frost, who is now coach at Nebraska, and his staff their championship bonuses.</p>
<p>"I look at schools all across the country that are hanging national championship banners for years they had that weren't even close to the year we just had," White said.</p>
<p>For now, though, White's calls for change to the CFP are just shouts into an empty room. He speaks for many fans, but no one is listening.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Ralph D. Russo at <a href="http://www.Twitter.com/ralphDrussoAP" type="external">www.Twitter.com/ralphDrussoAP</a></p>
<p>___</p>
<p>More AP college football: https://collegefootball.ap.org and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25</p>
<p>ATLANTA (AP) — Unlike the Bowl Championship Series, the College Football Playoff was built to withstand criticism instead of shifting to respond to yearly griping.</p>
<p>That structure is standing strong despite some blowback.</p>
<p>Two <a href="https://collegefootball.ap.org/article/s-e-c-s-e-c-alabama-vs-georgia-national-championship" type="external">Southeastern Conference teams playing for the championship</a> on Monday night in Atlanta? Not a problem. Two Power Five conferences left out of the final four, including Big Ten champ and bluest of blue bloods Ohio State? That's OK. Undefeated UCF never getting serious consideration for spot in the playoff? Congratulations on a great season, but that's just the way it goes, Knights.</p>
<p>Despite this storm, the playoff is what it is for the foreseeable future. No one in position to fight for changes has given any indication tweaks are coming. Especially not expansion.</p>
<p>"The CFP was built on a more long-term foundation than the BCS was," College Football Playoff executive director Bill Hancock said Wednesday.</p>
<p>The playoff management committee is made up of the FBS conference commissioners and Notre Dame's athletic director, but the architects were mostly the commissioners of the Power Five conferences. Final approval was given by a panel of university presidents representing each conference. The system was locked into place with a 12-year television contract with ESPN. This is year four of that agreement.</p>
<p>"The BCS contracts were four years," Hancock said. "After two years of every agreement it was time to begin thinking about the next agreement."</p>
<p>The reality is if the commissioners wanted to expand, ESPN would not stop them, but the contract showed a commitment to the CFP that was often lacking in the BCS. Frequently with the BCS, debates about which teams did or did not make the championship game or the other BCS bowls led to changes to the selection process.</p>
<p>Good intentions, but not good optics.</p>
<p>Hancock said when reacting to complaints the goal was to make the BCS better, but "in hindsight that was not the best approach because it contributed to the public not understanding how it worked or the perceived mystery about it. And also led people to believe that the people who owned and operated it weren't really confident about it."</p>
<p>A month ago, on selection Sunday, after Georgia and Alabama (which did not even play in the SEC title game), were chosen by the selection committee to play in the semifinals, Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany expressed full confidence in the playoff and the committee. Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott, whose conference was also left out, said he believed there was no reason to begin talking about expansion.</p>
<p>SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey, Atlantic Coast Conference Commissioner John Swofford and Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby have all echoed those sentiments. Same goes for American Athletic Conference commissioner Mike Aresco, who watched his league member, <a href="https://collegefootball.ap.org/article/milton-powers-no-10-ucf-34-27-peach-bowl-win-over-auburn" type="external">UCF, finish the season 13-0 with a victory against Auburn</a> in the Peach Bowl on Jan. 1.</p>
<p>Auburn beat both Georgia and Alabama in the regular season.</p>
<p>"At this point I still don't favor expansion," Aresco said. "I do think our teams need to get a better shake, but that's a separate issue."</p>
<p>UCF athletic director Danny White doesn't agree; he wants changes.</p>
<p>White said he does not question the selection committee's integrity, but he does believe it has a bias against teams from outside the Power Five. UCF was never ranked higher than No. 12 in the selection committee's rankings. White wants a return to the BCS selection process, which used a combination of media and coaches' polls and computer ratings. The BCS rankings were usually kinder to teams from outside what at the time was six automatic qualifying conferences.</p>
<p>"You look at a Utah and a TCU and Hawaii. Boise. They had years like we had they were somewhere near the top five. And we're 12th," White said. "I just think that's a disservice. Because it doesn't solve the second part that I think needs to change and that's I think the playoff needs to be at least eight teams if we're going to call it a true national champion, because it's not inclusive enough."</p>
<p>And since White does not believe the playoff crowns a true champion, <a href="https://collegefootball.ap.org/article/ucf-getting-recognition-worthy-national-champions" type="external">UCF has declared itself national champs</a> . UCF football's official Twitter account has the title 2017 National Champions. School officials plan to hang a championship banner and have a parade in nearby Disney World for the team. White even said he planned to pay former coach Scott Frost, who is now coach at Nebraska, and his staff their championship bonuses.</p>
<p>"I look at schools all across the country that are hanging national championship banners for years they had that weren't even close to the year we just had," White said.</p>
<p>For now, though, White's calls for change to the CFP are just shouts into an empty room. He speaks for many fans, but no one is listening.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Ralph D. Russo at <a href="http://www.Twitter.com/ralphDrussoAP" type="external">www.Twitter.com/ralphDrussoAP</a></p>
<p>___</p>
<p>More AP college football: https://collegefootball.ap.org and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25</p>
| false | 2 |
atlanta ap unlike bowl championship series college football playoff built withstand criticism instead shifting respond yearly griping structure standing strong despite blowback two southeastern conference teams playing championship monday night atlanta problem two power five conferences left final four including big ten champ bluest blue bloods ohio state thats ok undefeated ucf never getting serious consideration spot playoff congratulations great season thats way goes knights despite storm playoff foreseeable future one position fight changes given indication tweaks coming especially expansion cfp built longterm foundation bcs college football playoff executive director bill hancock said wednesday playoff management committee made fbs conference commissioners notre dames athletic director architects mostly commissioners power five conferences final approval given panel university presidents representing conference system locked place 12year television contract espn year four agreement bcs contracts four years hancock said two years every agreement time begin thinking next agreement reality commissioners wanted expand espn would stop contract showed commitment cfp often lacking bcs frequently bcs debates teams make championship game bcs bowls led changes selection process good intentions good optics hancock said reacting complaints goal make bcs better hindsight best approach contributed public understanding worked perceived mystery also led people believe people owned operated werent really confident month ago selection sunday georgia alabama even play sec title game chosen selection committee play semifinals big ten commissioner jim delany expressed full confidence playoff committee pac12 commissioner larry scott whose conference also left said believed reason begin talking expansion sec commissioner greg sankey atlantic coast conference commissioner john swofford big 12 commissioner bob bowlsby echoed sentiments goes american athletic conference commissioner mike aresco watched league member ucf finish season 130 victory auburn peach bowl jan 1 auburn beat georgia alabama regular season point still dont favor expansion aresco said think teams need get better shake thats separate issue ucf athletic director danny white doesnt agree wants changes white said question selection committees integrity believe bias teams outside power five ucf never ranked higher 12 selection committees rankings white wants return bcs selection process used combination media coaches polls computer ratings bcs rankings usually kinder teams outside time six automatic qualifying conferences look utah tcu hawaii boise years like somewhere near top five 12th white said think thats disservice doesnt solve second part think needs change thats think playoff needs least eight teams going call true national champion inclusive enough since white believe playoff crowns true champion ucf declared national champs ucf footballs official twitter account title 2017 national champions school officials plan hang championship banner parade nearby disney world team white even said planned pay former coach scott frost coach nebraska staff championship bonuses look schools across country hanging national championship banners years werent even close year white said though whites calls change cfp shouts empty room speaks many fans one listening ___ follow ralph russo wwwtwittercomralphdrussoap ___ ap college football httpscollegefootballaporg httpstwittercomap_top25 atlanta ap unlike bowl championship series college football playoff built withstand criticism instead shifting respond yearly griping structure standing strong despite blowback two southeastern conference teams playing championship monday night atlanta problem two power five conferences left final four including big ten champ bluest blue bloods ohio state thats ok undefeated ucf never getting serious consideration spot playoff congratulations great season thats way goes knights despite storm playoff foreseeable future one position fight changes given indication tweaks coming especially expansion cfp built longterm foundation bcs college football playoff executive director bill hancock said wednesday playoff management committee made fbs conference commissioners notre dames athletic director architects mostly commissioners power five conferences final approval given panel university presidents representing conference system locked place 12year television contract espn year four agreement bcs contracts four years hancock said two years every agreement time begin thinking next agreement reality commissioners wanted expand espn would stop contract showed commitment cfp often lacking bcs frequently bcs debates teams make championship game bcs bowls led changes selection process good intentions good optics hancock said reacting complaints goal make bcs better hindsight best approach contributed public understanding worked perceived mystery also led people believe people owned operated werent really confident month ago selection sunday georgia alabama even play sec title game chosen selection committee play semifinals big ten commissioner jim delany expressed full confidence playoff committee pac12 commissioner larry scott whose conference also left said believed reason begin talking expansion sec commissioner greg sankey atlantic coast conference commissioner john swofford big 12 commissioner bob bowlsby echoed sentiments goes american athletic conference commissioner mike aresco watched league member ucf finish season 130 victory auburn peach bowl jan 1 auburn beat georgia alabama regular season point still dont favor expansion aresco said think teams need get better shake thats separate issue ucf athletic director danny white doesnt agree wants changes white said question selection committees integrity believe bias teams outside power five ucf never ranked higher 12 selection committees rankings white wants return bcs selection process used combination media coaches polls computer ratings bcs rankings usually kinder teams outside time six automatic qualifying conferences look utah tcu hawaii boise years like somewhere near top five 12th white said think thats disservice doesnt solve second part think needs change thats think playoff needs least eight teams going call true national champion inclusive enough since white believe playoff crowns true champion ucf declared national champs ucf footballs official twitter account title 2017 national champions school officials plan hang championship banner parade nearby disney world team white even said planned pay former coach scott frost coach nebraska staff championship bonuses look schools across country hanging national championship banners years werent even close year white said though whites calls change cfp shouts empty room speaks many fans one listening ___ follow ralph russo wwwtwittercomralphdrussoap ___ ap college football httpscollegefootballaporg httpstwittercomap_top25
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<p>MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Gael Monfils said playing Novak Djokovic in temperatures of 40 degrees Celsius on Thursday was a ‘risk’ to health and that the 25-second rule between points should have been relaxed.</p> Australian Open - Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne, Australia, January 18, 2018. Gael Monfils of France drops his racquet during his match against Novak Djokovic of Serbia. REUTERS/David Gray
<p>His second-round clash with the six-times Australian Open champion on Rod Laver Arena, just as on all the other courts, continued in furnace-like conditions as organizers decided it was not necessary to implement its heat rule.</p>
<p>Monfils told the chair umpire he was “about to collapse” at one point during his four-set defeat and needed the assistance of the doctor, while both players used ice towels in a bid to cool down during changeovers.</p>
<p>The 31-year-old Frenchman’s biggest gripe though was that the 25-second rule between points was being too rigidly enforced considering the extreme conditions.</p>
<p>“It was tough to breathe,” he told reporters. “For sure, we took risk. At one stage I said to the chair umpire that the 25-second rule, there’s no need.</p>
<p>“Definitely it squeezes you, because it puts you under so much pressure with the heat, then you rush. Honestly, I played two sets out of breath, for nothing, just to please the official.</p>
<p>“So at the end, it’s a bit risky. I’m telling you, I was dying on the court for 40 minutes.”</p>
<p>Had the temperature reached 40 degrees and Wet Bulb Globe (humidity) reading exceeded 32.5 degrees, organizers would have stopped play on the outside courts and the roofs closed on the three main courts to provide shade.</p>
<p>However, humidity was not a major factor.</p>
<p>Monfils said he did not ask for the roof to be closed but suggested there could have been a short delay.</p>
<p>“Maybe not the roof because the fittest wins, and I think that is fair enough,” he said.</p>
<p>Djokovic, who was given a time warning in the fourth set, said playing conditions had been right on the limit but was reluctant to criticize umpire John Blom.</p>
<p>“I got a time violation today, and didn’t say anything,” the Serbian 12-times grand slam champion told reporters.</p>
<p>“The chair umpire in the next changeover was trying to justify why he gave me a time violation. He did give me the pre-warning today. I have nothing to say. I respect that.</p>
<p>“It’s not easy also for him to sit out there and kind of control both players.”</p>
<p>Three-times former Australian Open champion Mats Wilander, working for Eurosport as a commentator, rejected suggestions that organizers should have shut the roof.</p>
<p>“No way should they have put the roof on,” the Swede told Reuters. “Two choices, either play or don’t play.</p>
<p>“I don’t think today was (that bad). Juan Martin del Potro didn’t have a problem. I think it’s more a problem for players who don’t have options and variety in their game.</p>
<p>“Someone like Monfils who doesn’t like to come forward and finish points at the net, he will suffer more. Is it unfair?</p>
<p>“You watch Roger Federer in this heat and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.</p>
<p>“Today was borderline. But players are the fittest people around, it’s more for the spectators and ball kids.”</p>
<p>Reporting by Martyn Herman, editing by Pritha Sarkar</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>MOSCOW (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told a group of Russian lawmakers on Sunday that Western missile strikes on his country were an act of aggression, Russian news agencies reported.</p> FILE PHOTO - Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad visit the Hmeymim air base in Latakia Province, Syria December 11, 2017. Sputnik/Mikhail Klimentyev/ via REUTERS/File Photo
<p>The Russian lawmakers met with Assad after the United States, France and Britain launched missile strikes on Syria in retaliation for a suspected poison gas attack a week ago.</p>
<p>Russia, which is helping Assad fight rebel forces opposed to his rule, immediately condemned the strikes and called for an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council.</p>
<p>“From the point of view of the president, this was aggression and we share this position,” Russia’s TASS news agency quoted lawmaker Sergei Zheleznyak as saying after the meeting with Assad.</p>
<p>The Syrian president was in a “good mood” and continuing his work in Damascus, agencies cited the lawmakers as saying, and praised the Soviet-era air defense systems used by Syria to help to repel the Western attacks.</p>
<p>A senior Russian military official said on Saturday that Syria’s air defenses, which mostly consist of systems made in the Soviet Union, had intercepted 71 of the 105 American, British and French missiles.</p>
<p>The Pentagon has said the strikes successfully hit the three chemical weapons facilities which were targeted.</p>
<p>“Yesterday we saw American aggression. And we were able to repel it with Soviet missiles from the 70s,” Russian lawmaker Dmitry Sablin quoted Assad as saying, TASS reported.</p>
<p>Sablin also said Assad accepted an invitation to visit the Siberian region of Khanty-Mansi in Russia. It was not clear when the visit would take place.</p>
<p>Russia said on Saturday it would consider supplying S-300 surface to-air missile systems to Syria following the Western strikes, but this was not discussed at the meeting with Assad, agencies reported.</p> VERBATIM: 'This is a one-time shot' against Syria - Mattis
<p>Assad also declined to comment on calls by the U.S. State Department to declare alleged Syrian stockpiles of chemical weapons, Zheleznyak said.</p>
<p>Reporting by Jack Stubbs; Editing by Jane Merriman</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>WASHINGTON/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Western powers said on Saturday their missile attacks struck at the heart of Syria’s chemical weapons program, but the restrained assault appeared unlikely to halt Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s progress in the 7-year-old civil war.</p>
<p>The United States, France and Britain launched 105 missiles overnight in retaliation for a suspected poison gas attack in Syria a week ago, targeting what the Pentagon said were three chemical weapons facilities, including a research and development center in Damascus’ Barzeh district and two installations near Homs.</p>
<p>The bombing was the biggest intervention by Western countries against Assad and his superpower ally Russia, but the three countries said the strikes were limited to Syria’s chemical weapons capabilities and not aimed at toppling Assad or intervening in the civil war.</p>
<p>The air attack, denounced by Damascus and its allies as an illegal act of aggression, was unlikely to alter the course of a multisided war that has killed at least half a million people.</p>
<p>U.S. President Donald Trump called the operation a success.</p>
<p>He proclaimed on Twitter: “Mission accomplished,” echoing former President George W. Bush, whose use of the same phrase in 2003 to describe the U.S. invasion of Iraq was widely ridiculed as violence there dragged on for years.</p>
<p>“We believe that by hitting Barzeh, in particular, we’ve attacked the heart of the Syrian chemicals weapon program,” U.S. Lieutenant General Kenneth McKenzie said at the Pentagon.</p>
<p>However, McKenzie acknowledged elements of the program remain and he could not guarantee that Syria would be unable to conduct a chemical attack in the future.</p> Related Coverage
<a href="/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-assad-russia/syrias-assad-tells-russian-lawmakers-western-strikes-were-act-of-aggression-agencies-idUSKBN1HM083" type="external">Syria's Assad tells Russian lawmakers Western strikes were act of aggression: agencies</a>
<a href="/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-britain-johnson/britain-to-study-options-if-syrias-assad-uses-chemical-weapons-again-foreign-minister-idUSKBN1HM090" type="external">Britain to study options if Syria's Assad uses chemical weapons again -foreign minister</a>
<a href="/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-britain-labour/legal-basis-for-british-strikes-in-syria-debatable-opposition-leader-idUSKBN1HM08C" type="external">Legal basis for British strikes in Syria debatable: opposition leader</a>
<p>The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, said at an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council that Trump told her that if Syria uses poisonous gas again, “The United States is locked and loaded.”</p>
<p>The Western countries said the strikes were aimed at preventing more Syrian chemical weapons attacks after a suspected poison gas attack in Douma on April 7 killed up to 75 people. They blame Assad’s government for the attack.</p>
<p>In Washington, a senior administration official said on Saturday that “while the available information is much greater on the chlorine use, we do have significant information that also points to sarin use” in the attack.</p>
<p>Speaking at a summit in Peru, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence seemed less sure of the use of sarin, saying that Washington may well determine that it was used along with chlorine.</p> ASSAD ‘RESILIENCE’
<p>Ten hours after the missiles hit, smoke was still rising from the remains of five destroyed buildings of the Syrian Scientific Research Center in Barzeh, where a Syrian employee said medical components were developed.</p>
<p>There were no immediate reports of casualties.</p>
<p>Syria released video of the wreckage of a bombed-out research lab, but also of Assad arriving at work as usual, with the caption “Morning of resilience”.</p>
<p>Late on Saturday Syria time, a large explosion was heard in a Syrian government-controlled area in a rural region south of Aleppo, according to the Britain-based war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The Observatory said the cause of the explosion was unknown, as well as its target.</p>
<p>Russian and Iranian military help over the past three years has allowed Assad to crush the rebel threat to topple him.</p>
<p>The United States, Britain and France have all participated in the Syrian conflict for years, arming rebels, bombing Islamic State fighters and deploying troops on the ground to fight that group. But they have refrained from targeting Assad’s government, apart from a volley of U.S. missiles last year.</p>
<p>Although the Western countries have all said for seven years that Assad must leave power, they held back in the past from striking his government, lacking a wider strategy to defeat him.</p>
<p>Syria and its allies also made clear that they considered the attack a one-off, unlikely to do meaningful harm to Assad.</p>
<p>A senior official in a regional alliance that backs Damascus told Reuters the sites that were targeted had been evacuated days ago thanks to a warning from Russia.</p>
<p>Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the strikes were “unacceptable and lawless.”</p>
<p>Syrian state media called them a “flagrant violation of international law,” while Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called it a crime and the Western leaders criminals.</p>
<p>Russia had promised to respond to any attack on its ally, but the Pentagon said no Russian air defense systems were used. Syria fired 40 unguided surface-to-air missiles - but only after the Western strikes had ended, the Pentagon said.</p>
<p>“We are confident that all of our missiles reached their targets,” McKenzie said.</p>
<p>British Prime Minister Theresa May described the strike as “limited and targeted,” with no intention of toppling Assad or intervening more widely in the war.</p>
<p>Washington described the strike targets as a center near Damascus for the research, development, production and testing of chemical and biological weapons; a chemical weapons storage site near the city of Homs; and another site near Homs that stored chemical weapons equipment and housed a command post.</p>
<p>The Pentagon said there had been chemical weapons agents at one of the targets, and that the strikes had significantly crippled Syria’s ability to produce such weapons.</p>
<p>Trump spoke to May and French President Emmanuel Macron to discuss results of the strikes, the leaders’ offices said.</p> A U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer, deployed to Al Udeid Air Base, launches a strike as part of the multinational response to Syria's use of chemical weapons is seen in this image from Al Udeid Air Base, Doha, Qatar released on April 14, 2018. U.S. Air Force/Handout via REUTERS
<p>U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged all Security Council members to exercise restraint and avoid escalation in Syria, but said allegations of chemical weapons use demand an investigation.</p>
<p>In Sydney, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull urged Russia to drop its “pretence” that Syria was not behind the chemical attack on Douma and use its influence to force the Assad government to destroy its chemical weapons.&#160;</p>
<p>“Russia has used its position as a member of the United Nations Security Council to veto resolutions designed to ensure that this chemical weapons crime is thoroughly investigated and cannot be repeated,” he told a news conference on Sunday.</p>
<p>“It should stop all the denial and the pretence that it wasn’t an action by the Syrian government and ensure that the chemical weapons are destroyed, that the ability of the regime to use chemical weapons is eliminated and that this type of criminal conduct does not occur again.”</p> WEAPONS INSPECTIONS
<p>Inspectors from the global chemical weapons watchdog OPCW were due to try to visit Douma on Saturday to inspect the site of the suspected gas attack. Moscow condemned the Western states for refusing to wait for their findings.</p>
<p>Russia, whose relations with the West have deteriorated to levels of Cold War-era hostility, has denied any gas attack took place in Douma and even accused Britain of staging it to whip up anti-Russian hysteria.</p>
<p>The Western countries took precautions to avoid unexpected conflict with Russia. French Defence Minister Florence Parly said Russians was warned beforehand to avert conflict.</p> Slideshow (18 Images)
<p>Dmitry Belik, a Russian member of parliament who was in Damascus and witnessed the strikes, told Reuters: “The attack was more of a psychological nature rather than practical. Luckily there are no substantial losses or damages.”</p>
<p>In Douma, site of the suspected gas attack, the last buses were due on Saturday to transport out rebels and their families who agreed to surrender the town, state TV reported. That effectively ends all resistance in the suburbs of Damascus known as eastern Ghouta, marking one of the biggest victories for Assad’s government of the war.</p>
<p>The Western assault involved more missiles than a U.S. attack last year but struck targets limited to Syria’s chemical weapons facilities. The U.S. intervention last year had effectively no impact on the war.</p>
<p>Syria agreed in 2013 to give up its chemical weapons after a nerve gas attack killed hundreds of people in Douma. Damascus is still permitted to have chlorine for civilian use, although its use as a weapon is banned. Allegations of Assad’s chlorine use have been frequent during the war although, unlike nerve agents, chlorine did not produce mass casualties as seen last week.</p>
<p>Reporting by Phil Stewart and Tom Perry; Additional reporting by Jeff Mason, Steve Holland, Idrees Ali, Yara Bayoumy, Matt Spetalnick and Joel Schectman in Washington; Michelle Nichols in New York; Samia Nakhoul, Tom Perry, Laila Bassam, Ellen Francis and Angus McDowall in Beirut; Kinda Makieh in Barzeh; Michael Holden and Guy Faulconbridge in London; and Jean-Baptiste Vey, Geert de Clercq and Matthias Blamont in Paris; Polina Ivanova in Moscow; Alison Bevege in Sydney; Writing by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Yara Bayoumy, Alistair Bell and Clarence Fernandez</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>ATLANTA (Reuters) - Deadly spring storms that spawned tornadoes in the U.S. South and blizzards in the Plains and Midwest will continue to blast across the region Sunday bringing more snow, rain and wind that have shut down airports and left thousands without power.</p>
<p>The storms stretch from the Gulf Coast to the Midwest and were moving into the Northeast and New England Sunday, said Marc Chenard, a meteorologist with the NWS’s Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.</p>
<p>About a foot of snow could fall Sunday on parts of northern Wisconsin, upstate Michigan and North Dakota, he said.</p>
<p>The threat of violent thunderstorms stretch from a corridor from the Florida peninsula to North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia, said Chenard.</p>
<p>“No tornado warnings are issued yet for the area, but the conditions could be ripe for some in the afternoon,” he said.</p>
<p>On Friday, the system produced 17 reports of tornadoes in Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri and Texas, the weather service said. Four people were injured and 160 buildings damaged in a possible tornado in northwest Arkansas, local media reported.</p>
<p>At least two tornadoes packing winds up to 90 miles (145 km) per hour was reported in Mississippi this weekend, the NWS said.</p> Dark clouds hover above buildings amidst tornadoes in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the U.S., April 10, 2018 in this still image obtained from a social media video. Emmet Finneran/via REUTERS
<p>The weather is blamed for two traffic fatalities in western Nebraska and Wisconsin, according to National Public Radio.</p>
<p>The storms also killed a 1-year-old girl when a tree fell on a recreational vehicle where she was sleeping, the sheriff’s office in Bossier Parish, Louisiana said.</p>
<p>More than 750 flights in and out of airports in Minnesota and Toronto were canceled Saturday and into Sunday, the website flightaware.com reported.</p> Cars are seen on a road during a tornado in Mountainburg, Arkansas, U.S., April 13, 2018 in this picture grab obtained from social media video. JOSHUA COLEMAN/via REUTERS
<p>The Yankees-Detroit Tigers game was rained out Saturday, and the planned double-header for Sunday could also be canceled as more rain and snow are expected, according to The Detroit Free Press.</p>
<p>About 70,000 homes and businesses were without power early Sunday across Michigan, New York, Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi, according to the website Poweroutage.us.</p>
<p>Reporting by Rich McKay, additional reporting by Brendan O'Brien; Editing by Adrian Croft</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Foreign Affairs Minister Taro Kono said on Sunday that Tokyo and Beijing needed to work more closely together to denuclearize North Korea, in comments made during a meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi.</p> Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi (L) and Japan's Foreign Minister Taro Kono gesture at their meeting in Tokyo, Japan April 15, 2018. Behrouz Mehri/Pool via Reuters
<p>Wang’s arrival in Tokyo comes ahead of a summit between the two Koreas this month and a meeting between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump. The U.S-North Korean talks are aimed at ending a stand off over Pyongyang’s development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.</p>
<p>Wang’s trip also follows an official visit by Kono to Beijing earlier this year, and marks the first visit by a Chinese foreign minister to Japan in a bilateral context in nine years.</p> Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi (2nd L) and Japan's Foreign Minister Taro Kono (2nd R) meet in Tokyo, Japan April 15, 2018. Behrouz Mehri/Pool via Reuters
<p>“We would like to co-operate further towards the common goal between Japan and China, of establishing a complete, irreversible and verifiable denuclearization of North Korea,” Kono said as the two began talks in Tokyo.</p>
<p>The meetings also come after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping earlier pledged to reset the sometimes fraught relationship between Asia’s two largest economies.</p>
<p>Wang said the visit was a response to Japan’s positive attitude toward China.</p> Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi (L) shakes hands with Japan's Foreign Minister Taro Kono at their meeting in Tokyo, Japan April 15, 2018. Behrouz Mehri/Pool via Reuters
<p>“Since last year, Japan has, in relations with China, displayed a positive message and friendly attitude,” Wang said at the meeting, adding that he hoped that the visit would help the two countries move towards better ties.</p>
<p>Wang on Monday holds high-level talks with Kono and other Japanese Cabinet ministers. On Tuesday, Japanese Self Defense Force officers will meet their counterparts from China’s People’s Liberation Army at a reception hosted by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation aimed at building trust between the past military rivals.</p>
<p>Wang spent eight years in Japan as a diplomat with three of those years as China’s ambassador.</p>
<p>Reporting by Nobuhiro Kubo; Writing by Ritsuko Ando; Editing by Sam Holmes</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
| false | 2 |
melbourne reuters gael monfils said playing novak djokovic temperatures 40 degrees celsius thursday risk health 25second rule points relaxed australian open rod laver arena melbourne australia january 18 2018 gael monfils france drops racquet match novak djokovic serbia reutersdavid gray secondround clash sixtimes australian open champion rod laver arena courts continued furnacelike conditions organizers decided necessary implement heat rule monfils told chair umpire collapse one point fourset defeat needed assistance doctor players used ice towels bid cool changeovers 31yearold frenchmans biggest gripe though 25second rule points rigidly enforced considering extreme conditions tough breathe told reporters sure took risk one stage said chair umpire 25second rule theres need definitely squeezes puts much pressure heat rush honestly played two sets breath nothing please official end bit risky im telling dying court 40 minutes temperature reached 40 degrees wet bulb globe humidity reading exceeded 325 degrees organizers would stopped play outside courts roofs closed three main courts provide shade however humidity major factor monfils said ask roof closed suggested could short delay maybe roof fittest wins think fair enough said djokovic given time warning fourth set said playing conditions right limit reluctant criticize umpire john blom got time violation today didnt say anything serbian 12times grand slam champion told reporters chair umpire next changeover trying justify gave time violation give prewarning today nothing say respect easy also sit kind control players threetimes former australian open champion mats wilander working eurosport commentator rejected suggestions organizers shut roof way put roof swede told reuters two choices either play dont play dont think today bad juan martin del potro didnt problem think problem players dont options variety game someone like monfils doesnt like come forward finish points net suffer unfair watch roger federer heat wouldnt able tell difference today borderline players fittest people around spectators ball kids reporting martyn herman editing pritha sarkar standards thomson reuters trust principles moscow reuters syrian president bashar alassad told group russian lawmakers sunday western missile strikes country act aggression russian news agencies reported file photo russian president vladimir putin r syrian president bashar alassad visit hmeymim air base latakia province syria december 11 2017 sputnikmikhail klimentyev via reutersfile photo russian lawmakers met assad united states france britain launched missile strikes syria retaliation suspected poison gas attack week ago russia helping assad fight rebel forces opposed rule immediately condemned strikes called emergency meeting un security council point view president aggression share position russias tass news agency quoted lawmaker sergei zheleznyak saying meeting assad syrian president good mood continuing work damascus agencies cited lawmakers saying praised sovietera air defense systems used syria help repel western attacks senior russian military official said saturday syrias air defenses mostly consist systems made soviet union intercepted 71 105 american british french missiles pentagon said strikes successfully hit three chemical weapons facilities targeted yesterday saw american aggression able repel soviet missiles 70s russian lawmaker dmitry sablin quoted assad saying tass reported sablin also said assad accepted invitation visit siberian region khantymansi russia clear visit would take place russia said saturday would consider supplying s300 surface toair missile systems syria following western strikes discussed meeting assad agencies reported verbatim onetime shot syria mattis assad also declined comment calls us state department declare alleged syrian stockpiles chemical weapons zheleznyak said reporting jack stubbs editing jane merriman standards thomson reuters trust principles washingtonbeirut reuters western powers said saturday missile attacks struck heart syrias chemical weapons program restrained assault appeared unlikely halt syrian president bashar alassads progress 7yearold civil war united states france britain launched 105 missiles overnight retaliation suspected poison gas attack syria week ago targeting pentagon said three chemical weapons facilities including research development center damascus barzeh district two installations near homs bombing biggest intervention western countries assad superpower ally russia three countries said strikes limited syrias chemical weapons capabilities aimed toppling assad intervening civil war air attack denounced damascus allies illegal act aggression unlikely alter course multisided war killed least half million people us president donald trump called operation success proclaimed twitter mission accomplished echoing former president george w bush whose use phrase 2003 describe us invasion iraq widely ridiculed violence dragged years believe hitting barzeh particular weve attacked heart syrian chemicals weapon program us lieutenant general kenneth mckenzie said pentagon however mckenzie acknowledged elements program remain could guarantee syria would unable conduct chemical attack future related coverage syrias assad tells russian lawmakers western strikes act aggression agencies britain study options syrias assad uses chemical weapons foreign minister legal basis british strikes syria debatable opposition leader us ambassador united nations nikki haley said emergency meeting un security council trump told syria uses poisonous gas united states locked loaded western countries said strikes aimed preventing syrian chemical weapons attacks suspected poison gas attack douma april 7 killed 75 people blame assads government attack washington senior administration official said saturday available information much greater chlorine use significant information also points sarin use attack speaking summit peru us vice president mike pence seemed less sure use sarin saying washington may well determine used along chlorine assad resilience ten hours missiles hit smoke still rising remains five destroyed buildings syrian scientific research center barzeh syrian employee said medical components developed immediate reports casualties syria released video wreckage bombedout research lab also assad arriving work usual caption morning resilience late saturday syria time large explosion heard syrian governmentcontrolled area rural region south aleppo according britainbased war monitor syrian observatory human rights observatory said cause explosion unknown well target russian iranian military help past three years allowed assad crush rebel threat topple united states britain france participated syrian conflict years arming rebels bombing islamic state fighters deploying troops ground fight group refrained targeting assads government apart volley us missiles last year although western countries said seven years assad must leave power held back past striking government lacking wider strategy defeat syria allies also made clear considered attack oneoff unlikely meaningful harm assad senior official regional alliance backs damascus told reuters sites targeted evacuated days ago thanks warning russia russian foreign minister sergei lavrov said strikes unacceptable lawless syrian state media called flagrant violation international law iranian supreme leader ayatollah ali khamenei called crime western leaders criminals russia promised respond attack ally pentagon said russian air defense systems used syria fired 40 unguided surfacetoair missiles western strikes ended pentagon said confident missiles reached targets mckenzie said british prime minister theresa may described strike limited targeted intention toppling assad intervening widely war washington described strike targets center near damascus research development production testing chemical biological weapons chemical weapons storage site near city homs another site near homs stored chemical weapons equipment housed command post pentagon said chemical weapons agents one targets strikes significantly crippled syrias ability produce weapons trump spoke may french president emmanuel macron discuss results strikes leaders offices said us air force b1b lancer deployed al udeid air base launches strike part multinational response syrias use chemical weapons seen image al udeid air base doha qatar released april 14 2018 us air forcehandout via reuters un secretarygeneral antonio guterres urged security council members exercise restraint avoid escalation syria said allegations chemical weapons use demand investigation sydney australian prime minister malcolm turnbull urged russia drop pretence syria behind chemical attack douma use influence force assad government destroy chemical weapons160 russia used position member united nations security council veto resolutions designed ensure chemical weapons crime thoroughly investigated repeated told news conference sunday stop denial pretence wasnt action syrian government ensure chemical weapons destroyed ability regime use chemical weapons eliminated type criminal conduct occur weapons inspections inspectors global chemical weapons watchdog opcw due try visit douma saturday inspect site suspected gas attack moscow condemned western states refusing wait findings russia whose relations west deteriorated levels cold warera hostility denied gas attack took place douma even accused britain staging whip antirussian hysteria western countries took precautions avoid unexpected conflict russia french defence minister florence parly said russians warned beforehand avert conflict slideshow 18 images dmitry belik russian member parliament damascus witnessed strikes told reuters attack psychological nature rather practical luckily substantial losses damages douma site suspected gas attack last buses due saturday transport rebels families agreed surrender town state tv reported effectively ends resistance suburbs damascus known eastern ghouta marking one biggest victories assads government war western assault involved missiles us attack last year struck targets limited syrias chemical weapons facilities us intervention last year effectively impact war syria agreed 2013 give chemical weapons nerve gas attack killed hundreds people douma damascus still permitted chlorine civilian use although use weapon banned allegations assads chlorine use frequent war although unlike nerve agents chlorine produce mass casualties seen last week reporting phil stewart tom perry additional reporting jeff mason steve holland idrees ali yara bayoumy matt spetalnick joel schectman washington michelle nichols new york samia nakhoul tom perry laila bassam ellen francis angus mcdowall beirut kinda makieh barzeh michael holden guy faulconbridge london jeanbaptiste vey geert de clercq matthias blamont paris polina ivanova moscow alison bevege sydney writing doina chiacu editing yara bayoumy alistair bell clarence fernandez standards thomson reuters trust principles atlanta reuters deadly spring storms spawned tornadoes us south blizzards plains midwest continue blast across region sunday bringing snow rain wind shut airports left thousands without power storms stretch gulf coast midwest moving northeast new england sunday said marc chenard meteorologist nwss weather prediction center college park maryland foot snow could fall sunday parts northern wisconsin upstate michigan north dakota said threat violent thunderstorms stretch corridor florida peninsula north carolina south carolina virginia said chenard tornado warnings issued yet area conditions could ripe afternoon said friday system produced 17 reports tornadoes arkansas louisiana missouri texas weather service said four people injured 160 buildings damaged possible tornado northwest arkansas local media reported least two tornadoes packing winds 90 miles 145 km per hour reported mississippi weekend nws said dark clouds hover buildings amidst tornadoes fort lauderdale florida us april 10 2018 still image obtained social media video emmet finneranvia reuters weather blamed two traffic fatalities western nebraska wisconsin according national public radio storms also killed 1yearold girl tree fell recreational vehicle sleeping sheriffs office bossier parish louisiana said 750 flights airports minnesota toronto canceled saturday sunday website flightawarecom reported cars seen road tornado mountainburg arkansas us april 13 2018 picture grab obtained social media video joshua colemanvia reuters yankeesdetroit tigers game rained saturday planned doubleheader sunday could also canceled rain snow expected according detroit free press 70000 homes businesses without power early sunday across michigan new york louisiana texas mississippi according website poweroutageus reporting rich mckay additional reporting brendan obrien editing adrian croft standards thomson reuters trust principles tokyo reuters japanese foreign affairs minister taro kono said sunday tokyo beijing needed work closely together denuclearize north korea comments made meeting chinese counterpart wang yi chinese state councilor foreign minister wang yi l japans foreign minister taro kono gesture meeting tokyo japan april 15 2018 behrouz mehripool via reuters wangs arrival tokyo comes ahead summit two koreas month meeting north korean leader kim jong un us president donald trump usnorth korean talks aimed ending stand pyongyangs development nuclear weapons ballistic missiles wangs trip also follows official visit kono beijing earlier year marks first visit chinese foreign minister japan bilateral context nine years chinese state councilor foreign minister wang yi 2nd l japans foreign minister taro kono 2nd r meet tokyo japan april 15 2018 behrouz mehripool via reuters would like cooperate towards common goal japan china establishing complete irreversible verifiable denuclearization north korea kono said two began talks tokyo meetings also come japanese prime minister shinzo abe chinese president xi jinping earlier pledged reset sometimes fraught relationship asias two largest economies wang said visit response japans positive attitude toward china chinese state councilor foreign minister wang yi l shakes hands japans foreign minister taro kono meeting tokyo japan april 15 2018 behrouz mehripool via reuters since last year japan relations china displayed positive message friendly attitude wang said meeting adding hoped visit would help two countries move towards better ties wang monday holds highlevel talks kono japanese cabinet ministers tuesday japanese self defense force officers meet counterparts chinas peoples liberation army reception hosted sasakawa peace foundation aimed building trust past military rivals wang spent eight years japan diplomat three years chinas ambassador reporting nobuhiro kubo writing ritsuko ando editing sam holmes standards thomson reuters trust principles
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<p>OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) - Washington state leaders slammed the Trump administration's move Thursday to roll back Obama-era leniency on legalized marijuana, saying they'll defend the will of state voters who approved recreational pot and the hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue that comes with it.</p>
<p>"We should, in my book, not push the panic button on either your individual lives or your businesses," Gov. Jay Inslee said hours after the Justice Department announced the rollback.</p>
<p>The move by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions would let federal prosecutors in states where marijuana is legal decide how aggressively to enforce the longstanding federal law against it.</p>
<p>Washington is one of eight states that allow recreational marijuana. It's also among the majority of U.S. states that have legalized medical marijuana.</p>
<p>In fiscal 2017, legal pot sales in Washington state exceeded $1.3 billion and the state collected more than $300 million in excise taxes, according to the state Liquor Control Board.</p>
<p>Halfway through the current fiscal year, pot sales have topped $500 million and generated more than $100 million in taxes.</p>
<p>Democratic and Republican state leaders vowed to protect pot sales, saying Washington state has come to rely on money from marijuana taxes.</p>
<p>Republican Sen. Ann Rivers of La Center said she didn't personally support the legalization initiative but it has been a responsible program that essentially eradicated the black market. She said the state uses the tax money to fund efforts involving education, mental health, homelessness and opioid addiction.</p>
<p>"The money is going everywhere and rightly or wrongly, we need that money to take care of the people in our state," Rivers said.</p>
<p>Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson said it was too soon to tell how the new federal guidance would affect pot users and businesses, but he and the governor declared there would be no local resources dedicated toward federal enforcement.</p>
<p>They stopped short of promising legal protections for individuals who may be targeted, saying they were still assessing the uncertainties of the situation.</p>
<p>Ferguson said his team has long prepared to take up the legal fight over recreational pot. Last year, he and Inslee wrote to Sessions urging him to respect Washington state's marijuana laws, but they got no meaningful response.</p>
<p>Inslee chided Sessions as being ideologically obsessed with derailing legalized marijuana programs, even though the tightly regulated industry is flourishing in states that have approved recreational sales.</p>
<p>The Democratic governor called the decision by the Trump administration an attempt to distract the public from its internal chaos.</p>
<p>"We should not be intimidated on this issue by the Trump administration," Inslee said. "We should believe that an uproar of democratically expressed sentiment can defeat the Trump administration."</p>
<p>Annette L. Hayes, the U.S. Attorney for Western Washington, said in a statement Sessions' move reiterated that local federal prosecutors are in the best position to address public safety.</p>
<p>She said previously her office had investigated marijuana cases involving organized crime, violent threats and financial crimes.</p>
<p>Hayes said her office would continue to "focus on those who pose the greatest safety risk to the people and communities we serve."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Sally Ho at https://twitter.com/_sallyho .</p>
<p>OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) - Washington state leaders slammed the Trump administration's move Thursday to roll back Obama-era leniency on legalized marijuana, saying they'll defend the will of state voters who approved recreational pot and the hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue that comes with it.</p>
<p>"We should, in my book, not push the panic button on either your individual lives or your businesses," Gov. Jay Inslee said hours after the Justice Department announced the rollback.</p>
<p>The move by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions would let federal prosecutors in states where marijuana is legal decide how aggressively to enforce the longstanding federal law against it.</p>
<p>Washington is one of eight states that allow recreational marijuana. It's also among the majority of U.S. states that have legalized medical marijuana.</p>
<p>In fiscal 2017, legal pot sales in Washington state exceeded $1.3 billion and the state collected more than $300 million in excise taxes, according to the state Liquor Control Board.</p>
<p>Halfway through the current fiscal year, pot sales have topped $500 million and generated more than $100 million in taxes.</p>
<p>Democratic and Republican state leaders vowed to protect pot sales, saying Washington state has come to rely on money from marijuana taxes.</p>
<p>Republican Sen. Ann Rivers of La Center said she didn't personally support the legalization initiative but it has been a responsible program that essentially eradicated the black market. She said the state uses the tax money to fund efforts involving education, mental health, homelessness and opioid addiction.</p>
<p>"The money is going everywhere and rightly or wrongly, we need that money to take care of the people in our state," Rivers said.</p>
<p>Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson said it was too soon to tell how the new federal guidance would affect pot users and businesses, but he and the governor declared there would be no local resources dedicated toward federal enforcement.</p>
<p>They stopped short of promising legal protections for individuals who may be targeted, saying they were still assessing the uncertainties of the situation.</p>
<p>Ferguson said his team has long prepared to take up the legal fight over recreational pot. Last year, he and Inslee wrote to Sessions urging him to respect Washington state's marijuana laws, but they got no meaningful response.</p>
<p>Inslee chided Sessions as being ideologically obsessed with derailing legalized marijuana programs, even though the tightly regulated industry is flourishing in states that have approved recreational sales.</p>
<p>The Democratic governor called the decision by the Trump administration an attempt to distract the public from its internal chaos.</p>
<p>"We should not be intimidated on this issue by the Trump administration," Inslee said. "We should believe that an uproar of democratically expressed sentiment can defeat the Trump administration."</p>
<p>Annette L. Hayes, the U.S. Attorney for Western Washington, said in a statement Sessions' move reiterated that local federal prosecutors are in the best position to address public safety.</p>
<p>She said previously her office had investigated marijuana cases involving organized crime, violent threats and financial crimes.</p>
<p>Hayes said her office would continue to "focus on those who pose the greatest safety risk to the people and communities we serve."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Sally Ho at https://twitter.com/_sallyho .</p>
| false | 2 |
olympia wash ap washington state leaders slammed trump administrations move thursday roll back obamaera leniency legalized marijuana saying theyll defend state voters approved recreational pot hundreds millions dollars tax revenue comes book push panic button either individual lives businesses gov jay inslee said hours justice department announced rollback move us attorney general jeff sessions would let federal prosecutors states marijuana legal decide aggressively enforce longstanding federal law washington one eight states allow recreational marijuana also among majority us states legalized medical marijuana fiscal 2017 legal pot sales washington state exceeded 13 billion state collected 300 million excise taxes according state liquor control board halfway current fiscal year pot sales topped 500 million generated 100 million taxes democratic republican state leaders vowed protect pot sales saying washington state come rely money marijuana taxes republican sen ann rivers la center said didnt personally support legalization initiative responsible program essentially eradicated black market said state uses tax money fund efforts involving education mental health homelessness opioid addiction money going everywhere rightly wrongly need money take care people state rivers said washington state attorney general bob ferguson said soon tell new federal guidance would affect pot users businesses governor declared would local resources dedicated toward federal enforcement stopped short promising legal protections individuals may targeted saying still assessing uncertainties situation ferguson said team long prepared take legal fight recreational pot last year inslee wrote sessions urging respect washington states marijuana laws got meaningful response inslee chided sessions ideologically obsessed derailing legalized marijuana programs even though tightly regulated industry flourishing states approved recreational sales democratic governor called decision trump administration attempt distract public internal chaos intimidated issue trump administration inslee said believe uproar democratically expressed sentiment defeat trump administration annette l hayes us attorney western washington said statement sessions move reiterated local federal prosecutors best position address public safety said previously office investigated marijuana cases involving organized crime violent threats financial crimes hayes said office would continue focus pose greatest safety risk people communities serve ___ follow sally ho httpstwittercom_sallyho olympia wash ap washington state leaders slammed trump administrations move thursday roll back obamaera leniency legalized marijuana saying theyll defend state voters approved recreational pot hundreds millions dollars tax revenue comes book push panic button either individual lives businesses gov jay inslee said hours justice department announced rollback move us attorney general jeff sessions would let federal prosecutors states marijuana legal decide aggressively enforce longstanding federal law washington one eight states allow recreational marijuana also among majority us states legalized medical marijuana fiscal 2017 legal pot sales washington state exceeded 13 billion state collected 300 million excise taxes according state liquor control board halfway current fiscal year pot sales topped 500 million generated 100 million taxes democratic republican state leaders vowed protect pot sales saying washington state come rely money marijuana taxes republican sen ann rivers la center said didnt personally support legalization initiative responsible program essentially eradicated black market said state uses tax money fund efforts involving education mental health homelessness opioid addiction money going everywhere rightly wrongly need money take care people state rivers said washington state attorney general bob ferguson said soon tell new federal guidance would affect pot users businesses governor declared would local resources dedicated toward federal enforcement stopped short promising legal protections individuals may targeted saying still assessing uncertainties situation ferguson said team long prepared take legal fight recreational pot last year inslee wrote sessions urging respect washington states marijuana laws got meaningful response inslee chided sessions ideologically obsessed derailing legalized marijuana programs even though tightly regulated industry flourishing states approved recreational sales democratic governor called decision trump administration attempt distract public internal chaos intimidated issue trump administration inslee said believe uproar democratically expressed sentiment defeat trump administration annette l hayes us attorney western washington said statement sessions move reiterated local federal prosecutors best position address public safety said previously office investigated marijuana cases involving organized crime violent threats financial crimes hayes said office would continue focus pose greatest safety risk people communities serve ___ follow sally ho httpstwittercom_sallyho
| 670 |
<p>NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. women's Olympic hockey team is leaning on 13 newcomers as the Americans head to the Pyeongchang Games trying to end a 20-year gold medal drought.</p>
<p>USA Hockey announced the <a href="https://twitter.com/usahockey/status/947924744426356742" type="external">23-woman roster Monday</a> during the second intermission of the Winter Classic in New York. Captain Meghan Duggan is one of six two-time silver medalists, and there are four other returning players from 2014.</p>
<p>"Things look really good for our team," U.S. coach Robb Stauber said. "We caution our players day in and day out it's one game at a time. You don't go to the Olympics and just get to go to the gold medal game. That would be a mistake on our part. We focus day in and day out as a group that's going to use each day to get better. When we get to the Olympics, we're going to take it one game at a time."</p>
<p>Forward Alex Carpenter and defenseman Megan Bozek also won silver in 2014, but they did not make the cut from the national team that had been training since September in Florida. Forward Haley Skarupa and defenseman Sidney Morin are on the roster after they were called up to the national team just after Thanksgiving. Morin was playing with MODO Hockey in the Swedish Women's Hockey League before joining the American squad.</p>
<p>Stauber said it's never easy to let veterans go, especially with Carpenter and Bozek. Carpenter is a former Patty Kazmaier award winner.</p>
<p>"At the end of the day we have to go to South Korea with what we feel most comfortable with. And that's a very difficult decision," Stauber said.</p>
<p>"On our end we just have to focus and make sure we get the best team there. Like I said, take it day by day."</p>
<p>Each of Team USA's three goaltenders — <a href="https://wintergames.ap.org/article/us-hopes-gold-rest-trio-olympic-rookie-goaltenders" type="external">Alex Rigsby, Maddie Rooney and Nicole Hensley</a> — will be making their Olympic debut.</p>
<p>Joining Duggan on a third Olympic roster are Kacey Bellamy, Hilary Knight, Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson, Monique Lamoureux-Morando and Gigi Marvin. Kendall Coyne, Lee Stecklein, Brianna Decker and Amanda Kessel made their second Olympic team. The Americans lost the gold medal game in Sochi to Canada in overtime.</p>
<p>"Obviously after that we had to figure out what we're made of, what we wanted to accomplish over these last couple of years and really put ourselves in a position to achieve the goal we want to achieve as a program and as a team and as a country going into the next Olympics," Duggan said. "We're excited. We have the right group. We've been training really hard and looking forward to getting over there."</p>
<p>The U.S. women open Olympic play Feb. 11 against Finland.</p>
<p>First, the Americans will play another five or six games tuning up for Pyeongchang. Stauber said they plan to work on some schemes that they haven't shown yet. Speed and skill is the focus for Stauber and the U.S. team, which is why speedy defenseman Cayla Barnes was called up in late October from her freshman year at Boston College.</p>
<p>"We feel if we do that effectively for 60 minutes, that's our game and that's going to give us the best chance to win every game," Stauber said. "That is definitely our focus."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>More AP Olympic coverage: <a href="https://wintergames.ap.org" type="external">https://wintergames.ap.org</a></p>
<p>NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. women's Olympic hockey team is leaning on 13 newcomers as the Americans head to the Pyeongchang Games trying to end a 20-year gold medal drought.</p>
<p>USA Hockey announced the <a href="https://twitter.com/usahockey/status/947924744426356742" type="external">23-woman roster Monday</a> during the second intermission of the Winter Classic in New York. Captain Meghan Duggan is one of six two-time silver medalists, and there are four other returning players from 2014.</p>
<p>"Things look really good for our team," U.S. coach Robb Stauber said. "We caution our players day in and day out it's one game at a time. You don't go to the Olympics and just get to go to the gold medal game. That would be a mistake on our part. We focus day in and day out as a group that's going to use each day to get better. When we get to the Olympics, we're going to take it one game at a time."</p>
<p>Forward Alex Carpenter and defenseman Megan Bozek also won silver in 2014, but they did not make the cut from the national team that had been training since September in Florida. Forward Haley Skarupa and defenseman Sidney Morin are on the roster after they were called up to the national team just after Thanksgiving. Morin was playing with MODO Hockey in the Swedish Women's Hockey League before joining the American squad.</p>
<p>Stauber said it's never easy to let veterans go, especially with Carpenter and Bozek. Carpenter is a former Patty Kazmaier award winner.</p>
<p>"At the end of the day we have to go to South Korea with what we feel most comfortable with. And that's a very difficult decision," Stauber said.</p>
<p>"On our end we just have to focus and make sure we get the best team there. Like I said, take it day by day."</p>
<p>Each of Team USA's three goaltenders — <a href="https://wintergames.ap.org/article/us-hopes-gold-rest-trio-olympic-rookie-goaltenders" type="external">Alex Rigsby, Maddie Rooney and Nicole Hensley</a> — will be making their Olympic debut.</p>
<p>Joining Duggan on a third Olympic roster are Kacey Bellamy, Hilary Knight, Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson, Monique Lamoureux-Morando and Gigi Marvin. Kendall Coyne, Lee Stecklein, Brianna Decker and Amanda Kessel made their second Olympic team. The Americans lost the gold medal game in Sochi to Canada in overtime.</p>
<p>"Obviously after that we had to figure out what we're made of, what we wanted to accomplish over these last couple of years and really put ourselves in a position to achieve the goal we want to achieve as a program and as a team and as a country going into the next Olympics," Duggan said. "We're excited. We have the right group. We've been training really hard and looking forward to getting over there."</p>
<p>The U.S. women open Olympic play Feb. 11 against Finland.</p>
<p>First, the Americans will play another five or six games tuning up for Pyeongchang. Stauber said they plan to work on some schemes that they haven't shown yet. Speed and skill is the focus for Stauber and the U.S. team, which is why speedy defenseman Cayla Barnes was called up in late October from her freshman year at Boston College.</p>
<p>"We feel if we do that effectively for 60 minutes, that's our game and that's going to give us the best chance to win every game," Stauber said. "That is definitely our focus."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>More AP Olympic coverage: <a href="https://wintergames.ap.org" type="external">https://wintergames.ap.org</a></p>
| false | 2 |
new york ap us womens olympic hockey team leaning 13 newcomers americans head pyeongchang games trying end 20year gold medal drought usa hockey announced 23woman roster monday second intermission winter classic new york captain meghan duggan one six twotime silver medalists four returning players 2014 things look really good team us coach robb stauber said caution players day day one game time dont go olympics get go gold medal game would mistake part focus day day group thats going use day get better get olympics going take one game time forward alex carpenter defenseman megan bozek also silver 2014 make cut national team training since september florida forward haley skarupa defenseman sidney morin roster called national team thanksgiving morin playing modo hockey swedish womens hockey league joining american squad stauber said never easy let veterans go especially carpenter bozek carpenter former patty kazmaier award winner end day go south korea feel comfortable thats difficult decision stauber said end focus make sure get best team like said take day day team usas three goaltenders alex rigsby maddie rooney nicole hensley making olympic debut joining duggan third olympic roster kacey bellamy hilary knight jocelyne lamoureuxdavidson monique lamoureuxmorando gigi marvin kendall coyne lee stecklein brianna decker amanda kessel made second olympic team americans lost gold medal game sochi canada overtime obviously figure made wanted accomplish last couple years really put position achieve goal want achieve program team country going next olympics duggan said excited right group weve training really hard looking forward getting us women open olympic play feb 11 finland first americans play another five six games tuning pyeongchang stauber said plan work schemes havent shown yet speed skill focus stauber us team speedy defenseman cayla barnes called late october freshman year boston college feel effectively 60 minutes thats game thats going give us best chance win every game stauber said definitely focus ___ ap olympic coverage httpswintergamesaporg new york ap us womens olympic hockey team leaning 13 newcomers americans head pyeongchang games trying end 20year gold medal drought usa hockey announced 23woman roster monday second intermission winter classic new york captain meghan duggan one six twotime silver medalists four returning players 2014 things look really good team us coach robb stauber said caution players day day one game time dont go olympics get go gold medal game would mistake part focus day day group thats going use day get better get olympics going take one game time forward alex carpenter defenseman megan bozek also silver 2014 make cut national team training since september florida forward haley skarupa defenseman sidney morin roster called national team thanksgiving morin playing modo hockey swedish womens hockey league joining american squad stauber said never easy let veterans go especially carpenter bozek carpenter former patty kazmaier award winner end day go south korea feel comfortable thats difficult decision stauber said end focus make sure get best team like said take day day team usas three goaltenders alex rigsby maddie rooney nicole hensley making olympic debut joining duggan third olympic roster kacey bellamy hilary knight jocelyne lamoureuxdavidson monique lamoureuxmorando gigi marvin kendall coyne lee stecklein brianna decker amanda kessel made second olympic team americans lost gold medal game sochi canada overtime obviously figure made wanted accomplish last couple years really put position achieve goal want achieve program team country going next olympics duggan said excited right group weve training really hard looking forward getting us women open olympic play feb 11 finland first americans play another five six games tuning pyeongchang stauber said plan work schemes havent shown yet speed skill focus stauber us team speedy defenseman cayla barnes called late october freshman year boston college feel effectively 60 minutes thats game thats going give us best chance win every game stauber said definitely focus ___ ap olympic coverage httpswintergamesaporg
| 632 |
<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration hopes to save the bees by feeding them better.</p>
<p>A new federal plan aims to reverse America’s declining honeybee and monarch butterfly populations by making millions of acres of federal land more bee-friendly, spending millions of dollars more on research and considering the use of fewer pesticides.</p>
<p>While putting different type of landscapes along highways, federal housing projects and elsewhere may not sound like much in terms of action, several bee scientists told The Associated Press that this a huge move. They say it may help pollinators that are starving because so much of the American landscape has been converted to lawns and corn that don’t provide foraging areas for bees.</p>
<p>“This is the first time I’ve seen addressed the issue that there’s nothing for pollinators to eat,” said University of Illinois entomologist May Berenbaum, who buttonholed President Barack Obama about bees when she received her National Medal of Science award last November. “I think it’s brilliant.”</p>
<p>Environmental activists who wanted a ban on a much-criticized class of pesticide said the Obama administration’s bee strategy falls way short of what’s needed to save the hives.</p>
<p>Scientists say bees — crucial to pollinate many crops — have been hurt by a combination of declining nutrition, mites, disease, and pesticides. The federal plan is an “all hands on deck” strategy that calls on everyone from federal bureaucrats to citizens to do what they can to save bees, which provide more than $15 billion in value to the U.S. economy, according to White House science adviser John Holdren.</p>
<p>“Pollinators are struggling,” Holdren said in a blog post, citing a new federal survey that found beekeepers lost more than 40 percent of their colonies last year, although they later recovered by dividing surviving hives. He also said the number of monarch butterflies that spend the winter in Mexico’s forests is down by 90 percent or more over the past two decades, so the U.S. government is working with Mexico to expand monarch habitat in the southern part of that country.</p>
<p>The plan calls for restoring 7 million acres of bee habitat in the next five years. Numerous federal agencies will have to find ways to grow plants on federal lands that are more varied and better for bees to eat because scientists have worried that large land tracts that grow only one crop have hurt bee nutrition.</p>
<p>The plan is not just for the Department of Interior, which has vast areas of land under its control. Agencies that wouldn’t normally be thought of, such as Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Transportation, will have to include bee-friendly landscaping on their properties and in grant-making.</p>
<p>That part of the bee plan got praise from scientists who study bees.</p>
<p>“Here, we can do a lot for bees, and other pollinators,” University of Maryland entomology professor Dennis van Englesdorp, who led the federal bee study that found last year’s large loss. “This I think is something to get excited and hopeful about. There is really only one hope for bees and it’s to make sure they spend a good part of the year in safe healthy environments. The apparent scarcity of these areas is what’s worrying. This could change that.”</p>
<p>University of Montana bee expert Jerry Bromenshenk said the effort shows the federal government finally recognizes that land use is key with bees.</p>
<p>“From my perspective, it’s a wake-up call,” Bromenshenk wrote in an email. “Pollinators need safe havens, with adequate quantities of high-quality resources for food and habitat, relatively free from toxic chemicals, and that includes pollutants as well as pesticides and other agricultural chemicals.”</p>
<p>Berenbaum said what’s impressive is that the plan doesn’t lay the problem or the solution just on agriculture or the federal government: “We all got into this mess and we’re going to have to work together to get out of it,” she said.</p>
<p>The administration proposes spending $82.5 million on honeybee research in the upcoming budget year, up $34 million from now.</p>
<p>The Environmental Protection Agency will step up studies into the safety of widely used neonicotinoid pesticides, which have been temporarily banned in Europe. It will not approve new types of uses of the pesticides until more study is done, if then, the report said.</p>
<p>“They are not taking bold enough action; there’s a recognition that there is a crisis,” said Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director for the advocacy group Center for Biological Diversity. She said the bees cannot wait, comparing more studies on neonicotinoids to going to a second and third mechanic when you’ve been told the brakes are shot.</p>
<p>“Four million Americans have called on the Obama administration to listen to the clear science demanding that immediate action be taken to suspend systemic bee-killing pesticides, including seed treatments,” Friends of the Earth food program director Lisa Archer said in statement. “Failure to address this growing crisis with a unified and meaningful federal plan will put these essential pollinators and our food supply in jeopardy.”</p>
<p>But CropLife America, which represents the makers of pesticides, praised the report for its “multi-pronged coordinated approach.”</p>
<p>The report talks of a fine line between the need for pesticides to help agriculture and the harm they can do to bees and other pollinators.</p>
<p>Lessening “the effects of pesticides on bees is a priority for the federal government, as both bee pollination and insect control are essential to the success of agriculture,” the report said.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>The White House bee strategy: <a href="http://1.usa.gov/1Ad2DUE" type="external" /> <a href="http://1.usa.gov/1Ad2DUE" type="external">http://1.usa.gov/1Ad2DUE</a></p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Seth Borenstein can be followed at <a href="http://twitter.com/borenbears" type="external" /> <a href="http://twitter.com/borenbears" type="external">http://twitter.com/borenbears</a></p>
<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration hopes to save the bees by feeding them better.</p>
<p>A new federal plan aims to reverse America’s declining honeybee and monarch butterfly populations by making millions of acres of federal land more bee-friendly, spending millions of dollars more on research and considering the use of fewer pesticides.</p>
<p>While putting different type of landscapes along highways, federal housing projects and elsewhere may not sound like much in terms of action, several bee scientists told The Associated Press that this a huge move. They say it may help pollinators that are starving because so much of the American landscape has been converted to lawns and corn that don’t provide foraging areas for bees.</p>
<p>“This is the first time I’ve seen addressed the issue that there’s nothing for pollinators to eat,” said University of Illinois entomologist May Berenbaum, who buttonholed President Barack Obama about bees when she received her National Medal of Science award last November. “I think it’s brilliant.”</p>
<p>Environmental activists who wanted a ban on a much-criticized class of pesticide said the Obama administration’s bee strategy falls way short of what’s needed to save the hives.</p>
<p>Scientists say bees — crucial to pollinate many crops — have been hurt by a combination of declining nutrition, mites, disease, and pesticides. The federal plan is an “all hands on deck” strategy that calls on everyone from federal bureaucrats to citizens to do what they can to save bees, which provide more than $15 billion in value to the U.S. economy, according to White House science adviser John Holdren.</p>
<p>“Pollinators are struggling,” Holdren said in a blog post, citing a new federal survey that found beekeepers lost more than 40 percent of their colonies last year, although they later recovered by dividing surviving hives. He also said the number of monarch butterflies that spend the winter in Mexico’s forests is down by 90 percent or more over the past two decades, so the U.S. government is working with Mexico to expand monarch habitat in the southern part of that country.</p>
<p>The plan calls for restoring 7 million acres of bee habitat in the next five years. Numerous federal agencies will have to find ways to grow plants on federal lands that are more varied and better for bees to eat because scientists have worried that large land tracts that grow only one crop have hurt bee nutrition.</p>
<p>The plan is not just for the Department of Interior, which has vast areas of land under its control. Agencies that wouldn’t normally be thought of, such as Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Transportation, will have to include bee-friendly landscaping on their properties and in grant-making.</p>
<p>That part of the bee plan got praise from scientists who study bees.</p>
<p>“Here, we can do a lot for bees, and other pollinators,” University of Maryland entomology professor Dennis van Englesdorp, who led the federal bee study that found last year’s large loss. “This I think is something to get excited and hopeful about. There is really only one hope for bees and it’s to make sure they spend a good part of the year in safe healthy environments. The apparent scarcity of these areas is what’s worrying. This could change that.”</p>
<p>University of Montana bee expert Jerry Bromenshenk said the effort shows the federal government finally recognizes that land use is key with bees.</p>
<p>“From my perspective, it’s a wake-up call,” Bromenshenk wrote in an email. “Pollinators need safe havens, with adequate quantities of high-quality resources for food and habitat, relatively free from toxic chemicals, and that includes pollutants as well as pesticides and other agricultural chemicals.”</p>
<p>Berenbaum said what’s impressive is that the plan doesn’t lay the problem or the solution just on agriculture or the federal government: “We all got into this mess and we’re going to have to work together to get out of it,” she said.</p>
<p>The administration proposes spending $82.5 million on honeybee research in the upcoming budget year, up $34 million from now.</p>
<p>The Environmental Protection Agency will step up studies into the safety of widely used neonicotinoid pesticides, which have been temporarily banned in Europe. It will not approve new types of uses of the pesticides until more study is done, if then, the report said.</p>
<p>“They are not taking bold enough action; there’s a recognition that there is a crisis,” said Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director for the advocacy group Center for Biological Diversity. She said the bees cannot wait, comparing more studies on neonicotinoids to going to a second and third mechanic when you’ve been told the brakes are shot.</p>
<p>“Four million Americans have called on the Obama administration to listen to the clear science demanding that immediate action be taken to suspend systemic bee-killing pesticides, including seed treatments,” Friends of the Earth food program director Lisa Archer said in statement. “Failure to address this growing crisis with a unified and meaningful federal plan will put these essential pollinators and our food supply in jeopardy.”</p>
<p>But CropLife America, which represents the makers of pesticides, praised the report for its “multi-pronged coordinated approach.”</p>
<p>The report talks of a fine line between the need for pesticides to help agriculture and the harm they can do to bees and other pollinators.</p>
<p>Lessening “the effects of pesticides on bees is a priority for the federal government, as both bee pollination and insect control are essential to the success of agriculture,” the report said.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>The White House bee strategy: <a href="http://1.usa.gov/1Ad2DUE" type="external" /> <a href="http://1.usa.gov/1Ad2DUE" type="external">http://1.usa.gov/1Ad2DUE</a></p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Seth Borenstein can be followed at <a href="http://twitter.com/borenbears" type="external" /> <a href="http://twitter.com/borenbears" type="external">http://twitter.com/borenbears</a></p>
| false | 2 |
washington ap obama administration hopes save bees feeding better new federal plan aims reverse americas declining honeybee monarch butterfly populations making millions acres federal land beefriendly spending millions dollars research considering use fewer pesticides putting different type landscapes along highways federal housing projects elsewhere may sound like much terms action several bee scientists told associated press huge move say may help pollinators starving much american landscape converted lawns corn dont provide foraging areas bees first time ive seen addressed issue theres nothing pollinators eat said university illinois entomologist may berenbaum buttonholed president barack obama bees received national medal science award last november think brilliant environmental activists wanted ban muchcriticized class pesticide said obama administrations bee strategy falls way short whats needed save hives scientists say bees crucial pollinate many crops hurt combination declining nutrition mites disease pesticides federal plan hands deck strategy calls everyone federal bureaucrats citizens save bees provide 15 billion value us economy according white house science adviser john holdren pollinators struggling holdren said blog post citing new federal survey found beekeepers lost 40 percent colonies last year although later recovered dividing surviving hives also said number monarch butterflies spend winter mexicos forests 90 percent past two decades us government working mexico expand monarch habitat southern part country plan calls restoring 7 million acres bee habitat next five years numerous federal agencies find ways grow plants federal lands varied better bees eat scientists worried large land tracts grow one crop hurt bee nutrition plan department interior vast areas land control agencies wouldnt normally thought housing urban development department transportation include beefriendly landscaping properties grantmaking part bee plan got praise scientists study bees lot bees pollinators university maryland entomology professor dennis van englesdorp led federal bee study found last years large loss think something get excited hopeful really one hope bees make sure spend good part year safe healthy environments apparent scarcity areas whats worrying could change university montana bee expert jerry bromenshenk said effort shows federal government finally recognizes land use key bees perspective wakeup call bromenshenk wrote email pollinators need safe havens adequate quantities highquality resources food habitat relatively free toxic chemicals includes pollutants well pesticides agricultural chemicals berenbaum said whats impressive plan doesnt lay problem solution agriculture federal government got mess going work together get said administration proposes spending 825 million honeybee research upcoming budget year 34 million environmental protection agency step studies safety widely used neonicotinoid pesticides temporarily banned europe approve new types uses pesticides study done report said taking bold enough action theres recognition crisis said lori ann burd environmental health director advocacy group center biological diversity said bees wait comparing studies neonicotinoids going second third mechanic youve told brakes shot four million americans called obama administration listen clear science demanding immediate action taken suspend systemic beekilling pesticides including seed treatments friends earth food program director lisa archer said statement failure address growing crisis unified meaningful federal plan put essential pollinators food supply jeopardy croplife america represents makers pesticides praised report multipronged coordinated approach report talks fine line need pesticides help agriculture harm bees pollinators lessening effects pesticides bees priority federal government bee pollination insect control essential success agriculture report said ___ white house bee strategy http1usagov1ad2due ___ seth borenstein followed httptwittercomborenbears washington ap obama administration hopes save bees feeding better new federal plan aims reverse americas declining honeybee monarch butterfly populations making millions acres federal land beefriendly spending millions dollars research considering use fewer pesticides putting different type landscapes along highways federal housing projects elsewhere may sound like much terms action several bee scientists told associated press huge move say may help pollinators starving much american landscape converted lawns corn dont provide foraging areas bees first time ive seen addressed issue theres nothing pollinators eat said university illinois entomologist may berenbaum buttonholed president barack obama bees received national medal science award last november think brilliant environmental activists wanted ban muchcriticized class pesticide said obama administrations bee strategy falls way short whats needed save hives scientists say bees crucial pollinate many crops hurt combination declining nutrition mites disease pesticides federal plan hands deck strategy calls everyone federal bureaucrats citizens save bees provide 15 billion value us economy according white house science adviser john holdren pollinators struggling holdren said blog post citing new federal survey found beekeepers lost 40 percent colonies last year although later recovered dividing surviving hives also said number monarch butterflies spend winter mexicos forests 90 percent past two decades us government working mexico expand monarch habitat southern part country plan calls restoring 7 million acres bee habitat next five years numerous federal agencies find ways grow plants federal lands varied better bees eat scientists worried large land tracts grow one crop hurt bee nutrition plan department interior vast areas land control agencies wouldnt normally thought housing urban development department transportation include beefriendly landscaping properties grantmaking part bee plan got praise scientists study bees lot bees pollinators university maryland entomology professor dennis van englesdorp led federal bee study found last years large loss think something get excited hopeful really one hope bees make sure spend good part year safe healthy environments apparent scarcity areas whats worrying could change university montana bee expert jerry bromenshenk said effort shows federal government finally recognizes land use key bees perspective wakeup call bromenshenk wrote email pollinators need safe havens adequate quantities highquality resources food habitat relatively free toxic chemicals includes pollutants well pesticides agricultural chemicals berenbaum said whats impressive plan doesnt lay problem solution agriculture federal government got mess going work together get said administration proposes spending 825 million honeybee research upcoming budget year 34 million environmental protection agency step studies safety widely used neonicotinoid pesticides temporarily banned europe approve new types uses pesticides study done report said taking bold enough action theres recognition crisis said lori ann burd environmental health director advocacy group center biological diversity said bees wait comparing studies neonicotinoids going second third mechanic youve told brakes shot four million americans called obama administration listen clear science demanding immediate action taken suspend systemic beekilling pesticides including seed treatments friends earth food program director lisa archer said statement failure address growing crisis unified meaningful federal plan put essential pollinators food supply jeopardy croplife america represents makers pesticides praised report multipronged coordinated approach report talks fine line need pesticides help agriculture harm bees pollinators lessening effects pesticides bees priority federal government bee pollination insect control essential success agriculture report said ___ white house bee strategy http1usagov1ad2due ___ seth borenstein followed httptwittercomborenbears
| 1,076 |
<p>WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States announced Thursday it was suspending security assistance to Pakistan for failing to take "decisive action" against Taliban militants targeting U.S. personnel in neighboring Afghanistan.</p>
<p>The State Department's declaration signaled growing frustration over Pakistan's cooperation in fighting terrorist networks. Initially vague information on how much money and materiel was being withheld suggested the primary goal was to substantiate President Donald Trump's surprising New Year's Day tweet that accused Pakistan of playing U.S. leaders for "fools."</p>
<p>Spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the restrictions covered security assistance above and beyond the $255 million for Pakistani purchases of American military equipment that the administration held up in August.</p>
<p>Nauert made clear the $255 million was still blocked, and the Pentagon said the new action targets payments of so-called Coalition Support Funds that the U.S. pays to Pakistan to reimburse it for its counterterrorism operations.</p>
<p>Defense spending legislation for 2017 provides for up to $900 million in Coalition Support Funds, of which $400 million can only be released to Pakistan if Defense Secretary Jim Mattis certifies Pakistan has taken specific actions against the Haqqani network. None of the $900 million as so far been disbursed, the Pentagon said. The last Coalition Support Funds were paid to Pakistan in March last year, provided under defense spending legislation for 2016.</p>
<p>On Monday, Trump said the U.S. had "foolishly" given Pakistan more than $33 billion in aid in the last 15 years and had gotten nothing in return but "lies &amp; deceit." He reiterated longstanding allegations that Pakistan gives "safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan."</p>
<p>Trump unveiled in August a South Asia strategy aimed at ending the stalemate in the U.S. war in Afghanistan, now entering its 17th year. Nauert said that despite sustained high-level engagement with Pakistan's government, "the Taliban and Haqqani network continue to find sanctuary inside Pakistan as they plot to destabilize Afghanistan and attack U.S. and allied personnel." She told reporters that until Pakistan takes "decisive action" against those groups, security assistance was suspended.</p>
<p>Civilian development and economic assistance to Pakistan is not affected.</p>
<p>Also Thursday, the State Department accused Pakistan of severe violations of religious freedom. It announced that it was placing Pakistan on a special watch list, pursuant to 2016 legislation. The step does not carry any serious consequences.</p>
<p>Pakistan's embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.</p>
<p>But on Tuesday, Pakistan called Trump's tweet "completely incomprehensible" and at odds with recent "trust-building" visits by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Mattis. It accused the U.S. of scapegoating Pakistan for its own failure to bring peace to Afghanistan.</p>
<p>A senior Pakistani senator expressed disappointment at the U.S. decision to suspend military aid to Islamabad, saying it will be detrimental to Pakistani-U.S. relations.</p>
<p>Nuzhat Sadiq, chairwoman of the Senate Foreign Affairs committee in the upper house of parliament, says Islamabad can manage without the United States as it did in the 1990s, but would prefer to move the troubled relationship forward. Sadiq said on Friday that "what the U.S. is doing now is not good for its policy against terrorism and for a lasting peace in this region."</p>
<p>She said that Pakistan has always "played a vital role in the war on terror."</p>
<p>The haphazard nature of Thursday's announcement suggested it had been hastily arranged rather than developed through a traditional policy process. Even after members of Congress had been notified of an impending aid suspension, White House and State Department officials were still hammering out details for who would announce it and when. Earlier Thursday, Mattis said the policy on military aid to Pakistan was "still being formulated."</p>
<p>As recently as October, Trump credited U.S.-Pakistani cooperation for winning the release of an American woman, her Canadian husband and their children who had been held by Haqqani militants for five years.</p>
<p>U.S. assistance to Pakistan, which rose sharply after the 9/11 attacks, has been declining since 2011 when American commandos killed Osama bin Laden inside Pakistan, straining relations. Pakistan has increasingly turned for economic support to northern neighbor China, which is investing tens of billions in transportation links and power generation as it extends its strategic footprint across Asia.</p>
<p>Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Wilson Center's South Asia program, said suspension of U.S. security assistance to Pakistan would not torpedo relations but it was a significant step backward. He said Pakistan could fall back on Saudi Arabia and China for military supplies, but it still depends on the U.S. for certain types of high-end equipment.</p>
<p>"There are considerable risks for the U.S. because Pakistan could retaliate in ways that would be very problematic for U.S. regional interests," he said, such as curtailing intelligence cooperation and U.S. supply lines into Afghanistan.</p>
<p>"No matter what, the relationship is in a bad spot right now."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press writers Josh Lederman and Zeke Miller in Washington and Zarar Khan in Islamabad contributed to this report.</p>
<p>WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States announced Thursday it was suspending security assistance to Pakistan for failing to take "decisive action" against Taliban militants targeting U.S. personnel in neighboring Afghanistan.</p>
<p>The State Department's declaration signaled growing frustration over Pakistan's cooperation in fighting terrorist networks. Initially vague information on how much money and materiel was being withheld suggested the primary goal was to substantiate President Donald Trump's surprising New Year's Day tweet that accused Pakistan of playing U.S. leaders for "fools."</p>
<p>Spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the restrictions covered security assistance above and beyond the $255 million for Pakistani purchases of American military equipment that the administration held up in August.</p>
<p>Nauert made clear the $255 million was still blocked, and the Pentagon said the new action targets payments of so-called Coalition Support Funds that the U.S. pays to Pakistan to reimburse it for its counterterrorism operations.</p>
<p>Defense spending legislation for 2017 provides for up to $900 million in Coalition Support Funds, of which $400 million can only be released to Pakistan if Defense Secretary Jim Mattis certifies Pakistan has taken specific actions against the Haqqani network. None of the $900 million as so far been disbursed, the Pentagon said. The last Coalition Support Funds were paid to Pakistan in March last year, provided under defense spending legislation for 2016.</p>
<p>On Monday, Trump said the U.S. had "foolishly" given Pakistan more than $33 billion in aid in the last 15 years and had gotten nothing in return but "lies &amp; deceit." He reiterated longstanding allegations that Pakistan gives "safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan."</p>
<p>Trump unveiled in August a South Asia strategy aimed at ending the stalemate in the U.S. war in Afghanistan, now entering its 17th year. Nauert said that despite sustained high-level engagement with Pakistan's government, "the Taliban and Haqqani network continue to find sanctuary inside Pakistan as they plot to destabilize Afghanistan and attack U.S. and allied personnel." She told reporters that until Pakistan takes "decisive action" against those groups, security assistance was suspended.</p>
<p>Civilian development and economic assistance to Pakistan is not affected.</p>
<p>Also Thursday, the State Department accused Pakistan of severe violations of religious freedom. It announced that it was placing Pakistan on a special watch list, pursuant to 2016 legislation. The step does not carry any serious consequences.</p>
<p>Pakistan's embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.</p>
<p>But on Tuesday, Pakistan called Trump's tweet "completely incomprehensible" and at odds with recent "trust-building" visits by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Mattis. It accused the U.S. of scapegoating Pakistan for its own failure to bring peace to Afghanistan.</p>
<p>A senior Pakistani senator expressed disappointment at the U.S. decision to suspend military aid to Islamabad, saying it will be detrimental to Pakistani-U.S. relations.</p>
<p>Nuzhat Sadiq, chairwoman of the Senate Foreign Affairs committee in the upper house of parliament, says Islamabad can manage without the United States as it did in the 1990s, but would prefer to move the troubled relationship forward. Sadiq said on Friday that "what the U.S. is doing now is not good for its policy against terrorism and for a lasting peace in this region."</p>
<p>She said that Pakistan has always "played a vital role in the war on terror."</p>
<p>The haphazard nature of Thursday's announcement suggested it had been hastily arranged rather than developed through a traditional policy process. Even after members of Congress had been notified of an impending aid suspension, White House and State Department officials were still hammering out details for who would announce it and when. Earlier Thursday, Mattis said the policy on military aid to Pakistan was "still being formulated."</p>
<p>As recently as October, Trump credited U.S.-Pakistani cooperation for winning the release of an American woman, her Canadian husband and their children who had been held by Haqqani militants for five years.</p>
<p>U.S. assistance to Pakistan, which rose sharply after the 9/11 attacks, has been declining since 2011 when American commandos killed Osama bin Laden inside Pakistan, straining relations. Pakistan has increasingly turned for economic support to northern neighbor China, which is investing tens of billions in transportation links and power generation as it extends its strategic footprint across Asia.</p>
<p>Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Wilson Center's South Asia program, said suspension of U.S. security assistance to Pakistan would not torpedo relations but it was a significant step backward. He said Pakistan could fall back on Saudi Arabia and China for military supplies, but it still depends on the U.S. for certain types of high-end equipment.</p>
<p>"There are considerable risks for the U.S. because Pakistan could retaliate in ways that would be very problematic for U.S. regional interests," he said, such as curtailing intelligence cooperation and U.S. supply lines into Afghanistan.</p>
<p>"No matter what, the relationship is in a bad spot right now."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press writers Josh Lederman and Zeke Miller in Washington and Zarar Khan in Islamabad contributed to this report.</p>
| false | 2 |
washington ap united states announced thursday suspending security assistance pakistan failing take decisive action taliban militants targeting us personnel neighboring afghanistan state departments declaration signaled growing frustration pakistans cooperation fighting terrorist networks initially vague information much money materiel withheld suggested primary goal substantiate president donald trumps surprising new years day tweet accused pakistan playing us leaders fools spokeswoman heather nauert said restrictions covered security assistance beyond 255 million pakistani purchases american military equipment administration held august nauert made clear 255 million still blocked pentagon said new action targets payments socalled coalition support funds us pays pakistan reimburse counterterrorism operations defense spending legislation 2017 provides 900 million coalition support funds 400 million released pakistan defense secretary jim mattis certifies pakistan taken specific actions haqqani network none 900 million far disbursed pentagon said last coalition support funds paid pakistan march last year provided defense spending legislation 2016 monday trump said us foolishly given pakistan 33 billion aid last 15 years gotten nothing return lies amp deceit reiterated longstanding allegations pakistan gives safe terrorists hunt afghanistan trump unveiled august south asia strategy aimed ending stalemate us war afghanistan entering 17th year nauert said despite sustained highlevel engagement pakistans government taliban haqqani network continue find sanctuary inside pakistan plot destabilize afghanistan attack us allied personnel told reporters pakistan takes decisive action groups security assistance suspended civilian development economic assistance pakistan affected also thursday state department accused pakistan severe violations religious freedom announced placing pakistan special watch list pursuant 2016 legislation step carry serious consequences pakistans embassy washington immediately respond request comment thursday tuesday pakistan called trumps tweet completely incomprehensible odds recent trustbuilding visits secretary state rex tillerson mattis accused us scapegoating pakistan failure bring peace afghanistan senior pakistani senator expressed disappointment us decision suspend military aid islamabad saying detrimental pakistanius relations nuzhat sadiq chairwoman senate foreign affairs committee upper house parliament says islamabad manage without united states 1990s would prefer move troubled relationship forward sadiq said friday us good policy terrorism lasting peace region said pakistan always played vital role war terror haphazard nature thursdays announcement suggested hastily arranged rather developed traditional policy process even members congress notified impending aid suspension white house state department officials still hammering details would announce earlier thursday mattis said policy military aid pakistan still formulated recently october trump credited uspakistani cooperation winning release american woman canadian husband children held haqqani militants five years us assistance pakistan rose sharply 911 attacks declining since 2011 american commandos killed osama bin laden inside pakistan straining relations pakistan increasingly turned economic support northern neighbor china investing tens billions transportation links power generation extends strategic footprint across asia michael kugelman deputy director wilson centers south asia program said suspension us security assistance pakistan would torpedo relations significant step backward said pakistan could fall back saudi arabia china military supplies still depends us certain types highend equipment considerable risks us pakistan could retaliate ways would problematic us regional interests said curtailing intelligence cooperation us supply lines afghanistan matter relationship bad spot right ___ associated press writers josh lederman zeke miller washington zarar khan islamabad contributed report washington ap united states announced thursday suspending security assistance pakistan failing take decisive action taliban militants targeting us personnel neighboring afghanistan state departments declaration signaled growing frustration pakistans cooperation fighting terrorist networks initially vague information much money materiel withheld suggested primary goal substantiate president donald trumps surprising new years day tweet accused pakistan playing us leaders fools spokeswoman heather nauert said restrictions covered security assistance beyond 255 million pakistani purchases american military equipment administration held august nauert made clear 255 million still blocked pentagon said new action targets payments socalled coalition support funds us pays pakistan reimburse counterterrorism operations defense spending legislation 2017 provides 900 million coalition support funds 400 million released pakistan defense secretary jim mattis certifies pakistan taken specific actions haqqani network none 900 million far disbursed pentagon said last coalition support funds paid pakistan march last year provided defense spending legislation 2016 monday trump said us foolishly given pakistan 33 billion aid last 15 years gotten nothing return lies amp deceit reiterated longstanding allegations pakistan gives safe terrorists hunt afghanistan trump unveiled august south asia strategy aimed ending stalemate us war afghanistan entering 17th year nauert said despite sustained highlevel engagement pakistans government taliban haqqani network continue find sanctuary inside pakistan plot destabilize afghanistan attack us allied personnel told reporters pakistan takes decisive action groups security assistance suspended civilian development economic assistance pakistan affected also thursday state department accused pakistan severe violations religious freedom announced placing pakistan special watch list pursuant 2016 legislation step carry serious consequences pakistans embassy washington immediately respond request comment thursday tuesday pakistan called trumps tweet completely incomprehensible odds recent trustbuilding visits secretary state rex tillerson mattis accused us scapegoating pakistan failure bring peace afghanistan senior pakistani senator expressed disappointment us decision suspend military aid islamabad saying detrimental pakistanius relations nuzhat sadiq chairwoman senate foreign affairs committee upper house parliament says islamabad manage without united states 1990s would prefer move troubled relationship forward sadiq said friday us good policy terrorism lasting peace region said pakistan always played vital role war terror haphazard nature thursdays announcement suggested hastily arranged rather developed traditional policy process even members congress notified impending aid suspension white house state department officials still hammering details would announce earlier thursday mattis said policy military aid pakistan still formulated recently october trump credited uspakistani cooperation winning release american woman canadian husband children held haqqani militants five years us assistance pakistan rose sharply 911 attacks declining since 2011 american commandos killed osama bin laden inside pakistan straining relations pakistan increasingly turned economic support northern neighbor china investing tens billions transportation links power generation extends strategic footprint across asia michael kugelman deputy director wilson centers south asia program said suspension us security assistance pakistan would torpedo relations significant step backward said pakistan could fall back saudi arabia china military supplies still depends us certain types highend equipment considerable risks us pakistan could retaliate ways would problematic us regional interests said curtailing intelligence cooperation us supply lines afghanistan matter relationship bad spot right ___ associated press writers josh lederman zeke miller washington zarar khan islamabad contributed report
| 1,024 |
<p>This week, readers sent us comments on energy costs, osteopathy and the New Jersey governors’ race.</p>
<p>In the FactCheck Mailbag we feature some of the e-mail we receive. Readers can send comments to <a href="javascript:location.href='mailto:'+String.fromCharCode(101,100,105,116,111,114,64,102,97,99,116,99,104,101,99,107,46,111,114,103)+'?'" type="external">[email protected]</a>. Letters may be edited for length.</p>
<p />
<p>Energy Price Perspective</p>
<p>While I recognize that the purpose is to correct the ads against Sen. Graham and his support for a cap-and-trade bill, the article [" <a href="" type="internal">Creepy Cap-and-Trade Claims Are Illusions</a>,"&#160;Oct. 28] tends to minimize the fact that even the increases in energy prices FactCheck says are likely can have a severe negative effect on us all and even our economy. A 29 percent increase would be devastating for many families and businesses and for what? If you really want to do a service, you should not only fact-check but conduct analyses of what the facts may mean to us all. Some of these things would be good maybe and some bad maybe. In this case, the net effect, even using the real numbers could be a disaster economically.</p>
<p>Jimmy Griggs Madison, Ala.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Terminology Malpractice?</p>
<p>I am a huge fan of your site and your analysis of critical current issues. Over the last year, especially, you have been a touchstone for rational, measured explanations of tumultuous, emotional issues, and I read your analysis on a very regular basis. It is because I think so highly of your service and know that many others do as well, that I think it is very important to call you out when I see an error. One sentence from the article " <a href="" type="internal">Swine Flu Emergency?</a>"&#160;[Nov. 5] is highly deceptive, and leaves the reader with a false impression: that osteopaths are somehow less viable or trustworthy than M.D.s – with the implication that as an osteopath, Dr. Mercola is little more than a snake-oil salesman. This is patently false and misleading, and I wish you would issue a correction.</p>
<p>Osteopaths receive the same level and intensity of training that M.D.s do, and are every bit as capable of providing every level of medical treatment. In addition, however, they receive additional training in massage and adjustments that can allow the body to fix itself when possible…They do incorporate “natural health treatments” into their practice, however these remedies are often at least as effective as those branded by pharmaceutical giants, are monitored and approved by the FDA, and are drawn from centuries of wisdom. …</p>
<p>While this particular doctor (who is a doctor, despite the different letters after his name), may be misguided, and it is possible that his natural health remedies may be quackery, I urge you to not propagate the false impressions and misleading propaganda that the pharmaceuticals and AMA have so carefully cultivated over the years to create the impression that there is only one reputable degree and one trustworthy remedy plan.</p>
<p>Kristen Harbeson Baltimore, Md.</p>
<p>FactCheck.org responds: It was not our intent in this article to cast aspersions on osteopaths generally. Nor was it our intent to imply that Mercola is not a doctor (our words were that he "is not an M.D.) or that his dissemination of false information about the H1N1 vaccine is due to the fact that he is an osteopath. Osteopaths have a different approach than M.D.s and may have a different attitude toward interventions like vaccination, which makes the distinction potentially relevant, in our view.</p>
<p>However, because several readers wrote to us believing we were indeed slurring osteopathy, we have attempted to excise that perceived implication by moving our menton of Mercola’s chosen path in medicine further down in the story.</p>
<p>We should note, lest any reader get the wrong impression from the letter above, that "natural health treatments," which generally fall under the category of dietary supplements, <a href="http://www.fda.gov/food/DietarySupplements/default.htm" type="external">do not require approval</a>by the Food and Drug Administration prior to marketing. The agency is responsible for taking action against any unsafe dietary supplement after it reaches the market.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Christie Criticism</p>
<p>Your conclusion leads the reader to believe that the two competing ads are equally misleading. [" <a href="" type="internal">Corzine, Christie Spar&#160;Over Income Taxes</a>,"&#160;Oct. 28]. I could not disagree more.</p>
<p>Corzine followed the law; Christie did not. The amount is irrelevant.</p>
<p>In your own words, Christie IS a "tax deadbeat," Corzine is not.</p>
<p>How can these two ads be morally equivalent?</p>
<p>Mark Duerr Chico, Calif.</p>
<p>FactCheck.org responds: To clarify, we said that "Corzine’s not a tax deadbeat." And we said that "Christie did admit that he didn’t pay taxes on interest he collected on [a] loan," but the amount he owed "was small." We leave it to readers to decide if one ad is more misleading than the other.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>The Republican Plan</p>
<p>Republicans claim that the health care plan that they have, I think it is H.R. 3400 or H.R. 4400, can save more money, cover more people, and reduce the deficit more than anything that the House and Senate have out. Is there any way the CBO can score this and can your team research the bills to see about their claims?</p>
<p>George Sandidge Winnsboro, S.C.</p>
<p>FactCheck.org responds: The Congressional Budget Office hasn’t scored <a href="http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&amp;docid=f:h3400ih.txt.pdf" type="external">H.R. 3400</a>, but it has analyzed the Republicans’ proposed " <a href="http://rules-republicans.house.gov/Media/PDF/RepublicanAlternative3962_9.pdf" type="external">amendment</a> in the nature of a substitute" for the House bill. CBO <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/107xx/doc10705/hr3962amendmentBoehner.pdf" type="external">found</a> that the proposed substitute would cost much less than the Democrats’ bill — a net cost of $8 billion over 10 years — and would reduce the ranks of the nonelderly uninsured by about 3 million, leaving 52 million uninsured by 2019. The bill passed by the&#160;House is <a href="http://cbo.gov/ftpdocs/107xx/doc10710/hr3962Dingell_mgr_amendment_update.pdf" type="external">projected</a> to have a net cost of $891 billion and reduce the uninsured by 36 million. The CBO estimated that the GOP plan would reduce the deficit by a net $68 billion over 10 years, while the House-passed plan would reduce the deficit by more — a net $109 billion.</p>
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week readers sent us comments energy costs osteopathy new jersey governors race factcheck mailbag feature email receive readers send comments editorfactcheckorg letters may edited length energy price perspective recognize purpose correct ads sen graham support capandtrade bill article creepy capandtrade claims illusions160oct 28 tends minimize fact even increases energy prices factcheck says likely severe negative effect us even economy 29 percent increase would devastating many families businesses really want service factcheck conduct analyses facts may mean us things would good maybe bad maybe case net effect even using real numbers could disaster economically jimmy griggs madison ala 160 terminology malpractice huge fan site analysis critical current issues last year especially touchstone rational measured explanations tumultuous emotional issues read analysis regular basis think highly service know many others well think important call see error one sentence article swine flu emergency160nov 5 highly deceptive leaves reader false impression osteopaths somehow less viable trustworthy mds implication osteopath dr mercola little snakeoil salesman patently false misleading wish would issue correction osteopaths receive level intensity training mds every bit capable providing every level medical treatment addition however receive additional training massage adjustments allow body fix possiblethey incorporate natural health treatments practice however remedies often least effective branded pharmaceutical giants monitored approved fda drawn centuries wisdom particular doctor doctor despite different letters name may misguided possible natural health remedies may quackery urge propagate false impressions misleading propaganda pharmaceuticals ama carefully cultivated years create impression one reputable degree one trustworthy remedy plan kristen harbeson baltimore md factcheckorg responds intent article cast aspersions osteopaths generally intent imply mercola doctor words md dissemination false information h1n1 vaccine due fact osteopath osteopaths different approach mds may different attitude toward interventions like vaccination makes distinction potentially relevant view however several readers wrote us believing indeed slurring osteopathy attempted excise perceived implication moving menton mercolas chosen path medicine story note lest reader get wrong impression letter natural health treatments generally fall category dietary supplements require approvalby food drug administration prior marketing agency responsible taking action unsafe dietary supplement reaches market 160 christie criticism conclusion leads reader believe two competing ads equally misleading corzine christie spar160over income taxes160oct 28 could disagree corzine followed law christie amount irrelevant words christie tax deadbeat corzine two ads morally equivalent mark duerr chico calif factcheckorg responds clarify said corzines tax deadbeat said christie admit didnt pay taxes interest collected loan amount owed small leave readers decide one ad misleading 160 republican plan republicans claim health care plan think hr 3400 hr 4400 save money cover people reduce deficit anything house senate way cbo score team research bills see claims george sandidge winnsboro sc factcheckorg responds congressional budget office hasnt scored hr 3400 analyzed republicans proposed amendment nature substitute house bill cbo found proposed substitute would cost much less democrats bill net cost 8 billion 10 years would reduce ranks nonelderly uninsured 3 million leaving 52 million uninsured 2019 bill passed the160house projected net cost 891 billion reduce uninsured 36 million cbo estimated gop plan would reduce deficit net 68 billion 10 years housepassed plan would reduce deficit net 109 billion
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<p>NEW YORK — Don’t mess with our stretch, United Airlines, or risk the wrath of leggings lovers.</p>
<p>The social media matter of The Kids in Leggings vs. United snapped to the surface Sunday. That’s when one Shannon Watts said on Twitter she had witnessed a gate agent refusing to let two girls board a flight from Denver to Minneapolis because of their leggings.</p>
<p>The incident, with United’s Twitter account chiming in, rolled right on through to Monday, prompting debate on whether leggings are “pants.” That especially goes for women and girls and whether the United dress code for people on standby who are availing themselves of free passes, as these girls were, has perhaps not kept pace with the elevation of stretchy pants from gym and yoga garb to more broadly acceptable.</p>
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<p>Or are leggings more like women’s stockings and therefore inappropriate for plane travel when worn as pants, as one Facebook user argued — or is this a better comparison, as suggested by another: “It’s like going to a baseball game on a player’s tickets and doing something against the rules, right?”</p>
<p>Besides, some on social media said, many airlines adhere to the same standards for flying on this type of freebie.</p>
<p>“Casual attire is allowed as long as it looks neat and is in good taste for the local environment,” tweeted the United account in response to one angry leggings defender Watts whipped up Sunday.</p>
<p>“United shall have the right to refuse passengers who are not properly clothed via our Contract of Carriage,” another tweet from United explained.</p>
<p>The policy for family and friends on passes is different from that for the rest of us paying folk. For United, it seems in this case to be about the stretchy fabric.</p>
<p>American Airlines, for paying passengers, reserves the right to bar you if you are clothed in a manner that would “cause discomfort or offense to other passengers or are barefoot.”</p>
<p>But American has a separate policy for employees and their guests: They’re prohibited from wearing clothes that are “torn, dirty, frayed or overly revealing.” If an employee or guest is traveling in first or business class, he or she can’t wear shorts, flip-flops or baseball caps, under that American dress code.</p>
<p>The point for some airline insiders, however, is different. Some of them contend anybody eligible for the types of free passage afforded the girls on Sunday is well aware of dress code restrictions, however silly they may seem from the outside.</p>
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<p>Kristin Taylor, in tony Greenwich, Connecticut, is a leggings lover and sees them everywhere in her world. She’s also a psychologist and stay-at-home mom to two of three sons, “so no leggings for them.” She just flew in leggings to San Diego and wore a nice pair, from J.Crew, out to lunch recently with a cashmere tunic.</p>
<p>“Leggings are pants,” she said. “Seriously.”</p>
<p>Fleece-lined or paired with a fancy top for evening, leggings can be just about anything the wearer wants them to be these days, Taylor said. Besides, as the debate over leggings has gone on for years, what about jeggings? What about tights? Should today’s standard on “pants” rely on whether one can also comfortably perform a Downward Dog?</p>
<p>“And for kids? I find that ridiculous,” Taylor added.</p>
<p>There was some initial confusion as to whether the girls were accompanied by a man in shorts, who was allowed to board the plane. United spokesman Jonathan Guerin said Monday the man in shorts was not with the girls, he was a paying customer. United doesn’t let men wear shorts while traveling on employee passes. The gate agent stopped the leggings-wearing girls because they were using passes.</p>
<p>“The girls (teenagers) were completely understanding,” Guerin said. “No one was upset at the gate.”</p>
<p>Chicago-based United regularly reminds employees about the dress rules and tells them to make sure that anyone flying with one of their passes knows the guidelines, he said. Just the day before, United had sent a memo to airport workers reminding them of the dress policy, he said. The reminder “specifically mentioned leggings, along with other no-nos for travelers using United passes, such as flip-flops and torn jeans,” he said.</p>
<p>He said United isn’t contemplating any changes to the standards.</p>
<p>“They were not designed to single out women or men,” Guerin said. “It has to do with the way we present ourselves and that represents the company and represents the brand.”</p>
<p>Tamara Rodriguez Trevino, of Dallas, Texas, is an elementary school teacher and wearer of LuLaRoe leggings. The airlines, she said, should be left to their policies for friends and family free travel.</p>
<p>“After reading a few articles and comments about the situation, I feel that, although it may be discriminatory toward women and girls, the airlines have guidelines that have been in place for many years,” she said. “Because they foot the bill for the travel, I feel that they can enforce their policies when applicable. Now removing those said friends of family from the plane seemed excessive to me. Verbal warning should have been given maybe?”</p>
<p>Kim Bongiorno, in central New Jersey, has a 9-year-old daughter who is a leggings enthusiast and caught wind of the controversy on television news. The family travels on United often on frequent-flyer points.</p>
<p>“Ever have to deal with the folds and bunches of jeans on a 5-hour flight, losing circulation and feeling the pinch in your waist when you become bloated?” she asked. “How about people with bad circulation who need to wear compression socks and legging-style pants or sweatpants? Should those who need them for health and comfort reasons be denied a seat on United? Only healthy, very slim, short people who wear jeans/trousers comfortably in cramped spaces are welcome?”</p>
<p>Bongiorno has more questions: What of the decorum of men in clingy trousers that can be revealing? How about men in tight shirts? Men in shirts with sexual sayings or images on them?</p>
<p>Giovanna Bovenzi Cruz, a secretary and consumer services representative from Vineland, New Jersey, wears leggings.</p>
<p>“I feel like the dress code is a little outdated,” she said. “I don’t know any woman or young girl that doesn’t wear leggings.”</p>
<p>Forest Graham, an American living in Rio de Janeiro, is married to a United flight attendant and often takes advantage of the standby family flying policy. He said he has been denied boarding in the past for wearing shorts and flip-flops.</p>
<p>“But, frankly, I couldn’t care less,” he said. “I’d wear nothing but a pink thong if it meant I could travel anywhere for basically free.”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press writers Tamara Lush in St. Petersburg, Florida, David Koenig in Dallas and Paul Harloff in New York contributed to this report.</p>
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new york dont mess stretch united airlines risk wrath leggings lovers social media matter kids leggings vs united snapped surface sunday thats one shannon watts said twitter witnessed gate agent refusing let two girls board flight denver minneapolis leggings incident uniteds twitter account chiming rolled right monday prompting debate whether leggings pants especially goes women girls whether united dress code people standby availing free passes girls perhaps kept pace elevation stretchy pants gym yoga garb broadly acceptable advertisement leggings like womens stockings therefore inappropriate plane travel worn pants one facebook user argued better comparison suggested another like going baseball game players tickets something rules right besides social media said many airlines adhere standards flying type freebie casual attire allowed long looks neat good taste local environment tweeted united account response one angry leggings defender watts whipped sunday united shall right refuse passengers properly clothed via contract carriage another tweet united explained policy family friends passes different rest us paying folk united seems case stretchy fabric american airlines paying passengers reserves right bar clothed manner would cause discomfort offense passengers barefoot american separate policy employees guests theyre prohibited wearing clothes torn dirty frayed overly revealing employee guest traveling first business class cant wear shorts flipflops baseball caps american dress code point airline insiders however different contend anybody eligible types free passage afforded girls sunday well aware dress code restrictions however silly may seem outside advertisement kristin taylor tony greenwich connecticut leggings lover sees everywhere world shes also psychologist stayathome mom two three sons leggings flew leggings san diego wore nice pair jcrew lunch recently cashmere tunic leggings pants said seriously fleecelined paired fancy top evening leggings anything wearer wants days taylor said besides debate leggings gone years jeggings tights todays standard pants rely whether one also comfortably perform downward dog kids find ridiculous taylor added initial confusion whether girls accompanied man shorts allowed board plane united spokesman jonathan guerin said monday man shorts girls paying customer united doesnt let men wear shorts traveling employee passes gate agent stopped leggingswearing girls using passes girls teenagers completely understanding guerin said one upset gate chicagobased united regularly reminds employees dress rules tells make sure anyone flying one passes knows guidelines said day united sent memo airport workers reminding dress policy said reminder specifically mentioned leggings along nonos travelers using united passes flipflops torn jeans said said united isnt contemplating changes standards designed single women men guerin said way present represents company represents brand tamara rodriguez trevino dallas texas elementary school teacher wearer lularoe leggings airlines said left policies friends family free travel reading articles comments situation feel although may discriminatory toward women girls airlines guidelines place many years said foot bill travel feel enforce policies applicable removing said friends family plane seemed excessive verbal warning given maybe kim bongiorno central new jersey 9yearold daughter leggings enthusiast caught wind controversy television news family travels united often frequentflyer points ever deal folds bunches jeans 5hour flight losing circulation feeling pinch waist become bloated asked people bad circulation need wear compression socks leggingstyle pants sweatpants need health comfort reasons denied seat united healthy slim short people wear jeanstrousers comfortably cramped spaces welcome bongiorno questions decorum men clingy trousers revealing men tight shirts men shirts sexual sayings images giovanna bovenzi cruz secretary consumer services representative vineland new jersey wears leggings feel like dress code little outdated said dont know woman young girl doesnt wear leggings forest graham american living rio de janeiro married united flight attendant often takes advantage standby family flying policy said denied boarding past wearing shorts flipflops frankly couldnt care less said id wear nothing pink thong meant could travel anywhere basically free ___ associated press writers tamara lush st petersburg florida david koenig dallas paul harloff new york contributed report
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<p />
<p>In reality, it has become the story of a Santa Fe woman who has been stalked, terrorized and repeatedly attacked and injured despite taking all of the steps recommended for stalking victims.</p>
<p>The 32-year-old woman got a protection order against her ex-boyfriend, called police to report his violent assaults, moved from Santa Fe to be away from him and hid her address from where he might find it.</p>
<p>Still, ex-boyfriend Daniel Anaya found her in Albuquerque on Monday and allegedly, for the third time, violently attacked her and mutilated her toes.</p>
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<p>“This is the unfortunate situation for victims,” said Carol Horwitz, Santa Fe’s domestic and sexual violence prevention coordinator. “You have to watch your back.”</p>
<p>She said victims of domestic violence need to know that protection orders “are only pieces of paper.” “They don’t protect you from a bullet or something like that,” she said.</p>
<p>Court records show that Anaya’s victim first sought an order of protection from Anaya in January, about six weeks after his alleged first attack. But her request was rejected by a state district judge, despite her application’s statement that Anaya had started to bite her toe off and completely removed the toenail.</p>
<p>That attack, in which Anaya allegedly used a box cutter to threaten her, took place when she agreed to go to his house to give him a haircut after they broke up, her report to police shows.</p>
<p>He tracked her down and allegedly attacked her again in February. She called police again, and this time he was arrested. Later, a judge did issue a protective order. Meanwhile, Anaya, who doesn’t appear to have a prior criminal record, got out of jail on bond.</p>
<p>On Monday, the order’s final terms had been in place about 10 days when Anaya violated the order by somehow tracking his victim down in Albuquerque.</p>
<p>She was staying with a relative and left the door unlocked for her children, who were due to arrive home from school.</p>
<p>In Monday’s incident, Anaya, 27, a former department store shoe salesman, attacked the woman and held her down before going after her left big toe, first with his teeth and then the cigar cutter. The woman fought him off with a fork and by clawing at his face.</p>
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<p>Anaya was arrested when he showed up at Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center in Santa Fe later Monday night.</p>
<p>“She’s doing everything she’s supposed to do,” District Attorney Angela “Spence” Pacheco said last week. “The problem is I don’t know how he found her in Albuquerque.”</p>
<p>First protection application</p>
<p>In the woman’s first application for a protection order in January, she alleged that on Nov. 22 Anaya forcefully took her shoes off and bit on her toe hard enough to remove the nail. Anaya “continually” called her at work and at home even though she told him to leave her alone. The woman had broken up with Anaya, her former fiancé, after four years of dating.</p>
<p>There’s no record at the Santa Fe jail or the state court database that Anaya was ever charged or arrested in this case. The woman’s police report said he threatened her with the box cutter before performing a sex act after he’d mangled her toe.</p>
<p>State District Court Judge T. Glenn Ellington denied the protection order at a hearing on Jan. 18, according to court records. His order states he found “there is no basis for an Order of Protection under the Family Violence Protection Act” and that the allegations in her petition “do not allege ‘domestic abuse’ ” as defined in a section of state law.</p>
<p>Police say that on Feb. 3, less than a month after that hearing, Anaya found his ex at the Entrada de Milagro apartment in south Santa Fe that they formerly shared. There, police say, he attacked and bit off the tip of her left big toe down to the bone. She fought off Anaya and fled to a neighbor’s house, where she called police.</p>
<p>In this case, Anaya faces charges including burglary and aggravated battery against a household member causing great bodily harm. He was released Feb. 7 after making a $25,000 cash or surety bond.</p>
<p>Pacheco said Anaya’s release was normal. “As long as a judge sets bond, you have a constitutional right to bail,” she said.</p>
<p>The February charges were later dismissed from Santa Fe County Magistrate Court without prejudice, meaning they can be re-filed. Assistant District Attorney Susan Stinson states in a court document that the case will be presented to a grand jury for indictment into District Court.</p>
<p>Second order application</p>
<p>The woman filed for another protection order from Anaya on Feb. 8, based on the Feb. 3 attack that got him arrested.</p>
<p>“He has always had this strange obsession with feet,” she states in the complaint.</p>
<p>She alleged that since the February attack Anaya was trying to find out more information about her and that she was afraid she may have to move again.</p>
<p>“I fear for my safety as well as my children’s safety and I feel it is escalating and I need him to stay as far away from me as possible,” she stated in her complaint.</p>
<p>District Court Judge Sylvia LaMar granted a stipulated order of protection on March 21. The order prohibits Anaya from being within 100 yards of the woman’s home. Violating the order is a misdemeanor crime.</p>
<p>The order states that both the woman and Anaya are required to attend and complete counseling at Santa Fe’s Esperanza Shelter for Battered Families.</p>
<p>During Monday’s attack in Albuquerque, according to his victim, Anaya repeatedly told her, “You ruined my life.”</p>
<p>Santa Fe Police spokeswoman Celina Westervelt said police do not know how Anaya found where the woman was living.</p>
<p>DA Pacheco said on Wednesday that prosecutors would seek a higher bond for Anaya now, based on the new charges he faces, which include aggravated stalking. “It shows that this guy doesn’t get it,” Pacheco said.</p>
<p>But a Metropolitan Court judge on Friday reduced Anaya’s bond amount from the $100,000 set when he was booked to $50,000 cash or surety.</p>
<p>Horwitz did not comment on the Anaya case specifically, but she still encouraged people who believe they may be in danger from a stalker to seek a protection order from District Court, which is a free service.</p>
<p>She also said people should also speak with counselors such as herself, with the Esperanza Shelter or with the Solace Crisis Treatment Center. She encouraged people to keep a log of suspicious activity to give to law enforcement. — This article appeared on page B1 of the Albuquerque Journal</p>
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reality become story santa fe woman stalked terrorized repeatedly attacked injured despite taking steps recommended stalking victims 32yearold woman got protection order exboyfriend called police report violent assaults moved santa fe away hid address might find still exboyfriend daniel anaya found albuquerque monday allegedly third time violently attacked mutilated toes advertisement unfortunate situation victims said carol horwitz santa fes domestic sexual violence prevention coordinator watch back said victims domestic violence need know protection orders pieces paper dont protect bullet something like said court records show anayas victim first sought order protection anaya january six weeks alleged first attack request rejected state district judge despite applications statement anaya started bite toe completely removed toenail attack anaya allegedly used box cutter threaten took place agreed go house give haircut broke report police shows tracked allegedly attacked february called police time arrested later judge issue protective order meanwhile anaya doesnt appear prior criminal record got jail bond monday orders final terms place 10 days anaya violated order somehow tracking victim albuquerque staying relative left door unlocked children due arrive home school mondays incident anaya 27 former department store shoe salesman attacked woman held going left big toe first teeth cigar cutter woman fought fork clawing face advertisement anaya arrested showed christus st vincent regional medical center santa fe later monday night shes everything shes supposed district attorney angela spence pacheco said last week problem dont know found albuquerque first protection application womans first application protection order january alleged nov 22 anaya forcefully took shoes bit toe hard enough remove nail anaya continually called work home even though told leave alone woman broken anaya former fiancé four years dating theres record santa fe jail state court database anaya ever charged arrested case womans police report said threatened box cutter performing sex act hed mangled toe state district court judge glenn ellington denied protection order hearing jan 18 according court records order states found basis order protection family violence protection act allegations petition allege domestic abuse defined section state law police say feb 3 less month hearing anaya found ex entrada de milagro apartment south santa fe formerly shared police say attacked bit tip left big toe bone fought anaya fled neighbors house called police case anaya faces charges including burglary aggravated battery household member causing great bodily harm released feb 7 making 25000 cash surety bond pacheco said anayas release normal long judge sets bond constitutional right bail said february charges later dismissed santa fe county magistrate court without prejudice meaning refiled assistant district attorney susan stinson states court document case presented grand jury indictment district court second order application woman filed another protection order anaya feb 8 based feb 3 attack got arrested always strange obsession feet states complaint alleged since february attack anaya trying find information afraid may move fear safety well childrens safety feel escalating need stay far away possible stated complaint district court judge sylvia lamar granted stipulated order protection march 21 order prohibits anaya within 100 yards womans home violating order misdemeanor crime order states woman anaya required attend complete counseling santa fes esperanza shelter battered families mondays attack albuquerque according victim anaya repeatedly told ruined life santa fe police spokeswoman celina westervelt said police know anaya found woman living da pacheco said wednesday prosecutors would seek higher bond anaya based new charges faces include aggravated stalking shows guy doesnt get pacheco said metropolitan court judge friday reduced anayas bond amount 100000 set booked 50000 cash surety horwitz comment anaya case specifically still encouraged people believe may danger stalker seek protection order district court free service also said people also speak counselors esperanza shelter solace crisis treatment center encouraged people keep log suspicious activity give law enforcement article appeared page b1 albuquerque journal
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<p>LEWISTON, Maine (AP) — Richard Rodrigue stood in the back of a banquet hall, watching his blond-haired, blue-eyed daughter mingle among her high school classmates. These teenagers speak dozens of languages, and hail from a dozen African nations.</p>
<p>They fled brutal civil war, famine, oppressive regimes to find themselves here, at an ordinary high school pre-prom fete in this once-dying New England mill town, revived by an influx of some 7,500 immigrants over the last 16 years. Rodrigue smiled and waved at his daughter, proud she is a part of it: "It will help her in life," he said. "The world is not all white."</p>
<p>Rodrigue believes the refugees resuscitated his town — plugging the population drain that had threatened to cripple it, opening shops and restaurants in boarded-up storefronts. But he also agrees with Donald Trump that there should be no more of them, at least not now. America is struggling, he says, and needs to take care of its own before it takes care of anyone else.</p>
<p>His working-class community, built along the banks of the Androscoggin River in the whitest state in America, is a place that some point to as proof that refugee integration can work. And yet for the first time in 30 years, voters in Androscoggin County chose a Republican for president, endorsing Trump's nativist zeal against the very sort of immigrants who share their streets and their schools.</p>
<p>Rodrigue knows he was born on the winning end of the American dream. His grandfather fled poverty in Quebec and moved to Maine to toil his whole life in the textile mills. He never learned English, faced hate and discrimination. Two generations later, Rodrigue owns a successful security company, lives in a tidy house in a quiet neighborhood and makes plans to send his daughter to college.</p>
<p>Immigration worked for him. But it feels different today, as the county of 107,000 people tries to find its footing. The sprawling brick mills that line the river sit mostly shuttered. A quarter of children grow up poor. Taxpayers pick up the welfare tab. So Trump's supporters here tie their embrace of his immigration clampdown to their economic anxieties, and their belief that the newcomers are taking more than they have earned.</p>
<p>"There's got to be a point in time when you have to say, 'Whoa, let's get the working people back up. Let's bring the money in.' But they keep coming, keep coming," Rodrigue said.</p>
<p>His community has been an experiment in immigration and all that comes with it — friendships, fear, triumphs, setbacks — and he knows that Trump's presidency marks another chapter in that struggle for the American soul.</p>
<p>"I guess it just boils down to: What's enough? Is that wrong? Am I wrong? Am I bad? That's how I feel."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>No one invited the Somali refugees to Lewiston.</p>
<p>They fled bullets and warlords to eventually be chosen for resettlement in big American cities, where they were unnerved by the crime and drugs and noise.</p>
<p>In early 2001, a few refugee families struggling to afford housing in Portland ventured 30 miles north and found a city in retreat. Empty downtown stores were ringed by sagging apartment buildings no longer needed to house workers because so few workers remained.</p>
<p>The refugees saw possibility in Lewiston's decay. Word spread quickly, and friends and families followed. The town morphed in a matter of months into a laboratory for what happens when culture suddenly shifts. Maine's population is 94 percent white, and its citizens were abruptly confronted with hundreds of black Muslims, traumatized by war and barely able to speak English.</p>
<p>Ardo Mohamed came to Lewiston in 2001. She fled Mogadishu in the 1990s, when militiamen burst into the home she shared with her parents and nine siblings, and started shooting. She watched her father die, as the rest of the family escaped into the woods. They wound up in overcrowded refugee camps, separated for years, then finally Atlanta, then Lewiston. Now she fries sambusas with her sister at a shop she owns downtown.</p>
<p>"We wanted to be safe," said the mother of five, "just like you do."</p>
<p>When the refugees began arriving, Tabitha Beauchesne was a student at Lewiston High School. Her new classmates were poor, but Beauchesne was poor, too. She grew up in a struggling family in housing projects downtown. It felt to her then, and it still feels to her now, that the refugees got more help than her family.</p>
<p>"They just seemed to take over," she said. She doesn't consider herself racist, though acknowledges that race and religion likely play a role in her sense that the refugees overwhelmed her community. The African Muslims, many of whom wear hijabs, stand out far more than her French-Canadian ancestors did when they arrived generations ago, she said.</p>
<p>That perception — one of being inundated by a culture so different from her own — ingrained in her a sense of injustice so deep it persists to this day. She's now a stay-at-home mother of two, and she left Lewiston to move to another school district in the county because she believes the refugee students monopolize teachers' attention.</p>
<p>Once a Barack Obama supporter, Beauchesne turned to Trump — and she cheers his efforts to curb the flow of refugees into the United States. She wants Trump to design a tax system that funnels less of her money to aiding those from other countries.</p>
<p>"I just don't like giving money away that's not benefiting me and, not to sound selfish, but then seeing it benefit other people," she said. "As a business owner, my husband wouldn't donate $500 to the Salvation Army if we couldn't afford it. Our country needs to do the same thing."</p>
<p>Taxpayers do help refugee families. Maine offers a welfare program called General Assistance, a combination of state and city funds, which provides impoverished people with vouchers for rent, utilities and food.</p>
<p>In 2002, at the beginning of the immigrant influx, the city handed out about $343,000 in General Assistance funds, split almost evenly between native-born Mainers and refugees, according to city records. But rumors, largely unfounded, spread that the refugees were given free cars and apartments. Locals began calling City Hall to demand answers.</p>
<p>Then-Mayor Laurier T. Raymond Jr. penned an open letter to the Somali community, asking that they divert friends and family away from a city he described as "maxed-out financially, physically and emotionally."</p>
<p>The letter plunged Lewiston overnight into the global political cauldron. A white-supremacist group from out of state planned a rally against the Somali "invasion." Just a few people showed up. But across town 4,000 gathered in a gymnasium to support the Somalis and try to combat the reputation of Lewiston as a racist, xenophobic city that was rocketing around the world.</p>
<p>And in that moment, the tide seemed to turn, deputy city administrator Phil Nadeau said. Even more immigrants came. Somali refugees gave way to those seeking asylum, from Angola, Burundi, Rwanda, a dozen nations in all. The immigrant population exploded from a handful of families to more than 7,000 people today, according to a tally by the Immigrant Resource Center of Maine. But the anxieties of old rarely seemed to resurface.</p>
<p>Two years ago, immigrant children led the high school soccer team to win the state championship — a moment heralded as a triumph of cultural cooperation. Outside news crews still come from time to time, Nadeau said, and "they're always amazed that there's nothing bad to print."</p>
<p>But around the edges of the city, in the suburbs and small towns that fill out the rest of Androscoggin County, many quietly stewed. It's there that Trump's "America First" message took root.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Thirty miles up the highway, Joyce Badeau greets customers by name at the hardware store where she works. She lives just outside Livermore Falls, population 3,187 — 3,035 of whom are white. She has little occasion to interact with immigrants, but her political views have been shaped by the idea of them.</p>
<p>Badeau voted for Obama but backs Trump now, and points to his promise to rein in immigration as one reason why.</p>
<p>"We're becoming a poor country because we're overloaded," she said. "We can't fix the system so long as we keep adding more broken pieces."</p>
<p>She has watched the paper mills close and her neighbors lose good-paying jobs. But Badeau isn't naive; she doesn't believe Trump can make the mills roar back to life. That was a bygone era, replaced by email and iPhones. And his arrogance grates on her. But she hopes one day to turn on the news and not hear about crime and homelessness and terrorism — and she worries that someone who wants to hurt Americans might slip through porous borders. Trump promised to fix it all. If he can't, she's not sure what more America can offer immigrants.</p>
<p>"Because they're leaving one country of problems and coming into another country of problems," she said.</p>
<p>David Lovewell used to work at a paper mill just outside of Livermore Falls that has shed hundreds of jobs. Now he runs a logging company with his sons, but he sees a dim future for them. A few months ago, business got so bad he laid off eight employees and fell behind on his $5,500 monthly payments on the machines he uses to cut down trees.</p>
<p>He looked down at his sneakers, bought for $25 at Wal-Mart. There used to be two shoe factories nearby. He wants Trump to stop his town's slow slip toward irrelevancy.</p>
<p>Lovewell doesn't like to talk about immigration. He sighs and rubs his head, afraid to seem racist or indifferent to pain and poverty around the world. He went on a cruise to Belize with his wife several years ago, when he still worked at the mill and could afford a vacation. He stopped to buy a carving from an old man whose hands were so worn from years of whittling they looked like leather. He remembers those hands still, and the man's dirt-floor shack with no doors and his skinny, starving dog and the kids riding around on broken bicycles.</p>
<p>"I struggled with it, when he did the travel ban," Lovewell said of Trump. "At the same time, I'm seeing ... people losing their jobs. Why are we so worried about immigrants coming into our country when we can't really take care of our own people?"</p>
<p>So he's looking to Trump to strike a better balance — to build an economy where his sons don't have to battle to barely get by, and only after that design an immigration system that keeps America's promise of open arms.</p>
<p>"I guess it could sound like bigotry," he said. "But we're hurting. Americans are hurting."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Politicians have seized on the discontent.</p>
<p>Last August, candidate Trump stood on a stage in Portland and singled out the Somali community as causing a crime wave. The Lewiston police chief quickly refuted the charge — crime has decreased dramatically since the refugees arrived — but it stuck in the minds of many.</p>
<p>Maine's Republican governor, Paul LePage, has called asylum-seekers "the biggest problem in our state," and suggested they bring danger and disease.</p>
<p>And in Androscoggin County, Republican leaders hammer the issue of refugee resettlement on their Facebook page, with post after post about the injustice they see in taxpayers helping them with assistance. They've dubbed it "the refugee racket," and complain that the school system is forced to accommodate 34 languages.</p>
<p>Lewiston School Superintendent Bill Webster acknowledges that does cost money. But he has a statistic he likes to share with the critics.</p>
<p>Historically, Lewiston has had some of the lowest high school graduation rates in the state. Now, immigrant children are doing better than native-born kids. Some were illiterate in their native language when they set out to learn English. Yet an average of 78.3 percent of immigrant students graduate high school within five years, compared to an average of 73.3 percent of native students.</p>
<p>Fifteen years ago, the school district had an enrollment of 4,500 students and falling — a sign of a city on its knees, Webster said. Today, there are 5,400 students, more than one-quarter of them immigrants, and the number is going up. And now the immigrant children who grew up here are going off to college to get degrees, as teachers, doctors, engineers.</p>
<p>Several years ago, Webster and his wife sold their home in the suburbs and rented an apartment in downtown Lewiston, across the street from a mosque. They can stroll to dinner, past a yoga studio and a shop that sells artisan olive oil. There are also dozens of immigrant-owned businesses, like the Mogadishu Business Center — with two flags hanging in the window, one American and one Somali. Remaining vacant storefronts have signs in the windows, promising prospective buyers an opportunity to "be part of Lewiston's great rebirth."</p>
<p>"We never have the opportunity to redo time under a different set of assumptions," Webster said. "But if the immigrant population hadn't happened, Lewiston would be a community that was contracting, and potentially in a downward death spiral."</p>
<p>Organizations that work with immigrants nevertheless must fight on to combat deep-seated distrust. Catholic Charities publishes a fact sheet called "The Top Ten Myths about Somalis and Why They Are Wrong." It lists untruths like, "Somalis are draining the welfare coffers," ''Somalis get free apartments," even "Somalis keep live chickens in their kitchen cupboards."</p>
<p>Maine's immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa made $136.6 million in income in 2014, and paid $40 million in taxes, according to one report from a bipartisan think tank. But they largely work in invisible jobs, said Catherine Besteman, a professor of anthropology at Maine's Colby College. They take out trash at hotels, do the laundry at the hospital. People don't see them working, she said, so when they see them driving a car, or shopping for groceries, it becomes easy to assume they got it for free.</p>
<p>That leaves some here still feeling that the immigrants take more than they deserve.</p>
<p>Tabitha Beauchesne pulled a bag of bargain-brand cereal out of her kitchen cabinet to demonstrate that point. At the grocery store, she said, she sees immigrant mothers with carts piled high with name-brand food.</p>
<p>"I guess I'm jealous of that. I would love to buy my kids the real Fruit Roll-Ups," she said. "But, no, sorry kids, you get the fruit packets from Wal-Mart."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>So Mohamed Ibrahim now knocks on doors.</p>
<p>"Hello," he says to strangers across Androscoggin County. "I am a Muslim. I was welcomed by America. I was helped by General Assistance, and that was coming from your pockets and I am grateful. I became a taxpayer. I'm not taking anything. Now I am giving."</p>
<p>He wants his neighbors to know him, to know that he is normal. Trump's election here taught him he has a lot more work to do.</p>
<p>"We thought, 'Yay, it's perfect.' But everything was slipping."</p>
<p>Ibrahim came in 2012 from Djibouti, where he risked imprisonment for opposing his government. He is one of the thousands who have flooded into Lewiston in recent years because they are seeking asylum from oppression.</p>
<p>With them came a spike in the amount of taxpayer assistance going to immigrants. Asylum-seekers, unlike resettled refugees, are barred from getting work permits for at least six months and many, like Ibrahim, must rely on government assistance to get by when they first arrive. The amount paid to immigrants jumped recently to nearly a half-million dollars.</p>
<p>And there seems to be more tension in town since Trump took office. One woman reported she was nearly run down by a screaming driver; another said someone jerked her hijab and told her to go back where she came from.</p>
<p>Ardo Mohamed, the Somali who cooks sambusas with her sister, is an American citizen now. Her children were born in the United States. But they worry the government will come to send her away.</p>
<p>"We are scared," she said. "They say every night, 'Mom, if they take you, where we do live?'"</p>
<p>Ibrahim does not blame his neighbors for supporting Trump, because he's seen the pull of populism before. When his friends complain about the policies on immigration, he reminds them of the day, more than a decade ago, that the interior minister of their country ordered all illegal immigrants to leave or face mass arrest. He asks them how they felt, and they respond: patriotic - like their government was looking out for them.</p>
<p>Ibrahim has his own hopes for the president. He hopes Trump will build an immigration system that gives people confidence that those coming are good and hardworking - so that, one day, people like him will be called Americans, not refugees. But he worries it will come at a cost.</p>
<p>In 50 years, he thinks, the descendants of his fellow African immigrants will be suspicious of whoever comes next.</p>
<p>"That's how it's been through history. The Irish were discriminated against, and then they discriminated against the French. The French were discriminated against, now they discriminate against us, at the bottom of the ladder," he said, laughing uncomfortably.</p>
<p>"I don't hope for that, it is not my wish. We can change. But still, we are stuck being human beings."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>AP data journalist Angeliki Kastanis contributed to this report.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Read more</a> of AP's coverage of Americans looking to Trump for change.</p>
<p>LEWISTON, Maine (AP) — Richard Rodrigue stood in the back of a banquet hall, watching his blond-haired, blue-eyed daughter mingle among her high school classmates. These teenagers speak dozens of languages, and hail from a dozen African nations.</p>
<p>They fled brutal civil war, famine, oppressive regimes to find themselves here, at an ordinary high school pre-prom fete in this once-dying New England mill town, revived by an influx of some 7,500 immigrants over the last 16 years. Rodrigue smiled and waved at his daughter, proud she is a part of it: "It will help her in life," he said. "The world is not all white."</p>
<p>Rodrigue believes the refugees resuscitated his town — plugging the population drain that had threatened to cripple it, opening shops and restaurants in boarded-up storefronts. But he also agrees with Donald Trump that there should be no more of them, at least not now. America is struggling, he says, and needs to take care of its own before it takes care of anyone else.</p>
<p>His working-class community, built along the banks of the Androscoggin River in the whitest state in America, is a place that some point to as proof that refugee integration can work. And yet for the first time in 30 years, voters in Androscoggin County chose a Republican for president, endorsing Trump's nativist zeal against the very sort of immigrants who share their streets and their schools.</p>
<p>Rodrigue knows he was born on the winning end of the American dream. His grandfather fled poverty in Quebec and moved to Maine to toil his whole life in the textile mills. He never learned English, faced hate and discrimination. Two generations later, Rodrigue owns a successful security company, lives in a tidy house in a quiet neighborhood and makes plans to send his daughter to college.</p>
<p>Immigration worked for him. But it feels different today, as the county of 107,000 people tries to find its footing. The sprawling brick mills that line the river sit mostly shuttered. A quarter of children grow up poor. Taxpayers pick up the welfare tab. So Trump's supporters here tie their embrace of his immigration clampdown to their economic anxieties, and their belief that the newcomers are taking more than they have earned.</p>
<p>"There's got to be a point in time when you have to say, 'Whoa, let's get the working people back up. Let's bring the money in.' But they keep coming, keep coming," Rodrigue said.</p>
<p>His community has been an experiment in immigration and all that comes with it — friendships, fear, triumphs, setbacks — and he knows that Trump's presidency marks another chapter in that struggle for the American soul.</p>
<p>"I guess it just boils down to: What's enough? Is that wrong? Am I wrong? Am I bad? That's how I feel."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>No one invited the Somali refugees to Lewiston.</p>
<p>They fled bullets and warlords to eventually be chosen for resettlement in big American cities, where they were unnerved by the crime and drugs and noise.</p>
<p>In early 2001, a few refugee families struggling to afford housing in Portland ventured 30 miles north and found a city in retreat. Empty downtown stores were ringed by sagging apartment buildings no longer needed to house workers because so few workers remained.</p>
<p>The refugees saw possibility in Lewiston's decay. Word spread quickly, and friends and families followed. The town morphed in a matter of months into a laboratory for what happens when culture suddenly shifts. Maine's population is 94 percent white, and its citizens were abruptly confronted with hundreds of black Muslims, traumatized by war and barely able to speak English.</p>
<p>Ardo Mohamed came to Lewiston in 2001. She fled Mogadishu in the 1990s, when militiamen burst into the home she shared with her parents and nine siblings, and started shooting. She watched her father die, as the rest of the family escaped into the woods. They wound up in overcrowded refugee camps, separated for years, then finally Atlanta, then Lewiston. Now she fries sambusas with her sister at a shop she owns downtown.</p>
<p>"We wanted to be safe," said the mother of five, "just like you do."</p>
<p>When the refugees began arriving, Tabitha Beauchesne was a student at Lewiston High School. Her new classmates were poor, but Beauchesne was poor, too. She grew up in a struggling family in housing projects downtown. It felt to her then, and it still feels to her now, that the refugees got more help than her family.</p>
<p>"They just seemed to take over," she said. She doesn't consider herself racist, though acknowledges that race and religion likely play a role in her sense that the refugees overwhelmed her community. The African Muslims, many of whom wear hijabs, stand out far more than her French-Canadian ancestors did when they arrived generations ago, she said.</p>
<p>That perception — one of being inundated by a culture so different from her own — ingrained in her a sense of injustice so deep it persists to this day. She's now a stay-at-home mother of two, and she left Lewiston to move to another school district in the county because she believes the refugee students monopolize teachers' attention.</p>
<p>Once a Barack Obama supporter, Beauchesne turned to Trump — and she cheers his efforts to curb the flow of refugees into the United States. She wants Trump to design a tax system that funnels less of her money to aiding those from other countries.</p>
<p>"I just don't like giving money away that's not benefiting me and, not to sound selfish, but then seeing it benefit other people," she said. "As a business owner, my husband wouldn't donate $500 to the Salvation Army if we couldn't afford it. Our country needs to do the same thing."</p>
<p>Taxpayers do help refugee families. Maine offers a welfare program called General Assistance, a combination of state and city funds, which provides impoverished people with vouchers for rent, utilities and food.</p>
<p>In 2002, at the beginning of the immigrant influx, the city handed out about $343,000 in General Assistance funds, split almost evenly between native-born Mainers and refugees, according to city records. But rumors, largely unfounded, spread that the refugees were given free cars and apartments. Locals began calling City Hall to demand answers.</p>
<p>Then-Mayor Laurier T. Raymond Jr. penned an open letter to the Somali community, asking that they divert friends and family away from a city he described as "maxed-out financially, physically and emotionally."</p>
<p>The letter plunged Lewiston overnight into the global political cauldron. A white-supremacist group from out of state planned a rally against the Somali "invasion." Just a few people showed up. But across town 4,000 gathered in a gymnasium to support the Somalis and try to combat the reputation of Lewiston as a racist, xenophobic city that was rocketing around the world.</p>
<p>And in that moment, the tide seemed to turn, deputy city administrator Phil Nadeau said. Even more immigrants came. Somali refugees gave way to those seeking asylum, from Angola, Burundi, Rwanda, a dozen nations in all. The immigrant population exploded from a handful of families to more than 7,000 people today, according to a tally by the Immigrant Resource Center of Maine. But the anxieties of old rarely seemed to resurface.</p>
<p>Two years ago, immigrant children led the high school soccer team to win the state championship — a moment heralded as a triumph of cultural cooperation. Outside news crews still come from time to time, Nadeau said, and "they're always amazed that there's nothing bad to print."</p>
<p>But around the edges of the city, in the suburbs and small towns that fill out the rest of Androscoggin County, many quietly stewed. It's there that Trump's "America First" message took root.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Thirty miles up the highway, Joyce Badeau greets customers by name at the hardware store where she works. She lives just outside Livermore Falls, population 3,187 — 3,035 of whom are white. She has little occasion to interact with immigrants, but her political views have been shaped by the idea of them.</p>
<p>Badeau voted for Obama but backs Trump now, and points to his promise to rein in immigration as one reason why.</p>
<p>"We're becoming a poor country because we're overloaded," she said. "We can't fix the system so long as we keep adding more broken pieces."</p>
<p>She has watched the paper mills close and her neighbors lose good-paying jobs. But Badeau isn't naive; she doesn't believe Trump can make the mills roar back to life. That was a bygone era, replaced by email and iPhones. And his arrogance grates on her. But she hopes one day to turn on the news and not hear about crime and homelessness and terrorism — and she worries that someone who wants to hurt Americans might slip through porous borders. Trump promised to fix it all. If he can't, she's not sure what more America can offer immigrants.</p>
<p>"Because they're leaving one country of problems and coming into another country of problems," she said.</p>
<p>David Lovewell used to work at a paper mill just outside of Livermore Falls that has shed hundreds of jobs. Now he runs a logging company with his sons, but he sees a dim future for them. A few months ago, business got so bad he laid off eight employees and fell behind on his $5,500 monthly payments on the machines he uses to cut down trees.</p>
<p>He looked down at his sneakers, bought for $25 at Wal-Mart. There used to be two shoe factories nearby. He wants Trump to stop his town's slow slip toward irrelevancy.</p>
<p>Lovewell doesn't like to talk about immigration. He sighs and rubs his head, afraid to seem racist or indifferent to pain and poverty around the world. He went on a cruise to Belize with his wife several years ago, when he still worked at the mill and could afford a vacation. He stopped to buy a carving from an old man whose hands were so worn from years of whittling they looked like leather. He remembers those hands still, and the man's dirt-floor shack with no doors and his skinny, starving dog and the kids riding around on broken bicycles.</p>
<p>"I struggled with it, when he did the travel ban," Lovewell said of Trump. "At the same time, I'm seeing ... people losing their jobs. Why are we so worried about immigrants coming into our country when we can't really take care of our own people?"</p>
<p>So he's looking to Trump to strike a better balance — to build an economy where his sons don't have to battle to barely get by, and only after that design an immigration system that keeps America's promise of open arms.</p>
<p>"I guess it could sound like bigotry," he said. "But we're hurting. Americans are hurting."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Politicians have seized on the discontent.</p>
<p>Last August, candidate Trump stood on a stage in Portland and singled out the Somali community as causing a crime wave. The Lewiston police chief quickly refuted the charge — crime has decreased dramatically since the refugees arrived — but it stuck in the minds of many.</p>
<p>Maine's Republican governor, Paul LePage, has called asylum-seekers "the biggest problem in our state," and suggested they bring danger and disease.</p>
<p>And in Androscoggin County, Republican leaders hammer the issue of refugee resettlement on their Facebook page, with post after post about the injustice they see in taxpayers helping them with assistance. They've dubbed it "the refugee racket," and complain that the school system is forced to accommodate 34 languages.</p>
<p>Lewiston School Superintendent Bill Webster acknowledges that does cost money. But he has a statistic he likes to share with the critics.</p>
<p>Historically, Lewiston has had some of the lowest high school graduation rates in the state. Now, immigrant children are doing better than native-born kids. Some were illiterate in their native language when they set out to learn English. Yet an average of 78.3 percent of immigrant students graduate high school within five years, compared to an average of 73.3 percent of native students.</p>
<p>Fifteen years ago, the school district had an enrollment of 4,500 students and falling — a sign of a city on its knees, Webster said. Today, there are 5,400 students, more than one-quarter of them immigrants, and the number is going up. And now the immigrant children who grew up here are going off to college to get degrees, as teachers, doctors, engineers.</p>
<p>Several years ago, Webster and his wife sold their home in the suburbs and rented an apartment in downtown Lewiston, across the street from a mosque. They can stroll to dinner, past a yoga studio and a shop that sells artisan olive oil. There are also dozens of immigrant-owned businesses, like the Mogadishu Business Center — with two flags hanging in the window, one American and one Somali. Remaining vacant storefronts have signs in the windows, promising prospective buyers an opportunity to "be part of Lewiston's great rebirth."</p>
<p>"We never have the opportunity to redo time under a different set of assumptions," Webster said. "But if the immigrant population hadn't happened, Lewiston would be a community that was contracting, and potentially in a downward death spiral."</p>
<p>Organizations that work with immigrants nevertheless must fight on to combat deep-seated distrust. Catholic Charities publishes a fact sheet called "The Top Ten Myths about Somalis and Why They Are Wrong." It lists untruths like, "Somalis are draining the welfare coffers," ''Somalis get free apartments," even "Somalis keep live chickens in their kitchen cupboards."</p>
<p>Maine's immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa made $136.6 million in income in 2014, and paid $40 million in taxes, according to one report from a bipartisan think tank. But they largely work in invisible jobs, said Catherine Besteman, a professor of anthropology at Maine's Colby College. They take out trash at hotels, do the laundry at the hospital. People don't see them working, she said, so when they see them driving a car, or shopping for groceries, it becomes easy to assume they got it for free.</p>
<p>That leaves some here still feeling that the immigrants take more than they deserve.</p>
<p>Tabitha Beauchesne pulled a bag of bargain-brand cereal out of her kitchen cabinet to demonstrate that point. At the grocery store, she said, she sees immigrant mothers with carts piled high with name-brand food.</p>
<p>"I guess I'm jealous of that. I would love to buy my kids the real Fruit Roll-Ups," she said. "But, no, sorry kids, you get the fruit packets from Wal-Mart."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>So Mohamed Ibrahim now knocks on doors.</p>
<p>"Hello," he says to strangers across Androscoggin County. "I am a Muslim. I was welcomed by America. I was helped by General Assistance, and that was coming from your pockets and I am grateful. I became a taxpayer. I'm not taking anything. Now I am giving."</p>
<p>He wants his neighbors to know him, to know that he is normal. Trump's election here taught him he has a lot more work to do.</p>
<p>"We thought, 'Yay, it's perfect.' But everything was slipping."</p>
<p>Ibrahim came in 2012 from Djibouti, where he risked imprisonment for opposing his government. He is one of the thousands who have flooded into Lewiston in recent years because they are seeking asylum from oppression.</p>
<p>With them came a spike in the amount of taxpayer assistance going to immigrants. Asylum-seekers, unlike resettled refugees, are barred from getting work permits for at least six months and many, like Ibrahim, must rely on government assistance to get by when they first arrive. The amount paid to immigrants jumped recently to nearly a half-million dollars.</p>
<p>And there seems to be more tension in town since Trump took office. One woman reported she was nearly run down by a screaming driver; another said someone jerked her hijab and told her to go back where she came from.</p>
<p>Ardo Mohamed, the Somali who cooks sambusas with her sister, is an American citizen now. Her children were born in the United States. But they worry the government will come to send her away.</p>
<p>"We are scared," she said. "They say every night, 'Mom, if they take you, where we do live?'"</p>
<p>Ibrahim does not blame his neighbors for supporting Trump, because he's seen the pull of populism before. When his friends complain about the policies on immigration, he reminds them of the day, more than a decade ago, that the interior minister of their country ordered all illegal immigrants to leave or face mass arrest. He asks them how they felt, and they respond: patriotic - like their government was looking out for them.</p>
<p>Ibrahim has his own hopes for the president. He hopes Trump will build an immigration system that gives people confidence that those coming are good and hardworking - so that, one day, people like him will be called Americans, not refugees. But he worries it will come at a cost.</p>
<p>In 50 years, he thinks, the descendants of his fellow African immigrants will be suspicious of whoever comes next.</p>
<p>"That's how it's been through history. The Irish were discriminated against, and then they discriminated against the French. The French were discriminated against, now they discriminate against us, at the bottom of the ladder," he said, laughing uncomfortably.</p>
<p>"I don't hope for that, it is not my wish. We can change. But still, we are stuck being human beings."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>AP data journalist Angeliki Kastanis contributed to this report.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Read more</a> of AP's coverage of Americans looking to Trump for change.</p>
| false | 2 |
lewiston maine ap richard rodrigue stood back banquet hall watching blondhaired blueeyed daughter mingle among high school classmates teenagers speak dozens languages hail dozen african nations fled brutal civil war famine oppressive regimes find ordinary high school preprom fete oncedying new england mill town revived influx 7500 immigrants last 16 years rodrigue smiled waved daughter proud part help life said world white rodrigue believes refugees resuscitated town plugging population drain threatened cripple opening shops restaurants boardedup storefronts also agrees donald trump least america struggling says needs take care takes care anyone else workingclass community built along banks androscoggin river whitest state america place point proof refugee integration work yet first time 30 years voters androscoggin county chose republican president endorsing trumps nativist zeal sort immigrants share streets schools rodrigue knows born winning end american dream grandfather fled poverty quebec moved maine toil whole life textile mills never learned english faced hate discrimination two generations later rodrigue owns successful security company lives tidy house quiet neighborhood makes plans send daughter college immigration worked feels different today county 107000 people tries find footing sprawling brick mills line river sit mostly shuttered quarter children grow poor taxpayers pick welfare tab trumps supporters tie embrace immigration clampdown economic anxieties belief newcomers taking earned theres got point time say whoa lets get working people back lets bring money keep coming keep coming rodrigue said community experiment immigration comes friendships fear triumphs setbacks knows trumps presidency marks another chapter struggle american soul guess boils whats enough wrong wrong bad thats feel ___ one invited somali refugees lewiston fled bullets warlords eventually chosen resettlement big american cities unnerved crime drugs noise early 2001 refugee families struggling afford housing portland ventured 30 miles north found city retreat empty downtown stores ringed sagging apartment buildings longer needed house workers workers remained refugees saw possibility lewistons decay word spread quickly friends families followed town morphed matter months laboratory happens culture suddenly shifts maines population 94 percent white citizens abruptly confronted hundreds black muslims traumatized war barely able speak english ardo mohamed came lewiston 2001 fled mogadishu 1990s militiamen burst home shared parents nine siblings started shooting watched father die rest family escaped woods wound overcrowded refugee camps separated years finally atlanta lewiston fries sambusas sister shop owns downtown wanted safe said mother five like refugees began arriving tabitha beauchesne student lewiston high school new classmates poor beauchesne poor grew struggling family housing projects downtown felt still feels refugees got help family seemed take said doesnt consider racist though acknowledges race religion likely play role sense refugees overwhelmed community african muslims many wear hijabs stand far frenchcanadian ancestors arrived generations ago said perception one inundated culture different ingrained sense injustice deep persists day shes stayathome mother two left lewiston move another school district county believes refugee students monopolize teachers attention barack obama supporter beauchesne turned trump cheers efforts curb flow refugees united states wants trump design tax system funnels less money aiding countries dont like giving money away thats benefiting sound selfish seeing benefit people said business owner husband wouldnt donate 500 salvation army couldnt afford country needs thing taxpayers help refugee families maine offers welfare program called general assistance combination state city funds provides impoverished people vouchers rent utilities food 2002 beginning immigrant influx city handed 343000 general assistance funds split almost evenly nativeborn mainers refugees according city records rumors largely unfounded spread refugees given free cars apartments locals began calling city hall demand answers thenmayor laurier raymond jr penned open letter somali community asking divert friends family away city described maxedout financially physically emotionally letter plunged lewiston overnight global political cauldron whitesupremacist group state planned rally somali invasion people showed across town 4000 gathered gymnasium support somalis try combat reputation lewiston racist xenophobic city rocketing around world moment tide seemed turn deputy city administrator phil nadeau said even immigrants came somali refugees gave way seeking asylum angola burundi rwanda dozen nations immigrant population exploded handful families 7000 people today according tally immigrant resource center maine anxieties old rarely seemed resurface two years ago immigrant children led high school soccer team win state championship moment heralded triumph cultural cooperation outside news crews still come time time nadeau said theyre always amazed theres nothing bad print around edges city suburbs small towns fill rest androscoggin county many quietly stewed trumps america first message took root ___ thirty miles highway joyce badeau greets customers name hardware store works lives outside livermore falls population 3187 3035 white little occasion interact immigrants political views shaped idea badeau voted obama backs trump points promise rein immigration one reason becoming poor country overloaded said cant fix system long keep adding broken pieces watched paper mills close neighbors lose goodpaying jobs badeau isnt naive doesnt believe trump make mills roar back life bygone era replaced email iphones arrogance grates hopes one day turn news hear crime homelessness terrorism worries someone wants hurt americans might slip porous borders trump promised fix cant shes sure america offer immigrants theyre leaving one country problems coming another country problems said david lovewell used work paper mill outside livermore falls shed hundreds jobs runs logging company sons sees dim future months ago business got bad laid eight employees fell behind 5500 monthly payments machines uses cut trees looked sneakers bought 25 walmart used two shoe factories nearby wants trump stop towns slow slip toward irrelevancy lovewell doesnt like talk immigration sighs rubs head afraid seem racist indifferent pain poverty around world went cruise belize wife several years ago still worked mill could afford vacation stopped buy carving old man whose hands worn years whittling looked like leather remembers hands still mans dirtfloor shack doors skinny starving dog kids riding around broken bicycles struggled travel ban lovewell said trump time im seeing people losing jobs worried immigrants coming country cant really take care people hes looking trump strike better balance build economy sons dont battle barely get design immigration system keeps americas promise open arms guess could sound like bigotry said hurting americans hurting ___ politicians seized discontent last august candidate trump stood stage portland singled somali community causing crime wave lewiston police chief quickly refuted charge crime decreased dramatically since refugees arrived stuck minds many maines republican governor paul lepage called asylumseekers biggest problem state suggested bring danger disease androscoggin county republican leaders hammer issue refugee resettlement facebook page post post injustice see taxpayers helping assistance theyve dubbed refugee racket complain school system forced accommodate 34 languages lewiston school superintendent bill webster acknowledges cost money statistic likes share critics historically lewiston lowest high school graduation rates state immigrant children better nativeborn kids illiterate native language set learn english yet average 783 percent immigrant students graduate high school within five years compared average 733 percent native students fifteen years ago school district enrollment 4500 students falling sign city knees webster said today 5400 students onequarter immigrants number going immigrant children grew going college get degrees teachers doctors engineers several years ago webster wife sold home suburbs rented apartment downtown lewiston across street mosque stroll dinner past yoga studio shop sells artisan olive oil also dozens immigrantowned businesses like mogadishu business center two flags hanging window one american one somali remaining vacant storefronts signs windows promising prospective buyers opportunity part lewistons great rebirth never opportunity redo time different set assumptions webster said immigrant population hadnt happened lewiston would community contracting potentially downward death spiral organizations work immigrants nevertheless must fight combat deepseated distrust catholic charities publishes fact sheet called top ten myths somalis wrong lists untruths like somalis draining welfare coffers somalis get free apartments even somalis keep live chickens kitchen cupboards maines immigrants subsaharan africa made 1366 million income 2014 paid 40 million taxes according one report bipartisan think tank largely work invisible jobs said catherine besteman professor anthropology maines colby college take trash hotels laundry hospital people dont see working said see driving car shopping groceries becomes easy assume got free leaves still feeling immigrants take deserve tabitha beauchesne pulled bag bargainbrand cereal kitchen cabinet demonstrate point grocery store said sees immigrant mothers carts piled high namebrand food guess im jealous would love buy kids real fruit rollups said sorry kids get fruit packets walmart ___ mohamed ibrahim knocks doors hello says strangers across androscoggin county muslim welcomed america helped general assistance coming pockets grateful became taxpayer im taking anything giving wants neighbors know know normal trumps election taught lot work thought yay perfect everything slipping ibrahim came 2012 djibouti risked imprisonment opposing government one thousands flooded lewiston recent years seeking asylum oppression came spike amount taxpayer assistance going immigrants asylumseekers unlike resettled refugees barred getting work permits least six months many like ibrahim must rely government assistance get first arrive amount paid immigrants jumped recently nearly halfmillion dollars seems tension town since trump took office one woman reported nearly run screaming driver another said someone jerked hijab told go back came ardo mohamed somali cooks sambusas sister american citizen children born united states worry government come send away scared said say every night mom take live ibrahim blame neighbors supporting trump hes seen pull populism friends complain policies immigration reminds day decade ago interior minister country ordered illegal immigrants leave face mass arrest asks felt respond patriotic like government looking ibrahim hopes president hopes trump build immigration system gives people confidence coming good hardworking one day people like called americans refugees worries come cost 50 years thinks descendants fellow african immigrants suspicious whoever comes next thats history irish discriminated discriminated french french discriminated discriminate us bottom ladder said laughing uncomfortably dont hope wish change still stuck human beings ___ ap data journalist angeliki kastanis contributed report ___ read aps coverage americans looking trump change lewiston maine ap richard rodrigue stood back banquet hall watching blondhaired blueeyed daughter mingle among high school classmates teenagers speak dozens languages hail dozen african nations fled brutal civil war famine oppressive regimes find ordinary high school preprom fete oncedying new england mill town revived influx 7500 immigrants last 16 years rodrigue smiled waved daughter proud part help life said world white rodrigue believes refugees resuscitated town plugging population drain threatened cripple opening shops restaurants boardedup storefronts also agrees donald trump least america struggling says needs take care takes care anyone else workingclass community built along banks androscoggin river whitest state america place point proof refugee integration work yet first time 30 years voters androscoggin county chose republican president endorsing trumps nativist zeal sort immigrants share streets schools rodrigue knows born winning end american dream grandfather fled poverty quebec moved maine toil whole life textile mills never learned english faced hate discrimination two generations later rodrigue owns successful security company lives tidy house quiet neighborhood makes plans send daughter college immigration worked feels different today county 107000 people tries find footing sprawling brick mills line river sit mostly shuttered quarter children grow poor taxpayers pick welfare tab trumps supporters tie embrace immigration clampdown economic anxieties belief newcomers taking earned theres got point time say whoa lets get working people back lets bring money keep coming keep coming rodrigue said community experiment immigration comes friendships fear triumphs setbacks knows trumps presidency marks another chapter struggle american soul guess boils whats enough wrong wrong bad thats feel ___ one invited somali refugees lewiston fled bullets warlords eventually chosen resettlement big american cities unnerved crime drugs noise early 2001 refugee families struggling afford housing portland ventured 30 miles north found city retreat empty downtown stores ringed sagging apartment buildings longer needed house workers workers remained refugees saw possibility lewistons decay word spread quickly friends families followed town morphed matter months laboratory happens culture suddenly shifts maines population 94 percent white citizens abruptly confronted hundreds black muslims traumatized war barely able speak english ardo mohamed came lewiston 2001 fled mogadishu 1990s militiamen burst home shared parents nine siblings started shooting watched father die rest family escaped woods wound overcrowded refugee camps separated years finally atlanta lewiston fries sambusas sister shop owns downtown wanted safe said mother five like refugees began arriving tabitha beauchesne student lewiston high school new classmates poor beauchesne poor grew struggling family housing projects downtown felt still feels refugees got help family seemed take said doesnt consider racist though acknowledges race religion likely play role sense refugees overwhelmed community african muslims many wear hijabs stand far frenchcanadian ancestors arrived generations ago said perception one inundated culture different ingrained sense injustice deep persists day shes stayathome mother two left lewiston move another school district county believes refugee students monopolize teachers attention barack obama supporter beauchesne turned trump cheers efforts curb flow refugees united states wants trump design tax system funnels less money aiding countries dont like giving money away thats benefiting sound selfish seeing benefit people said business owner husband wouldnt donate 500 salvation army couldnt afford country needs thing taxpayers help refugee families maine offers welfare program called general assistance combination state city funds provides impoverished people vouchers rent utilities food 2002 beginning immigrant influx city handed 343000 general assistance funds split almost evenly nativeborn mainers refugees according city records rumors largely unfounded spread refugees given free cars apartments locals began calling city hall demand answers thenmayor laurier raymond jr penned open letter somali community asking divert friends family away city described maxedout financially physically emotionally letter plunged lewiston overnight global political cauldron whitesupremacist group state planned rally somali invasion people showed across town 4000 gathered gymnasium support somalis try combat reputation lewiston racist xenophobic city rocketing around world moment tide seemed turn deputy city administrator phil nadeau said even immigrants came somali refugees gave way seeking asylum angola burundi rwanda dozen nations immigrant population exploded handful families 7000 people today according tally immigrant resource center maine anxieties old rarely seemed resurface two years ago immigrant children led high school soccer team win state championship moment heralded triumph cultural cooperation outside news crews still come time time nadeau said theyre always amazed theres nothing bad print around edges city suburbs small towns fill rest androscoggin county many quietly stewed trumps america first message took root ___ thirty miles highway joyce badeau greets customers name hardware store works lives outside livermore falls population 3187 3035 white little occasion interact immigrants political views shaped idea badeau voted obama backs trump points promise rein immigration one reason becoming poor country overloaded said cant fix system long keep adding broken pieces watched paper mills close neighbors lose goodpaying jobs badeau isnt naive doesnt believe trump make mills roar back life bygone era replaced email iphones arrogance grates hopes one day turn news hear crime homelessness terrorism worries someone wants hurt americans might slip porous borders trump promised fix cant shes sure america offer immigrants theyre leaving one country problems coming another country problems said david lovewell used work paper mill outside livermore falls shed hundreds jobs runs logging company sons sees dim future months ago business got bad laid eight employees fell behind 5500 monthly payments machines uses cut trees looked sneakers bought 25 walmart used two shoe factories nearby wants trump stop towns slow slip toward irrelevancy lovewell doesnt like talk immigration sighs rubs head afraid seem racist indifferent pain poverty around world went cruise belize wife several years ago still worked mill could afford vacation stopped buy carving old man whose hands worn years whittling looked like leather remembers hands still mans dirtfloor shack doors skinny starving dog kids riding around broken bicycles struggled travel ban lovewell said trump time im seeing people losing jobs worried immigrants coming country cant really take care people hes looking trump strike better balance build economy sons dont battle barely get design immigration system keeps americas promise open arms guess could sound like bigotry said hurting americans hurting ___ politicians seized discontent last august candidate trump stood stage portland singled somali community causing crime wave lewiston police chief quickly refuted charge crime decreased dramatically since refugees arrived stuck minds many maines republican governor paul lepage called asylumseekers biggest problem state suggested bring danger disease androscoggin county republican leaders hammer issue refugee resettlement facebook page post post injustice see taxpayers helping assistance theyve dubbed refugee racket complain school system forced accommodate 34 languages lewiston school superintendent bill webster acknowledges cost money statistic likes share critics historically lewiston lowest high school graduation rates state immigrant children better nativeborn kids illiterate native language set learn english yet average 783 percent immigrant students graduate high school within five years compared average 733 percent native students fifteen years ago school district enrollment 4500 students falling sign city knees webster said today 5400 students onequarter immigrants number going immigrant children grew going college get degrees teachers doctors engineers several years ago webster wife sold home suburbs rented apartment downtown lewiston across street mosque stroll dinner past yoga studio shop sells artisan olive oil also dozens immigrantowned businesses like mogadishu business center two flags hanging window one american one somali remaining vacant storefronts signs windows promising prospective buyers opportunity part lewistons great rebirth never opportunity redo time different set assumptions webster said immigrant population hadnt happened lewiston would community contracting potentially downward death spiral organizations work immigrants nevertheless must fight combat deepseated distrust catholic charities publishes fact sheet called top ten myths somalis wrong lists untruths like somalis draining welfare coffers somalis get free apartments even somalis keep live chickens kitchen cupboards maines immigrants subsaharan africa made 1366 million income 2014 paid 40 million taxes according one report bipartisan think tank largely work invisible jobs said catherine besteman professor anthropology maines colby college take trash hotels laundry hospital people dont see working said see driving car shopping groceries becomes easy assume got free leaves still feeling immigrants take deserve tabitha beauchesne pulled bag bargainbrand cereal kitchen cabinet demonstrate point grocery store said sees immigrant mothers carts piled high namebrand food guess im jealous would love buy kids real fruit rollups said sorry kids get fruit packets walmart ___ mohamed ibrahim knocks doors hello says strangers across androscoggin county muslim welcomed america helped general assistance coming pockets grateful became taxpayer im taking anything giving wants neighbors know know normal trumps election taught lot work thought yay perfect everything slipping ibrahim came 2012 djibouti risked imprisonment opposing government one thousands flooded lewiston recent years seeking asylum oppression came spike amount taxpayer assistance going immigrants asylumseekers unlike resettled refugees barred getting work permits least six months many like ibrahim must rely government assistance get first arrive amount paid immigrants jumped recently nearly halfmillion dollars seems tension town since trump took office one woman reported nearly run screaming driver another said someone jerked hijab told go back came ardo mohamed somali cooks sambusas sister american citizen children born united states worry government come send away scared said say every night mom take live ibrahim blame neighbors supporting trump hes seen pull populism friends complain policies immigration reminds day decade ago interior minister country ordered illegal immigrants leave face mass arrest asks felt respond patriotic like government looking ibrahim hopes president hopes trump build immigration system gives people confidence coming good hardworking one day people like called americans refugees worries come cost 50 years thinks descendants fellow african immigrants suspicious whoever comes next thats history irish discriminated discriminated french french discriminated discriminate us bottom ladder said laughing uncomfortably dont hope wish change still stuck human beings ___ ap data journalist angeliki kastanis contributed report ___ read aps coverage americans looking trump change
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<p>Jan 25 (Reuters) - Northrop Grumman Corp:</p>
<p>* NORTHROP GRUMMAN INCREASES QUARTERLY DIVIDEND 10 PERCENT TO $1.10 PER SHARE Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:</p> Our Standards:
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<p>HELSINKI (Reuters) - European Union leaders will discuss the poisoning of a former Russian double agent in Britain, the chairman of EU leaders Donald Tusk said on Wednesday.</p> FILE PHOTO: President of the European Council Donald Tusk speaks during a press conference at Government buildings in Dublin, Ireland, March 8, 2018. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne
<p>“I express my full solidarity with Prime Minister Theresa May in the face of the brutal attack inspired, most likely, by Moscow,” Tusk told a news conference in Helsinki.</p>
<p>“I’m ready to put the issue on next week’s European Council agenda,” he said.</p>
<p>Asked what measures the EU might take against Russia, he said the EU would wait until Britain itself proposed actions before deciding on a common approach.</p>
<p>Britain is braced for a showdown with Russia after a midnight deadline set by May expired without an explanation from Moscow about how a Soviet-era nerve toxin was used to strike down Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the southern English city of Salisbury on March 4.</p>
<p>Tusk, a former Polish prime minister, also criticized U.S. President Donald Trump’s moves to what Tusk called a “trade war” and said Russian interference in Western countries showed the need for more, not less, Transatlantic cooperation.</p>
<p>“There is no need to explain the significance of close cooperation between Europeans and Americans at a time when someone on the outside spreads fake news, meddles in our elections and attacks people on our soil with the use of a nerve agent,” he said. “There must not be Transatlantic bickering but Transatlantic unity.”</p>
<p>Reporting By Jan Strupczewski and Alissa de Carbonnel in Brussels; Editing by Alastair Macdonald</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>LONDON (Reuters) - Britain braced for a showdown with Russia on Wednesday after a midnight deadline set by Prime Minister Theresa May expired without an explanation from Moscow about how a Soviet-era nerve toxin was used to strike down a former Russian double agent.</p> Russia's flag flies from the consular section of its embassy, in central London, Britain March 14, 2018. REUTERS/Phil Noble
<p>The United States, European Union and NATO voiced support for Britain after May said it was “highly likely” that Russia was behind the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter with Novichok, a nerve agent developed by the Soviet military.</p>
<p>Russia, which denied any involvement, said it was not responding to May’s ultimatum until it received samples of the nerve agent, in effect challenging Britain to show what sanctions it would impose against Russian interests.</p>
<p>“Moscow had nothing to do with what happened in Britain. It will not accept any totally unfounded accusations directed against it and will also not accept the language of ultimatums,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday.</p>
<p>He said Russia remained open to cooperating with Britain in investigating the poisoning, blaming the British authorities for refusing to share information.</p>
<p>Russia’s Interfax news agency reported the Russian embassy in London planned to ask for consular access to Yulia Skripal, Sergei’s daughter.</p> Related Coverage
<a href="/article/us-britain-russia-lavrov/russias-lavrov-says-no-progress-made-in-stand-off-with-britain-idUSKCN1GQ194" type="external">Russia's Lavrov says no progress made in stand-off with Britain</a>
<a href="/article/us-britain-russia-diplomacy/russian-embassy-seeking-access-to-skripals-daughter-ifax-cites-source-idUSKCN1GQ14D" type="external">Russian embassy seeking access to Skripal's daughter, Ifax cites source</a>
<a href="/article/us-britain-russia-rights/britain-accuses-reckless-russia-at-u-n-human-rights-council-idUSKCN1GQ11M" type="external">Britain accuses 'reckless' Russia at U.N. Human Rights Council</a>
<p>Britain’s response to the expiry of the deadline and lack of explanation from Moscow was expected to be announced by May in parliament later, after she chaired a meeting of the National Security Council at her Downing Street office in the morning.</p>
<p>London could call on Western allies for a coordinated response, freeze the assets of Russian business leaders and officials, limit their access to London’s financial center, expel diplomats and even launch targeted cyber attacks.</p>
<p>It may also cut back participation in the soccer World Cup, which Russia is hosting in June and July.</p>
<p>Russia is due to hold a presidential election on Sunday in which Vladimir Putin, himself a former KGB spy, is expected to coast to a fourth term in the Kremlin. He was first installed as Kremlin chief by Boris Yeltsin on the last day of 1999.</p>
<p>U.S. President Donald Trump told May by telephone Russia “must provide unambiguous answers regarding how this chemical weapon, developed in Russia, came to be used in the United Kingdom,” the White House said.</p>
<p>The White House said Trump and May “agreed on the need for consequences for those who use these heinous weapons in flagrant violation of international norms.”</p>
<p>A British readout of the conversation said, “President Trump said the US was with the UK all the way.”</p> Dawn is reflected in the windows of the official residence of Russia's ambassador to Britain, in central London, March 14, 2018. REUTERS/Phil Noble
<p>“MILITARY-GRADE NERVE AGENT”</p>
<p>Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, were found slumped unconscious on a bench outside a shopping center in the genteel southern English city of Salisbury on March 4. They have been in a critical condition in hospital ever since.</p>
<p>British scientists identified the poison as a military-grade nerve agent from a group of chemicals known as Novichok, first developed in the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s.</p>
<p>May said either the Russian state had poisoned Skripal, a former Russian military intelligence officer, or Russia had somehow lost control of its chemical weapons. Putin said last year that it had destroyed its last stockpiles of such weapons.</p> Slideshow (9 Images)
<p>A Russian chemist who helped develop the nerve agent said only the Russian government could have carried out the attack.</p>
<p>Vil Mirzayanov, 83, said he had no doubt that Putin was responsible, given that Russia maintains tight control over its Novichok stockpile and the agent is too complicated for a non-state actor to have weaponized.</p>
<p>“The Kremlin all the time, like all criminals, denying - it doesn’t mean anything,” said U.S.-based Mirzayanov, an exile.</p>
<p>Skripal betrayed dozens of Russian agents to Britain before being arrested in Moscow and later jailed in 2006. He was freed under a spy swap deal in 2010 and took refuge in Britain.</p> Related Video
<p>A British policeman who was also affected by the nerve agent is now conscious in a serious but stable condition.</p>
<p>May said Russia had shown a pattern of aggression including the annexation of Crimea and the murder of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, who died in 2006 after drinking green tea laced with radioactive polonium-210.</p>
<p>A public inquiry found the killing of Litvinenko had probably been approved by Putin and carried out by two Russians, one of them a former KGB bodyguard who became a member of the Russian parliament. Both denied responsibility, as did Moscow.</p>
<p>Counter-terrorism officers began investigating the death of another Russian in Britain on Tuesday, although police said it was not thought to be linked to the attack on the Skripals.</p>
<p>Nikolai Glushkov, 68, who was an associate of late tycoon Boris Berezovsky, was found dead on Monday. Berezovsky was found dead in March 2013 with a scarf tied around his neck in the bathroom of his luxury mansion west of London.</p>
<p>Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge and Michael HoldenAdditional reporting by Polina Ivanova in Moscow, Writing by Estelle Shirbon, Editing by William Maclean</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>(Reuters) - Singapore-based Broadcom Ltd withdrew its $117 billion bid to acquire Qualcomm Inc on Wednesday, two days after U.S. President Donald Trump blocked the attempt citing national security concerns.</p> Broadcom Limited company logo is pictured on an office building in Rancho Bernardo, California May 12, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Blake
<p>The company said it has also withdrawn its slate of independent director nominees for Qualcomm’s annual shareholder meeting.</p>
<p>Broadcom, however, expects to continue with its plan to redomicile to the United States.</p>
<p>“Although we are disappointed with this outcome, Broadcom will comply with the order,” the chipmaker said.</p>
<p>Sources had told Reuters on Tuesday that Broadcom was ready to scrap its bid for Qualcomm.</p>
<p>Broadcom’s board met late on Tuesday to formalize plans to move its base to the United States, at a cost of about $500 million a year under a higher tax rate, the sources said.</p>
<p>Being based in the United States as opposed to Singapore should make it easier for Broadcom to make acquisitions of U.S. companies without falling under the jurisdiction of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).</p>
<p>Shares of Broadcom were untraded, while those of Qualcomm were up marginally before the opening bell.</p>
<p>Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>LONDON (Reuters) - Stephen Hawking, who sought to explain some of the most complicated questions of life while working under the shadow of a likely premature death, has died at 76.</p> FILE PHOTO: Physicist Stephen Hawking sits on stage during an announcement of the Breakthrough Starshot initiative with investor Yuri Milner in New York April 12, 2016. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson/File Photo
<p>For a timeline of his life: <a href="http://tmsnrt.rs/2HxYXBA" type="external">tmsnrt.rs/2HxYXBA</a></p>
<p>Following is reaction:</p>
<p>* His children Lucy, Robert and Tim:</p>
<p>“He was a great scientist and an extraordinary man whose work and legacy will live on for many years. His courage and persistence with his brilliance and humor inspired people across the world. He once said: ‘It would not be much of a universe if it wasn’t home to the people you love.’ We will miss him forever.”</p>
<p>* Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web:</p>
<p>“We have lost a colossal mind and a wonderful spirit. Rest in peace, Stephen Hawking.”</p>
<p>* Actor Eddie Redmayne, who played Hawking in the 2014 film ‘The Theory of Everything’: “We have lost a truly beautiful mind, an astonishing scientist and the funniest man I have ever had the pleasure to meet. My love and thoughts are with his extraordinary family.”</p>
<p>* Professor Stephen Toope, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge:</p>
<p>“Professor Hawking was a unique individual who will be remembered with warmth and affection not only in Cambridge but all over the world. His exceptional contributions to scientific knowledge and the popularization of science and mathematics have left an indelible legacy. His character was an inspiration to millions. He will be much missed.”</p>
<p>* Professor Lord Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal, Fellow of Trinity College, and Emeritus Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics at the University of Cambridge:</p>
<p>“Soon after I enrolled as a graduate student at Cambridge University in 1964, I encountered a fellow student, two years ahead of me in his studies; he was unsteady on his feet and spoke with great difficulty. This was Stephen Hawking. He had recently been diagnosed with a degenerative disease, and it was thought that he might not survive long enough even to finish his PhD. But, amazingly, he lived on to the age of 76.</p>
<p>“Even mere survival would have been a medical marvel, but of course he didn’t just survive.&#160;He became one of the most famous scientists in the world - acclaimed as a world-leading researcher in mathematical physics, for his best-selling books about space, time and the cosmos, and for his astonishing triumph over adversity.</p>
<p>“Tragedy struck Stephen Hawking when he was only 22. He was diagnosed with a deadly disease, and his expectations dropped to zero. He himself said that everything that happened since then was a bonus. And what a triumph his life has been. His name will live in the annals of science; millions have had their cosmic horizons widened by his best-selling books; and even more, around the world, have been inspired by a unique example of achievement against all the odds – a manifestation of amazing will-power and determination.”</p> Queen Elizabeth meets Stephen Hawking during a reception for Leonard Cheshire Disability charity at St James's Palace in London May 29, 2014. REUTERS/Jonathan Brady/Pool * NASA:
<p>“His theories unlocked a universe of possibilities that we and the world are exploring. May you keep flying like superman in microgravity, as you said to astronauts on @Space_Station in 2014.”</p>
<p>*Paul Nurse, Chief Executive and Director of the Francis Crick Institute:</p>
<p>“Stephen Hawking was a great physicist, a great public communicator, and a great icon for science and rationalism throughout the world.&#160;He will be sorely missed.”</p>
<p>* Matthew Colless, professor of astronomy &amp; astrophysics at The Australian National University:</p>
<p>“Hawking was a great scientist and an inspirational figure. The universe is better understood and more interesting because he was in it.”</p>
<p>* British Prime Minister Theresa May:</p>
<p>“Stephen Hawking was a brilliant and extraordinary mind - one of the great scientists of his generation. His courage, humor and determination to get the most from life was an inspiration. His legacy will not be forgotten.”</p>
<p>* Katherine Mathieson, chief executive of the British Science Association: “He was a true genius who had a great admiration of and connection to the public. Most people, when he published ‘A Brief History of Time’, would have thought a book about physics would not sell. But Stephen knew people would want to read it – and it turned out they did. He simplified and explained, but without gimmicks. His assumption that people are curious about the universe and black holes was true. He inspired us all to wonder.”</p>
<p>“Importantly, he showed that disability and difference are no barriers to success; he challenged perceptions. On a personal note, I remember him - from when I was a student at his University - speeding down the middle of the road to get around, because the pavements were too bumpy. It sent out a message that ‘it doesn’t matter what you look like, you can be a scientist here’.</p>
<p>* Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang:</p>
<p>“Mr Hawking was a remarkable scientist and also was a fighter for science in his long and bitter struggle against illness. He made great contributions to science and to humanity.</p>
<p>“China’s leaders have met with him. China’s scientists and science lovers have had very enjoyable interactions with him. Mr Hawking followed China’s development closely. He gave a high assessment of China’s developments and progress in science. Mr Hawking also had a keen fondness for Chinese culture.</p>
<p>“As I understand it, under his strong persistence and with the help of his assistant, he was finally able to see China’s Great Wall. We express condolences for Mr Hawking’s passing and our sympathies to his family. I have faith that Mr Hawking and his contribution will never be forgotten.”</p>
<p>* Professor Paul Hardaker, Chief Executive of the Institute of Physics:</p>
<p>“A quite remarkable physicist and certainly a remarkable person. He made several fundamental and lasting contributions to cosmology but is probably best known by the public for his passion and enthusiasm in sharing his knowledge of how the universe works.”</p>
<p>Reporting by Kate Kelland and Guy Faulconbridge in London and Christian Shepherd in Beijing; Editing by Janet Lawrence and David Stamp</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
| false | 2 |
jan 25 reuters northrop grumman corp northrop grumman increases quarterly dividend 10 percent 110 per share source text eikon company coverage standards thomson reuters trust principles helsinki reuters european union leaders discuss poisoning former russian double agent britain chairman eu leaders donald tusk said wednesday file photo president european council donald tusk speaks press conference government buildings dublin ireland march 8 2018 reutersclodagh kilcoyne express full solidarity prime minister theresa may face brutal attack inspired likely moscow tusk told news conference helsinki im ready put issue next weeks european council agenda said asked measures eu might take russia said eu would wait britain proposed actions deciding common approach britain braced showdown russia midnight deadline set may expired without explanation moscow sovietera nerve toxin used strike sergei skripal daughter southern english city salisbury march 4 tusk former polish prime minister also criticized us president donald trumps moves tusk called trade war said russian interference western countries showed need less transatlantic cooperation need explain significance close cooperation europeans americans time someone outside spreads fake news meddles elections attacks people soil use nerve agent said must transatlantic bickering transatlantic unity reporting jan strupczewski alissa de carbonnel brussels editing alastair macdonald standards thomson reuters trust principles london reuters britain braced showdown russia wednesday midnight deadline set prime minister theresa may expired without explanation moscow sovietera nerve toxin used strike former russian double agent russias flag flies consular section embassy central london britain march 14 2018 reutersphil noble united states european union nato voiced support britain may said highly likely russia behind poisoning sergei skripal daughter novichok nerve agent developed soviet military russia denied involvement said responding mays ultimatum received samples nerve agent effect challenging britain show sanctions would impose russian interests moscow nothing happened britain accept totally unfounded accusations directed also accept language ultimatums kremlin spokesman dmitry peskov told reporters wednesday said russia remained open cooperating britain investigating poisoning blaming british authorities refusing share information russias interfax news agency reported russian embassy london planned ask consular access yulia skripal sergeis daughter related coverage russias lavrov says progress made standoff britain russian embassy seeking access skripals daughter ifax cites source britain accuses reckless russia un human rights council britains response expiry deadline lack explanation moscow expected announced may parliament later chaired meeting national security council downing street office morning london could call western allies coordinated response freeze assets russian business leaders officials limit access londons financial center expel diplomats even launch targeted cyber attacks may also cut back participation soccer world cup russia hosting june july russia due hold presidential election sunday vladimir putin former kgb spy expected coast fourth term kremlin first installed kremlin chief boris yeltsin last day 1999 us president donald trump told may telephone russia must provide unambiguous answers regarding chemical weapon developed russia came used united kingdom white house said white house said trump may agreed need consequences use heinous weapons flagrant violation international norms british readout conversation said president trump said us uk way dawn reflected windows official residence russias ambassador britain central london march 14 2018 reutersphil noble militarygrade nerve agent skripal 66 daughter yulia 33 found slumped unconscious bench outside shopping center genteel southern english city salisbury march 4 critical condition hospital ever since british scientists identified poison militarygrade nerve agent group chemicals known novichok first developed soviet union 1970s 1980s may said either russian state poisoned skripal former russian military intelligence officer russia somehow lost control chemical weapons putin said last year destroyed last stockpiles weapons slideshow 9 images russian chemist helped develop nerve agent said russian government could carried attack vil mirzayanov 83 said doubt putin responsible given russia maintains tight control novichok stockpile agent complicated nonstate actor weaponized kremlin time like criminals denying doesnt mean anything said usbased mirzayanov exile skripal betrayed dozens russian agents britain arrested moscow later jailed 2006 freed spy swap deal 2010 took refuge britain related video british policeman also affected nerve agent conscious serious stable condition may said russia shown pattern aggression including annexation crimea murder former kgb agent alexander litvinenko died 2006 drinking green tea laced radioactive polonium210 public inquiry found killing litvinenko probably approved putin carried two russians one former kgb bodyguard became member russian parliament denied responsibility moscow counterterrorism officers began investigating death another russian britain tuesday although police said thought linked attack skripals nikolai glushkov 68 associate late tycoon boris berezovsky found dead monday berezovsky found dead march 2013 scarf tied around neck bathroom luxury mansion west london reporting guy faulconbridge michael holdenadditional reporting polina ivanova moscow writing estelle shirbon editing william maclean standards thomson reuters trust principles reuters singaporebased broadcom ltd withdrew 117 billion bid acquire qualcomm inc wednesday two days us president donald trump blocked attempt citing national security concerns broadcom limited company logo pictured office building rancho bernardo california may 12 2016 reutersmike blake company said also withdrawn slate independent director nominees qualcomms annual shareholder meeting broadcom however expects continue plan redomicile united states although disappointed outcome broadcom comply order chipmaker said sources told reuters tuesday broadcom ready scrap bid qualcomm broadcoms board met late tuesday formalize plans move base united states cost 500 million year higher tax rate sources said based united states opposed singapore make easier broadcom make acquisitions us companies without falling jurisdiction committee foreign investment united states cfius shares broadcom untraded qualcomm marginally opening bell reporting supantha mukherjee bengaluru editing arun koyyur standards thomson reuters trust principles london reuters stephen hawking sought explain complicated questions life working shadow likely premature death died 76 file photo physicist stephen hawking sits stage announcement breakthrough starshot initiative investor yuri milner new york april 12 2016 reuterslucas jacksonfile photo timeline life tmsnrtrs2hxyxba following reaction children lucy robert tim great scientist extraordinary man whose work legacy live many years courage persistence brilliance humor inspired people across world said would much universe wasnt home people love miss forever tim bernerslee inventor world wide web lost colossal mind wonderful spirit rest peace stephen hawking actor eddie redmayne played hawking 2014 film theory everything lost truly beautiful mind astonishing scientist funniest man ever pleasure meet love thoughts extraordinary family professor stephen toope vicechancellor university cambridge professor hawking unique individual remembered warmth affection cambridge world exceptional contributions scientific knowledge popularization science mathematics left indelible legacy character inspiration millions much missed professor lord martin rees astronomer royal fellow trinity college emeritus professor cosmology astrophysics university cambridge soon enrolled graduate student cambridge university 1964 encountered fellow student two years ahead studies unsteady feet spoke great difficulty stephen hawking recently diagnosed degenerative disease thought might survive long enough even finish phd amazingly lived age 76 even mere survival would medical marvel course didnt survive160he became one famous scientists world acclaimed worldleading researcher mathematical physics bestselling books space time cosmos astonishing triumph adversity tragedy struck stephen hawking 22 diagnosed deadly disease expectations dropped zero said everything happened since bonus triumph life name live annals science millions cosmic horizons widened bestselling books even around world inspired unique example achievement odds manifestation amazing willpower determination queen elizabeth meets stephen hawking reception leonard cheshire disability charity st jamess palace london may 29 2014 reutersjonathan bradypool nasa theories unlocked universe possibilities world exploring may keep flying like superman microgravity said astronauts space_station 2014 paul nurse chief executive director francis crick institute stephen hawking great physicist great public communicator great icon science rationalism throughout world160he sorely missed matthew colless professor astronomy amp astrophysics australian national university hawking great scientist inspirational figure universe better understood interesting british prime minister theresa may stephen hawking brilliant extraordinary mind one great scientists generation courage humor determination get life inspiration legacy forgotten katherine mathieson chief executive british science association true genius great admiration connection public people published brief history time would thought book physics would sell stephen knew people would want read turned simplified explained without gimmicks assumption people curious universe black holes true inspired us wonder importantly showed disability difference barriers success challenged perceptions personal note remember student university speeding middle road get around pavements bumpy sent message doesnt matter look like scientist chinese foreign ministry spokesman lu kang mr hawking remarkable scientist also fighter science long bitter struggle illness made great contributions science humanity chinas leaders met chinas scientists science lovers enjoyable interactions mr hawking followed chinas development closely gave high assessment chinas developments progress science mr hawking also keen fondness chinese culture understand strong persistence help assistant finally able see chinas great wall express condolences mr hawkings passing sympathies family faith mr hawking contribution never forgotten professor paul hardaker chief executive institute physics quite remarkable physicist certainly remarkable person made several fundamental lasting contributions cosmology probably best known public passion enthusiasm sharing knowledge universe works reporting kate kelland guy faulconbridge london christian shepherd beijing editing janet lawrence david stamp standards thomson reuters trust principles
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<p />
<p>Juries in Cincinnati and Charleston, South Carolina, will decide the fates of white former police officers charged with murder in the shootings of black men.</p>
<p>The cases are among a series of deaths of blacks in police encounters over the past two years that have raised attention to how police deal with black people. There have been widespread protests, some violent, in cities such as Baltimore, Charlotte, North Carolina; Chicago and Ferguson, Missouri, over police killings of black men.</p>
<p>A summary of key aspects of the two cases that will be decided in the days after Tuesday’s election:</p>
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<p>___</p>
<p>THE SHOOTINGS</p>
<p>Both shootings followed traffic stops in what defense attorneys say were crime-plagued areas.</p>
<p>In South Carolina, former North Charleston officer Michael Slager is charged with murder in the April 2015 shooting death of Walter Scott as he ran from a traffic stop for a broken taillight. Relatives have said Scott, 50, apparently fled because he feared arrest for being behind on child support payments.</p>
<p>Slager told investigators he fired because Scott grabbed his Taser and pointed the stun gun at him as they fought on the ground. Scott was shot multiple times in the back and buttocks.</p>
<p>If convicted, Slager, who is white and 34 years old, faces 30 years to life imprisonment.</p>
<p>In Ohio, former University of Cincinnati officer Ray Tensing is charged with murder and voluntary manslaughter for the July 2015 fatal shooting of Sam DuBose after a traffic stop for a missing front license plate near campus.</p>
<p>Tensing’s attorney has said he feared for his life as DuBose tried to drive away, using his car as “a weapon.” DuBose, 43, was shot once in the head. The defense attorney also told jurors that DuBose was desperate to get away because he had enough marijuana in his car to face a felony conviction.</p>
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<p>DuBose had a long history of traffic and marijuana-related convictions, but his family says he wouldn’t have been a threat to a police officer.</p>
<p>If convicted of murder, Tensing, who is white and 26, faces 15 years to life in prison.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>THE ROLE OF VIDEO</p>
<p>Video could be pivotal evidence in both trials, with the two sides in each case disputing what can be concluded from it.</p>
<p>The North Charleston shooting was captured on video by a bystander and seen widely via the internet. It shows Scott being shot eight times in the back.</p>
<p>Prosecutor Scarlett Wilson has said the video of Scott’s death is helpful because it “depicts the crime, and we aren’t having to rely just on people’s perceptions.” But she added it isn’t the “be-all and end-all and the case is over. The jury will be able to make up their own mind after seeing the video and hearing the testimony.”</p>
<p>Slager’s attorneys say there is far more to the story than the much-viewed short clip of the shooting. They say it doesn’t show the entire struggle between the two men, doesn’t show what the officer was seeing and is blurry and confusing.</p>
<p>Slager’s attorney Andy Savage opposed its use in trial, calling the video “prejudicial, inflammatory and factually deficient.”</p>
<p>The two sides in the Ohio trial clashed over video in their opening statements Tuesday.</p>
<p>Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters told jurors the video from the officer’s body-worn camera shows that Tensing violated police procedures and training in shooting an unarmed man who did nothing other than try to drive away. He said in his opening statement that Tensing grabbed DuBose’s seat belt with his left hand and fired his pistol directly at his head with his right and that there was no threat to him.</p>
<p>“Thank God we have a body cam,” said Deters, who released the video publicly last year after Tensing was indicted. He told jurors the video shows that Tensing lied when he claimed he was going to be dragged under the car.</p>
<p>Defense attorney Stewart Mathews countered that the video supports Tensing’s contention that he was under serious threat. He says DuBose pulled his door shut, started the ignition and then pinned Tensing’s forearm when the officer tried to grab the keys out of the ignition.</p>
<p>Mathews also told jurors the body-cam video doesn’t have Tensing’s eye-level view and can’t capture what he was feeling and what his instincts were telling him.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>DO JURIES CONVICT POLICE?</p>
<p>Jurors tend to want to give police the benefit of the doubt, recognizing they have dangerous jobs that often require split-second decisions, legal experts say. But convictions do happen.</p>
<p>Former Tulsa County volunteer sheriff’s deputy Robert Bates, age 74, was sentenced in June to four years in prison on a second-degree manslaughter conviction in the April 2015 death of Eric Harris, an unarmed and restrained black man, during a sting operation. Bates, who is appealing, has said he confused his stun gun with his handgun.</p>
<p>Former Portsmouth, Virginia, Police Officer Stephen Rankin was sentenced Oct. 12 to 2½ years in prison for fatally shooting 18-year-old William Chapman II. Rankin shot the unarmed Chapman in April 2015 after responding to a shoplifting call outside a Wal-Mart store.</p>
<p>Philip Stinson, of Bowling Green State University in Ohio, has been tracking on-duty police fatal shooting cases around the country since 2005. Of 77 U.S. police officers charged with murder or manslaughter in that time, 27 have been convicted, 14 in jury trials, he said. Thirteen others pleaded guilty, in some cases to reduced charges.</p>
<p>Fifteen officers have been acquitted by juries, with six acquitted in nonjury bench trials, and charges dismissed in seven others. In one case, a grand jury declined to indict an officer who had been arrested.</p>
<p>The Tensing and Slager cases are among 21 pending outcomes. They include three that ended in mistrials, and prosecutors haven’t decided yet on new trials.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press writer Bruce Smith in Charleston contributed to this report.</p>
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juries cincinnati charleston south carolina decide fates white former police officers charged murder shootings black men cases among series deaths blacks police encounters past two years raised attention police deal black people widespread protests violent cities baltimore charlotte north carolina chicago ferguson missouri police killings black men summary key aspects two cases decided days tuesdays election advertisement ___ shootings shootings followed traffic stops defense attorneys say crimeplagued areas south carolina former north charleston officer michael slager charged murder april 2015 shooting death walter scott ran traffic stop broken taillight relatives said scott 50 apparently fled feared arrest behind child support payments slager told investigators fired scott grabbed taser pointed stun gun fought ground scott shot multiple times back buttocks convicted slager white 34 years old faces 30 years life imprisonment ohio former university cincinnati officer ray tensing charged murder voluntary manslaughter july 2015 fatal shooting sam dubose traffic stop missing front license plate near campus tensings attorney said feared life dubose tried drive away using car weapon dubose 43 shot head defense attorney also told jurors dubose desperate get away enough marijuana car face felony conviction advertisement dubose long history traffic marijuanarelated convictions family says wouldnt threat police officer convicted murder tensing white 26 faces 15 years life prison ___ role video video could pivotal evidence trials two sides case disputing concluded north charleston shooting captured video bystander seen widely via internet shows scott shot eight times back prosecutor scarlett wilson said video scotts death helpful depicts crime arent rely peoples perceptions added isnt beall endall case jury able make mind seeing video hearing testimony slagers attorneys say far story muchviewed short clip shooting say doesnt show entire struggle two men doesnt show officer seeing blurry confusing slagers attorney andy savage opposed use trial calling video prejudicial inflammatory factually deficient two sides ohio trial clashed video opening statements tuesday hamilton county prosecutor joe deters told jurors video officers bodyworn camera shows tensing violated police procedures training shooting unarmed man nothing try drive away said opening statement tensing grabbed duboses seat belt left hand fired pistol directly head right threat thank god body cam said deters released video publicly last year tensing indicted told jurors video shows tensing lied claimed going dragged car defense attorney stewart mathews countered video supports tensings contention serious threat says dubose pulled door shut started ignition pinned tensings forearm officer tried grab keys ignition mathews also told jurors bodycam video doesnt tensings eyelevel view cant capture feeling instincts telling ___ juries convict police jurors tend want give police benefit doubt recognizing dangerous jobs often require splitsecond decisions legal experts say convictions happen former tulsa county volunteer sheriffs deputy robert bates age 74 sentenced june four years prison seconddegree manslaughter conviction april 2015 death eric harris unarmed restrained black man sting operation bates appealing said confused stun gun handgun former portsmouth virginia police officer stephen rankin sentenced oct 12 2½ years prison fatally shooting 18yearold william chapman ii rankin shot unarmed chapman april 2015 responding shoplifting call outside walmart store philip stinson bowling green state university ohio tracking onduty police fatal shooting cases around country since 2005 77 us police officers charged murder manslaughter time 27 convicted 14 jury trials said thirteen others pleaded guilty cases reduced charges fifteen officers acquitted juries six acquitted nonjury bench trials charges dismissed seven others one case grand jury declined indict officer arrested tensing slager cases among 21 pending outcomes include three ended mistrials prosecutors havent decided yet new trials ___ associated press writer bruce smith charleston contributed report
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<p>Connor Balthazor, 17, was in the middle of study hall when he was called into a meeting with his high school newspaper adviser.</p>
<p>A group of reporters and editors from the student newspaper, the Booster Redux at Pittsburg High School in southeastern Kansas, had gathered to talk about Amy Robertson, who was hired as the high school’s head principal on March 6.</p>
<p>The student journalists had begun researching Robertson, and quickly found some discrepancies in her education credentials. For one, when they researched Corllins University, the private university where Robertson said she got her master’s and doctorate degrees years ago, the website didn’t work. They found no evidence that it was an accredited university.</p>
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<p>“There were some things that just didn’t quite add up,” Balthazor told The Washington Post.</p>
<p>The students began digging into a weeks-long investigation that would result in an article published Friday questioning the legitimacy of the principal’s degrees and of her work as an education consultant.</p>
<p>On Tuesday night, Robertson resigned.</p>
<p>“In light of the issues that arose, Dr. Robertson felt it was in the best interest of the district to resign her position,” Pittsburg Community Schools announced in a statement. The Board has agreed to accept her resignation.”</p>
<p>The resignation thrust the student newspaper staff into local, state and national news, with professional journalists nationwide applauding the students for asking tough questions and prompting change in their administration.</p>
<p>“Everybody kept telling them, ‘stop poking your nose where it doesn’t belong,’ newspaper adviser Emily Smith told The Post. But with the encouragement of the superintendent, the students persisted.</p>
<p>“They were at a loss that something that was so easy for them to see was waiting to be noticed by adults,” Smith said.</p>
<p>In the Booster Redux article, a team of six students – five juniors and one senior – revealed that Corllins had been portrayed in a number of articles as a diploma mill, a place where people can buy a degree, diploma or certificates. Corllins is not accredited by the U.S. Department of Education, the students reported. The Better Business Bureau’s website says Corllins’ physical address is unknown and the school isn’t a BBB-accredited institution.</p>
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<p>“All of this was completely overlooked,” Balthazor said. “All of the shining reviews did not have these crucial pieces of information . . . you would expect your authority figures to find this.”</p>
<p>Robertson had been living in Dubai for more than 20 years before she was hired for the position. She said she most recently worked as the CEO of an education consulting firm known as Atticus I S Consultants there.</p>
<p>In a conference call with the student journalists, Robertson “presented incomplete answers, conflicting dates and inconsistencies in her responses,” the students reported. She said she attended Corllins before it lost accreditation, the Booster Redux reported.</p>
<p>When contacted by the Kansas City Star after the publication of the students’ article, Robertson said all three of her degrees “have been authenticated by the US government.” She declined to comment directly on students’ questions about her credentials, “because their concerns are not based on facts,” she said.</p>
<p>In an emergency faculty meeting Tuesday, the superintendent said Robertson was unable to produce a transcript confirming her undergraduate degree from the University of Tulsa, Smith said.</p>
<p>During the course of their reporting, the students spent weeks reaching out to educational institutions and accreditation agencies to corroborate Robertson’s background, even working through spring break. Their adviser, Smith, had to recuse herself from the story because she was on the committee that hired Robertson. So the students sought the help of Eric Thomas, executive director of the Kansas Scholastic Press Association, and other local and national journalists and experts.</p>
<p>Under Kansas state law, high school journalists are protected from administrative censorship. “The kids are treated as professionals,” Smith said. But with that freedom came a major responsibility to get the story right, Smith said. It also meant overcoming a natural hesitancy many students have to question authority.</p>
<p>“At the very beginning it was a little bit exciting,” Balthazor said. “It was like in the movie, a big city journalist chasing down a lead.”</p>
<p>But as the students began delving deeper into the story, keeping notes on a whiteboard, “it really started hitting me that this is a much bigger deal,” Balthazor said.</p>
<p>The students were among those packed into a school boardroom Tuesday night when the school board president announced Robertson’s resignation. After the announcement, a parent in the audience stood up and asked school officials if they would be recognizing the student journalists for uncovering crucial details about Robertson’s background. The superintendent said he would be meeting with the students Wednesday to personally thank them.</p>
<p>“We’d broken out of our comfort zones so much,” Balthazor said. “To know that the administration saw that and respected that, it was a really great moment for us.”</p>
<p>After local news broke that Robertson had resigned, numerous national journalists – including The Post’s David Fahrenthold tweeted the students’ story, congratulating them for their work.</p>
<p>“Holy crap,” Balthazor thought, “why are these people paying attention to this little journalism story from southeast Kansas?”</p>
<p>While the high school junior was leaving track practice Tuesday night, he learned in a group message with his newspaper staff that Todd Wallack, a reporter for the Boston Globe’s Spotlight Team, had tweeted the students’ story, saying: “Great investigative work by high school journalists.” Balthazor sat in his car in the parking lot and immediately called his mom to tell her the news.</p>
<p>“I honestly thought they were joking at first,” Balthazor said. The Booster Redux staff had watched the movie “Spotlight” in class last year, Balthazor said. “It was awesome to know that such respected members of the journalism community had our backs.”</p>
<p>After graduation, Balthazor said, he hopes to pursue a degree in creative writing or filmmaking. Even though he doesn’t necessarily plan to stick with journalism, Balthazor said the past few weeks had been “surreal.”</p>
<p>“Most high schoolers would never get even close to an opportunity to get to experience something like this,” he said.</p>
<p>– – –</p>
<p>Video: High school journalists investigated a new principal’s credentials. Here’s what happened next.</p>
<p>A team of six students at a Kansas high school newspaper investigated their newly hired principal. After the students found discrepancies in her education credentials, the principal resigned. (Monica Akhtar, Victoria Walker / The Washington Post)</p>
<p>Short URL: <a href="http://wapo.st/2oKQkLj" type="external">http://wapo.st/2oKQkLj</a></p>
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connor balthazor 17 middle study hall called meeting high school newspaper adviser group reporters editors student newspaper booster redux pittsburg high school southeastern kansas gathered talk amy robertson hired high schools head principal march 6 student journalists begun researching robertson quickly found discrepancies education credentials one researched corllins university private university robertson said got masters doctorate degrees years ago website didnt work found evidence accredited university advertisement things didnt quite add balthazor told washington post students began digging weekslong investigation would result article published friday questioning legitimacy principals degrees work education consultant tuesday night robertson resigned light issues arose dr robertson felt best interest district resign position pittsburg community schools announced statement board agreed accept resignation resignation thrust student newspaper staff local state national news professional journalists nationwide applauding students asking tough questions prompting change administration everybody kept telling stop poking nose doesnt belong newspaper adviser emily smith told post encouragement superintendent students persisted loss something easy see waiting noticed adults smith said booster redux article team six students five juniors one senior revealed corllins portrayed number articles diploma mill place people buy degree diploma certificates corllins accredited us department education students reported better business bureaus website says corllins physical address unknown school isnt bbbaccredited institution advertisement completely overlooked balthazor said shining reviews crucial pieces information would expect authority figures find robertson living dubai 20 years hired position said recently worked ceo education consulting firm known atticus consultants conference call student journalists robertson presented incomplete answers conflicting dates inconsistencies responses students reported said attended corllins lost accreditation booster redux reported contacted kansas city star publication students article robertson said three degrees authenticated us government declined comment directly students questions credentials concerns based facts said emergency faculty meeting tuesday superintendent said robertson unable produce transcript confirming undergraduate degree university tulsa smith said course reporting students spent weeks reaching educational institutions accreditation agencies corroborate robertsons background even working spring break adviser smith recuse story committee hired robertson students sought help eric thomas executive director kansas scholastic press association local national journalists experts kansas state law high school journalists protected administrative censorship kids treated professionals smith said freedom came major responsibility get story right smith said also meant overcoming natural hesitancy many students question authority beginning little bit exciting balthazor said like movie big city journalist chasing lead students began delving deeper story keeping notes whiteboard really started hitting much bigger deal balthazor said students among packed school boardroom tuesday night school board president announced robertsons resignation announcement parent audience stood asked school officials would recognizing student journalists uncovering crucial details robertsons background superintendent said would meeting students wednesday personally thank wed broken comfort zones much balthazor said know administration saw respected really great moment us local news broke robertson resigned numerous national journalists including posts david fahrenthold tweeted students story congratulating work holy crap balthazor thought people paying attention little journalism story southeast kansas high school junior leaving track practice tuesday night learned group message newspaper staff todd wallack reporter boston globes spotlight team tweeted students story saying great investigative work high school journalists balthazor sat car parking lot immediately called mom tell news honestly thought joking first balthazor said booster redux staff watched movie spotlight class last year balthazor said awesome know respected members journalism community backs graduation balthazor said hopes pursue degree creative writing filmmaking even though doesnt necessarily plan stick journalism balthazor said past weeks surreal high schoolers would never get even close opportunity get experience something like said video high school journalists investigated new principals credentials heres happened next team six students kansas high school newspaper investigated newly hired principal students found discrepancies education credentials principal resigned monica akhtar victoria walker washington post short url httpwapost2okqklj sign todays worldview newsletter washington post
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<p>Q: Was the suspected Fort Hood shooter an "advisor to Obama’s homeland security team" or a member of his "transition team"?</p>
<p>A: This is another false e-rumor. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was merely an audience member at some public events of a university-sponsored group that offered unsolicited advice to the new administration.</p>
<p />
<p>FULL QUESTION</p>
<p>Is this e-mail true?</p>
<p>Subject: Nidal Hasan, was Homeland Security advisor on Obama transition team</p>
<p>Oh Yeah, we’re safe all right. How much more is going to come out on this president. Now we have a little insight into why Obama said to not jump to conclusions about Nidal Hasan. This murdering Muslim who killed and wounded the people in Texas was an advisor to Obama’s Homeland Security team. Look on page 29 of the Homeland Security Institute link below.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.gwumc.edu/hspi/old/pttf_proceedingsreport_05.19.09.pdf" type="external">http://www.gwumc.edu/hspi/old/PTTF_ProceedingsReport_05.19.09.pdf</a></p>
<p>FULL&#160;ANSWER</p>
<p>Debunking this false claim is as easy as clicking on the URL that the anonymous author provides.&#160;The <a href="http://www.gwumc.edu/hspi/old/pttf_proceedingsreport_05.19.09.pdf" type="external">document</a> that this message refers to fails to back up its claims. It is from the <a href="http://www.gwumc.edu/hspi/about/mission.cfm" type="external">George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute</a>, a "think and do" tank based in Washington, D.C. And page 29 doesn’t say that Hasan, a suspect in the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/06/AR2009110600897.html" type="external">shootings</a> at the military base in Fort Hood, Texas, was an adviser to the transition team of President Barack Obama.</p>
<p>The document is about HSPI’s "Presidential Transition Task Force" — a project separate and apart from Obama’s transition team. It’s a project that aimed to bring together experts in several fields and make recommendations to the incoming administration. It was formed in April 2008 — before it was clear which party would win the White House or even who the Democratic nominee would be. Hasan is listed as one of several hundred professors, reporters, government officials and members of Congress, who attended several public meetings that were organized by HSPI.</p>
<p>Despite the name, HSPI’s presidential task force has no connection to Obama or the White House. In a statement provided to FactCheck.org, HSPI said:</p>
<p>HSPI, Nov. 18 statement: HSPI’s Presidential Transition Task Force is not and was not affiliated at all with the White House. The Task Force was created prior to the election; and was not formed at the request of any administration.</p>
<p>According to the HSPI document, the think tank’s presidential task force came together in the spring of 2008 to "further policy discussions of the top strategic priorities in the area of security in order to generate actionable recommendations, for the Administration taking office in January 2009." And there’s no indication that any of the task force’s published recommendations were adopted by Obama’s eventual transition team or his current administration.</p>
<p>Futhermore, Hasan isn’t even a member of the think tank or this particular project. HSPI, which was founded in 2003 to "build bridges between theory and practice to advance homeland security through an interdisciplinary approach," <a href="http://www.prlog.org/10404022-homeland-security-policy-institute-statement-on-nidal-hasan.html" type="external">issued a separate statement</a> acknowledging that Hasan voluntarily attended "a number" of its public events as an "audience member" but emphasized that Hasan was in no way affiliated with the group or the university:</p>
<p>HSPI, Nov. 6: In his capacity as Disaster &amp; Preventive Psychiatry Fellow at the Uniformed Services University School of Medicine, Nidal Hasan registered (“RSVP’d”) to attend as an audience member a number of Homeland Security Policy Institute (HSPI) events in the period June 2008 to February 2009. All of these events were open to the public. At no time has Nidal Hasan been affiliated with HSPI or The George Washington University.</p>
<p>The HSPI document, " <a href="http://www.gwumc.edu/hspi/old/pttf_proceedingsreport_05.19.09.pdf" type="external">Thinking Anew—Security Priorities for the Next Administration</a>," contains lists of the task force members, the task force staff and the HSPI steering committee. Hasan’s name doesn’t appear on those lists.</p>
<p>A Bad Influence</p>
<p>It’s possible that the author of this e-mail and authors of similar versions got their information from Jerome Corsi, who we’ve <a href="" type="internal">previously criticized</a> for spreading falsehoods about the president. In <a href="http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=115230" type="external">an article</a> published by World Net Daily, a conservative news Web site, Corsi wrote:</p>
<p>World Net Daily, Nov. 6: Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the alleged shooter in yesterday’s massacre at Fort Hood, played a homeland security advisory role in President Barack Obama’s transition into the White House, according to a key university policy institute document.</p>
<p>But in the very same article, headlined "Shooter advised Obama transition: Fort Hood triggerman aided team on Homeland Security task force," Corsi contradicts his own conclusion. He writes that "[w]hile the GWU task force participants included several members of government, including representatives of the Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, there is no indication in the document that the group played any formal role in the official Obama transition, other than to serve in a university-based advisory capacity."</p>
<p>After the article was published, World Net Daily, in response to a <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/06/iwndis-jerome-corsi-claim_n_348461.html" type="external">HuffingtonPost.com piece</a> that called Corsi a "smear artist," added an editor’s note saying that "Hasan is being reported as a participant in the GWU Homeland Security Policy Institute’s Presidential Transition Task Force, not as a member, noting the group was a university think-tank, not part of the Obama administration official transition team." However, neither the headline of Corsi’s article, nor the section of the article saying Hasan "played a homeland security advisory role in President Barack Obama’s transition into the White House," was corrected.</p>
<p>— D’Angelo Gore</p>
<p>The George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute. " <a href="http://www.prlog.org/10404022-homeland-security-policy-institute-statement-on-nidal-hasan.html" type="external">Homeland Security Policy Institute Statement on Nidal Hasan</a>." Press Release. 6 Nov 2009.</p>
<p>The George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute. " <a href="http://www.gwumc.edu/hspi/old/PTTF_ProceedingsReport_05.19.09.pdf" type="external">Thinking Anew—Security Priorities for the Next Administration</a>." April 2008-January 2009.</p>
<p>Cahn, Emily. " <a href="http://blogs.gwhatchet.com/newsroom/2009/11/06/fort-hood-gunman-attended-hspi-events-as-an-audience-member/?hp" type="external">Fort Hood gunman attended HSPI events as an audience member</a>." The GW Hatchet. 6 Nov 2009.</p>
<p>Memmott, Mark. " <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/11/story_debunked_about_fort_hood.html" type="external">Story Debunked About Fort Hood Suspect And Presidential Transition</a>." National Public Radio "The Two-Way" Blog. 6 Nov 2009.</p>
<p>Linkins, Jason. " <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/06/iwndis-jerome-corsi-claim_n_348461.html" type="external">WND’s Jerome Corsi Claims Fort Hood Shooter Advised Obama</a>." HuffingtonPost.com. 6 Nov 2009.</p>
<p>Corsi, Jerome. " <a href="http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&amp;pageId=115230" type="external">Shooter advised Obama transition: Fort Hood triggerman aided team on Homeland Security task force</a>." World Net Daily. 6 Nov 2009.</p>
| false | 2 |
q suspected fort hood shooter advisor obamas homeland security team member transition team another false erumor army maj nidal malik hasan merely audience member public events universitysponsored group offered unsolicited advice new administration full question email true subject nidal hasan homeland security advisor obama transition team oh yeah safe right much going come president little insight obama said jump conclusions nidal hasan murdering muslim killed wounded people texas advisor obamas homeland security team look page 29 homeland security institute link httpwwwgwumceduhspioldpttf_proceedingsreport_051909pdf full160answer debunking false claim easy clicking url anonymous author provides160the document message refers fails back claims george washington university homeland security policy institute think tank based washington dc page 29 doesnt say hasan suspect shootings military base fort hood texas adviser transition team president barack obama document hspis presidential transition task force project separate apart obamas transition team project aimed bring together experts several fields make recommendations incoming administration formed april 2008 clear party would win white house even democratic nominee would hasan listed one several hundred professors reporters government officials members congress attended several public meetings organized hspi despite name hspis presidential task force connection obama white house statement provided factcheckorg hspi said hspi nov 18 statement hspis presidential transition task force affiliated white house task force created prior election formed request administration according hspi document think tanks presidential task force came together spring 2008 policy discussions top strategic priorities area security order generate actionable recommendations administration taking office january 2009 theres indication task forces published recommendations adopted obamas eventual transition team current administration futhermore hasan isnt even member think tank particular project hspi founded 2003 build bridges theory practice advance homeland security interdisciplinary approach issued separate statement acknowledging hasan voluntarily attended number public events audience member emphasized hasan way affiliated group university hspi nov 6 capacity disaster amp preventive psychiatry fellow uniformed services university school medicine nidal hasan registered rsvpd attend audience member number homeland security policy institute hspi events period june 2008 february 2009 events open public time nidal hasan affiliated hspi george washington university hspi document thinking anewsecurity priorities next administration contains lists task force members task force staff hspi steering committee hasans name doesnt appear lists bad influence possible author email authors similar versions got information jerome corsi weve previously criticized spreading falsehoods president article published world net daily conservative news web site corsi wrote world net daily nov 6 maj nidal malik hasan alleged shooter yesterdays massacre fort hood played homeland security advisory role president barack obamas transition white house according key university policy institute document article headlined shooter advised obama transition fort hood triggerman aided team homeland security task force corsi contradicts conclusion writes gwu task force participants included several members government including representatives department justice us department homeland security indication document group played formal role official obama transition serve universitybased advisory capacity article published world net daily response huffingtonpostcom piece called corsi smear artist added editors note saying hasan reported participant gwu homeland security policy institutes presidential transition task force member noting group university thinktank part obama administration official transition team however neither headline corsis article section article saying hasan played homeland security advisory role president barack obamas transition white house corrected dangelo gore george washington university homeland security policy institute homeland security policy institute statement nidal hasan press release 6 nov 2009 george washington university homeland security policy institute thinking anewsecurity priorities next administration april 2008january 2009 cahn emily fort hood gunman attended hspi events audience member gw hatchet 6 nov 2009 memmott mark story debunked fort hood suspect presidential transition national public radio twoway blog 6 nov 2009 linkins jason wnds jerome corsi claims fort hood shooter advised obama huffingtonpostcom 6 nov 2009 corsi jerome shooter advised obama transition fort hood triggerman aided team homeland security task force world net daily 6 nov 2009
| 635 |
<p>Jan 22 (Reuters) - UNIFIED MESSAGING SYSTEMS ASA:</p>
<p>* TELEPLAN GLOBE AND UMS ENTER INTO A PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT FOR DEVELOPING</p>
<p>* PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT CONCERNS DEVELOPING SECURE COMMUNICATION SOLUTIONS‍​ Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage: (Gdynia Newsroom)</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China’s Tiangong-1 space station re-entered the earth’s atmosphere and burnt up over the middle of the South Pacific on Monday, the Chinese space authority said.</p> FILE PHOTO: A model of the Tiangong-1 space lab module (L), the Shenzhou-9 manned spacecraft (R) and three Chinese astronauts is displayed during a news conference at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, in Gansu province, China June 15, 2012. REUTERS/Jason Lee/File Photo
<p>The craft re-entered the atmosphere around 8:15 a.m. Beijing time (0015GMT) and the “vast majority” of it had burnt up upon re-entry, the authority said in a brief statement on its website.</p>
<p>It had said shortly before that it was expected to re-enter off the Brazilian coast in the South Atlantic near the cities of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.</p>
<p>Beijing said on Friday it was unlikely any large pieces would reach the ground.</p>
<p>The 10.4-metre-long (34.1-foot) Tiangong-1, or “Heavenly Palace 1”, was launched in 2011 to carry out docking and orbit experiments as part of China’s ambitious space program, which aims to place a permanent station in orbit by 2023.</p>
<p>It was originally planned to be decommissioned in 2013 but its mission was repeatedly extended.</p>
<p>China had said its re-entry would occur in late 2017 but that process was delayed, leading some experts to suggest the space laboratory was out of control.</p>
<p>The Chinese tabloid Global Times said on Monday worldwide media hype about the re-entry reflected overseas “envy” of China’s space industry.</p>
<p>“It’s normal for spacecraft to re-enter the atmosphere, yet Tiangong-1 received so much attention partly because some Western countries are trying to hype and sling mud at China’s fast-growing aerospace industry,” it said.</p>
<p>Reporting by David Stanway and Wang Jing; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; Editing by Paul Tait</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese manufacturing activity expanded at a slightly slower pace in March, revised data from a survey showed on Monday, as growth in new orders and output moderated slightly though the economy overall remained in solid shape.</p> FILE PHOTO - A worker cycles near a factory at the Keihin industrial zone in Kawasaki, Japan February 17, 2016. REUTERS/Toru Hanai/File Photo
<p>The Final Markit/Nikkei Japan Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) fell to 53.1 in March on a seasonally adjusted basis, slightly below a preliminary 53.2 and below a final 54.1 in February.</p>
<p>The headline reading fell for the second consecutive month, but remained above the 50 threshold that separates contraction from expansion for the 19th executive month.</p>
<p>“Latest survey data presented a second successive decline in the Manufacturing PMI for Japan,” said Joe Hayes, economist at IHS Markit, which compiles the survey.</p>
<p>“That said, the overall picture remains upbeat. The reading of 53.1 still indicates a fairly solid pace of improvement in business conditions.”</p>
<p>The final index for new orders was 53.1, below the preliminary reading of 53.2 and down from 54.7 in the previous month.</p>
<p>The new export orders index was unchanged from the advance estimate at 52.5, but down compared with a final 54.1 in February.</p>
<p>Japan’s economy has expanded for eight consecutive quarters, the longest uninterrupted streak since a 12-quarter run of growth during the mid-to-late 1980s boom.</p>
<p>Some economists have cautioned that the pace of growth could moderate this year because consumer spending may ebb slightly, even though strong exports performance of Japan Inc. continues to underpin the world’s third-biggest economy.</p>
<p>Reporting by Stanley White; Editing by Shri Navaratnam</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese business sentiment worsened for the first time in two years in the three months to March, a closely watched central bank survey showed on Monday, as rising raw material and labor costs weigh on an otherwise steady economic recovery.</p> FILE PHOTO: A Japanese flag flutters atop the Bank of Japan building under construction in Tokyo, Japan, September 21, 2017. REUTERS/Toru Hanai/File Photo
<p>A strong yen and simmering fears of a trade war, triggered by U.S. President Donald Trump’s move to impose tariffs on Chinese goods, could further undermine corporate morale if threats of retaliation escalate, analysts say.</p>
<p>But few analysts expect the economic recovery to falter as business confidence remains at a decade-high level and companies plan to increase capital expenditure.</p>
<p>“Yen gains since late January has eroded manufacturers’ sentiment but solid global economic fundamentals helped offset the pain. Overall, you can say that business confidence held firm,” said Yuichiro Nagai, an economist at Barclays Securities.</p>
<p>“Fears of a global trade war have had a limited impact on business sentiment so far. But depending on development of U.S. trade policy, protectionism could weigh on the outlook.”</p> Related Coverage
<a href="/article/us-japan-economy-pmi/japan-march-final-manufacturing-pmi-cools-slightly-overall-economy-still-solid-idUSKCN1H901Y" type="external">Japan March final manufacturing PMI cools slightly, overall economy still solid</a>
<p>An index measuring big manufacturers’ confidence fell by 2 points to plus 24 in March, the Bank of Japan’s quarterly “tankan” survey showed, roughly matching a median market forecast of plus 25.</p>
<p>Non-manufacturers’ sentiment worsened by 2 points to plus 23 against a median forecast of plus 24, deteriorating for the first time in six quarters.</p>
<p>Both big manufacturers and non-manufacturers forecast business conditions to sour three months ahead, the tankan showed, reflecting looming uncertainty over the fallout from Trump’s trade policy and a strong yen.</p>
<p>Big manufacturers expect the dollar to move around 109.66 yen on average during the year that began in April, well above current levels around 106 yen.</p>
<p>This means that if yen gains persist, manufacturers may be forced to slash their optimistic profit forecasts - a worrying sign for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s efforts to spur growth with reflationist policies.</p>
<p>Labour shortages also weighed on sentiment, as the economic recovery and a dwindling working-age population push the jobless rate to a near 25-year low.</p>
<p>A tankan index measuring capacity constraints showed that companies saw the job market at its tightest since 1991.</p>
<p>Some firms in the construction, restaurant and hotel industries complained that labor shortages were taking a toll on their businesses, a BOJ official briefing reporters on the data said.</p>
<p>Among manufacturers, basic materials firms such as those selling steel, nonferrous metals and textile goods saw sentiment hurt by rising raw material costs, the official said.</p>
<p>Still, big firms plan to raise their capital spending by 2.3 percent in the current financial year from April, versus the median estimate for a 0.6 percent gain, the tankan showed.</p>
<p>Global markets were shaken last month when Trump moved to impose tariffs on Chinese goods and Beijing retaliated, but fears of a full-blown trade war have eased on hopes that negotiations can bring a compromise.</p>
<p>Japanese policymakers fret that a strong yen and trade frictions could deal a heavy blow to the export-reliant economy, which has benefited from solid global demand.</p>
<p>Japan’s economy has grown for eight straight quarters, its longest continuous expansion since the 1980s bubble economy, moving Abe’s revival plan a step closer to vanquishing decades of stagnation.</p>
<p>But slow wage growth and companies’ reluctance to raise prices have kept inflation well below the Bank of Japan’s elusive 2 percent target.</p>
<p>The tankan’s sentiment indexes are derived by subtracting the number of respondents who say conditions are poor from those who say they are good. A positive reading means optimists outnumber pessimists.</p>
<p>Reporting by Leika Kihara; Editing by Sam Holmes and Eric Meijer</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>BEIJING (Reuters) - China has slapped extra tariffs of up to 25 percent on 128 U.S. products including frozen pork, as well as on wine and certain fruits and nuts, in response to U.S. duties on imports of aluminum and steel, China’s finance ministry said.</p> FILE PHOTO: A labourer works on coils of steel wire at a steel wholesale market in Beijing, China, January 17, 2012. REUTERS/Soo Hoo Zheyang/File Photo
<p>The tariffs, to take effect on Monday, was released late on Sunday and matches a list of potential tariffs on up to $3 billion in U.S. goods published by China on March 23.</p>
<p>China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) said it was suspending its obligations to the World Trade Organization (WTO) to reduce tariffs on 120 U.S. goods, including fruit. The tariff on the products will be raised to 15 percent.</p>
<p>Another eight products, including pork, will now be subject to tariffs of 25 percent, it said, with the measures effective from April 2.</p> FILE PHOTO: A butcher cuts a piece of pork at a market in Beijing, China, March 25, 2016. REUTERS/Jason Lee/File Photo
<p>China has imposed the tariffs amid escalating trade tensions between Beijing and Washington.</p>
<p>U.S. President Donald Trump is preparing to impose tariffs of more than $50 billion on Chinese goods intended to punish Beijing over U.S. accusations that China systematically misappropriated American intellectual property - allegations Beijing denies.</p>
<p>China has repeatedly promised to open its economy further, but many foreign companies continue to complain of unfair treatment. China warned the United States on Thursday not to open a Pandora’s Box and spark a flurry of protectionist practices across the globe.</p>
<p>In a statement published on Monday morning, MOFCOM said the United States had “seriously violated” the principles of non-discrimination enshrined in World Trade Organization rules, and had also damaged China’s interests.</p>
<p>“China’s suspension of some of its obligations to the United States is its legitimate right as a member of the World Trade Organization,” it said, adding that differences between the world’s two largest economies should be resolved through dialogue and negotiation.</p>
<p>Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Tony Munroe; Additional reporting by David Stanway in SHANGHAI; Editing by Eric Meijer &amp; Shri Navaratnam</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
| false | 2 |
jan 22 reuters unified messaging systems asa teleplan globe ums enter partnership agreement developing partnership agreement concerns developing secure communication solutions source text eikon company coverage gdynia newsroom standards thomson reuters trust principles shanghai reuters chinas tiangong1 space station reentered earths atmosphere burnt middle south pacific monday chinese space authority said file photo model tiangong1 space lab module l shenzhou9 manned spacecraft r three chinese astronauts displayed news conference jiuquan satellite launch center gansu province china june 15 2012 reutersjason leefile photo craft reentered atmosphere around 815 beijing time 0015gmt vast majority burnt upon reentry authority said brief statement website said shortly expected reenter brazilian coast south atlantic near cities sao paulo rio de janeiro beijing said friday unlikely large pieces would reach ground 104metrelong 341foot tiangong1 heavenly palace 1 launched 2011 carry docking orbit experiments part chinas ambitious space program aims place permanent station orbit 2023 originally planned decommissioned 2013 mission repeatedly extended china said reentry would occur late 2017 process delayed leading experts suggest space laboratory control chinese tabloid global times said monday worldwide media hype reentry reflected overseas envy chinas space industry normal spacecraft reenter atmosphere yet tiangong1 received much attention partly western countries trying hype sling mud chinas fastgrowing aerospace industry said reporting david stanway wang jing additional reporting ben blanchard beijing editing paul tait standards thomson reuters trust principles tokyo reuters japanese manufacturing activity expanded slightly slower pace march revised data survey showed monday growth new orders output moderated slightly though economy overall remained solid shape file photo worker cycles near factory keihin industrial zone kawasaki japan february 17 2016 reuterstoru hanaifile photo final markitnikkei japan manufacturing purchasing managers index pmi fell 531 march seasonally adjusted basis slightly preliminary 532 final 541 february headline reading fell second consecutive month remained 50 threshold separates contraction expansion 19th executive month latest survey data presented second successive decline manufacturing pmi japan said joe hayes economist ihs markit compiles survey said overall picture remains upbeat reading 531 still indicates fairly solid pace improvement business conditions final index new orders 531 preliminary reading 532 547 previous month new export orders index unchanged advance estimate 525 compared final 541 february japans economy expanded eight consecutive quarters longest uninterrupted streak since 12quarter run growth midtolate 1980s boom economists cautioned pace growth could moderate year consumer spending may ebb slightly even though strong exports performance japan inc continues underpin worlds thirdbiggest economy reporting stanley white editing shri navaratnam standards thomson reuters trust principles tokyo reuters japanese business sentiment worsened first time two years three months march closely watched central bank survey showed monday rising raw material labor costs weigh otherwise steady economic recovery file photo japanese flag flutters atop bank japan building construction tokyo japan september 21 2017 reuterstoru hanaifile photo strong yen simmering fears trade war triggered us president donald trumps move impose tariffs chinese goods could undermine corporate morale threats retaliation escalate analysts say analysts expect economic recovery falter business confidence remains decadehigh level companies plan increase capital expenditure yen gains since late january eroded manufacturers sentiment solid global economic fundamentals helped offset pain overall say business confidence held firm said yuichiro nagai economist barclays securities fears global trade war limited impact business sentiment far depending development us trade policy protectionism could weigh outlook related coverage japan march final manufacturing pmi cools slightly overall economy still solid index measuring big manufacturers confidence fell 2 points plus 24 march bank japans quarterly tankan survey showed roughly matching median market forecast plus 25 nonmanufacturers sentiment worsened 2 points plus 23 median forecast plus 24 deteriorating first time six quarters big manufacturers nonmanufacturers forecast business conditions sour three months ahead tankan showed reflecting looming uncertainty fallout trumps trade policy strong yen big manufacturers expect dollar move around 10966 yen average year began april well current levels around 106 yen means yen gains persist manufacturers may forced slash optimistic profit forecasts worrying sign prime minister shinzo abes efforts spur growth reflationist policies labour shortages also weighed sentiment economic recovery dwindling workingage population push jobless rate near 25year low tankan index measuring capacity constraints showed companies saw job market tightest since 1991 firms construction restaurant hotel industries complained labor shortages taking toll businesses boj official briefing reporters data said among manufacturers basic materials firms selling steel nonferrous metals textile goods saw sentiment hurt rising raw material costs official said still big firms plan raise capital spending 23 percent current financial year april versus median estimate 06 percent gain tankan showed global markets shaken last month trump moved impose tariffs chinese goods beijing retaliated fears fullblown trade war eased hopes negotiations bring compromise japanese policymakers fret strong yen trade frictions could deal heavy blow exportreliant economy benefited solid global demand japans economy grown eight straight quarters longest continuous expansion since 1980s bubble economy moving abes revival plan step closer vanquishing decades stagnation slow wage growth companies reluctance raise prices kept inflation well bank japans elusive 2 percent target tankans sentiment indexes derived subtracting number respondents say conditions poor say good positive reading means optimists outnumber pessimists reporting leika kihara editing sam holmes eric meijer standards thomson reuters trust principles beijing reuters china slapped extra tariffs 25 percent 128 us products including frozen pork well wine certain fruits nuts response us duties imports aluminum steel chinas finance ministry said file photo labourer works coils steel wire steel wholesale market beijing china january 17 2012 reuterssoo hoo zheyangfile photo tariffs take effect monday released late sunday matches list potential tariffs 3 billion us goods published china march 23 chinas ministry commerce mofcom said suspending obligations world trade organization wto reduce tariffs 120 us goods including fruit tariff products raised 15 percent another eight products including pork subject tariffs 25 percent said measures effective april 2 file photo butcher cuts piece pork market beijing china march 25 2016 reutersjason leefile photo china imposed tariffs amid escalating trade tensions beijing washington us president donald trump preparing impose tariffs 50 billion chinese goods intended punish beijing us accusations china systematically misappropriated american intellectual property allegations beijing denies china repeatedly promised open economy many foreign companies continue complain unfair treatment china warned united states thursday open pandoras box spark flurry protectionist practices across globe statement published monday morning mofcom said united states seriously violated principles nondiscrimination enshrined world trade organization rules also damaged chinas interests chinas suspension obligations united states legitimate right member world trade organization said adding differences worlds two largest economies resolved dialogue negotiation reporting ben blanchard tony munroe additional reporting david stanway shanghai editing eric meijer amp shri navaratnam standards thomson reuters trust principles
| 1,094 |
<p>CALAIS, France (AP) — President Emmanuel Macron traveled Tuesday to Calais, the epicenter of France's migrant crisis, to lay out a new approach to immigration: help for those who want to stay, expulsion for those using France as a transit point and sanctions for security forces who overstep the rules.</p>
<p>The northern port city is a magnet for migrants because it is the closest point between France and Britain and has two cross-Channel transport systems, the Eurotunnel and ferries.</p>
<p>More than 1,130 French security forces have been posted in Calais, including riot police, border police and gendarmes, to keep migrants out of the port and Eurotunnel and to stop them from setting up camps.</p>
<p>Macron laid out the broad lines of his immigration policy — humanity with a firm hand — in a speech before security forces, some of whom have been criticized for overzealous actions against migrants. The president's trip was a preview of a tough new immigration and asylum bill to be presented to the Cabinet in February.</p>
<p>Macron said the bill would include a provision launching "automatic" expulsion proceedings against migrants caught trying to enter Britain illegally from France.</p>
<p>"Calais is not a back door to Britain," Macron said, referring to the hundreds of people who attempt to reach Britain by sneaking onto trucks crossing the English Channel.</p>
<p>Macron declared that staying in Calais instead of applying for asylum in France is "a dead end" and vowed not to allow any migrant camp take root here again after authorities dismantled Europe's biggest migrant slum in 2016.</p>
<p>At that time, there were more than 7,000 migrants in the sprawling, filthy camp on the edge of Calais, compared to up to 700 in Calais today.</p>
<p>Macron is meeting Thursday with British Prime Minister Theresa May in Sandhurst near London, and on the agenda is a 2003 border control agreement that he wants to change.</p>
<p>The 2003 Touquet Accords effectively moved the British border to the French port of Calais, where British agents help. The accord has spared Britain from receiving floods of migrants at its doorstep like other European countries, putting the burden of blocking their entry to the U.K. on France.</p>
<p>During his speech to security forces, the French president mentioned three points he plans to raise with May, including "better management of unaccompanied minors, reinforced police cooperation in Calais with the countries of origin and transit" and getting British funds for development projects in Calais.</p>
<p>Macron suggested while meeting with representatives from Calais' economic sector later Tuesday that the British are ready to provide more financing. He said France's priority in ongoing talks with the U.K. government is for Britain to accept more of the unaccompanied minors who make it to France.</p>
<p>Calais, a former French tourist destination, has suffered because of the influx of migrants.</p>
<p>"I think we can improve the situation without knocking everything down," Macron said later at Calais City Hall.</p>
<p>In a surprise announcement, Macron said the state was taking over food distribution to migrants, an apparent bid to undermine aid groups who have for years provided meals.</p>
<p>The president issued a stern warning to the aid groups against discouraging migrants from going to centers where they can apply for French asylum — a move that would end their bid to go to Britain.</p>
<p>"I no longer want us to delegate food aid to associations that use it to keep alive false information," he said during a discussion with local officials.</p>
<p>At least three aid groups, including Doctors of the World, were boycotting a meeting with Macron at the end of his daylong visit, saying he left no room for real discussions on critical issues.</p>
<p>"(The situation) is catastrophic" because migrants have no rights to pitch tents now, said Francois Guennoc of the aid group Auberge des Migrants, which also declined to meet with Macron.</p>
<p>Macron also told security forces in Calais they will be sanctioned if they fail to honor their rules of conduct. He listed some of the claims: that police confiscate sleeping bags and even shoes from migrants, awaken them in the night, use tear gas on their belongings and food.</p>
<p>"There are no half-truths," the president said.</p>
<p>But Macron also said authorities would file defamation complaints against those who make false allegations against the police.</p>
<p>Macron also talked briefly Tuesday with Sudanese migrants at a special center in Croisilles, south of Calais, where migrants can apply for asylum in France. Many stay only briefly in such centers and quickly resume efforts to sneak across the Channel.</p>
<p>One migrant applying for asylum in France, identified only as Ahmed, 25, said he traveled from Sudan through Libya and Italy to end up in Calais last year. He told Macron he had no choice but to leave home because his mother was killed and his family disappeared. He said wants to "learn French, get training and find a job as auto mechanic."</p>
<p>Macron told Ahmed that his story seemed to meet the French criteria for granting asylum.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Ganley reported from Paris. Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.</p>
<p>CALAIS, France (AP) — President Emmanuel Macron traveled Tuesday to Calais, the epicenter of France's migrant crisis, to lay out a new approach to immigration: help for those who want to stay, expulsion for those using France as a transit point and sanctions for security forces who overstep the rules.</p>
<p>The northern port city is a magnet for migrants because it is the closest point between France and Britain and has two cross-Channel transport systems, the Eurotunnel and ferries.</p>
<p>More than 1,130 French security forces have been posted in Calais, including riot police, border police and gendarmes, to keep migrants out of the port and Eurotunnel and to stop them from setting up camps.</p>
<p>Macron laid out the broad lines of his immigration policy — humanity with a firm hand — in a speech before security forces, some of whom have been criticized for overzealous actions against migrants. The president's trip was a preview of a tough new immigration and asylum bill to be presented to the Cabinet in February.</p>
<p>Macron said the bill would include a provision launching "automatic" expulsion proceedings against migrants caught trying to enter Britain illegally from France.</p>
<p>"Calais is not a back door to Britain," Macron said, referring to the hundreds of people who attempt to reach Britain by sneaking onto trucks crossing the English Channel.</p>
<p>Macron declared that staying in Calais instead of applying for asylum in France is "a dead end" and vowed not to allow any migrant camp take root here again after authorities dismantled Europe's biggest migrant slum in 2016.</p>
<p>At that time, there were more than 7,000 migrants in the sprawling, filthy camp on the edge of Calais, compared to up to 700 in Calais today.</p>
<p>Macron is meeting Thursday with British Prime Minister Theresa May in Sandhurst near London, and on the agenda is a 2003 border control agreement that he wants to change.</p>
<p>The 2003 Touquet Accords effectively moved the British border to the French port of Calais, where British agents help. The accord has spared Britain from receiving floods of migrants at its doorstep like other European countries, putting the burden of blocking their entry to the U.K. on France.</p>
<p>During his speech to security forces, the French president mentioned three points he plans to raise with May, including "better management of unaccompanied minors, reinforced police cooperation in Calais with the countries of origin and transit" and getting British funds for development projects in Calais.</p>
<p>Macron suggested while meeting with representatives from Calais' economic sector later Tuesday that the British are ready to provide more financing. He said France's priority in ongoing talks with the U.K. government is for Britain to accept more of the unaccompanied minors who make it to France.</p>
<p>Calais, a former French tourist destination, has suffered because of the influx of migrants.</p>
<p>"I think we can improve the situation without knocking everything down," Macron said later at Calais City Hall.</p>
<p>In a surprise announcement, Macron said the state was taking over food distribution to migrants, an apparent bid to undermine aid groups who have for years provided meals.</p>
<p>The president issued a stern warning to the aid groups against discouraging migrants from going to centers where they can apply for French asylum — a move that would end their bid to go to Britain.</p>
<p>"I no longer want us to delegate food aid to associations that use it to keep alive false information," he said during a discussion with local officials.</p>
<p>At least three aid groups, including Doctors of the World, were boycotting a meeting with Macron at the end of his daylong visit, saying he left no room for real discussions on critical issues.</p>
<p>"(The situation) is catastrophic" because migrants have no rights to pitch tents now, said Francois Guennoc of the aid group Auberge des Migrants, which also declined to meet with Macron.</p>
<p>Macron also told security forces in Calais they will be sanctioned if they fail to honor their rules of conduct. He listed some of the claims: that police confiscate sleeping bags and even shoes from migrants, awaken them in the night, use tear gas on their belongings and food.</p>
<p>"There are no half-truths," the president said.</p>
<p>But Macron also said authorities would file defamation complaints against those who make false allegations against the police.</p>
<p>Macron also talked briefly Tuesday with Sudanese migrants at a special center in Croisilles, south of Calais, where migrants can apply for asylum in France. Many stay only briefly in such centers and quickly resume efforts to sneak across the Channel.</p>
<p>One migrant applying for asylum in France, identified only as Ahmed, 25, said he traveled from Sudan through Libya and Italy to end up in Calais last year. He told Macron he had no choice but to leave home because his mother was killed and his family disappeared. He said wants to "learn French, get training and find a job as auto mechanic."</p>
<p>Macron told Ahmed that his story seemed to meet the French criteria for granting asylum.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Ganley reported from Paris. Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.</p>
| false | 2 |
calais france ap president emmanuel macron traveled tuesday calais epicenter frances migrant crisis lay new approach immigration help want stay expulsion using france transit point sanctions security forces overstep rules northern port city magnet migrants closest point france britain two crosschannel transport systems eurotunnel ferries 1130 french security forces posted calais including riot police border police gendarmes keep migrants port eurotunnel stop setting camps macron laid broad lines immigration policy humanity firm hand speech security forces criticized overzealous actions migrants presidents trip preview tough new immigration asylum bill presented cabinet february macron said bill would include provision launching automatic expulsion proceedings migrants caught trying enter britain illegally france calais back door britain macron said referring hundreds people attempt reach britain sneaking onto trucks crossing english channel macron declared staying calais instead applying asylum france dead end vowed allow migrant camp take root authorities dismantled europes biggest migrant slum 2016 time 7000 migrants sprawling filthy camp edge calais compared 700 calais today macron meeting thursday british prime minister theresa may sandhurst near london agenda 2003 border control agreement wants change 2003 touquet accords effectively moved british border french port calais british agents help accord spared britain receiving floods migrants doorstep like european countries putting burden blocking entry uk france speech security forces french president mentioned three points plans raise may including better management unaccompanied minors reinforced police cooperation calais countries origin transit getting british funds development projects calais macron suggested meeting representatives calais economic sector later tuesday british ready provide financing said frances priority ongoing talks uk government britain accept unaccompanied minors make france calais former french tourist destination suffered influx migrants think improve situation without knocking everything macron said later calais city hall surprise announcement macron said state taking food distribution migrants apparent bid undermine aid groups years provided meals president issued stern warning aid groups discouraging migrants going centers apply french asylum move would end bid go britain longer want us delegate food aid associations use keep alive false information said discussion local officials least three aid groups including doctors world boycotting meeting macron end daylong visit saying left room real discussions critical issues situation catastrophic migrants rights pitch tents said francois guennoc aid group auberge des migrants also declined meet macron macron also told security forces calais sanctioned fail honor rules conduct listed claims police confiscate sleeping bags even shoes migrants awaken night use tear gas belongings food halftruths president said macron also said authorities would file defamation complaints make false allegations police macron also talked briefly tuesday sudanese migrants special center croisilles south calais migrants apply asylum france many stay briefly centers quickly resume efforts sneak across channel one migrant applying asylum france identified ahmed 25 said traveled sudan libya italy end calais last year told macron choice leave home mother killed family disappeared said wants learn french get training find job auto mechanic macron told ahmed story seemed meet french criteria granting asylum ___ ganley reported paris jill lawless london contributed report calais france ap president emmanuel macron traveled tuesday calais epicenter frances migrant crisis lay new approach immigration help want stay expulsion using france transit point sanctions security forces overstep rules northern port city magnet migrants closest point france britain two crosschannel transport systems eurotunnel ferries 1130 french security forces posted calais including riot police border police gendarmes keep migrants port eurotunnel stop setting camps macron laid broad lines immigration policy humanity firm hand speech security forces criticized overzealous actions migrants presidents trip preview tough new immigration asylum bill presented cabinet february macron said bill would include provision launching automatic expulsion proceedings migrants caught trying enter britain illegally france calais back door britain macron said referring hundreds people attempt reach britain sneaking onto trucks crossing english channel macron declared staying calais instead applying asylum france dead end vowed allow migrant camp take root authorities dismantled europes biggest migrant slum 2016 time 7000 migrants sprawling filthy camp edge calais compared 700 calais today macron meeting thursday british prime minister theresa may sandhurst near london agenda 2003 border control agreement wants change 2003 touquet accords effectively moved british border french port calais british agents help accord spared britain receiving floods migrants doorstep like european countries putting burden blocking entry uk france speech security forces french president mentioned three points plans raise may including better management unaccompanied minors reinforced police cooperation calais countries origin transit getting british funds development projects calais macron suggested meeting representatives calais economic sector later tuesday british ready provide financing said frances priority ongoing talks uk government britain accept unaccompanied minors make france calais former french tourist destination suffered influx migrants think improve situation without knocking everything macron said later calais city hall surprise announcement macron said state taking food distribution migrants apparent bid undermine aid groups years provided meals president issued stern warning aid groups discouraging migrants going centers apply french asylum move would end bid go britain longer want us delegate food aid associations use keep alive false information said discussion local officials least three aid groups including doctors world boycotting meeting macron end daylong visit saying left room real discussions critical issues situation catastrophic migrants rights pitch tents said francois guennoc aid group auberge des migrants also declined meet macron macron also told security forces calais sanctioned fail honor rules conduct listed claims police confiscate sleeping bags even shoes migrants awaken night use tear gas belongings food halftruths president said macron also said authorities would file defamation complaints make false allegations police macron also talked briefly tuesday sudanese migrants special center croisilles south calais migrants apply asylum france many stay briefly centers quickly resume efforts sneak across channel one migrant applying asylum france identified ahmed 25 said traveled sudan libya italy end calais last year told macron choice leave home mother killed family disappeared said wants learn french get training find job auto mechanic macron told ahmed story seemed meet french criteria granting asylum ___ ganley reported paris jill lawless london contributed report
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<p>NEW YORK (AP) — The nation's biggest city, under the direction of Mayor Bill de Blasio, marked Earth Day on Wednesday by linking a sweeping effort to limit its impact on the environment with its fight against income inequality by pledging to lift more than 800,000 people out of poverty.</p>
<p>De Blasio unveiled his ambitious OneNYC plan as a comprehensive strategy to improve New Yorkers' lives by providing affordable housing, shortening commute times and preserving the environment.</p>
<p>"The way forward is to create a vision for one city where there's opportunity for all, sustainability for all and fairness for all," de Blasio said. "So many people who have fought for economic justice have also fought for environmental justice because these challenges go hand in hand."</p>
<p>The waste reduction proposal — first reported Tuesday by The Associated Press — is central to the plan. New York, home to about 8.5 million residents, aims to reduce its waste output by 90 percent by 2030 from its 2005 level. The plan, the biggest undertaken by a city in the Western Hemisphere, would eliminate more than 3 million tons of garbage by overhauling the city's recycling program, offering incentives to reduce waste and embracing the City Council's plan to dramatically reduce the use of plastic shopping bags.</p>
<p>The waste reduction plan is part of an update to the sustainability project created by de Blasio's predecessor, Michael Bloomberg. But even changing its name from PlaNYC to the loftier OneNYC: The Plan for a Strong and Just City, which invokes de Blasio's campaign promise to combat the "tale of two cities" created by income inequality, makes clear that the updated plan would grow in scope.</p>
<p>The mayor pledged to lift 800,000 New Yorkers out of poverty or near poverty in the next decade, one of the largest anti-poverty efforts in the nation's history. De Blasio said it would "change the reality of this city."</p>
<p>He also reiterated his lofty housing goals — he aims to create 500,000 units of affordable housing by 2040 — and said he wants to end racial and ethnic disparities in premature mortality. He pledged to explore new capital expenditures — including the feasibility of a new subway line to serve central Brooklyn — to improve the city's aging infrastructure and to reduce the average New Yorker's commuting time to 45 minutes.</p>
<p>But de Blasio declined to discuss the cost — or source of funding — for the projects, saying much of that would be revealed in next month's budget presentation.</p>
<p>Some resiliency advocates applauded the lofty goals, but others, including Jordan Levine of the New York League of Conservation Voters, chided the plan for not providing specifics on funding and warned that "implementation is where rubber meets the road."</p>
<p>For decades, the city's trash has been exported to South Carolina, Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania or upstate New York. The amount of waste produced by the city has fallen 14 percent since 2005 because of an increase in recycling, and a key component of the plan is to bolster that output by simplifying the process and consolidating all recycling into one bin by 2020.</p>
<p>Organics — such as food scraps and yard waste — make up nearly a third of the city's residential waste stream. A program to collect that material directly from residents' homes is expanding to nearly 200,000 residents by year's end, and city officials want to serve every home by the end of 2018. The city also will offer economic incentives to participate, including potentially a property tax rebate for homeowners.</p>
<p>The city also aims to reduce commercial waste by 90 percent by 2030 by adopting a program that could mean tax incentives for participating businesses and fines for nonparticipants.</p>
<p>The de Blasio administration stopped short of endorsing a City Council bill that proposes a 10-cent fee on plastic bags, but officials said that reducing their use is a priority and that they would coordinate efforts with the council.</p>
<p>NEW YORK (AP) — The nation's biggest city, under the direction of Mayor Bill de Blasio, marked Earth Day on Wednesday by linking a sweeping effort to limit its impact on the environment with its fight against income inequality by pledging to lift more than 800,000 people out of poverty.</p>
<p>De Blasio unveiled his ambitious OneNYC plan as a comprehensive strategy to improve New Yorkers' lives by providing affordable housing, shortening commute times and preserving the environment.</p>
<p>"The way forward is to create a vision for one city where there's opportunity for all, sustainability for all and fairness for all," de Blasio said. "So many people who have fought for economic justice have also fought for environmental justice because these challenges go hand in hand."</p>
<p>The waste reduction proposal — first reported Tuesday by The Associated Press — is central to the plan. New York, home to about 8.5 million residents, aims to reduce its waste output by 90 percent by 2030 from its 2005 level. The plan, the biggest undertaken by a city in the Western Hemisphere, would eliminate more than 3 million tons of garbage by overhauling the city's recycling program, offering incentives to reduce waste and embracing the City Council's plan to dramatically reduce the use of plastic shopping bags.</p>
<p>The waste reduction plan is part of an update to the sustainability project created by de Blasio's predecessor, Michael Bloomberg. But even changing its name from PlaNYC to the loftier OneNYC: The Plan for a Strong and Just City, which invokes de Blasio's campaign promise to combat the "tale of two cities" created by income inequality, makes clear that the updated plan would grow in scope.</p>
<p>The mayor pledged to lift 800,000 New Yorkers out of poverty or near poverty in the next decade, one of the largest anti-poverty efforts in the nation's history. De Blasio said it would "change the reality of this city."</p>
<p>He also reiterated his lofty housing goals — he aims to create 500,000 units of affordable housing by 2040 — and said he wants to end racial and ethnic disparities in premature mortality. He pledged to explore new capital expenditures — including the feasibility of a new subway line to serve central Brooklyn — to improve the city's aging infrastructure and to reduce the average New Yorker's commuting time to 45 minutes.</p>
<p>But de Blasio declined to discuss the cost — or source of funding — for the projects, saying much of that would be revealed in next month's budget presentation.</p>
<p>Some resiliency advocates applauded the lofty goals, but others, including Jordan Levine of the New York League of Conservation Voters, chided the plan for not providing specifics on funding and warned that "implementation is where rubber meets the road."</p>
<p>For decades, the city's trash has been exported to South Carolina, Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania or upstate New York. The amount of waste produced by the city has fallen 14 percent since 2005 because of an increase in recycling, and a key component of the plan is to bolster that output by simplifying the process and consolidating all recycling into one bin by 2020.</p>
<p>Organics — such as food scraps and yard waste — make up nearly a third of the city's residential waste stream. A program to collect that material directly from residents' homes is expanding to nearly 200,000 residents by year's end, and city officials want to serve every home by the end of 2018. The city also will offer economic incentives to participate, including potentially a property tax rebate for homeowners.</p>
<p>The city also aims to reduce commercial waste by 90 percent by 2030 by adopting a program that could mean tax incentives for participating businesses and fines for nonparticipants.</p>
<p>The de Blasio administration stopped short of endorsing a City Council bill that proposes a 10-cent fee on plastic bags, but officials said that reducing their use is a priority and that they would coordinate efforts with the council.</p>
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new york ap nations biggest city direction mayor bill de blasio marked earth day wednesday linking sweeping effort limit impact environment fight income inequality pledging lift 800000 people poverty de blasio unveiled ambitious onenyc plan comprehensive strategy improve new yorkers lives providing affordable housing shortening commute times preserving environment way forward create vision one city theres opportunity sustainability fairness de blasio said many people fought economic justice also fought environmental justice challenges go hand hand waste reduction proposal first reported tuesday associated press central plan new york home 85 million residents aims reduce waste output 90 percent 2030 2005 level plan biggest undertaken city western hemisphere would eliminate 3 million tons garbage overhauling citys recycling program offering incentives reduce waste embracing city councils plan dramatically reduce use plastic shopping bags waste reduction plan part update sustainability project created de blasios predecessor michael bloomberg even changing name planyc loftier onenyc plan strong city invokes de blasios campaign promise combat tale two cities created income inequality makes clear updated plan would grow scope mayor pledged lift 800000 new yorkers poverty near poverty next decade one largest antipoverty efforts nations history de blasio said would change reality city also reiterated lofty housing goals aims create 500000 units affordable housing 2040 said wants end racial ethnic disparities premature mortality pledged explore new capital expenditures including feasibility new subway line serve central brooklyn improve citys aging infrastructure reduce average new yorkers commuting time 45 minutes de blasio declined discuss cost source funding projects saying much would revealed next months budget presentation resiliency advocates applauded lofty goals others including jordan levine new york league conservation voters chided plan providing specifics funding warned implementation rubber meets road decades citys trash exported south carolina virginia new jersey pennsylvania upstate new york amount waste produced city fallen 14 percent since 2005 increase recycling key component plan bolster output simplifying process consolidating recycling one bin 2020 organics food scraps yard waste make nearly third citys residential waste stream program collect material directly residents homes expanding nearly 200000 residents years end city officials want serve every home end 2018 city also offer economic incentives participate including potentially property tax rebate homeowners city also aims reduce commercial waste 90 percent 2030 adopting program could mean tax incentives participating businesses fines nonparticipants de blasio administration stopped short endorsing city council bill proposes 10cent fee plastic bags officials said reducing use priority would coordinate efforts council new york ap nations biggest city direction mayor bill de blasio marked earth day wednesday linking sweeping effort limit impact environment fight income inequality pledging lift 800000 people poverty de blasio unveiled ambitious onenyc plan comprehensive strategy improve new yorkers lives providing affordable housing shortening commute times preserving environment way forward create vision one city theres opportunity sustainability fairness de blasio said many people fought economic justice also fought environmental justice challenges go hand hand waste reduction proposal first reported tuesday associated press central plan new york home 85 million residents aims reduce waste output 90 percent 2030 2005 level plan biggest undertaken city western hemisphere would eliminate 3 million tons garbage overhauling citys recycling program offering incentives reduce waste embracing city councils plan dramatically reduce use plastic shopping bags waste reduction plan part update sustainability project created de blasios predecessor michael bloomberg even changing name planyc loftier onenyc plan strong city invokes de blasios campaign promise combat tale two cities created income inequality makes clear updated plan would grow scope mayor pledged lift 800000 new yorkers poverty near poverty next decade one largest antipoverty efforts nations history de blasio said would change reality city also reiterated lofty housing goals aims create 500000 units affordable housing 2040 said wants end racial ethnic disparities premature mortality pledged explore new capital expenditures including feasibility new subway line serve central brooklyn improve citys aging infrastructure reduce average new yorkers commuting time 45 minutes de blasio declined discuss cost source funding projects saying much would revealed next months budget presentation resiliency advocates applauded lofty goals others including jordan levine new york league conservation voters chided plan providing specifics funding warned implementation rubber meets road decades citys trash exported south carolina virginia new jersey pennsylvania upstate new york amount waste produced city fallen 14 percent since 2005 increase recycling key component plan bolster output simplifying process consolidating recycling one bin 2020 organics food scraps yard waste make nearly third citys residential waste stream program collect material directly residents homes expanding nearly 200000 residents years end city officials want serve every home end 2018 city also offer economic incentives participate including potentially property tax rebate homeowners city also aims reduce commercial waste 90 percent 2030 adopting program could mean tax incentives participating businesses fines nonparticipants de blasio administration stopped short endorsing city council bill proposes 10cent fee plastic bags officials said reducing use priority would coordinate efforts council
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<p>FILE - In this Monday, Dec. 15, 2003 file photo, Syrian President Bashar Assad reviews the presidential guard during a welcoming ceremony in Athens. The tide of global rage against the Islamic State group lends greater urgency to ending the jihadis' ability to operate at will from a base in war-torn Syria. That momentum could also force a reevaluation of what to do about President Bashar Assad's future and puts a renewed focus on the position of his key patrons, Russia and Iran. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris, File)</p>
<p>DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - The tide of global rage against the Islamic State group lends greater urgency to ending the jihadis' ability to operate at will from a base in war-torn Syria. That momentum could also force a reevaluation of what to do about President Bashar Assad and puts a renewed focus on the position of his key patrons, Russia and Iran.</p>
<p>The Syrian leader has lost much of the country to IS and other groups in the four-year war; half the population has been displaced, many areas have been leveled, and masses of refugees are flooding Europe. Along the way, Assad's brutal military response has made him persona non grata in most of the world.</p>
<p>Portraying himself as the only viable alternative to jihadi rule, Assad has labeled all his enemies "terrorists" - a designation that, in the wake of the recent attacks on civilians by IS, may find greater resonance.</p>
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<p>Cutting a deal with Assad would be the "lesser evil," Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo said Wednesday.</p>
<p>"If we want peace, we have to find a way of getting along with Assad, at least in a transition period. - Roosevelt didn't like Stalin, but he had to get a deal with him in order to defeat the Nazis, who were the greater evil," Garcia-Margallo said.</p>
<p>Britain's former military chief, Gen. David Richards, echoed that sentiment, saying in a BBC interview that a cease-fire in Syria could allow Assad and his military to take a leading role in battling IS.</p>
<p>The fact remains, though, that the U.S. and its allies don't want to see Assad benefit from any effort to dislodge IS from territory it controls in Syria - unlike in Iraq, where the Baghdad government is considered legitimate by the world community.</p>
<p>A temporary reprieve is starting to seem more possible, setting the stage for what some observers suggest may be an arrangement in which Assad is part of a transition government that has a role in the priority of defeating IS - but then quietly makes way.</p>
<p>Russia and Iran would have to be a big part of engineering such a solution - but they have leverage.</p>
<p>Assad might well have fallen if not for the support of Hezbollah, the Iranian proxy militia based in neighboring Lebanon whose efforts in the past two months have been joined by an active Russian bombing campaign.</p>
<p>Both Iran and Russia are difficult to read and predict - and until now, both have backed Assad's insistence that he stay in power through the rest of his official term, which runs until 2021.</p>
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<p>But there are hints that Russia's support may be wobbling even as it ramps up airstrikes against his enemies: Moscow made clear earlier this month it is not crucial that he stay.</p>
<p>A Syrian opposition figure familiar with the Russian position said Moscow's military campaign aims to facilitate a diplomatic track by strengthening Assad's position and weakening the rebels enough that they all agree to come to the table.</p>
<p>He said the Russians have come to the conclusion that there can be no long-term solution for Syria while Assad remains in power. The question, he said, is how to let go of Assad while safeguarding state institutions and the capital of Damascus. The Russians have yet to answer that, said the opposition figure, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not want to damage relations with Russia.</p>
<p>Russia has its own interests, wanting to keep its small naval facility at Tartous on the Mediterranean and remaining a player in greater Mideast affairs.</p>
<p>Iran, another major ally, wants to maintain a counterbalance to Israel and keep another Shiite ally in the region.</p>
<p>Iran has sent more advisers to Syria in recent weeks, as well as again reportedly dispatching Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who heads the elite Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guard. The country also has suffered increasing casualties from the war.</p>
<p>This week, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian reiterated Tehran's support for the Syrian president, saying "only Assad himself can decide on his participation or non-participation in (future) elections (and) it is only the people of Syria who can say whether they will vote for him or not," according to the semi-official Fars news agency.</p>
<p>In a more ambiguous statement referencing Assad, Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said that "limiting the regional crises to one person is a strategic mistake."</p>
<p>For now, Iran believes anger over the Islamic State group will force the world to stick with Assad, said Karim Sadjadpour, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. However, Sadjadpour said Iranian officials also realize how much the civil war has stoked Sunni extremism.</p>
<p>"Syria has been a Pyrrhic victory for Iran," he said. "They've succeeding in keeping Assad in power, but their desire to be the vanguard of the Islamic world has been irreparably damaged. Their image in the Sunni Arab world will likely be tainted for decades to come."</p>
<p>The wheels are in motion for a process that could possibly usher Assad out. Foreign ministers of 19 countries met in Vienna after the Paris attacks and set a Jan. 1 deadline to start negotiations between Assad's government and opposition groups for ending a conflict that has killed more than quarter of a million people. Diplomats hope to have a transitional government six months later, with U.N.-supervised elections within 18 months, although previous efforts have failed.</p>
<p>U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told the BBC on Tuesday that pushing Assad out "has to be part of a transition if you're going to end the war."</p>
<p>The Russians don't "want to see Iraq, they don't want to see Libya; they don't want to see the leader go down or leave, and then there's chaos afterwards," Kerry said. "So we are all united in our desire to keep the institutions of governance in Syria whole, but that doesn't mean Assad."</p>
<p>Joshua Landis, a Syria expert and the director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, isn't so sure Russia and Iran are prepared to see Assad go.</p>
<p>Iran and Russia "can't separate the Assad family from this regime," he said. "The regime has been built around loyalty to the Assads. If you get rid of them, everything collapses."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Schreck reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Barry Hatton in Lisbon, Portugal, Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, Zeina Karam in Baghdad and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at <a href="http://www.twitter.com/jongambrellap" type="external">www.twitter.com/jongambrellap</a> . Follow Adam Schreck on Twitter at <a href="http://www.twitter.com/adamschreck" type="external">www.twitter.com/adamschreck</a> .</p>
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file monday dec 15 2003 file photo syrian president bashar assad reviews presidential guard welcoming ceremony athens tide global rage islamic state group lends greater urgency ending jihadis ability operate base wartorn syria momentum could also force reevaluation president bashar assads future puts renewed focus position key patrons russia iran ap photopetros giannakouris file dubai united arab emirates tide global rage islamic state group lends greater urgency ending jihadis ability operate base wartorn syria momentum could also force reevaluation president bashar assad puts renewed focus position key patrons russia iran syrian leader lost much country groups fouryear war half population displaced many areas leveled masses refugees flooding europe along way assads brutal military response made persona non grata world portraying viable alternative jihadi rule assad labeled enemies terrorists designation wake recent attacks civilians may find greater resonance advertisement cutting deal assad would lesser evil spanish foreign minister jose manuel garciamargallo said wednesday want peace find way getting along assad least transition period roosevelt didnt like stalin get deal order defeat nazis greater evil garciamargallo said britains former military chief gen david richards echoed sentiment saying bbc interview ceasefire syria could allow assad military take leading role battling fact remains though us allies dont want see assad benefit effort dislodge territory controls syria unlike iraq baghdad government considered legitimate world community temporary reprieve starting seem possible setting stage observers suggest may arrangement assad part transition government role priority defeating quietly makes way russia iran would big part engineering solution leverage assad might well fallen support hezbollah iranian proxy militia based neighboring lebanon whose efforts past two months joined active russian bombing campaign iran russia difficult read predict backed assads insistence stay power rest official term runs 2021 advertisement hints russias support may wobbling even ramps airstrikes enemies moscow made clear earlier month crucial stay syrian opposition figure familiar russian position said moscows military campaign aims facilitate diplomatic track strengthening assads position weakening rebels enough agree come table said russians come conclusion longterm solution syria assad remains power question said let go assad safeguarding state institutions capital damascus russians yet answer said opposition figure spoke condition anonymity want damage relations russia russia interests wanting keep small naval facility tartous mediterranean remaining player greater mideast affairs iran another major ally wants maintain counterbalance israel keep another shiite ally region iran sent advisers syria recent weeks well reportedly dispatching gen qassem soleimani heads elite quds force revolutionary guard country also suffered increasing casualties war week iranian deputy foreign minister hossein amir abdollahian reiterated tehrans support syrian president saying assad decide participation nonparticipation future elections people syria say whether vote according semiofficial fars news agency ambiguous statement referencing assad parliament speaker ali larijani said limiting regional crises one person strategic mistake iran believes anger islamic state group force world stick assad said karim sadjadpour senior associate carnegie endowment international peace washington however sadjadpour said iranian officials also realize much civil war stoked sunni extremism syria pyrrhic victory iran said theyve succeeding keeping assad power desire vanguard islamic world irreparably damaged image sunni arab world likely tainted decades come wheels motion process could possibly usher assad foreign ministers 19 countries met vienna paris attacks set jan 1 deadline start negotiations assads government opposition groups ending conflict killed quarter million people diplomats hope transitional government six months later unsupervised elections within 18 months although previous efforts failed us secretary state john kerry told bbc tuesday pushing assad part transition youre going end war russians dont want see iraq dont want see libya dont want see leader go leave theres chaos afterwards kerry said united desire keep institutions governance syria whole doesnt mean assad joshua landis syria expert director center middle east studies university oklahoma isnt sure russia iran prepared see assad go iran russia cant separate assad family regime said regime built around loyalty assads get rid everything collapses ___ schreck reported cairo associated press writers barry hatton lisbon portugal nasser karimi tehran iran zeina karam baghdad vladimir isachenkov moscow contributed report ___ follow jon gambrell twitter wwwtwittercomjongambrellap follow adam schreck twitter wwwtwittercomadamschreck
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<p>ATLANTA — Inside a classroom at a community college in Dallas, about two dozen women took turns sharing their names, hometowns and what they hoped would be their future titles.</p>
<p>Congresswoman. State representative. County judge.</p>
<p>It was part of a training held by EMILY’s List, an organization dedicated to electing women at all levels of government who support abortion rights. One of the presentation’s PowerPoint slides flashed a mock advertisement on the projector screen: “Help Wanted: Progressive Women Candidates.”</p>
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<p>A record number of women appear to be answering that call, fueled largely by frustration on the Democratic side over the election of President Donald Trump and energized by Democratic women winning races in Virginia in November. Experts say 2018 is on track to be a historic year, with more women saying they are running at this point than ever before.</p>
<p>“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Stephanie Schriock, president of EMILY’s List. “Every day, dozens more women come to our website, come to our Facebook page and say, ‘I am mad as hell. I want to do something about it. What should I do now?'”</p>
<p>In the four weeks after the 2016 election, 1,000 women came to the group’s website to learn about running for office. That number has now surpassed 26,000. By comparison, the group was in contact with 960 women for the previous election cycle.</p>
<p>Whether all that enthusiasm will result in full-fledged campaigns and translate to gains in the number of women elected to office remains to be seen.</p>
<p>Although women are more than half the American population, they account for just a fifth of all U.S. representatives and senators, and one in four state lawmakers. They serve as governors of only six states and mayors in roughly 20 percent of the nation’s most populous cities.</p>
<p>For Sarah Riggs Amico, the executive chairwoman of a major auto hauling company, last year’s Women’s March in Atlanta ignited her interest in running for office.</p>
<p>“It was something that really lifted me up and made me want to demand better from my government,” said Amico, who recently announced plans to run for lieutenant governor in Georgia.</p>
<p>Sol Flores has been walking in marches with her mother in Chicago since she was a little girl, but never thought she would run for office. Now 44, Flores said she was enraged by policies put forward by the Trump administration and decided to jump into a crowded Democratic primary for Illinois’ 4th Congressional District.</p>
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<p>Flores said her network of friends has been crucial to helping her navigate the realities of being a first-time candidate and the challenges of gathering signatures for qualifying and fundraising.</p>
<p>“Women are really good at this, saying, ‘Let’s sit down and figure this out. You raised your hand, and let’s win. Let’s go to Washington, D.C.,'” said Flores, the executive director of a nonprofit helping homeless families and at-risk youth.</p>
<p>The last time the U.S. saw a surge in women running for office was 1992, in the wake of Anita Hill’s testimony before an all-male U.S. Senate committee weighing the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court. It was called the “Year of the Woman” because women were elected to the U.S. House and Senate in record numbers.</p>
<p>The number of women in office has held steady in recent years, but experts say conditions are ripe for an increase in 2018 — especially if more politicians are forced to step down or retire amid the growing #MeToo movement that began with accusations of sexual misconduct against Hollywood mega-producer Harvey Weinstein.</p>
<p>One U.S. senator and four congressmen have so far announced plans to retire or not seek re-election following allegations against them, presenting a prime opportunity for women to compete for their open seats. For example, seven women have expressed interest in an April special election for an Arizona congressional seat.</p>
<p>The increase in women candidates is largely being seen in U.S. House and governor’s races next year and driven primarily by Democrats, said Debbie Walsh, who leads the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. In addition to the 50 Democratic and 10 Republican congresswomen expected to run for re-election, there are 183 Democratic women and 14 Republican women running in primaries to challenge their current U.S. representative.</p>
<p>These can be uphill races, but many of the women running say they were encouraged by what happened in Virginia in November, when 30 percent of the women who challenged their state representative won.</p>
<p>Katie Hill is among those seeking to oust her local congressman, Republican Rep. Steve Knight in California’s 25th Congressional District, a key Democratic target this year.</p>
<p>As an advocate for the homeless, Hill recalled the joy she felt on the night of the 2016 election when voters in Los Angeles passed a $1.2 billion bond measure for housing and services for homeless people and those at risk of becoming homeless. But that was quickly tempered by the outcome of the presidential election.</p>
<p>“November made us all realize that our country is not where we need to be,” Hill said. “And that’s the point when people start to stand up and say, ‘If no one else is going to fix, I’m going to.'”</p>
<p>It’s not just Democrats. First-time Republican and Libertarian women candidates are also jumping into the mix.</p>
<p>Republicans launched an effort in 2012 that is focused on electing women. Under the “Right Women, Right Now” program, 390 new GOP women have been elected since then.</p>
<p>“Twenty-five percent of state legislators are women, and that’s clearly insufficient,” said Matt Walter, head of the Republican State Leadership Committee. “That’s a Democratic and Republican number, and something we really felt strongly was something we needed to change.”</p>
<p>Tiffany Shedd, a lawyer for small businesses who lives on a farm in Eloy, Arizona, said she was talking with her husband one evening earlier this year about the importance of having someone representing them in Congress who will fight for rural communities. She said he challenged her to run.</p>
<p>“I said, ‘I can’t run. What’s a person from a little town in Arizona doing running for Congress?” Shedd said. “And then I thought, ‘Wow — that is exactly what we need.'”</p>
<p>She will be running in the Republican primary in the hopes of challenging Democratic Rep. Tom O’Halleran in November.</p>
<p>On the state level, 36 governor’s races will be contested in 2018. The Center for American Women and Politics says 49 Democratic women, including two incumbents, and 28 Republican women have indicated they will run for those seats. There has never been more than nine women serving as governor at the same time.</p>
<p>Even if all the women who have reached out to groups such as EMILY’s List do not end up running next year, they are expected to play key roles in supporting those who do.</p>
<p>“This is the next decade of candidates,” Schriock said.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press photographer Matthew Otero in Dallas contributed to this report.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Christina Almeida Cassidy on Twitter at <a href="http://twitter.com/AP_Christina" type="external">http://twitter.com/AP_Christina</a></p>
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atlanta inside classroom community college dallas two dozen women took turns sharing names hometowns hoped would future titles congresswoman state representative county judge part training held emilys list organization dedicated electing women levels government support abortion rights one presentations powerpoint slides flashed mock advertisement projector screen help wanted progressive women candidates advertisement record number women appear answering call fueled largely frustration democratic side election president donald trump energized democratic women winning races virginia november experts say 2018 track historic year women saying running point ever ive never seen anything like said stephanie schriock president emilys list every day dozens women come website come facebook page say mad hell want something four weeks 2016 election 1000 women came groups website learn running office number surpassed 26000 comparison group contact 960 women previous election cycle whether enthusiasm result fullfledged campaigns translate gains number women elected office remains seen although women half american population account fifth us representatives senators one four state lawmakers serve governors six states mayors roughly 20 percent nations populous cities sarah riggs amico executive chairwoman major auto hauling company last years womens march atlanta ignited interest running office something really lifted made want demand better government said amico recently announced plans run lieutenant governor georgia sol flores walking marches mother chicago since little girl never thought would run office 44 flores said enraged policies put forward trump administration decided jump crowded democratic primary illinois 4th congressional district advertisement flores said network friends crucial helping navigate realities firsttime candidate challenges gathering signatures qualifying fundraising women really good saying lets sit figure raised hand lets win lets go washington dc said flores executive director nonprofit helping homeless families atrisk youth last time us saw surge women running office 1992 wake anita hills testimony allmale us senate committee weighing nomination clarence thomas us supreme court called year woman women elected us house senate record numbers number women office held steady recent years experts say conditions ripe increase 2018 especially politicians forced step retire amid growing metoo movement began accusations sexual misconduct hollywood megaproducer harvey weinstein one us senator four congressmen far announced plans retire seek reelection following allegations presenting prime opportunity women compete open seats example seven women expressed interest april special election arizona congressional seat increase women candidates largely seen us house governors races next year driven primarily democrats said debbie walsh leads center american women politics rutgers university addition 50 democratic 10 republican congresswomen expected run reelection 183 democratic women 14 republican women running primaries challenge current us representative uphill races many women running say encouraged happened virginia november 30 percent women challenged state representative katie hill among seeking oust local congressman republican rep steve knight californias 25th congressional district key democratic target year advocate homeless hill recalled joy felt night 2016 election voters los angeles passed 12 billion bond measure housing services homeless people risk becoming homeless quickly tempered outcome presidential election november made us realize country need hill said thats point people start stand say one else going fix im going democrats firsttime republican libertarian women candidates also jumping mix republicans launched effort 2012 focused electing women right women right program 390 new gop women elected since twentyfive percent state legislators women thats clearly insufficient said matt walter head republican state leadership committee thats democratic republican number something really felt strongly something needed change tiffany shedd lawyer small businesses lives farm eloy arizona said talking husband one evening earlier year importance someone representing congress fight rural communities said challenged run said cant run whats person little town arizona running congress shedd said thought wow exactly need running republican primary hopes challenging democratic rep tom ohalleran november state level 36 governors races contested 2018 center american women politics says 49 democratic women including two incumbents 28 republican women indicated run seats never nine women serving governor time even women reached groups emilys list end running next year expected play key roles supporting next decade candidates schriock said ___ associated press photographer matthew otero dallas contributed report ___ follow christina almeida cassidy twitter httptwittercomap_christina
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<p />
<p>Enough with all that. Begone. Vaccinations for everyone, and let’s bring in a shaman, and burn some sage, and down a whiskey shot, and bid this election goodbye.</p>
<p>“I didn’t even cry at my wedding, but I just cried in there,” said Aditi Gorur, emerging from her polling location at a D.C. elementary school. “One, because this was my first vote as an American citizen. Two, because this election is finally over.”</p>
<p>“I am a Type 1 diabetic,” said Gary Robinson, who came out a few minutes later. “Do you have any idea what this election did to my (blood sugar) levels?”</p>
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<p>Yes, half of you hate how the results turned out. Yes, the pollsters and political media screwed the pooch, and the election turned out differently than most expected it to. Yes, the country is barely Scotch-taped together and we have months of repairs ahead of us. But there is a bright side – there are portions of this election that we never, ever have to go through again.</p>
<p>Goodbye to debates. Goodbye to October surprises.</p>
<p>Goodbye to the people we became, the odd, shrieking, body-snatcher versions of ourselves who unfriended our kindergarten teachers and went on tirades about border walls, and were just so, so very tired and crabby.</p>
<p>“If you met me in person, you wouldn’t recognize me as the person I’ve been presenting myself to be on social media,” says Don Moynihan, a professor of public affairs at the University of Wisconsin. “I wouldn’t constantly be talking about politics. I wouldn’t be sarcastic toward whatever the breaking news was of the day.”</p>
<p>The low point of his personal election experience came when he found himself agitatedly firing up his laptop to live-tweet one of the presidential debates.</p>
<p>“At the time it all seemed so normal,” Moynihan says. (That, of course, was the most hideous part of all of this; it started to seem so normal to settle in every night and tune our default setting to “rage.”)</p>
<p>“I think that some fever will break now,” Moynihan says. “And we’ll come out of this as if from a dream.”</p>
<p>Goodbye to all the worst things we assumed about each other, to all the fetid political rumors we passed on without vetting, to all the times we could have sought to understand an issue and instead chose to underestimate it, then mock it, then tell the people who believed in it that they were Hitler. We moaned and fretted that this election had turned us into terrible people; in fact it revealed the terribleness that has always been a part of this country, and of human nature itself. Fear, and disdain, and a misguided beliefthat one person couldn’t be lifted up in this world unless another person was beaten down.</p>
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<p>Wouldn’t it be nice if we could say goodbye to those impulses? Wouldn’t it be nice, on the first day of a new American chapter, if we could at least pretend to try?</p>
<p>We won’t miss polling numbers, and we won’t miss the new polling numbers telling us the old polling numbers were wrong. We won’t miss the Trump signs that had been graffiti’d into “Rump” signs; we won’t miss the Hillarys that became “Killary.” The past year has brought forth a hundred new terms and catchphrases, and initially we wondered which of them we should commit into the Smithsonian to help future generations understand 2016.</p>
<p>And then we realized: None of them. We don’t want to keep a thing.</p>
<p>“Surrogates.” Goodbye to that vaguely dystopian-sounding term referring to people who came onto news shows and parroted their candidates’ positions.</p>
<p>“Dumpster fire.” Goodbye to dumpster fire, which was never the right phrase anyway, because dumpster fires can be contained, whereas this election was a rampant forest fire of the soul.</p>
<p>“Pivot.” Goodbye.</p>
<p>“Bigly.” Goodbye.</p>
<p>“Private email server.” Goodbye. (Hello again. Goodbye again. Oh, hi again.)</p>
<p>“Deplorables.”</p>
<p>“Lock her up.”</p>
<p>“Disavowing.”</p>
<p>“Like, how big is something before you have to disavow it?” asks Jean Stanula, a nonprofit worker in Chicago, about the word that appeared whenever a candidate was accused of doing something bad. “Does it have to be particularly heinous? Otherwise can you just say you disapprove? Or you disagree? Disavow seems like a word Moses would have used, but it is definitely not a word I would ever use in my own life. If I screwed up in a relationship, I would never be like, ‘Baby, I’m sorry, I disavow my behavior.'”</p>
<p>Ministers have been worried about us, their collective flock. A website on topical sermons offers one called “When the Election Is Over,” and suggests reminding people that their true citizenship is in heaven – Ephesians 2:19. Mental-health experts have been worried about us, their collective patients, and the toll the election has taken on our psyches.</p>
<p>“I want to see people get back into some routines and patterns,” says Dwight Bain, the director of a Florida mental-health agency who has written about election anxiety. “This election does not have to destroy us. Practice daily, healthy rituals.” He is reminded of watching an old movie in which one character gives birth and the menfolk are instructed to boil water and rip up bedsheets.</p>
<p>“I asked my wife, why are they doing that?” he says. His wife speculated it was to give the characters something useful to do so they didn’t panic.</p>
<p>Go forth, America. Go forth and boil water. Use it to make a strong cup of tea and perhaps, with the bedsheets, a soothing poultice.</p>
<p>We’ll move on and adjust. We always do.</p>
<p>“I’m so looking forward to my Facebook page returning to normal,” says Cheri Ziegra, a dollmaker from New Hampshire. “As much as we used to say, ‘Not another kitten video’ – I’ve missed the kittens. I’ve missed the babies and the toddlers. Show me what you’re having for dinner. Those posts, like, ‘I have an ugly mole growing on my foot and it’s kind of black, what do you think it is?’ Show me your foot! Let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about anything but the election.”</p>
<p>Goodbye to the ulcers we gave ourselves, worrying about our insane relatives who would not see the truth.</p>
<p>Goodbye to Jill Stein.</p>
<p>“Super predators.”</p>
<p>“I’m With Her.”</p>
<p>“Trump That Bitch.”</p>
<p>Goodbye.</p>
<p>Ziegra, a registered Democrat, is married to a lifelong Republican whom she persuaded to vote for Hillary Clinton, but not without moments of strife and difficult conversation. She is relieved to be done with that period of life.</p>
<p>“I’ve really, really missed the kittens,” she says.</p>
<p>elect-over-essay</p>
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enough begone vaccinations everyone lets bring shaman burn sage whiskey shot bid election goodbye didnt even cry wedding cried said aditi gorur emerging polling location dc elementary school one first vote american citizen two election finally type 1 diabetic said gary robinson came minutes later idea election blood sugar levels advertisement yes half hate results turned yes pollsters political media screwed pooch election turned differently expected yes country barely scotchtaped together months repairs ahead us bright side portions election never ever go goodbye debates goodbye october surprises goodbye people became odd shrieking bodysnatcher versions unfriended kindergarten teachers went tirades border walls tired crabby met person wouldnt recognize person ive presenting social media says moynihan professor public affairs university wisconsin wouldnt constantly talking politics wouldnt sarcastic toward whatever breaking news day low point personal election experience came found agitatedly firing laptop livetweet one presidential debates time seemed normal moynihan says course hideous part started seem normal settle every night tune default setting rage think fever break moynihan says well come dream goodbye worst things assumed fetid political rumors passed without vetting times could sought understand issue instead chose underestimate mock tell people believed hitler moaned fretted election turned us terrible people fact revealed terribleness always part country human nature fear disdain misguided beliefthat one person couldnt lifted world unless another person beaten advertisement wouldnt nice could say goodbye impulses wouldnt nice first day new american chapter could least pretend try wont miss polling numbers wont miss new polling numbers telling us old polling numbers wrong wont miss trump signs graffitid rump signs wont miss hillarys became killary past year brought forth hundred new terms catchphrases initially wondered commit smithsonian help future generations understand 2016 realized none dont want keep thing surrogates goodbye vaguely dystopiansounding term referring people came onto news shows parroted candidates positions dumpster fire goodbye dumpster fire never right phrase anyway dumpster fires contained whereas election rampant forest fire soul pivot goodbye bigly goodbye private email server goodbye hello goodbye oh hi deplorables lock disavowing like big something disavow asks jean stanula nonprofit worker chicago word appeared whenever candidate accused something bad particularly heinous otherwise say disapprove disagree disavow seems like word moses would used definitely word would ever use life screwed relationship would never like baby im sorry disavow behavior ministers worried us collective flock website topical sermons offers one called election suggests reminding people true citizenship heaven ephesians 219 mentalhealth experts worried us collective patients toll election taken psyches want see people get back routines patterns says dwight bain director florida mentalhealth agency written election anxiety election destroy us practice daily healthy rituals reminded watching old movie one character gives birth menfolk instructed boil water rip bedsheets asked wife says wife speculated give characters something useful didnt panic go forth america go forth boil water use make strong cup tea perhaps bedsheets soothing poultice well move adjust always im looking forward facebook page returning normal says cheri ziegra dollmaker new hampshire much used say another kitten video ive missed kittens ive missed babies toddlers show youre dinner posts like ugly mole growing foot kind black think show foot lets talk lets talk anything election goodbye ulcers gave worrying insane relatives would see truth goodbye jill stein super predators im trump bitch goodbye ziegra registered democrat married lifelong republican persuaded vote hillary clinton without moments strife difficult conversation relieved done period life ive really really missed kittens says electoveressay
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<p>President Barack Obama speaks in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. Defense Secretary Ash Carter's blunt assessment that Iraqi forces lack the "will to fight" undermines a central premise of President Barack Obama's strategy for defeating the Islamic State: that Iraq's military can effectively handle ground operations so American forces don't have to. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)</p>
<p>WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Ash Carter's blunt assessment that Iraqi forces lack the "will to fight" undermines a central premise of President Barack Obama's strategy for defeating the Islamic State: that Iraq's military can effectively handle ground operations so Americans don't have to.</p>
<p>Carter's comments in a weekend interview reflect deep concern within some quarters of the administration about the capabilities of Iraq's security forces. Despite outnumbering Islamic State forces, the military suffered a major defeat this month in the city of Ramadi. And some officials question whether it can overcome the same sectarian divisions between Sunnis and the Shiite-dominated government that gave the Islamic State space to thrive.</p>
<p>"The failure, it's not one of courage," Marina Ottaway, a Middle East analyst at the Wilson Center, said of the Iraqi military. "It's one of politics."</p>
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<p>For now, Obama is showing no sign of significantly shifting his strategy or easing his opposition to sending American forces back into combat in Iraq. Instead, the White House is essentially pleading for patience and even more time to train Iraqis.</p>
<p>"That's a training process that can't be done in a week," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Tuesday. "That's not a seven-day training course. This is going to require a more sustained commitment."</p>
<p>The U.S. already has spent years and billions of dollars trying to position the Iraqi military to take charge of the country's security. As the U.S. military withdrew from Iraq in 2011 after more than eight years of war, Obama declared that local forces were indeed ready to take on that mission.</p>
<p>With a fresh infusion of American trainers last year and a new Shiite government pledging to be more inclusive to Sunnis, Iraqi forces had made apparent progress against the Islamic State in recent months. But the rout in Ramadi, the strategically important capital of Anbar province, highlighted the military's weakness anew. Fleeing the city, Iraqi forces abandoned U.S military vehicles, including tanks, armored personnel carriers and artillery pieces.</p>
<p>"What apparently happened is the Iraqi forces just showed no will to fight," Carter said Sunday on CNN. "They were not outnumbered. In fact, they vastly outnumbered the opposing force. That says to me, and I think to most of us, that we have an issue with the will of the Iraqis to fight ISIL and defend themselves."</p>
<p>His comments echoed Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey, who said the Iraqi security forces were "not driven out of Ramadi. They drove out of Ramadi."</p>
<p>Iraqi officials disputed Carter's characterization of the military's strength, saying he had received "incorrect information." Vice President Joe Biden called Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in an apparent attempt to ease his concerns about the U.S. commitment to his security forces, while administration officials quietly tried to clarify the Pentagon chief's comments.</p>
<p>On Tuesday, the Iraqi government announced the start of a major military effort aiming to drive the Islamic State from western Anbar province. The operation involved Iranian-backed Shiite militias, sparking fears of potential sectarian violence in the Sunni heartland.</p>
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<p>The White House has cast the loss of Ramadi as a setback but not a reason to revamp Obama's strategy. Since last summer, a U.S.-led coalition has been launching airstrikes against Islamic State targets in both Iraq and Syria. While more than 3,000 U.S. troops are in Iraq to advise and train the military, the president has insisted Americans will not be engaged in combat and will instead rely on local forces to carry out ground operations under cover of the airstrikes.</p>
<p>Obama's strategy reflects both his aversion to deploying American combat forces overseas again and his belief that the U.S. cannot fight a war on another country's behalf. Yet from the very start of the campaign to defeat the Islamic State group, there have been concerns both inside and outside the administration about the viability of relying on local forces.</p>
<p>In Syria, a country ravaged by civil war, such forces are virtually nonexistent. After months of delay, the U.S. began training about 90 rebels at a camp in Jordan, well short of the administration's goal of a 5,000-person force.</p>
<p>In Iraq, the U.S. is focused on bolstering the same military it sought to strengthen during the war pursued by Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush. Officials say the Iraqi forces were weakened after the U.S. withdrawal in 2011 in part because Sunnis didn't want to fight on behalf of then-Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government.</p>
<p>Al-Abadi, who succeeded al-Maliki last year, has taken steps to better empower minority Iraqis and reduce their support for Sunni extremists, U.S. officials say. But al-Abadi's decision to include the Shiite militias in the campaign to retake Ramadi could exacerbate the very tensions he's been pressed by the U.S. to ease.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>AP National Security writer Robert Burns contributed to this report.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Pace at <a href="http://twitter.com/jpaceDC" type="external">http://twitter.com/jpaceDC</a></p>
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president barack obama speaks oval office white house washington defense secretary ash carters blunt assessment iraqi forces lack fight undermines central premise president barack obamas strategy defeating islamic state iraqs military effectively handle ground operations american forces dont ap photopablo martinez monsivais washington defense secretary ash carters blunt assessment iraqi forces lack fight undermines central premise president barack obamas strategy defeating islamic state iraqs military effectively handle ground operations americans dont carters comments weekend interview reflect deep concern within quarters administration capabilities iraqs security forces despite outnumbering islamic state forces military suffered major defeat month city ramadi officials question whether overcome sectarian divisions sunnis shiitedominated government gave islamic state space thrive failure one courage marina ottaway middle east analyst wilson center said iraqi military one politics advertisement obama showing sign significantly shifting strategy easing opposition sending american forces back combat iraq instead white house essentially pleading patience even time train iraqis thats training process cant done week white house spokesman josh earnest said tuesday thats sevenday training course going require sustained commitment us already spent years billions dollars trying position iraqi military take charge countrys security us military withdrew iraq 2011 eight years war obama declared local forces indeed ready take mission fresh infusion american trainers last year new shiite government pledging inclusive sunnis iraqi forces made apparent progress islamic state recent months rout ramadi strategically important capital anbar province highlighted militarys weakness anew fleeing city iraqi forces abandoned us military vehicles including tanks armored personnel carriers artillery pieces apparently happened iraqi forces showed fight carter said sunday cnn outnumbered fact vastly outnumbered opposing force says think us issue iraqis fight isil defend comments echoed joint chiefs chairman gen martin dempsey said iraqi security forces driven ramadi drove ramadi iraqi officials disputed carters characterization militarys strength saying received incorrect information vice president joe biden called prime minister haider alabadi apparent attempt ease concerns us commitment security forces administration officials quietly tried clarify pentagon chiefs comments tuesday iraqi government announced start major military effort aiming drive islamic state western anbar province operation involved iranianbacked shiite militias sparking fears potential sectarian violence sunni heartland advertisement white house cast loss ramadi setback reason revamp obamas strategy since last summer usled coalition launching airstrikes islamic state targets iraq syria 3000 us troops iraq advise train military president insisted americans engaged combat instead rely local forces carry ground operations cover airstrikes obamas strategy reflects aversion deploying american combat forces overseas belief us fight war another countrys behalf yet start campaign defeat islamic state group concerns inside outside administration viability relying local forces syria country ravaged civil war forces virtually nonexistent months delay us began training 90 rebels camp jordan well short administrations goal 5000person force iraq us focused bolstering military sought strengthen war pursued obamas predecessor george w bush officials say iraqi forces weakened us withdrawal 2011 part sunnis didnt want fight behalf thenprime minister nouri almalikis government alabadi succeeded almaliki last year taken steps better empower minority iraqis reduce support sunni extremists us officials say alabadis decision include shiite militias campaign retake ramadi could exacerbate tensions hes pressed us ease ___ ap national security writer robert burns contributed report ___ follow pace httptwittercomjpacedc
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<p>LA QUINTA, Calif. (AP) — Jon Rahm headed over the hill to San Diego for his Torrey Pines title defense with a playoff victory in the CareerBuilder Challenge and the No. 2 spot in the world ranking.</p>
<p>The Spaniard is way ahead of where he even dreamed he would be this early in his career.</p>
<p>"To think of being No. 2 in the world, it's hard to believe," Rahm said. "You dream of doing those things, you want to do them, you believe in yourself, but to get to where only Seve (Ballesteros), Ollie (Jose Maria Olazabal) and Sergio (Garcia) have gotten, coming out of Spain. And now me, at the age of 23, it's beyond belief."</p>
<p>In fading light Sunday on the Stadium Course at PGA West, Rahm finished off Andrew Landry with a <a href="https://www.pgatour.com/video/2018/01/21/jon-rahm-birdies-playoff-hole-no--4-to-win-careerbuilder.html" type="external">12-foot birdie putt</a> on the fourth hole of a playoff for his second PGA Tour title and fourth worldwide victory in a year.</p>
<p>Rahm jumped past Jordan Spieth in the ranking, leaving only Dustin Johnson ahead. Rahm was second behind Johnson two weeks ago at Kapalua in his first start since winning the European Tour's season-ending event in Dubai in November.</p>
<p>"So far, I've only lost against Superman this year," Rahm said.</p>
<p>Rahm closed with a 5-under 67 after opening with a career-best 62 at La Quinta Country Club, shooting 67 on Friday on the Nicklaus Tournament Course and 70 on Saturday at the Stadium.</p>
<p>Landry, playing a group behind Rahm in the final threesome, forced the playoff with an <a href="https://www.pgatour.com/video/2018/01/21/andrew-landry-clutch-to-force-playoff-at-careerbuilder.html" type="external">11-foot birdie putt</a> on the water-guarded 18th for a 68. They finished at 22-under 266.</p>
<p>After Rahm made the putt on the fourth playoff hole, Landry missed an 11-footer.</p>
<p>"This was a weird pin location," Landry said. "I felt like it was hard for those balls to break and I read it perfectly the first time and the next two times we had the exact same yardage, exact same putt right there, so just hit it a little too firm and tried to take some of the break out and it actually just kind of stayed high."</p>
<p>Rahm wanted to putt first.</p>
<p>"I felt something in me," Rahm said. "I saw the break, I knew it was outside the left edge, I just trusted myself, trusted my stroke and hit a perfect — actually a little bit below perfect speed and caught the lip and went in."</p>
<p>If Landry had holed the putt, they likely would have had to finish Monday.</p>
<p>"I'm sure glad Andrew didn't make the last putt, because I didn't want to come back tomorrow," Rahm said. "But again, you got to give props and congrats to Andrew. To birdie 18 out of the rough, having to birdie to tie and go in a playoff."</p>
<p>Rahm and Landry each missed chances to win on the first two extra trips down 18. Rahm's 9-foot birdie try slid left on the first, and Landry's 8-footer went by to the right on the second. They missed long birdie tries on the third extra hole, the par-4 10th.</p>
<p>"Tournaments like this build character," Rahm said. "I'm just proud of myself to hit what's probably my least favorite club, which is the 3-wood, three times in a row dead center on my line on 18 — four times if you include the regular play."</p>
<p>After making an eagle and 11 birdies on the par 5s the first three days, Rahm settled for four pars in the final round, with the Pete Dye-designed layout playing tougher with many pin positions on the edges of greens.</p>
<p>"It's been a fighting day," Rahm said. "I've been a ball-striking clinic most of the week and in the playoff I was just not making the putts. I just got fortunate that none of us really made any and I was able to make the one that mattered. But then again, it was really supreme ball-striking on my part today. Especially, on the back nine, I hit the ball as good as I can."</p>
<p>The former Arizona State player loves California, but has a good reason to stay in the Phoenix area.</p>
<p>"Taxes, to be honest," Rahm said. "I love Phoenix, but San Diego is probably my favorite spot in the world."</p>
<p>The 30-year-old Landry had his best career PGA Tour finish and third top-three finish of the season.</p>
<p>"I've been playing well all year, had a great season last year and I'm rolling it over right into this, into the fall and now starting the year out," Landry said. "Second-place finish, we'll take it and move on next week to Torrey Pines."</p>
<p>Adam Hadwin (68), Martin Piller (70) and John Huh (66) tied for third at 20 under, and Kevin Chappell (67) and Scott Piercy (70) were another stroke back. Third-round leader Austin Cook had a 75 to tie for 14th at 16 under.</p>
<p>LA QUINTA, Calif. (AP) — Jon Rahm headed over the hill to San Diego for his Torrey Pines title defense with a playoff victory in the CareerBuilder Challenge and the No. 2 spot in the world ranking.</p>
<p>The Spaniard is way ahead of where he even dreamed he would be this early in his career.</p>
<p>"To think of being No. 2 in the world, it's hard to believe," Rahm said. "You dream of doing those things, you want to do them, you believe in yourself, but to get to where only Seve (Ballesteros), Ollie (Jose Maria Olazabal) and Sergio (Garcia) have gotten, coming out of Spain. And now me, at the age of 23, it's beyond belief."</p>
<p>In fading light Sunday on the Stadium Course at PGA West, Rahm finished off Andrew Landry with a <a href="https://www.pgatour.com/video/2018/01/21/jon-rahm-birdies-playoff-hole-no--4-to-win-careerbuilder.html" type="external">12-foot birdie putt</a> on the fourth hole of a playoff for his second PGA Tour title and fourth worldwide victory in a year.</p>
<p>Rahm jumped past Jordan Spieth in the ranking, leaving only Dustin Johnson ahead. Rahm was second behind Johnson two weeks ago at Kapalua in his first start since winning the European Tour's season-ending event in Dubai in November.</p>
<p>"So far, I've only lost against Superman this year," Rahm said.</p>
<p>Rahm closed with a 5-under 67 after opening with a career-best 62 at La Quinta Country Club, shooting 67 on Friday on the Nicklaus Tournament Course and 70 on Saturday at the Stadium.</p>
<p>Landry, playing a group behind Rahm in the final threesome, forced the playoff with an <a href="https://www.pgatour.com/video/2018/01/21/andrew-landry-clutch-to-force-playoff-at-careerbuilder.html" type="external">11-foot birdie putt</a> on the water-guarded 18th for a 68. They finished at 22-under 266.</p>
<p>After Rahm made the putt on the fourth playoff hole, Landry missed an 11-footer.</p>
<p>"This was a weird pin location," Landry said. "I felt like it was hard for those balls to break and I read it perfectly the first time and the next two times we had the exact same yardage, exact same putt right there, so just hit it a little too firm and tried to take some of the break out and it actually just kind of stayed high."</p>
<p>Rahm wanted to putt first.</p>
<p>"I felt something in me," Rahm said. "I saw the break, I knew it was outside the left edge, I just trusted myself, trusted my stroke and hit a perfect — actually a little bit below perfect speed and caught the lip and went in."</p>
<p>If Landry had holed the putt, they likely would have had to finish Monday.</p>
<p>"I'm sure glad Andrew didn't make the last putt, because I didn't want to come back tomorrow," Rahm said. "But again, you got to give props and congrats to Andrew. To birdie 18 out of the rough, having to birdie to tie and go in a playoff."</p>
<p>Rahm and Landry each missed chances to win on the first two extra trips down 18. Rahm's 9-foot birdie try slid left on the first, and Landry's 8-footer went by to the right on the second. They missed long birdie tries on the third extra hole, the par-4 10th.</p>
<p>"Tournaments like this build character," Rahm said. "I'm just proud of myself to hit what's probably my least favorite club, which is the 3-wood, three times in a row dead center on my line on 18 — four times if you include the regular play."</p>
<p>After making an eagle and 11 birdies on the par 5s the first three days, Rahm settled for four pars in the final round, with the Pete Dye-designed layout playing tougher with many pin positions on the edges of greens.</p>
<p>"It's been a fighting day," Rahm said. "I've been a ball-striking clinic most of the week and in the playoff I was just not making the putts. I just got fortunate that none of us really made any and I was able to make the one that mattered. But then again, it was really supreme ball-striking on my part today. Especially, on the back nine, I hit the ball as good as I can."</p>
<p>The former Arizona State player loves California, but has a good reason to stay in the Phoenix area.</p>
<p>"Taxes, to be honest," Rahm said. "I love Phoenix, but San Diego is probably my favorite spot in the world."</p>
<p>The 30-year-old Landry had his best career PGA Tour finish and third top-three finish of the season.</p>
<p>"I've been playing well all year, had a great season last year and I'm rolling it over right into this, into the fall and now starting the year out," Landry said. "Second-place finish, we'll take it and move on next week to Torrey Pines."</p>
<p>Adam Hadwin (68), Martin Piller (70) and John Huh (66) tied for third at 20 under, and Kevin Chappell (67) and Scott Piercy (70) were another stroke back. Third-round leader Austin Cook had a 75 to tie for 14th at 16 under.</p>
| false | 2 |
la quinta calif ap jon rahm headed hill san diego torrey pines title defense playoff victory careerbuilder challenge 2 spot world ranking spaniard way ahead even dreamed would early career think 2 world hard believe rahm said dream things want believe get seve ballesteros ollie jose maria olazabal sergio garcia gotten coming spain age 23 beyond belief fading light sunday stadium course pga west rahm finished andrew landry 12foot birdie putt fourth hole playoff second pga tour title fourth worldwide victory year rahm jumped past jordan spieth ranking leaving dustin johnson ahead rahm second behind johnson two weeks ago kapalua first start since winning european tours seasonending event dubai november far ive lost superman year rahm said rahm closed 5under 67 opening careerbest 62 la quinta country club shooting 67 friday nicklaus tournament course 70 saturday stadium landry playing group behind rahm final threesome forced playoff 11foot birdie putt waterguarded 18th 68 finished 22under 266 rahm made putt fourth playoff hole landry missed 11footer weird pin location landry said felt like hard balls break read perfectly first time next two times exact yardage exact putt right hit little firm tried take break actually kind stayed high rahm wanted putt first felt something rahm said saw break knew outside left edge trusted trusted stroke hit perfect actually little bit perfect speed caught lip went landry holed putt likely would finish monday im sure glad andrew didnt make last putt didnt want come back tomorrow rahm said got give props congrats andrew birdie 18 rough birdie tie go playoff rahm landry missed chances win first two extra trips 18 rahms 9foot birdie try slid left first landrys 8footer went right second missed long birdie tries third extra hole par4 10th tournaments like build character rahm said im proud hit whats probably least favorite club 3wood three times row dead center line 18 four times include regular play making eagle 11 birdies par 5s first three days rahm settled four pars final round pete dyedesigned layout playing tougher many pin positions edges greens fighting day rahm said ive ballstriking clinic week playoff making putts got fortunate none us really made able make one mattered really supreme ballstriking part today especially back nine hit ball good former arizona state player loves california good reason stay phoenix area taxes honest rahm said love phoenix san diego probably favorite spot world 30yearold landry best career pga tour finish third topthree finish season ive playing well year great season last year im rolling right fall starting year landry said secondplace finish well take move next week torrey pines adam hadwin 68 martin piller 70 john huh 66 tied third 20 kevin chappell 67 scott piercy 70 another stroke back thirdround leader austin cook 75 tie 14th 16 la quinta calif ap jon rahm headed hill san diego torrey pines title defense playoff victory careerbuilder challenge 2 spot world ranking spaniard way ahead even dreamed would early career think 2 world hard believe rahm said dream things want believe get seve ballesteros ollie jose maria olazabal sergio garcia gotten coming spain age 23 beyond belief fading light sunday stadium course pga west rahm finished andrew landry 12foot birdie putt fourth hole playoff second pga tour title fourth worldwide victory year rahm jumped past jordan spieth ranking leaving dustin johnson ahead rahm second behind johnson two weeks ago kapalua first start since winning european tours seasonending event dubai november far ive lost superman year rahm said rahm closed 5under 67 opening careerbest 62 la quinta country club shooting 67 friday nicklaus tournament course 70 saturday stadium landry playing group behind rahm final threesome forced playoff 11foot birdie putt waterguarded 18th 68 finished 22under 266 rahm made putt fourth playoff hole landry missed 11footer weird pin location landry said felt like hard balls break read perfectly first time next two times exact yardage exact putt right hit little firm tried take break actually kind stayed high rahm wanted putt first felt something rahm said saw break knew outside left edge trusted trusted stroke hit perfect actually little bit perfect speed caught lip went landry holed putt likely would finish monday im sure glad andrew didnt make last putt didnt want come back tomorrow rahm said got give props congrats andrew birdie 18 rough birdie tie go playoff rahm landry missed chances win first two extra trips 18 rahms 9foot birdie try slid left first landrys 8footer went right second missed long birdie tries third extra hole par4 10th tournaments like build character rahm said im proud hit whats probably least favorite club 3wood three times row dead center line 18 four times include regular play making eagle 11 birdies par 5s first three days rahm settled four pars final round pete dyedesigned layout playing tougher many pin positions edges greens fighting day rahm said ive ballstriking clinic week playoff making putts got fortunate none us really made able make one mattered really supreme ballstriking part today especially back nine hit ball good former arizona state player loves california good reason stay phoenix area taxes honest rahm said love phoenix san diego probably favorite spot world 30yearold landry best career pga tour finish third topthree finish season ive playing well year great season last year im rolling right fall starting year landry said secondplace finish well take move next week torrey pines adam hadwin 68 martin piller 70 john huh 66 tied third 20 kevin chappell 67 scott piercy 70 another stroke back thirdround leader austin cook 75 tie 14th 16
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<p>MINNEAPOLIS — Four days after a Minneapolis police officer fatally shot a woman who had called 911 to report a possible rape, the officer has yet to talk with investigators, and his attorney has given no indication he ever will.</p>
<p>Some legal experts say the move is wise and well within the officer’s rights. But without Officer Mohamed Noor’s version of events, there’s virtually no explanation for what happened Saturday when he fired a shot from the passenger seat of a squad car, past his partner in the driver’s seat and killed Justine Damond, 40, who was standing outside the vehicle.</p>
<p>Details that have emerged raised new questions Wednesday about whether proper police procedures were followed.</p>
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<p>According to the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, Noor’s partner, Officer Matthew Harrity, told investigators he was driving in the alley with all of the vehicle’s lights off when he was startled by a loud noise, which authorities did not describe. Harrity said Damond appeared at the driver’s side window “immediately afterward” and Noor fired, striking her in the abdomen. She died at the scene.</p>
<p>Television station KSTP, citing a source it did not name, said the two officers thought they were being targeted for an ambush when they heard a pounding noise on the driver’s side. Noor had his gun on his lap, the station reported.</p>
<p>The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension did not confirm the KSTP report. Harrity’s attorney, Fred Bruno, told the Star Tribune it was “certainly reasonable” for the officers to fear a possible ambush.</p>
<p>Assistant Police Chief Medaria Arradondo said that an internal use-of-force investigation has been opened, which is standard any time an officer discharges a weapon. The police chief has asked that the review be expedited, but much of the information needed is in the hands of state investigators.</p>
<p>Police did not respond to questions Wednesday about the internal investigation. Noor’s attorney, Thomas Plunkett, did not respond to interview requests from The Associated Press.</p>
<p>When it comes to talking to authorities, defense attorneys and legal experts said police officers have the same Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination as everyone else.</p>
<p>“Any lawyer that would recommend to him that he should give a statement to the BCA should be disbarred,” said Joe Friedberg, a Minneapolis defense attorney who’s not involved in the case. “Nobody should ever speak to law enforcement when they’re the subject of a criminal investigation.”</p>
<p>The police department’s internal affairs unit can compel Noor to give a statement as part of its own investigation, and fire him if he refuses, but that statement cannot be used against him in any criminal investigation, Friedberg said.</p>
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<p>In contrast, Officer Jeronimo Yanez in the nearby suburb of St. Anthony sat down with state agents last summer the day after he shot Philando Castile. Prosecutors used his statement as evidence against him during his manslaughter trial, but the defense used it too. Jurors apparently accepted Yanez’s claims that he saw Castile’s gun and believed his life was in danger. Yanez was acquitted.</p>
<p>It’s also possible that Noor isn’t ready to talk because he’s still dealing with the trauma of having killed Damond.</p>
<p>Marsh Halberg, another defense attorney not involved in the case, said he always tells his clients not to talk.</p>
<p>“I have six words of advice: shut up, shut up, shut up. That’s what I tell them. Because you can always tell your story later,” Halberg said.</p>
<p>Several criminal law professors who spoke to the AP said it would be unusual if Noor had his gun out when officers were checking out a report of a potential assault. But they said he might have already been in a heightened state of awareness in light of recent ambushes of police.</p>
<p>Remy Cross, a criminologist at Webster University in suburban St. Louis, said the fear can become a “self-feeding, self-fulfilling prophecy” when law enforcement officers feel they always need to be on guard against people who might be targeting them.</p>
<p>David Klinger, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Missouri in St. Louis, said it would make no sense for Noor to have his gun out because it wasn’t a “hot call,” such as a report of shots fired.</p>
<p>And it’s also unusual, but not unheard of, for officers to turn their lights out to make a “dark and silent approach” if they’re trying to conceal themselves, said Jens David Ohlin, vice dean of the Cornell Law School in Ithaca, New York.</p>
<p>Harrity has been with the police department for one year, Noor for roughly two years. When asked about pairing the two newer officers together, Arradondo told reporters Tuesday that both men were “fully trained.”</p>
<p>It’s not necessarily a violation of procedures to pair inexperienced officers with each other, Ohlin said.</p>
<p>“Certainly it would make more sense to partner up a senior officer with a junior officer. Wisdom is gained with direct experience,” Ohlin said.</p>
<p>He speculated that the investigation will probably conclude that inexperience played a role. “At first glance, it seems like there’s no justification whatsoever for this shooting. Sometimes you just get the question, ‘Is this person cut out to be a police officer at all?'”</p>
<p>But Klinger, a former Los Angeles patrol officer, said it’s “not unusual at all” to put younger officers together. He recalled riding with academy mates just 18 months after completing training.</p>
<p>Klinger said many factors in this case don’t add up. “Crazy stuff happens in the real world, and this is one of the more bizarre events in recent police history,” he said.</p>
<p>Transcripts of 911 calls that were made public Wednesday show Damond called dispatchers twice to report a possible sexual assault in the alley behind her home.</p>
<p>Damond made her first call at 11:27 p.m., when she said she heard a possible sexual assault. She told the dispatcher she wasn’t sure but thought a woman was in distress. She called back eight minutes later when no officers had arrived and told the dispatcher she was worried they had gone to the wrong address.</p>
<p>Arradondo told reporters that officers searched the area and found no suspects.</p>
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minneapolis four days minneapolis police officer fatally shot woman called 911 report possible rape officer yet talk investigators attorney given indication ever legal experts say move wise well within officers rights without officer mohamed noors version events theres virtually explanation happened saturday fired shot passenger seat squad car past partner drivers seat killed justine damond 40 standing outside vehicle details emerged raised new questions wednesday whether proper police procedures followed advertisement according state bureau criminal apprehension noors partner officer matthew harrity told investigators driving alley vehicles lights startled loud noise authorities describe harrity said damond appeared drivers side window immediately afterward noor fired striking abdomen died scene television station kstp citing source name said two officers thought targeted ambush heard pounding noise drivers side noor gun lap station reported minnesota bureau criminal apprehension confirm kstp report harritys attorney fred bruno told star tribune certainly reasonable officers fear possible ambush assistant police chief medaria arradondo said internal useofforce investigation opened standard time officer discharges weapon police chief asked review expedited much information needed hands state investigators police respond questions wednesday internal investigation noors attorney thomas plunkett respond interview requests associated press comes talking authorities defense attorneys legal experts said police officers fifth amendment right selfincrimination everyone else lawyer would recommend give statement bca disbarred said joe friedberg minneapolis defense attorney whos involved case nobody ever speak law enforcement theyre subject criminal investigation police departments internal affairs unit compel noor give statement part investigation fire refuses statement used criminal investigation friedberg said advertisement contrast officer jeronimo yanez nearby suburb st anthony sat state agents last summer day shot philando castile prosecutors used statement evidence manslaughter trial defense used jurors apparently accepted yanezs claims saw castiles gun believed life danger yanez acquitted also possible noor isnt ready talk hes still dealing trauma killed damond marsh halberg another defense attorney involved case said always tells clients talk six words advice shut shut shut thats tell always tell story later halberg said several criminal law professors spoke ap said would unusual noor gun officers checking report potential assault said might already heightened state awareness light recent ambushes police remy cross criminologist webster university suburban st louis said fear become selffeeding selffulfilling prophecy law enforcement officers feel always need guard people might targeting david klinger professor criminology criminal justice university missouri st louis said would make sense noor gun wasnt hot call report shots fired also unusual unheard officers turn lights make dark silent approach theyre trying conceal said jens david ohlin vice dean cornell law school ithaca new york harrity police department one year noor roughly two years asked pairing two newer officers together arradondo told reporters tuesday men fully trained necessarily violation procedures pair inexperienced officers ohlin said certainly would make sense partner senior officer junior officer wisdom gained direct experience ohlin said speculated investigation probably conclude inexperience played role first glance seems like theres justification whatsoever shooting sometimes get question person cut police officer klinger former los angeles patrol officer said unusual put younger officers together recalled riding academy mates 18 months completing training klinger said many factors case dont add crazy stuff happens real world one bizarre events recent police history said transcripts 911 calls made public wednesday show damond called dispatchers twice report possible sexual assault alley behind home damond made first call 1127 pm said heard possible sexual assault told dispatcher wasnt sure thought woman distress called back eight minutes later officers arrived told dispatcher worried gone wrong address arradondo told reporters officers searched area found suspects
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<p>Lower Ratings for Leaders of Both Parties in Congress</p>
<p>One month before the midterm elections, Americans offer harsh judgments on Republicans and Democrats in Washington with roughly three-quarters saying partisans have been bickering more than usual and approval ratings for leaders of both parties in Congress matching long-time lows.</p>
<p>The latest Pew Research/National Journal Congressional Connection poll, sponsored by SHRM, conducted Sept. 30-Oct. 3 among 1,002 adults, finds that 77% say that Republicans and Democrats in Washington have been bickering and opposing one another more than usual. Just 8% say they have been working together more.</p>
<p>The percentage saying Republicans and Democrats have been bickering more than usual tops the 72% that said this in October 1995, when partisan fighting over the federal budget eventually led to government shutdown. At that point, 21% said the parties were working together.</p>
<p>The public’s perceptions have worsened significantly since early last year. In January 2009, when asked about the prospect for bipartisanship in the coming year, fully 50% said they expected Republicans and Democrats to work together more while 39% said they expected increased partisan bickering. But by April 2009, the public was already gloomy about the state of partisan relations: just 25% said the parties were working together more than usual, while 53% said they were bickering and opposing one another more. Since then, assessments have worsened. Only about a third as many people now see the two parties cooperating as did so then.</p>
<p>There is widespread partisan agreement that Republicans and Democrats in Washington have been fighting more than usual. Currently, nearly equal percentages of Republicans (80%), Democrats (80%) and independents (78%) say that partisans in Washington are bickering and opposing one another more than usual.</p>
<p>Job approval ratings for both Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress are down slightly from mid-summer. Though Republicans may be poised for major gains in the House and Senate in the midterm elections, just 24% of the public approves of the job being done by the party’s leaders in Congress.</p>
<p>That is down from 33% in July, and equals a low measured at about the same time last year. Disapproval stands at 60%, matching the number from one year ago. Shortly after Barack Obama took office in 2009, approval of Republican leaders stood at 34%.</p>
<p>Job performance ratings for Democratic leaders also have slipped since the start of the Obama administration (from 48% approval in February 2009 to 30% currently). In July, that rating stood at 35%. Still, going into the campaign’s final weeks Democrats’ approval ratings are modestly higher than the ratings for Republican leaders.</p>
<p>About six-in-ten Democrats (62%) and Republicans (57%) say they approve of their own party’s leaders, while few independents approve of either group. There is little change since July in the percentage of Republicans who approve of their leaders (60% then), but fewer Democrats than in July approve of their party’s leaders in Congress (74% in July vs. 62% now).</p>
<p>Currently, just 19% of independents say they approve of Republican leaders’ performance and 21% say they approve of Democratic leaders’ performance. In July, 26% of independents approved of the GOP leaders and 25% approved of Democratic leaders.</p>
<p>Nine-in-ten Republicans say they disapprove of the job being done by Democratic leaders in Congress, while 82% of Democrats disapprove of the job being done by GOP leaders. Among independents, 64% give a negative performance rating to the GOP leaders, while 60% disapprove of the job being done by Democratic leaders.</p>
<p>Public views of Congress’ accomplishments have changed little since June. Today, 36% say Congress has accomplished less than other recent Congresses, 37% say it has accomplished about as much and 20% say it has accomplished more.</p>
<p>The 36% of Americans who now say Congress has accomplished less than other recent Congresses is comparable to the proportions in both October 1994 (36%) and October 2006 (39%), when assessments of congressional accomplishments were relatively negative. However, the percentage of Americans who now say Congress has accomplished more than other recent Congresses (20%) is also relatively high compared to other past midterm cycles. Significantly more now say Congress has accomplished more than previous Congresses than did so in the fall of 1994 (10%), 2002 (11%) or 2006 (6%); in 1998, 24% said this.</p>
<p>Views of Congressional accomplishments differ considerably by party. A majority of Republicans (54%) say Congress has accomplished less than usual, 31% say its accomplishments are on par with other recent years, while just 9% say this Congress has accomplished more than most. By contrast, Democrats are more divided: 37% say Congress has accomplished about the same amount compared to other recent Congresses, 33% say it has accomplished more than most, and just 24% say it has accomplished less than most.</p>
<p>In 2006, when Republicans controlled Congress, partisan assessments were the reverse; Democrats were substantially more likely than Republicans to say Congress had accomplished less than usual.</p>
<p>Republicans and Democrats also differ in their reasons for saying that Congress has accomplished less than usual. By about two-to-one, Republicans who think Congress has accomplished less say this is more because they think Congress has done the wrong things than because it has not done enough (36% vs. 15%). By contrast, most Democrats who say this Congress has accomplished less than usual say it is more because it has not done enough (18%) rather than because it has done the wrong things (5%).</p>
<p>Independents are about equally likely to say that Congress has accomplished less than usual (38%) as to say congressional accomplishments are about the same as usual (40%); 18% say Congress has accomplished more than usual. Those who say Congress has accomplished less are divided in their assessment of why (19% of independents say it is because Congress has done the wrong things, 16% say it is because Congress has not done enough).</p>
<p>View the <a href="http://people-press.org/reports/questionnaires/661.pdf" type="external">topline</a> and <a href="http://people-press.org/report/?pageid=1817" type="external">survey methodology</a> at <a href="http://www.people-press.org/" type="external">people-press.org</a>.</p>
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lower ratings leaders parties congress one month midterm elections americans offer harsh judgments republicans democrats washington roughly threequarters saying partisans bickering usual approval ratings leaders parties congress matching longtime lows latest pew researchnational journal congressional connection poll sponsored shrm conducted sept 30oct 3 among 1002 adults finds 77 say republicans democrats washington bickering opposing one another usual 8 say working together percentage saying republicans democrats bickering usual tops 72 said october 1995 partisan fighting federal budget eventually led government shutdown point 21 said parties working together publics perceptions worsened significantly since early last year january 2009 asked prospect bipartisanship coming year fully 50 said expected republicans democrats work together 39 said expected increased partisan bickering april 2009 public already gloomy state partisan relations 25 said parties working together usual 53 said bickering opposing one another since assessments worsened third many people see two parties cooperating widespread partisan agreement republicans democrats washington fighting usual currently nearly equal percentages republicans 80 democrats 80 independents 78 say partisans washington bickering opposing one another usual job approval ratings republican democratic leaders congress slightly midsummer though republicans may poised major gains house senate midterm elections 24 public approves job done partys leaders congress 33 july equals low measured time last year disapproval stands 60 matching number one year ago shortly barack obama took office 2009 approval republican leaders stood 34 job performance ratings democratic leaders also slipped since start obama administration 48 approval february 2009 30 currently july rating stood 35 still going campaigns final weeks democrats approval ratings modestly higher ratings republican leaders sixinten democrats 62 republicans 57 say approve partys leaders independents approve either group little change since july percentage republicans approve leaders 60 fewer democrats july approve partys leaders congress 74 july vs 62 currently 19 independents say approve republican leaders performance 21 say approve democratic leaders performance july 26 independents approved gop leaders 25 approved democratic leaders nineinten republicans say disapprove job done democratic leaders congress 82 democrats disapprove job done gop leaders among independents 64 give negative performance rating gop leaders 60 disapprove job done democratic leaders public views congress accomplishments changed little since june today 36 say congress accomplished less recent congresses 37 say accomplished much 20 say accomplished 36 americans say congress accomplished less recent congresses comparable proportions october 1994 36 october 2006 39 assessments congressional accomplishments relatively negative however percentage americans say congress accomplished recent congresses 20 also relatively high compared past midterm cycles significantly say congress accomplished previous congresses fall 1994 10 2002 11 2006 6 1998 24 said views congressional accomplishments differ considerably party majority republicans 54 say congress accomplished less usual 31 say accomplishments par recent years 9 say congress accomplished contrast democrats divided 37 say congress accomplished amount compared recent congresses 33 say accomplished 24 say accomplished less 2006 republicans controlled congress partisan assessments reverse democrats substantially likely republicans say congress accomplished less usual republicans democrats also differ reasons saying congress accomplished less usual twotoone republicans think congress accomplished less say think congress done wrong things done enough 36 vs 15 contrast democrats say congress accomplished less usual say done enough 18 rather done wrong things 5 independents equally likely say congress accomplished less usual 38 say congressional accomplishments usual 40 18 say congress accomplished usual say congress accomplished less divided assessment 19 independents say congress done wrong things 16 say congress done enough view topline survey methodology peoplepressorg
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<p>* Biotechs Bioverativ, Juno jump after big deals</p>
<p>* Validus gains after AIG agrees to buy reinsurer</p>
<p>* Senate to vote at noon on extending government funding</p>
<p>* Indexes up: Dow 0.26 pct, S&amp;P 0.44 pct, Nasdaq 0.68 pct (Updates to early afternoon)</p>
<p>By Sruthi Shankar</p>
<p>Jan 22 (Reuters) - Wall Street’s main indexes were at session highs in afternoon trading on Monday after U.S. senators reached a deal to end the federal government shutdown.</p>
<p>“We will vote today to reopen the government,” Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told the Senate, potentially ending the three-day shutdown prompted by an impasse over immigration and border security.</p>
<p>Schumer said he had come to an arrangement with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell on the funding bill to keep the government open until Feb. 8.</p>
<p>“If we get a vote and the shutdown ends, which is what it looks like, the market starts reacting ahead of that,” said Randy Frederick, vice president of trading and derivatives for Charles Schwab in Austin, Texas.</p>
<p>“We could probably see this in two-three weeks and it could be even more challenging at that time. It’s not just DACA expiration but also the debt ceiling issue.”</p>
<p>At 12:26 p.m. ET (1726 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 67.45 points, or 0.26 percent, at 26,139.17 and the S&amp;P 500 was up 12.39 points, or 0.44 percent, at 2,822.69.</p>
<p>The Nasdaq Composite was up 49.96 points, or 0.68 percent, at 7,386.34.</p>
<p>The biotech index rose 2.8 percent, as deal activity exploded with French drugmaker Sanofi and U.S.-based Celgene splurging a combined total of more than $20 billion.</p>
<p>Shares in U.S. hemophilia specialist Bioverativ soared 63 percent after Sanofi agreed to buy the company for $11.6 billion.</p>
<p>Juno Therapeutics rose about 27 percent after Celgene agreed to buy the biotech for about $9 billion in cash.</p>
<p>In another big deal, AIG said it would buy reinsurer Validus Holdings for $5.56 billion, sending the target’s shares surging 45 percent.</p>
<p>Industrial stocks were a drag on the indexes, following a near 1 percent drop in General Electric after BofA-Merrill Lynch downgraded its stock. GE fell below $16 for the first time since 2011, extending a losing streak from last week.</p>
<p>Nine of the 11 major S&amp;P sectors were higher, led by a 1.4 percent gain in the energy index.</p>
<p>Halliburton Co rose 4.9 percent after posting a much bigger-than-expected quarterly profit in the fourth quarter, benefiting from a shale-driven surge in U.S. oil production.</p>
<p>Shares of Netflix Inc, a major contributor to the recent stock rally, were up 2.5 percent ahead of its quarterly results after market closes.</p>
<p>Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by 1,662 to 1,177. On the Nasdaq, 1,524 issues rose and 1,351 fell. (Reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - Fund managers have begun to ditch so-called FANG stocks that powered the U.S. stock market to record highs in January and are slowly rotating into commodity-related shares and other value stocks which typically outperform in late-cycle recoveries.</p>
<p>Portfolio managers holding shares of Facebook Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FB.O" type="external">FB.O</a>), Amazon.com Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AMZN.O" type="external">AMZN.O</a>), Netflix Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=NFLX.O" type="external">NFLX.O</a>), and Google-parent Alphabet Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GOOGL.O" type="external">GOOGL.O</a>) say they are increasingly concerned that the data scandal that has sent shares of Facebook down nearly 15 percent year-to-date will spill over into all of the FANG stocks, imperiling the broad market’s momentum at a time when there are no clear companies or sectors to take their place.</p>
<p>On Tuesday, an index which tracks the FANG stocks along with six other mega-cap technology stocks tumbled 6.3 percent, the biggest decline since September 2014.</p>
<p>Facebook rose as much as 1.5 percent in early trading Wednesday before falling into the red, one day after sources told Reuters that chief executive Mark Zuckerberg plans to testify before Congress. Amazon.com dropped 4 percent, while Netflix fell 5 percent. Google-parent Alphabet was slightly positive.</p>
<p>“There are legitimate concerns over the business models of these companies, and I expect that they will be ironed out in legislation” that will likely eat into their profit margins, said Michael Cuggino, a portfolio manager of the $17-billion Permanent Portfolio funds.</p>
<p>Cuggino, who would not say whether he was selling any of his shares in Facebook, said that commodity and industrial stocks look more attractive now given rising inflation and continued global economic growth.</p>
<p>Each FANG company rose more than 33 percent last year, helping power the S&amp;P 500 <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.SPX" type="external">.SPX</a> to a nearly 20-percent gain. Yet those gains have left the broad S&amp;P 500 trading at a high trailing price-to-earnings ratio of 21.7, leaving it overpriced despite a boost to margins from the Republican-led corporate tax cut at the end of 2017.</p>
<p>“Rising volatility and changing market leadership are now pointing towards the possible conclusion that the stock market peaked in late January 2018,” said Douglas Kass, president of Seabreeze Capital Management.</p>
<p>The S&amp;P 500 is now down 2.2 percent for the year, and down nearly 10 percent below the high of 2872.87 it reached on Jan. 26.</p> Slideshow (2 Images) UNFRIENDED
<p>Fund managers say that the high valuation of FANG stocks and the likelihood of regulation are pushing them into traditional value stocks like energy and defense companies.</p>
<p>Connor Browne, a portfolio manager at Thornburg Investment Management, said that he sold his shares of Netflix and Amazon.com last year after both companies blew through his price targets. He used those gains instead to increase positions in energy stocks such as pipeline operator Enterprise Products Partners LP ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=EPD.N" type="external">EPD.N</a>) and crude oil shipping company Overseas Shipholding Group Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=OSG.N" type="external">OSG.N</a>) that stand to benefit from the recovery in the price of oil.</p>
<p>“We noticed that in all of this excitement over the FANGs taking over the world, there are parts of the economy that seem really out of favor and offer more compelling opportunities,” he said.</p>
<p>Even after the selloff, FANG stocks continue to trade at higher valuations than the broad market. Netflix trades at a P/E of 210 and Amazon.com trades at a P/E of 327. Facebook and Google-parent Alphabet, both of which have been directly linked with privacy concerns, now trade at valuations near 52-week lows.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FB.O" type="external">Facebook Inc</a> 159.79 FB.O Nasdaq +6.76 (+4.42%) FB.O AMZN.O NFLX.O GOOGL.O .SPX
<p>The overhang of increased government oversight has sunk the fortunes of large technology companies in the past. Microsoft Corp ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=MSFT.O" type="external">MSFT.O</a>) reached a settlement in an antitrust case with the Department of Justice in 2002 that lasted until 2011, contributing to a long period of underperformance that kept the stock below the high it reached in 1999 until 2016. Since then, the stock is up nearly 60 percent on the strength of its cloud-based services.</p>
<p>Margaret Patel, a senior portfolio manager at Wells Fargo Funds, said that she has been adding to defense stocks like Raytheon Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=RTN.N" type="external">RTN.N</a>) that should benefit from increasing military spending in both the U.S. and overseas. At the same time, she is increasing her exposure of non-FANG technology stocks like Adobe Systems Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=ADBE.O" type="external">ADBE.O</a>) and Microsoft that have been hurt by the recent sell-off in the sector.</p>
<p>“It’s very hard to see another sector that still has all the fundamental drivers for growing much faster than any other sector,” she said.</p>
<p>Reporting by David Randall; Editing by Jennifer Ablan and Nick Zieminski</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street surged on Thursday, bringing an upbeat end to a tumultuous, holiday-shortened week as technology stocks rebounded, but the S&amp;P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average posted their biggest quarterly declines in more than two years.</p> Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., March 26, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
<p>The year started strong, but early gains evaporated as the markets entered a correction over interest rate jitters, fears of an escalating import tariff dispute between the United States and China, and a selloff in the tech sector.</p>
<p>(GRAPHIC: S&amp;P Quarterly performance during bull market - <a href="https://reut.rs/2pUJYLR" type="external">reut.rs/2pUJYLR</a>)</p>
<a href="https://reut.rs/2pUJYLR" type="external" />
<p>Tech stocks reversed course on Thursday and the S&amp;P 500 information technology index .SPLRCT closed up 2.2 percent after reaching a session high of 3.2 percent, helping push the S&amp;P 500 up 1.4 percent, with the Dow and Nasdaq also rallying.</p>
<p>“All the fears now look overblown. Interest rates, the concern about tariffs, we’re going to get into a trade war,” said Doug Cote, chief market strategist at Voya Investment Management in New York. “But now clearer heads are prevailing. If anything this is a buying opportunity.”</p>
<p>Technology gains were led by Facebook ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FB.O" type="external">FB.O</a>), Intel ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=INTC.O" type="external">INTC.O</a>), Alphabet ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GOOGL.O" type="external">GOOGL.O</a>) and Microsoft ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=MSFT.O" type="external">MSFT.O</a>) shares.</p>
<p>“Tech will always lead the charge in a bull market. And we’re in a bull market,” said Cote.</p>
<p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.DJI" type="external">.DJI</a> rose 254.69 points, or 1.07 percent, to close at 24,103.11, the S&amp;P 500 <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.SPX" type="external">.SPX</a> gained 35.87 points, or 1.38 percent, to 2,640.87 and the Nasdaq Composite <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.IXIC" type="external">.IXIC</a> added 114.22 points, or 1.64 percent, to 7,063.45.</p>
<p>Investors were unfazed by economic reports showing a slight increase in consumer spending and initial jobless claims dropping to a more than 45-year low.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FB.O" type="external">Facebook Inc</a> 159.79 FB.O Nasdaq +6.76 (+4.42%) FB.O INTC.O GOOGL.O MSFT.O .DJI
<p>In other data, core personal consumption expenditures (PCE) rose by 1.6 percent year-on-year. The index, the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation, has been below the U.S. central bank’s 2 percent target since mid-2012.</p>
<p>Amazon.com ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AMZN.O" type="external">AMZN.O</a>) closed up 1.1 percent, recovering from a 4.6 percent drop after U.S. President Donald Trump criticized the online retailer via Twitter early Thursday, claiming without evidence that the company pays “little to no taxes to state &amp; local governments.”</p>
<p>Stocks shot up earlier in the week as comments from officials in the United States and China suggested the world’s two largest economies would renegotiate tariffs and trade imbalances, averting a trade war.</p>
<p>But worries that retaliatory tariffs would harm the global economy led investors to cut equity exposure to a four-month low in March and reduce holdings of U.S. stocks to the lowest in nearly two years, according to a Reuters poll.</p>
<p>Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 3.66-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 2.23-to-1 ratio favored advancers.</p>
<p>Volume on U.S. exchanges was 7.49 billion shares, compared to the 7.29 billion average over the last 20 trading days.</p>
<p>Reporting by Stephen Culp in New York; Additional reporting by Charles Mikolajczak; Editing by James Dalgleish</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street closed lower after a rocky session on Wednesday as gains in consumer staples and healthcare were offset by a sharp drop in Amazon shares and a continuing slide in technology stocks.</p>
<p>All three major U.S. indexes ended the day in negative territory following Tuesday’s late-session tech-driven sell-off following Monday’s rally as traders moved to defensive stocks after recent weeks’ heightened volatility.</p>
<p>“People should expect what’s happening given the kind of volatility we’ve seen as well as the fact that we’re kind of in a news vacuum prior to quarterly earnings,” Chuck Carlson, chief executive at Horizon Investment Services in Hammond, Indiana, said. “It’s a market that’s really looking for the next leadership.”</p>
<p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 9.29 points, or 0.04 percent, to 23,848.42, the S&amp;P 500 lost 7.62 points, or 0.29 percent, to 2,605 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 59.58 points, or 0.85 percent, to 6,949.23.</p>
<p>Online retailer Amazon.com was down as much as 6.7 percent, losing more than $53 billion in market value after a report that President Donald Trump indicated he wanted to rein in the company. The stock later pared its loses to end the day down 4.4 percent.</p>
<p>Shares of automaker Tesla slumped 7.7 percent, extending recent losses, following a credit downgrade and news that officials are investigating a fatal crash and fire in California.</p>
<p>Countering those losses were gains for consumer staples, real estate, telecom, and healthcare.</p>
<p>The S&amp;P Energy index posted the biggest loss of the 11 major S&amp;P sectors, ending 1.99 percent lower as crude prices fell after data showed a surprise build in U.S. stocks.</p>
<p>The markets shrugged off a report from the U.S. Commerce Department that the U.S. economy slowed less than previously reported in the fourth quarter as consumer spending grew at its fastest quarterly pace in three years. GDP expanded at a 2.9 percent annual rate in the last three months of 2017, ahead of the previously reported 2.5 percent.</p>
<p>Strong economic data could invite a more hawkish approach by the U.S. Federal Reserve this year with respect to further interest rate hikes.</p> Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange shortly after the opening bell in New York, U.S., March 19, 2018. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
<p>“I’m not surprised by the economic data,” said Carlson. “But the market right now is looking past that from a valuation standpoint.”</p>
<p>Stocks had jumped earlier in the week as trade war fears ebbed following comments from officials in the United States and China that implied the world’s two largest economies would renegotiate tariffs and trade imbalances.</p>
<p>China is expected to announce a list of tariffs on U.S. imports in retaliation against the expected tariff proposals from the U.S. on Chinese goods.</p>
<p>Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 1.12-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.22-to-1 ratio favored decliners.</p> A woman passes by the Nasdaq Market Site in Times Square in New York City, U.S., February 7, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
<p>Volume on U.S. exchanges was 6.96 billion shares, compared to the 7.36 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.</p>
<p>Reporting by Stephen Culp; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Susan Thomas</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - Tesla Inc shares fell sharply again on Wednesday, reeling from a credit downgrade of the electric car maker by Moody’s Investors Service, federal probes of a fatal crash and concerns about Model 3 production.</p>
<p>Shares tumbled 9 percent before ending down 7.7 percent at $257.78. On Tuesday, Tesla tumbled 8.2 percent to its lowest close in almost a year after the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) opened a field investigation into a fatal crash and vehicle fire in California on March 23.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, a second federal regulator, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA), said it was sending a team to California to investigate the crash.</p> Related Coverage
<a href="/article/us-tesla-stock-options/extreme-bearish-options-on-tesla-making-money-as-stock-dives-idUSKBN1H434B" type="external">Extreme bearish options on Tesla making money as stock dives</a>
<a href="/article/us-tesla-crash/u-s-auto-safety-agency-to-probe-fatal-tesla-california-crash-idUSKBN1H42X1" type="external">U.S. auto safety agency to probe fatal Tesla California crash</a>
<p>Late on Tuesday, Moody’s Investors Service downgraded Tesla’s credit rating to B3 from B2, citing “the significant shortfall in the production rate of the company’s Model 3 electric vehicle.” It also noted “liquidity pressures due to its large negative free cash flow and the pending maturities of convertible bonds.”</p>
<p>Tesla has $230 million in convertible bonds maturing in November 2018 and $920 million in March 2019.</p>
<p>Moody’s said its negative outlook “reflects the likelihood that Tesla will have to undertake a large, near-term capital raise in order to refund maturing obligations and avoid a liquidity shortfall.”</p>
<p>It said Tesla’s weekly production target is now 2,500 Model 3 vehicles by the end of March, down sharply from its year-earlier target of 5,000 per week by the end of 2017. Tesla’s weekly target for the end of June is 5,000.</p>
<p>Tesla declined to comment on the downgrade. The company plans to provide an update on Model 3 production next week.</p>
<p>Tesla shares have experienced big swings in the past, as worries about losses have vied with enthusiasm for Chief Executive Elon Musk’s ambitious plans.</p>
<p>The sell-off has left Tesla’s stock market value at $44 billion, below General Motors Co’s $49 billion. Palo Alto, California-based Tesla has at times had a larger market value than GM, the largest U.S. automaker by vehicle sales.</p> A Tesla dealership is seen in West Drayton, just outside London, Britain, February 7, 2018. REUTERS/Hannah McKay
<p>Since the end of February, the median analyst price target for Tesla has dipped by $10 to $356, about 37 percent higher than Wednesday’s price, according to Thomson Reuters data. Nomura Securities analyst Romit Shah has the highest Tesla price target, $500, or nearly double the current price. All the targets were set before the March 23 crash.</p>
<p>In last week’s accident in which the Tesla struck a highway median, it was unclear if the vehicle’s automated control system called Autopilot was driving, the NTSB and police said.</p>
<p>The 38-year-old driver of the Tesla died at a nearby hospital shortly after the crash.</p>
<p>Late Tuesday, Tesla said in a blog post it does “not yet know what happened in the moments leading up to the crash,” but added that data shows Tesla owners have driven the same stretch of highway with Autopilot engaged “roughly 85,000 times ... and there has never been an accident that we know of.” The statement did not say if the crashed vehicle was in Autopilot mode.</p>
<p>Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington and Alexandria Sage and Noel Randewich in San Francisco; Editing by Dan Grebler and David Gregorio</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
| false | 2 |
biotechs bioverativ juno jump big deals validus gains aig agrees buy reinsurer senate vote noon extending government funding indexes dow 026 pct sampp 044 pct nasdaq 068 pct updates early afternoon sruthi shankar jan 22 reuters wall streets main indexes session highs afternoon trading monday us senators reached deal end federal government shutdown vote today reopen government minority leader chuck schumer told senate potentially ending threeday shutdown prompted impasse immigration border security schumer said come arrangement senate republican leader mitch mcconnell funding bill keep government open feb 8 get vote shutdown ends looks like market starts reacting ahead said randy frederick vice president trading derivatives charles schwab austin texas could probably see twothree weeks could even challenging time daca expiration also debt ceiling issue 1226 pm et 1726 gmt dow jones industrial average 6745 points 026 percent 2613917 sampp 500 1239 points 044 percent 282269 nasdaq composite 4996 points 068 percent 738634 biotech index rose 28 percent deal activity exploded french drugmaker sanofi usbased celgene splurging combined total 20 billion shares us hemophilia specialist bioverativ soared 63 percent sanofi agreed buy company 116 billion juno therapeutics rose 27 percent celgene agreed buy biotech 9 billion cash another big deal aig said would buy reinsurer validus holdings 556 billion sending targets shares surging 45 percent industrial stocks drag indexes following near 1 percent drop general electric bofamerrill lynch downgraded stock ge fell 16 first time since 2011 extending losing streak last week nine 11 major sampp sectors higher led 14 percent gain energy index halliburton co rose 49 percent posting much biggerthanexpected quarterly profit fourth quarter benefiting shaledriven surge us oil production shares netflix inc major contributor recent stock rally 25 percent ahead quarterly results market closes advancing issues outnumbered decliners nyse 1662 1177 nasdaq 1524 issues rose 1351 fell reporting sruthi shankar bengaluru editing sriraj kalluvila standards thomson reuters trust principles new york reuters fund managers begun ditch socalled fang stocks powered us stock market record highs january slowly rotating commodityrelated shares value stocks typically outperform latecycle recoveries portfolio managers holding shares facebook inc fbo amazoncom inc amzno netflix inc nflxo googleparent alphabet inc googlo say increasingly concerned data scandal sent shares facebook nearly 15 percent yeartodate spill fang stocks imperiling broad markets momentum time clear companies sectors take place tuesday index tracks fang stocks along six megacap technology stocks tumbled 63 percent biggest decline since september 2014 facebook rose much 15 percent early trading wednesday falling red one day sources told reuters chief executive mark zuckerberg plans testify congress amazoncom dropped 4 percent netflix fell 5 percent googleparent alphabet slightly positive legitimate concerns business models companies expect ironed legislation likely eat profit margins said michael cuggino portfolio manager 17billion permanent portfolio funds cuggino would say whether selling shares facebook said commodity industrial stocks look attractive given rising inflation continued global economic growth fang company rose 33 percent last year helping power sampp 500 spx nearly 20percent gain yet gains left broad sampp 500 trading high trailing pricetoearnings ratio 217 leaving overpriced despite boost margins republicanled corporate tax cut end 2017 rising volatility changing market leadership pointing towards possible conclusion stock market peaked late january 2018 said douglas kass president seabreeze capital management sampp 500 22 percent year nearly 10 percent high 287287 reached jan 26 slideshow 2 images unfriended fund managers say high valuation fang stocks likelihood regulation pushing traditional value stocks like energy defense companies connor browne portfolio manager thornburg investment management said sold shares netflix amazoncom last year companies blew price targets used gains instead increase positions energy stocks pipeline operator enterprise products partners lp epdn crude oil shipping company overseas shipholding group inc osgn stand benefit recovery price oil noticed excitement fangs taking world parts economy seem really favor offer compelling opportunities said even selloff fang stocks continue trade higher valuations broad market netflix trades pe 210 amazoncom trades pe 327 facebook googleparent alphabet directly linked privacy concerns trade valuations near 52week lows facebook inc 15979 fbo nasdaq 676 442 fbo amzno nflxo googlo spx overhang increased government oversight sunk fortunes large technology companies past microsoft corp msfto reached settlement antitrust case department justice 2002 lasted 2011 contributing long period underperformance kept stock high reached 1999 2016 since stock nearly 60 percent strength cloudbased services margaret patel senior portfolio manager wells fargo funds said adding defense stocks like raytheon co rtnn benefit increasing military spending us overseas time increasing exposure nonfang technology stocks like adobe systems inc adbeo microsoft hurt recent selloff sector hard see another sector still fundamental drivers growing much faster sector said reporting david randall editing jennifer ablan nick zieminski standards thomson reuters trust principles new york reuters wall street surged thursday bringing upbeat end tumultuous holidayshortened week technology stocks rebounded sampp 500 dow jones industrial average posted biggest quarterly declines two years traders work floor new york stock exchange nyse new york us march 26 2018 reutersbrendan mcdermid year started strong early gains evaporated markets entered correction interest rate jitters fears escalating import tariff dispute united states china selloff tech sector graphic sampp quarterly performance bull market reutrs2pujylr tech stocks reversed course thursday sampp 500 information technology index splrct closed 22 percent reaching session high 32 percent helping push sampp 500 14 percent dow nasdaq also rallying fears look overblown interest rates concern tariffs going get trade war said doug cote chief market strategist voya investment management new york clearer heads prevailing anything buying opportunity technology gains led facebook fbo intel intco alphabet googlo microsoft msfto shares tech always lead charge bull market bull market said cote dow jones industrial average dji rose 25469 points 107 percent close 2410311 sampp 500 spx gained 3587 points 138 percent 264087 nasdaq composite ixic added 11422 points 164 percent 706345 investors unfazed economic reports showing slight increase consumer spending initial jobless claims dropping 45year low facebook inc 15979 fbo nasdaq 676 442 fbo intco googlo msfto dji data core personal consumption expenditures pce rose 16 percent yearonyear index federal reserves preferred measure inflation us central banks 2 percent target since mid2012 amazoncom amzno closed 11 percent recovering 46 percent drop us president donald trump criticized online retailer via twitter early thursday claiming without evidence company pays little taxes state amp local governments stocks shot earlier week comments officials united states china suggested worlds two largest economies would renegotiate tariffs trade imbalances averting trade war worries retaliatory tariffs would harm global economy led investors cut equity exposure fourmonth low march reduce holdings us stocks lowest nearly two years according reuters poll advancing issues outnumbered declining ones nyse 366to1 ratio nasdaq 223to1 ratio favored advancers volume us exchanges 749 billion shares compared 729 billion average last 20 trading days reporting stephen culp new york additional reporting charles mikolajczak editing james dalgleish standards thomson reuters trust principles new york reuters wall street closed lower rocky session wednesday gains consumer staples healthcare offset sharp drop amazon shares continuing slide technology stocks three major us indexes ended day negative territory following tuesdays latesession techdriven selloff following mondays rally traders moved defensive stocks recent weeks heightened volatility people expect whats happening given kind volatility weve seen well fact kind news vacuum prior quarterly earnings chuck carlson chief executive horizon investment services hammond indiana said market thats really looking next leadership dow jones industrial average fell 929 points 004 percent 2384842 sampp 500 lost 762 points 029 percent 2605 nasdaq composite dropped 5958 points 085 percent 694923 online retailer amazoncom much 67 percent losing 53 billion market value report president donald trump indicated wanted rein company stock later pared loses end day 44 percent shares automaker tesla slumped 77 percent extending recent losses following credit downgrade news officials investigating fatal crash fire california countering losses gains consumer staples real estate telecom healthcare sampp energy index posted biggest loss 11 major sampp sectors ending 199 percent lower crude prices fell data showed surprise build us stocks markets shrugged report us commerce department us economy slowed less previously reported fourth quarter consumer spending grew fastest quarterly pace three years gdp expanded 29 percent annual rate last three months 2017 ahead previously reported 25 percent strong economic data could invite hawkish approach us federal reserve year respect interest rate hikes traders work floor new york stock exchange shortly opening bell new york us march 19 2018 reuterslucas jackson im surprised economic data said carlson market right looking past valuation standpoint stocks jumped earlier week trade war fears ebbed following comments officials united states china implied worlds two largest economies would renegotiate tariffs trade imbalances china expected announce list tariffs us imports retaliation expected tariff proposals us chinese goods advancing issues outnumbered declining ones nyse 112to1 ratio nasdaq 122to1 ratio favored decliners woman passes nasdaq market site times square new york city us february 7 2018 reutersbrendan mcdermid volume us exchanges 696 billion shares compared 736 billion average full session last 20 trading days reporting stephen culp editing nick zieminski susan thomas standards thomson reuters trust principles new york reuters tesla inc shares fell sharply wednesday reeling credit downgrade electric car maker moodys investors service federal probes fatal crash concerns model 3 production shares tumbled 9 percent ending 77 percent 25778 tuesday tesla tumbled 82 percent lowest close almost year us national transportation safety board ntsb opened field investigation fatal crash vehicle fire california march 23 wednesday second federal regulator national highway transportation safety administration nhtsa said sending team california investigate crash related coverage extreme bearish options tesla making money stock dives us auto safety agency probe fatal tesla california crash late tuesday moodys investors service downgraded teslas credit rating b3 b2 citing significant shortfall production rate companys model 3 electric vehicle also noted liquidity pressures due large negative free cash flow pending maturities convertible bonds tesla 230 million convertible bonds maturing november 2018 920 million march 2019 moodys said negative outlook reflects likelihood tesla undertake large nearterm capital raise order refund maturing obligations avoid liquidity shortfall said teslas weekly production target 2500 model 3 vehicles end march sharply yearearlier target 5000 per week end 2017 teslas weekly target end june 5000 tesla declined comment downgrade company plans provide update model 3 production next week tesla shares experienced big swings past worries losses vied enthusiasm chief executive elon musks ambitious plans selloff left teslas stock market value 44 billion general motors cos 49 billion palo alto californiabased tesla times larger market value gm largest us automaker vehicle sales tesla dealership seen west drayton outside london britain february 7 2018 reutershannah mckay since end february median analyst price target tesla dipped 10 356 37 percent higher wednesdays price according thomson reuters data nomura securities analyst romit shah highest tesla price target 500 nearly double current price targets set march 23 crash last weeks accident tesla struck highway median unclear vehicles automated control system called autopilot driving ntsb police said 38yearold driver tesla died nearby hospital shortly crash late tuesday tesla said blog post yet know happened moments leading crash added data shows tesla owners driven stretch highway autopilot engaged roughly 85000 times never accident know statement say crashed vehicle autopilot mode reporting david shepardson washington alexandria sage noel randewich san francisco editing dan grebler david gregorio standards thomson reuters trust principles
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<p>DETROIT (AP) — Two federal agencies have dispatched teams to investigate the California crash of a Tesla Model S electric car that may have been operating under its semi-autonomous "Autopilot" system.</p>
<p>It's the second time the National Transportation Safety Board and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration have investigated the performance of Autopilot, which keeps a vehicle centered in its lane at a set distance from cars in front of it and also can change lanes and brake automatically.</p>
<p>The safety board sent two investigators to Culver City on Tuesday, according to spokesman Peter Knudson, while NHTSA confirmed Wednesday that it is also dispatching a special team "to investigate the crash and assess lessons learned."</p>
<p>Neither agency would comment further, but it's likely they both will seek information about whether Autopilot was on and if its sensors somehow failed to see a stopped firetruck Monday on Interstate 405 in Culver City near Los Angeles.</p>
<p>The NTSB said on Twitter that investigators will focus on driver and vehicle factors.</p>
<p>The Tesla driver told the California Highway Patrol that he had activated Autopilot before the crash, but the highway patrol said in a news release that it was unable to verify the driver's statement at this time. The crash remains under investigation, the highway patrol said.</p>
<p>The NTSB in September determined that design limitations of the Tesla Model S Autopilot played a major role in a May 2016 fatal crash in Florida involving a vehicle operating under Autopilot. But it blamed the crash on an inattentive Tesla driver's overreliance on technology and a truck driver who made a left turn in front of the car.</p>
<p>The California investigation comes as Congress and federal agencies grapple with how to regulate autonomous vehicles and those with systems that are partially self-driving. The systems can significantly reduce crashes, but computer-driven vehicles also can make mistakes.</p>
<p>Tesla wouldn't say if Autopilot was working at the time of the Culver City crash, but said in a statement Monday that drivers must stay attentive when it's in use. The company would not comment on the investigation.</p>
<p>In Monday's crash, the highway patrol said the southbound Tesla hit the rear of the Culver City firetruck, which was parked at an angle in the carpool lane while firefighters tended to a crash on the opposite side of the freeway. The truck was unoccupied at the time, and no injuries were claimed by anyone at the crash scene, the news release said.</p>
<p>The Model S Autopilot is a level 2 on a self-driving scale of 0 to 5. Level 5 vehicles can operate autonomously in nearly all circumstances. Level 2 automation systems are generally limited to use on interstate highways, which don't have intersections. With level 2 systems, drivers are supposed to continuously monitor vehicle performance and be ready to take control if necessary.</p>
<p>In the Florida crash, which killed an Ohio man driving a Tesla, NTSB investigators found that the sedan's cameras and radar weren't capable of detecting a vehicle turning into its path. Rather, the systems are designed to detect vehicles being followed to prevent rear-end collisions. The NTSB re-issued previous recommendations that the government require all new cars and trucks to be equipped with technology that wirelessly transmits the vehicles' location, speed, heading and other information to other vehicles in order to prevent collisions.</p>
<p>The NTSB also recommended that automakers develop systems to make sure drivers pay attention while using semi-autonomous systems, other than detecting the pressure of hands on the steering wheel. The driver in the Florida crash had his hands on the sedan's steering wheel for only 25 seconds out of the 37.5 minutes the vehicle's cruise control and lane-keeping systems were in use prior to the crash, investigators found.</p>
<p>Tesla has taken steps to prevent drivers from using Autopilot improperly, including measuring the amount of torque applied to the steering wheel and sending visual and audio warnings. If the warnings are ignored, drivers would be prevented from using Autopilot, the company has said.</p>
<p>NHTSA, which regulates auto safety, declined last year to issue a recall or fine Tesla as a result of the crash, but it warned automakers they aren't to treat semi-autonomous cars as if they were fully self-driving.</p>
<p>____</p>
<p>Associated Press Writer Joan Lowy contributed from Washington.</p>
<p>DETROIT (AP) — Two federal agencies have dispatched teams to investigate the California crash of a Tesla Model S electric car that may have been operating under its semi-autonomous "Autopilot" system.</p>
<p>It's the second time the National Transportation Safety Board and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration have investigated the performance of Autopilot, which keeps a vehicle centered in its lane at a set distance from cars in front of it and also can change lanes and brake automatically.</p>
<p>The safety board sent two investigators to Culver City on Tuesday, according to spokesman Peter Knudson, while NHTSA confirmed Wednesday that it is also dispatching a special team "to investigate the crash and assess lessons learned."</p>
<p>Neither agency would comment further, but it's likely they both will seek information about whether Autopilot was on and if its sensors somehow failed to see a stopped firetruck Monday on Interstate 405 in Culver City near Los Angeles.</p>
<p>The NTSB said on Twitter that investigators will focus on driver and vehicle factors.</p>
<p>The Tesla driver told the California Highway Patrol that he had activated Autopilot before the crash, but the highway patrol said in a news release that it was unable to verify the driver's statement at this time. The crash remains under investigation, the highway patrol said.</p>
<p>The NTSB in September determined that design limitations of the Tesla Model S Autopilot played a major role in a May 2016 fatal crash in Florida involving a vehicle operating under Autopilot. But it blamed the crash on an inattentive Tesla driver's overreliance on technology and a truck driver who made a left turn in front of the car.</p>
<p>The California investigation comes as Congress and federal agencies grapple with how to regulate autonomous vehicles and those with systems that are partially self-driving. The systems can significantly reduce crashes, but computer-driven vehicles also can make mistakes.</p>
<p>Tesla wouldn't say if Autopilot was working at the time of the Culver City crash, but said in a statement Monday that drivers must stay attentive when it's in use. The company would not comment on the investigation.</p>
<p>In Monday's crash, the highway patrol said the southbound Tesla hit the rear of the Culver City firetruck, which was parked at an angle in the carpool lane while firefighters tended to a crash on the opposite side of the freeway. The truck was unoccupied at the time, and no injuries were claimed by anyone at the crash scene, the news release said.</p>
<p>The Model S Autopilot is a level 2 on a self-driving scale of 0 to 5. Level 5 vehicles can operate autonomously in nearly all circumstances. Level 2 automation systems are generally limited to use on interstate highways, which don't have intersections. With level 2 systems, drivers are supposed to continuously monitor vehicle performance and be ready to take control if necessary.</p>
<p>In the Florida crash, which killed an Ohio man driving a Tesla, NTSB investigators found that the sedan's cameras and radar weren't capable of detecting a vehicle turning into its path. Rather, the systems are designed to detect vehicles being followed to prevent rear-end collisions. The NTSB re-issued previous recommendations that the government require all new cars and trucks to be equipped with technology that wirelessly transmits the vehicles' location, speed, heading and other information to other vehicles in order to prevent collisions.</p>
<p>The NTSB also recommended that automakers develop systems to make sure drivers pay attention while using semi-autonomous systems, other than detecting the pressure of hands on the steering wheel. The driver in the Florida crash had his hands on the sedan's steering wheel for only 25 seconds out of the 37.5 minutes the vehicle's cruise control and lane-keeping systems were in use prior to the crash, investigators found.</p>
<p>Tesla has taken steps to prevent drivers from using Autopilot improperly, including measuring the amount of torque applied to the steering wheel and sending visual and audio warnings. If the warnings are ignored, drivers would be prevented from using Autopilot, the company has said.</p>
<p>NHTSA, which regulates auto safety, declined last year to issue a recall or fine Tesla as a result of the crash, but it warned automakers they aren't to treat semi-autonomous cars as if they were fully self-driving.</p>
<p>____</p>
<p>Associated Press Writer Joan Lowy contributed from Washington.</p>
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detroit ap two federal agencies dispatched teams investigate california crash tesla model electric car may operating semiautonomous autopilot system second time national transportation safety board national highway traffic safety administration investigated performance autopilot keeps vehicle centered lane set distance cars front also change lanes brake automatically safety board sent two investigators culver city tuesday according spokesman peter knudson nhtsa confirmed wednesday also dispatching special team investigate crash assess lessons learned neither agency would comment likely seek information whether autopilot sensors somehow failed see stopped firetruck monday interstate 405 culver city near los angeles ntsb said twitter investigators focus driver vehicle factors tesla driver told california highway patrol activated autopilot crash highway patrol said news release unable verify drivers statement time crash remains investigation highway patrol said ntsb september determined design limitations tesla model autopilot played major role may 2016 fatal crash florida involving vehicle operating autopilot blamed crash inattentive tesla drivers overreliance technology truck driver made left turn front car california investigation comes congress federal agencies grapple regulate autonomous vehicles systems partially selfdriving systems significantly reduce crashes computerdriven vehicles also make mistakes tesla wouldnt say autopilot working time culver city crash said statement monday drivers must stay attentive use company would comment investigation mondays crash highway patrol said southbound tesla hit rear culver city firetruck parked angle carpool lane firefighters tended crash opposite side freeway truck unoccupied time injuries claimed anyone crash scene news release said model autopilot level 2 selfdriving scale 0 5 level 5 vehicles operate autonomously nearly circumstances level 2 automation systems generally limited use interstate highways dont intersections level 2 systems drivers supposed continuously monitor vehicle performance ready take control necessary florida crash killed ohio man driving tesla ntsb investigators found sedans cameras radar werent capable detecting vehicle turning path rather systems designed detect vehicles followed prevent rearend collisions ntsb reissued previous recommendations government require new cars trucks equipped technology wirelessly transmits vehicles location speed heading information vehicles order prevent collisions ntsb also recommended automakers develop systems make sure drivers pay attention using semiautonomous systems detecting pressure hands steering wheel driver florida crash hands sedans steering wheel 25 seconds 375 minutes vehicles cruise control lanekeeping systems use prior crash investigators found tesla taken steps prevent drivers using autopilot improperly including measuring amount torque applied steering wheel sending visual audio warnings warnings ignored drivers would prevented using autopilot company said nhtsa regulates auto safety declined last year issue recall fine tesla result crash warned automakers arent treat semiautonomous cars fully selfdriving ____ associated press writer joan lowy contributed washington detroit ap two federal agencies dispatched teams investigate california crash tesla model electric car may operating semiautonomous autopilot system second time national transportation safety board national highway traffic safety administration investigated performance autopilot keeps vehicle centered lane set distance cars front also change lanes brake automatically safety board sent two investigators culver city tuesday according spokesman peter knudson nhtsa confirmed wednesday also dispatching special team investigate crash assess lessons learned neither agency would comment likely seek information whether autopilot sensors somehow failed see stopped firetruck monday interstate 405 culver city near los angeles ntsb said twitter investigators focus driver vehicle factors tesla driver told california highway patrol activated autopilot crash highway patrol said news release unable verify drivers statement time crash remains investigation highway patrol said ntsb september determined design limitations tesla model autopilot played major role may 2016 fatal crash florida involving vehicle operating autopilot blamed crash inattentive tesla drivers overreliance technology truck driver made left turn front car california investigation comes congress federal agencies grapple regulate autonomous vehicles systems partially selfdriving systems significantly reduce crashes computerdriven vehicles also make mistakes tesla wouldnt say autopilot working time culver city crash said statement monday drivers must stay attentive use company would comment investigation mondays crash highway patrol said southbound tesla hit rear culver city firetruck parked angle carpool lane firefighters tended crash opposite side freeway truck unoccupied time injuries claimed anyone crash scene news release said model autopilot level 2 selfdriving scale 0 5 level 5 vehicles operate autonomously nearly circumstances level 2 automation systems generally limited use interstate highways dont intersections level 2 systems drivers supposed continuously monitor vehicle performance ready take control necessary florida crash killed ohio man driving tesla ntsb investigators found sedans cameras radar werent capable detecting vehicle turning path rather systems designed detect vehicles followed prevent rearend collisions ntsb reissued previous recommendations government require new cars trucks equipped technology wirelessly transmits vehicles location speed heading information vehicles order prevent collisions ntsb also recommended automakers develop systems make sure drivers pay attention using semiautonomous systems detecting pressure hands steering wheel driver florida crash hands sedans steering wheel 25 seconds 375 minutes vehicles cruise control lanekeeping systems use prior crash investigators found tesla taken steps prevent drivers using autopilot improperly including measuring amount torque applied steering wheel sending visual audio warnings warnings ignored drivers would prevented using autopilot company said nhtsa regulates auto safety declined last year issue recall fine tesla result crash warned automakers arent treat semiautonomous cars fully selfdriving ____ associated press writer joan lowy contributed washington
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<p>Michael Tafoya describes his confrontation with Rio Arriba County Sheriff Tommy Rodella on March 11. His complaints apparently have led to an investigation by the FBI. (Eddie Moore/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>SANTA FE – It was a tough several hours for Rio Arriba County Sheriff Tommy Rodella.</p>
<p>Late returns Tuesday night showed Rodella had lost his Democratic primary race for a second term as sheriff to a former deputy whom he had fired in 2012. Around 6 a.m. Wednesday, FBI agents showed up to search his Española area home.</p>
<p>This search, the second since last summer by federal agents targeting Rodella or his sheriff’s office, apparently was sparked by Rodella’s arrest of a motorist in March.</p>
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<p>By Rodella’s account in court documents, the sheriff spotted a reckless driver while driving with his adult son, ended up in a vehicle pursuit and was almost run over by the driver before Rodella was able to make the arrest only after getting in a struggle with the driver over the sheriff’s gun.</p>
<p>But the driver, Michael Tafoya, 26, in a Wednesday interview described a road rage incident where he was begging for his life after a man he didn’t know was the sheriff jumped into his car with a gun, and then a younger man, Rodella’s son, pulled him out and threw him to the ground.</p>
<p>“I thought he (the sheriff) was going to kill me,” said Tafoya, who said he works with disabled adults for the Easter Seals El Mirador nonprofit. “I thought they were going to execute me right there.”</p>
<p>Tafoya said the son finally told him, “Don’t you realize he’s the sheriff?” When he asked to see a badge, Rodella shoved his badge in Tafoya’s face and said, “Here’s my badge, (expletive),” according to Tafoya. Tafoya was arrested on felony charges.</p>
<p>Tafoya said he went to the FBI about the incident after first trying to get a news organization interested in the story. The FBI suggested he file an internal affairs complaint with Rio Arriba County. After he “got the runaround” while trying to do that, he called the FBI back “and they heard me out,” Tafoya said.</p>
<p>The FBI on Wednesday confirmed the search of Rodella’s home but would only say that it was “in connection with an ongoing federal investigation.” Jake Arnold, Rodella’s spokesman, said the FBI raid was in connection with Tafoya’s arrest.</p>
<p>Arnold wouldn’t say more about the search or Rodella’s upset election loss to ex-deputy James D. Lujan, who filed a wrongful termination suit after his firing by the sheriff. The suit was settled for $102,500.</p>
<p>In August, the FBI searched the sheriff’s office in Española after news reports that Rodella’s staff was accepting donations for charities, including a scholarship fund managed by Rodella, in lieu of prosecuting some traffic offenses.</p>
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<p>A Rio Arriba County spokeswoman said at the time it was the county government’s understanding that the FBI was investigating allegations that citations may have been unlawfully dismissed. The sheriff’s office produced a form that allowed voluntary donations in a “pre-prosecution diversion” program and said the idea had the approval of state court officials.</p>
<p>No charges or other details have ever emerged from that case.</p>
<p>Different accounts</p>
<p>According to Rodella’s account of Tafoya’s March 11 arrest, contained in a case file document, Rodella was a passenger in a Jeep Wrangler driven by his son on State Road 399 about 5:15 p.m. when a green Mazda</p>
<p>RODELLA: Lost primary election to former deputy</p>
<p>pulled onto the road and almost caused a collision.</p>
<p>The sheriff said he then saw the Mazda almost hit another vehicle. Rodella said that when he and his son “came upon” the Mazda, which apparently had stopped, he got out and showed his badge and the Mazda driver, whom he identified as Tafoya, “waved me towards him” but then accelerated at Rodella and drove off.</p>
<p>He said he told his son to follow at a safe distance. The car sped over speed bumps on side roads, then came to a dead end and Rodella had his son block off the car. Rodella said he approached showing his badge and asked Tafoya to get out, but the driver accelerated and the car slid. Rodella said he approached again, continuing to identify himself, but Tafoya managed to again come at him at high speed. Rodella said he was nearly hit before the car came to a stop against a “metal casing.”</p>
<p>He got to the passenger side of the Mazda and, concerned for his life and others as the cars’ wheels spun, drew his gun and ordered the driver to get out. Rodella said he jumped through an open passenger-side window and the driver grabbed the gun with both hands. He head-butted the driver and had his son help get him out of the car.</p>
<p>Tafoya’s account is dramatically different. He said he pulled out onto the highway from his grandmother’s house and a Jeep started tailgating him. After a distance, Tafoya said, he pulled to the side of the road, got out of the car and raised his hands as if to say, “What’s going on?” He said the unmarked Jeep backed up and two men, one younger and one older, got out and said “come on” and made motions urging him to fight.</p>
<p>That’s when he sped away, Tafoya said. The chase ended when he pulled into a yard, hoping his pursuers would think it was his home, he said. After he struck a pole, the armed man, who turned out to be Rodella, jumped into his car and that’s when, Tafoya said, he began begging for his life. “He kept telling me it was too late,” Tafoya said. He claimed Rodella’s son Thomas Jr. pulled him out of the car and threw him to ground.</p>
<p>An investigating deputy spoke to a jogger who said he also had to jump out of the way of the Mazda as it sped down a dirt road pursued by a Jeep and that he also saw Rodella almost get run over by the Mazda, according to a deputy’s report.</p>
<p>Tafoya was charged with resisting, evading or obstructing an officer; aggravated assault on a peace officer and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, his car. The charges were “dismissed by prosecutor” on March 26 but without prejudice, meaning they could be refiled. Felonies often are dismissed in magistrate court and refiled in District Court.</p>
<p>Tafoya said he received a black eye and an injured thumb from the tussle, but didn’t see a doctor because he has no health insurance. Tafoya said he’s never been in serious trouble, wants his name cleared and wants the charges removed. “I want my life back,” he said. “I want people to see that what he did to me was extremely wrong.”</p>
<p>Election results</p>
<p>According to unofficial totals from Tuesday’s voting, Rodella – husband of state Rep. Debbie Rodella – lost to his former deputy Lujan by 200 votes, 2,932 to 2,732. Former sheriff Joe Mascarenas came in third.</p>
<p>Barring a challenge, the election results end Rodella’s latest stint in public life. In his prior roles, he often faced controversy. As a State Police officer, he was disciplined for marijuana use and was found to have used his position for personal gain.</p>
<p>In 2005, he was appointed magistrate judge by then-Gov. Bill Richardson, only to resign amid controversy about the release of a DWI suspect. Rodella returned to the bench when he was elected magistrate in 2006, but the state Supreme Court later removed him as judge for several alleged infractions. He won a seven-candidate race for sheriff in 2010.</p>
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michael tafoya describes confrontation rio arriba county sheriff tommy rodella march 11 complaints apparently led investigation fbi eddie moorealbuquerque journal santa fe tough several hours rio arriba county sheriff tommy rodella late returns tuesday night showed rodella lost democratic primary race second term sheriff former deputy fired 2012 around 6 wednesday fbi agents showed search española area home search second since last summer federal agents targeting rodella sheriffs office apparently sparked rodellas arrest motorist march advertisement rodellas account court documents sheriff spotted reckless driver driving adult son ended vehicle pursuit almost run driver rodella able make arrest getting struggle driver sheriffs gun driver michael tafoya 26 wednesday interview described road rage incident begging life man didnt know sheriff jumped car gun younger man rodellas son pulled threw ground thought sheriff going kill said tafoya said works disabled adults easter seals el mirador nonprofit thought going execute right tafoya said son finally told dont realize hes sheriff asked see badge rodella shoved badge tafoyas face said heres badge expletive according tafoya tafoya arrested felony charges tafoya said went fbi incident first trying get news organization interested story fbi suggested file internal affairs complaint rio arriba county got runaround trying called fbi back heard tafoya said fbi wednesday confirmed search rodellas home would say connection ongoing federal investigation jake arnold rodellas spokesman said fbi raid connection tafoyas arrest arnold wouldnt say search rodellas upset election loss exdeputy james lujan filed wrongful termination suit firing sheriff suit settled 102500 august fbi searched sheriffs office española news reports rodellas staff accepting donations charities including scholarship fund managed rodella lieu prosecuting traffic offenses advertisement rio arriba county spokeswoman said time county governments understanding fbi investigating allegations citations may unlawfully dismissed sheriffs office produced form allowed voluntary donations preprosecution diversion program said idea approval state court officials charges details ever emerged case different accounts according rodellas account tafoyas march 11 arrest contained case file document rodella passenger jeep wrangler driven son state road 399 515 pm green mazda rodella lost primary election former deputy pulled onto road almost caused collision sheriff said saw mazda almost hit another vehicle rodella said son came upon mazda apparently stopped got showed badge mazda driver identified tafoya waved towards accelerated rodella drove said told son follow safe distance car sped speed bumps side roads came dead end rodella son block car rodella said approached showing badge asked tafoya get driver accelerated car slid rodella said approached continuing identify tafoya managed come high speed rodella said nearly hit car came stop metal casing got passenger side mazda concerned life others cars wheels spun drew gun ordered driver get rodella said jumped open passengerside window driver grabbed gun hands headbutted driver son help get car tafoyas account dramatically different said pulled onto highway grandmothers house jeep started tailgating distance tafoya said pulled side road got car raised hands say whats going said unmarked jeep backed two men one younger one older got said come made motions urging fight thats sped away tafoya said chase ended pulled yard hoping pursuers would think home said struck pole armed man turned rodella jumped car thats tafoya said began begging life kept telling late tafoya said claimed rodellas son thomas jr pulled car threw ground investigating deputy spoke jogger said also jump way mazda sped dirt road pursued jeep also saw rodella almost get run mazda according deputys report tafoya charged resisting evading obstructing officer aggravated assault peace officer aggravated assault deadly weapon car charges dismissed prosecutor march 26 without prejudice meaning could refiled felonies often dismissed magistrate court refiled district court tafoya said received black eye injured thumb tussle didnt see doctor health insurance tafoya said hes never serious trouble wants name cleared wants charges removed want life back said want people see extremely wrong election results according unofficial totals tuesdays voting rodella husband state rep debbie rodella lost former deputy lujan 200 votes 2932 2732 former sheriff joe mascarenas came third barring challenge election results end rodellas latest stint public life prior roles often faced controversy state police officer disciplined marijuana use found used position personal gain 2005 appointed magistrate judge thengov bill richardson resign amid controversy release dwi suspect rodella returned bench elected magistrate 2006 state supreme court later removed judge several alleged infractions sevencandidate race sheriff 2010
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<p>(Russ Ball/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>Recent news that computer giant Intel is shedding up to 400 jobs from its Rio Rancho plant has left some local businesses feeling jittery as they anticipate a drop in employee spending on things like lunches and car maintenance.</p>
<p>A Rio Rancho councilor who represents the area surrounding the Intel plant said he’s been hearing from constituents who are nervous about the company’s intentions. Councilor Tim Crum said he’s even heard rumors about the plant closing.</p>
<p>“I don’t buy into that,” Crum said.</p>
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<p>But he’s concerned, saying, “Intel is a very important component in our economy.”</p>
<p>Intel has soundly rejected any rumor that it might be leaving Rio Rancho.</p>
<p>“There is no validity to that. No truth to that. We are always pre-positioning ourselves for investment and future growth of the site,” Intel’s spokeswoman in Rio Rancho Natasha Martell Jackson said last week.</p>
<p>Other city and state officials say they are confident the company will remain as a linchpin of the Rio Rancho economy.</p>
<p>“There is no intention for them to go anywhere,” said Mayor Tom Swisstack, adding that the Rio Rancho plant is “the most productive plant in their system.”</p>
<p>Martell Jackson did not comment directly on Swisstack’s claim but said in an email, “Intel’s New Mexico site is a vital part of the company’s 300mm global manufacturing network and will continue to produce some of Intel’s most popular products on the market.”</p>
<p>Jon Barela, cabinet secretary for the state Economic Development Department, said products from the Rio Rancho plant are “crucial to Intel’s strategy and its success. Intel has invested billions of capital in New Mexico, and we look forward to Intel staying and evolving its business in the state.”</p>
<p>Intel warned of the staff reduction in September. About two weeks ago, the company began notifying those who would be laid off.</p>
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<p>Crum worries about the effect the change may have on the city’s gross receipts tax revenue.</p>
<p>It’s unclear how soon the impact will be felt.</p>
<p>Martell Jackson said those affected by the “redeployment” will continue receiving salary for two months while they look for another job. She said there was no specific start date for that two-month period.</p>
<p>Opened in 1980</p>
<p>Intel opened its Rio Rancho in 1980 with around 25 employees and grew by stages. As recently as 2005, it had 5,300 workers.</p>
<p>In 2007, the company laid off 1,000 workers, citing increased automation and an industrywide switch to a new type of computer chips. The latest workforce reduction will take the workforce from 3,300 to around 2,900. Intel said it was part of a companywide restructuring to stay competitive in a changing market for computers and mobile devices.</p>
<p>Martell Jackson said the company does not disclose salary information. But, according to the latest estimates, Intel spends $300 million annually with New Mexico businesses, she said.</p>
<p>For local businesses that surround the Rio Rancho plant, that translates into plant employees spending their paycheck money on essentials like the sandwich for lunch, the tune-up job on the commuter car and the routine oil change.</p>
<p>Mike Griego, manager at the Jiffy Lube at 2400 Rio Rancho Blvd. on the southern border of the Intel complex, estimates about 15 percent of his business currently comes from folks who work at the chip-making plant. His shop offers them a 15 percent discount on services.</p>
<p>Across the street from the plant, Kevin Shelton, manager at the Subway at 1751 Rio Rancho Blvd., said about 40 percent of their total business comes from Intel employees.</p>
<p>“Our lunch time is basically Intel,” Shelton said in a recent interview.</p>
<p>A few doors north, Pizza 9 manager Lulu Sanchez says groups of Intel employees regularly drop in for lunch and night-shift workers stop in during the evening.</p>
<p>They also do a brisk trade in party packs, with orders worth $200 to $400, especially during the holiday season, she said.</p>
<p>Aldo’s New York Style Pizzeria, formerly Venezia’s Pizzeria, just north of Intel, also serves lunches and dinners, and caters for company meetings. Owner Aldo Venturino said business dropped noticeably after layoffs in 2007.</p>
<p>“We did feel a big hit in our numbers,” Venturino said. “If they frequent you for lunch and feed their family for dinner once or twice a week it’s a lot bigger toll.”</p>
<p>Intel has made its mark through volunteer and civic engagement, too.</p>
<p>Martell Jackson said a recent United Way campaign netted $2 million in employee donations. The company also sponsors seminars for the Rio Rancho Regional Chamber of Commerce.</p>
<p>“Intel is an enormous civic supporter of our schools and a business education sponsor,” said Chamber Chairman Clay Holderman.</p>
<p>In nearby Corrales, Mayor Phil Gasteyer said Intel volunteers operated a program that supplies composted material from the company cafeteria to the village, which uses it to fertilize grass on community soccer fields. The company has also donated surplus pumps and tanks to the Corrales fire department.</p>
<p>“They most certainly have been good corporate neighbors,” Gasteyer said.</p>
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russ ballalbuquerque journal recent news computer giant intel shedding 400 jobs rio rancho plant left local businesses feeling jittery anticipate drop employee spending things like lunches car maintenance rio rancho councilor represents area surrounding intel plant said hes hearing constituents nervous companys intentions councilor tim crum said hes even heard rumors plant closing dont buy crum said advertisement hes concerned saying intel important component economy intel soundly rejected rumor might leaving rio rancho validity truth always prepositioning investment future growth site intels spokeswoman rio rancho natasha martell jackson said last week city state officials say confident company remain linchpin rio rancho economy intention go anywhere said mayor tom swisstack adding rio rancho plant productive plant system martell jackson comment directly swisstacks claim said email intels new mexico site vital part companys 300mm global manufacturing network continue produce intels popular products market jon barela cabinet secretary state economic development department said products rio rancho plant crucial intels strategy success intel invested billions capital new mexico look forward intel staying evolving business state intel warned staff reduction september two weeks ago company began notifying would laid advertisement crum worries effect change may citys gross receipts tax revenue unclear soon impact felt martell jackson said affected redeployment continue receiving salary two months look another job said specific start date twomonth period opened 1980 intel opened rio rancho 1980 around 25 employees grew stages recently 2005 5300 workers 2007 company laid 1000 workers citing increased automation industrywide switch new type computer chips latest workforce reduction take workforce 3300 around 2900 intel said part companywide restructuring stay competitive changing market computers mobile devices martell jackson said company disclose salary information according latest estimates intel spends 300 million annually new mexico businesses said local businesses surround rio rancho plant translates plant employees spending paycheck money essentials like sandwich lunch tuneup job commuter car routine oil change mike griego manager jiffy lube 2400 rio rancho blvd southern border intel complex estimates 15 percent business currently comes folks work chipmaking plant shop offers 15 percent discount services across street plant kevin shelton manager subway 1751 rio rancho blvd said 40 percent total business comes intel employees lunch time basically intel shelton said recent interview doors north pizza 9 manager lulu sanchez says groups intel employees regularly drop lunch nightshift workers stop evening also brisk trade party packs orders worth 200 400 especially holiday season said aldos new york style pizzeria formerly venezias pizzeria north intel also serves lunches dinners caters company meetings owner aldo venturino said business dropped noticeably layoffs 2007 feel big hit numbers venturino said frequent lunch feed family dinner twice week lot bigger toll intel made mark volunteer civic engagement martell jackson said recent united way campaign netted 2 million employee donations company also sponsors seminars rio rancho regional chamber commerce intel enormous civic supporter schools business education sponsor said chamber chairman clay holderman nearby corrales mayor phil gasteyer said intel volunteers operated program supplies composted material company cafeteria village uses fertilize grass community soccer fields company also donated surplus pumps tanks corrales fire department certainly good corporate neighbors gasteyer said
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<p>* India terminated over 50 bilateral investment treaties in March</p>
<p>* India in talks to renegotiate treaties with dozens of nations</p>
<p>* Many fear new treaty offers little protection to investors</p>
<p>By Aditi Shah</p>
<p>NEW DELHI, Jan 19 (Reuters) - Having cancelled investment treaties with about 50 foreign governments last year, India is struggling to convince some to accept new terms that make it harder to seek international arbitration for disputes, sources familiar with the talks said.</p>
<p>From New Delhi’s perspective those treaties, mainly struck in the 1990s when it was desperate for foreign capital, left it too exposed to potential claims awarded by international arbitrators.</p>
<p>To reduce that exposure, India has drafted a new model agreement that legal advisors say is similar to those used by other big emerging market economies like Brazil and Indonesia, but some of its foreign partners are baulking at the more restrictive approach.</p>
<p>“India is getting nowhere with the negotiations,” said one of the sources, who is aware of the meetings with government officials over the past 10 months, but does not want to be named as the discussions are private.</p>
<p>Negotiators from countries including Australia, Iran and the European Union have told the Indian side that investors are waiting to come in but the new treaty terms give too little protection, the source said.</p>
<p>Foremost among their concerns are a requirement for investors to fight any case in the Indian courts for at least five years before going for international arbitration, and other provisions narrowing the scope for companies to make claims, the source said.</p>
<p>The new model treaty also has no provision for investors to bring claims against India for any tax-related matters and for disputes arising due to actions taken by local governments.</p>
<p>Currently, India is entangled in more than 20 international arbitration cases, and could end up paying billions of dollars in damages if it loses.</p>
<p>Companies like Vodafone Group, Cairn Energy and Deutsche Telekom have initiated arbitration proceedings against India seeking to protect their investments against retrospective tax claims and cancellation of contracts.</p>
<p>Covered by a bilateral trade and investment agreement between New Delhi and Tokyo, Japanese automaker Nissan is the latest company to sue India, claiming damages of over $770 million in unpaid tax incentives.</p>
<p>While several countries limit the type of tax-related claims that can be made, lawyers say India’s step to omit all tax matters goes too far and could expose investors to sudden changes in tax rules or retrospective claims.</p> NEGOTIATING POSITION
<p>These days, India appears to be in a far stronger negotiating position than it was during the 1991 balance of payments crisis. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has a strong mandate and there is more confidence in the ability of his pro-business government to get the under-achieving economy moving than there has been in any of its predecessors.</p>
<p>Since Modi came to power in 2014, annual foreign direct investment flows into India have doubled to $46 billion in 2016 from $22 billion in 2013. But the rate of growth in inflows is slowing, and the amount is lower than the $59 billion that a U.N. report says Brazil received in 2016.</p>
<p>A European Commission official termed India’s unilateral decision to terminate treaties as “unfortunate” saying it discriminates between existing investors, who will continue to be protected by the old treaties for a few years after termination, and new ones who will have fewer safeguards.</p>
<p>The Commission is exploring ways to re-establish protection for European investors and resume negotiations on a free trade agreement with India that will include investment, the source said.</p>
<p>Canada has been in talks with India since 2004 to sign its first treaty, but there has been little progress and its trade minister told Reuters in November that Canadian investors are holding back until there is one in place.</p>
<p>“India needs further investments and Canada is willing, but we need a framework. What investors want is to have certainty, stability and predictability,” Francois-Philippe Champagne said in Mumbai during his visit to India as part of a trade mission.</p>
<p>While the sources told Reuters that Australian and Iranian officials had raised concerns in private meetings with Indian counterparts, neither the Australian High Commission in New Delhi or Iran’s ministry of industry, mines and trade responded to emailed requests for comment.</p>
<p>A spokesman at India’s ministry of external affairs also failed to respond to an email seeking comment.</p>
<p>Meantime, some countries, especially those that receive more investment from India than they send, are more open to signing, said the first source. Israel, for instance, does not oppose some of the provisions and the two nations could soon sign an accord, Business Standard, an Indian newspaper, reported on Wednesday.</p>
<p>And while India remains a capital deficient country, some of its biggest companies have made major investments overseas and would be reassured if there were bilateral treaties in place to protect their interests.</p>
<p>For now, the draft model treaty is a starting point for negotiations, the second source said, but India is in a good position to press for better terms.</p>
<p>“India is finally flexing its muscles,” he said. (Additional reporting by Phil Blenkinsop in Brussels, Bozorg Sharafedin in London and Colin Packham in Sydney; Editing by Euan Rocha and Simon Cameron-Moore)</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>OTTAWA (Reuters) - Kinder Morgan Canada ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=KML.TO" type="external">KML.TO</a>) on Sunday suspended most work on a C$7.4 billion ($5.8 billion) oil pipeline expansion that has become the focus of protests, a move underscoring uncertainty over major energy projects in Canada.</p> FILE PHOTO: Workers construct the Anchor Loop section of Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline expansion in Jasper National Park in a 2009 file photo. Kinder Morgan Canada/Handout/File Photo via REUTERS
<p>Company Chairman Steve Kean said he would scrap plans to nearly triple the capacity of the Trans Mountain pipeline, which takes crude from Alberta’s oil sands to a facility in the Pacific province of British Columbia, unless the various legal challenges could be resolved by May 31.</p>
<p>The announcement was a blow to the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, which approved the project and says it is in the national interest.</p>
<p>The project - considered crucial for an oil industry hit by transportation bottlenecks - is fiercely opposed by British Columbia’s left-leaning New Democratic government, many municipalities, some aboriginal groups, and environmental activists concerned about possible oil spills.</p>
<p>“We will be judicious in our use of shareholder funds. In keeping with that commitment, we have determined that in the current environment, we will not put KML shareholders at risk on the remaining project spend,” Kean said in a statement.</p>
<p>The firm is currently carrying out preliminary work and has not started construction.</p>
<p>Many in the energy industry are concerned about whether any new pipelines can be built in Canada, which sits on the world’s third largest proven reserves of crude and is the single largest exporter of energy to the United States.</p>
<p>Although the federal government has the power to approve major pipelines, the 10 provinces enjoy broad responsibility for resource development. That can result in deadlock when a province opposes a decision made by Ottawa.</p>
<p>“This is not good. I think the key point is it shows a lack of confidence in our political and regulatory system,” said Tim Pickering, president of Auspice Capital in Calgary, Alberta.</p>
<p>Last October, TransCanada Corp ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TRP.TO" type="external">TRP.TO</a>) abandoned its C$15.7 billion Energy East pipeline from Alberta to the Atlantic Coast amid mounting regulatory hurdles.</p> Slideshow (6 Images)
<p>The inability to get oil to ports for export means Canadian crude has been trading at a discount of up to $25 a barrel this year, costing Alberta’s heavy oil producers C$30 million to C$40 million in revenue per day.</p> ‘THIS PIPELINE WILL BE BUILT’
<p>Federal Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr said in a statement that “with all our partners, we continue to consider all available options.”</p>
<p>Alberta Premier Rachel Notley said she was very optimistic the project would go ahead and repeated calls on Trudeau’s government to do more to ensure it would be built.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=KML.TO" type="external">Kinder Morgan Canada Ltd</a> 18.44 KML.TO Toronto Stock Exchange +0.03 (+0.16%) KML.TO TRP.TO
<p>“Alberta is prepared to be an investor in the pipeline.</p>
<p>If we take that step, we will be a significantly more determined investor - this pipeline will be built,” she told reporters.</p>
<p>Trudeau visited the oil sands on Friday and reiterated the government’s determination that the expansion go ahead.</p>
<p>British Columbia’s government proposed environmental rules this year that were seen as a direct attack on the project.</p>
<p>It later edged back from a pledge to block increased shipments of crude oil through the province, which had sparked a trade war with Alberta.</p>
<p>“British Columbians expect their government to stand up for their interests and our coast, and to do everything we can to protect our land and waters, our coastal communities and our local economies,” Premier John Horgan said in a statement.</p>
<p>Mike Hudema, climate campaigner with Greenpeace Canada, said: “The writing is on the wall, and even Kinder Morgan can read it. Investors should note that the opposition to this project is strong, deep and gets bigger by the day.”</p>
<p>Additional reporting by Julie Gordon in Vancouver and Bhanu Pratap in Bengaluru; Editing by David Gregorio and Peter Cooney</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Adidas expects to close down stores in the coming years as part of a shift towards selling more goods online, its chief executive told a newspaper.</p> Adidas sport shoes are seen before the company's annual news conference in Herzogenaurach, Germany March 14, 2018. REUTERS/Michael Dalder
<p>In an interview with the Financial Times, Kasper Rorsted said “over time, we will have fewer stores but they will be better”, adding that over the coming year the number of Adidas stores was expected to contract slightly.</p>
<p>“Our website is the most important store we have in the world.”</p>
<p>Adidas, which wants to more than double its ecommerce sales to 4 billion euros ($4.91 billion) by 2020 from 1.6 billion last year, has 2,500 stores globally and 13,000 additional mono-branded franchise stores, the Financial Times said.</p>
<p>($1 = 0.8143 euros)</p>
<p>Reporting by Christoph Steitz; Editing by Andrew Roche</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>CHICAGO (Reuters) - Escalating tensions between the United States and China have triggered a flurry of U.S. soybean purchases by European buyers, in one of the first signs that trade tariff threats lobbed between the world’s top two economies are disrupting global commodity trade flows.</p> FILE PHOTO: Soybeans being sorted according to their weight and density on a gravity sorter machine at Peterson Farms Seed facility in Fargo, North Dakota, U.S., December 6, 2017. REUTERS/Dan Koeck/File Photo
<p>News of the sales, confirmed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Friday, helped to underpin benchmark Chicago Board of Trade soybean prices &lt;0#S:&gt; after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to slap tariffs on an additional $100 billion of Chinese goods.</p>
<p>The USDA said 458,000 tonnes of U.S. soybeans were sold to undisclosed destinations, which traders and grains analysts said included EU soybean processors such as the Netherlands and Germany.</p>
<p>If the entire volume is confirmed to be going to the European Union, it would be the largest one-off sale to the bloc in more than 15 years, according to USDA data. The USDA could not immediately be reached for comment.</p>
<p>“We’re seeing a realignment of trade,” largely because the politics is driving up Brazilian soybean prices, said Jack Scoville, analyst with the Price Futures Group.</p>
<p>Traders and analysts said the unusual trade flows were likely to continue in the near term, benefiting U.S. Gulf Coast shippers and likely hurting exporters in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, the No. 2 bulk grain outlet that relies heavily on Chinese demand.</p>
<p>Trade tensions between Washington and Beijing have rattled markets over the past week. Soybean prices tumbled by as much as 5 percent after China threatened to levy extra duties on U.S. shipments, though the market ultimately ended the week down about 1 percent.</p>
<p>The United States is the second-largest soybean exporter in the world after Brazil. China is by far the top buyer, importing about two-thirds of all soybeans traded globally.</p>
<p>The big U.S. soybean sales come at a time when U.S. shipments are traditionally costlier than newly harvested soybeans shipped from Brazil, the world’s biggest exporter.</p>
<p>But accelerated buying of Brazilian beans by Chinese importers, weary of potentially paying steep tariffs on U.S. purchases, has sent Brazilian export premiums to historic highs.</p>
<p>Near-term soybean shipments from Brazil peaked near 200 cents above CBOT May soybean futures SK8 before pulling back to around 170 cents over by the end of the week, traders said. U.S. Gulf Coast shipments, by comparison, were only around 90 cents a bushel above futures.</p>
<p>“The Brazilian beans are likely going to go to China in the short run and the U.S. beans are available. With what’s happened to the price spreads, U.S. beans are sort of on sale for these buyers,” said Jim Sutter, CEO of the U.S. Soybean Export Council.</p>
<p>Some of the sales announced by USDA on Friday were initially booked as Brazilian shipments, but were switched to cheaper U.S. beans when Brazil’s prices spiked, traders said.</p>
<p>“U.S. prices got exceedingly cheap compared to Brazil,” said a U.S. trader who asked not to be named. “Some of this is outright new business. Some of it is arbitraging away from Brazil.”</p>
<p>The current-season shipments are slated for loading from May to July, they said, typically the height of Brazil’s export season and a low point for U.S. shipments.</p>
<p>“I think we’ll see more (U.S.) selling to some destinations in volumes that we don’t ordinarily see, at least in the short term until the Brazilian basis calms down,” Scoville said.</p>
<p>Reporting by Karl Plume; Editing by Matthew Lewis</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia’s stock exchange expects an influx of foreign funds to smooth the listing of national oil firm Saudi Aramco, despite concern among some analysts about whether the market can absorb the huge offer, the exchange’s chief executive said on Sunday.</p> FILE PHOTO - Chief Executive Officer of the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) Khalid al-Hussan attends a signing ceremony with Japan Exchange Group (JPX) Chief Executive Officer Akira Kiyota (not in picture) at Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE), Japan March 14, 2017. REUTERS/Issei Kato
<p>“Foreign investors are putting in more money — every day we have improved liquidity capacity,” Khalid al-Hussan said in an interview.</p>
<p>The government has said it plans to sell about 5 percent of Aramco, hoping to raise some $100 billion or more in what is likely to be the world’s biggest initial public offer. Officials have said that in addition to Riyadh, Aramco may list on one or more foreign markets such as New York, London and Hong Kong.</p>
<p>Many private analysts think the $100 billion target is too ambitious, but even a $50 billion IPO could strain the Saudi market, which has a capitalization of about $500 billion — especially if the burden is not shared with a foreign exchange.</p>
<p>Saudi Arabia’s biggest IPO so far, the sale of a stake in National Commercial Bank 1180.SE in 2014, raised just $6 billion. In January this year, an advisory council to the government asked the securities regulator to study whether the Aramco sale might destabilize the market.</p>
<p>Hussan insisted, however, that from technical and regulatory perspectives, the Saudi exchange was fully prepared to handle the Aramco IPO, alone if necessary.</p>
<p>He noted that foreign investors were not permitted to buy shares directly in the National Commercial Bank offer. Now, rules have been changed to permit foreigners to take part in local IPOs.</p>
<p>Hussan also said last month’s decision by equity index compiler FTSE Russell to upgrade Saudi Arabia to emerging market status, and a similar decision which fund managers expect MSCI to make in June, would attract billions of dollars of fresh foreign money to the local market.</p>
<p>Regional investment bank EFG Hermes estimates Saudi Arabia could see fund inflows totaling $30 billion to $45 billion in the next two years if it reaches the foreign ownership levels of markets in neighboring United Arab Emirates and Qatar.</p>
<p>Some foreign money has started to enter the Saudi market in anticipation of a positive impact from the FTSE and MSCI decisions. Foreign investors, including qualified foreign institutions (QFIs), have been buyers of stocks every week this year, purchasing a net $2.17 billion, exchange data shows.</p> FILE PHOTO: Logo of Saudi Aramco is seen at the 20th Middle East Oil &amp; Gas Show and Conference (MOES 2017) in Manama, Bahrain, March 7, 2017. REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed/File Photo
<p>“What we have seen at the beginning of this year from foreign investor participation and the cash inflows and the number of registered QFIs in the market, gives us a very comfortable state,” Hussan said.</p>
<p>He did not comment on the timing of the Aramco IPO. Officials originally said it would take place by the end of 2018, but Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told Reuters last month that it could occur at the end of 2018 or in early 2019, depending on market conditions.</p>
<p>If Saudi officials are relying on foreign fund inflows to facilitate the Aramco IPO, they may be tempted to wait until early 2019.</p>
<p>“Passive” funds benchmarked to FTSE indexes will only enter Saudi Arabia when its upgrade takes effect, in stages between March 2019 and December that year. Similarly, if MSCI decides to upgrade Riyadh, the decision would probably only take effect in mid-2019.</p>
<p>Passive funds may account for roughly a third to a half of foreign mutual funds entering Saudi Arabia in the next couple of years, fund managers estimate.</p>
<p>Writing by Andrew Torchia, editing by Larry King</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
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india terminated 50 bilateral investment treaties march india talks renegotiate treaties dozens nations many fear new treaty offers little protection investors aditi shah new delhi jan 19 reuters cancelled investment treaties 50 foreign governments last year india struggling convince accept new terms make harder seek international arbitration disputes sources familiar talks said new delhis perspective treaties mainly struck 1990s desperate foreign capital left exposed potential claims awarded international arbitrators reduce exposure india drafted new model agreement legal advisors say similar used big emerging market economies like brazil indonesia foreign partners baulking restrictive approach india getting nowhere negotiations said one sources aware meetings government officials past 10 months want named discussions private negotiators countries including australia iran european union told indian side investors waiting come new treaty terms give little protection source said foremost among concerns requirement investors fight case indian courts least five years going international arbitration provisions narrowing scope companies make claims source said new model treaty also provision investors bring claims india taxrelated matters disputes arising due actions taken local governments currently india entangled 20 international arbitration cases could end paying billions dollars damages loses companies like vodafone group cairn energy deutsche telekom initiated arbitration proceedings india seeking protect investments retrospective tax claims cancellation contracts covered bilateral trade investment agreement new delhi tokyo japanese automaker nissan latest company sue india claiming damages 770 million unpaid tax incentives several countries limit type taxrelated claims made lawyers say indias step omit tax matters goes far could expose investors sudden changes tax rules retrospective claims negotiating position days india appears far stronger negotiating position 1991 balance payments crisis prime minister narendra modi strong mandate confidence ability probusiness government get underachieving economy moving predecessors since modi came power 2014 annual foreign direct investment flows india doubled 46 billion 2016 22 billion 2013 rate growth inflows slowing amount lower 59 billion un report says brazil received 2016 european commission official termed indias unilateral decision terminate treaties unfortunate saying discriminates existing investors continue protected old treaties years termination new ones fewer safeguards commission exploring ways reestablish protection european investors resume negotiations free trade agreement india include investment source said canada talks india since 2004 sign first treaty little progress trade minister told reuters november canadian investors holding back one place india needs investments canada willing need framework investors want certainty stability predictability francoisphilippe champagne said mumbai visit india part trade mission sources told reuters australian iranian officials raised concerns private meetings indian counterparts neither australian high commission new delhi irans ministry industry mines trade responded emailed requests comment spokesman indias ministry external affairs also failed respond email seeking comment meantime countries especially receive investment india send open signing said first source israel instance oppose provisions two nations could soon sign accord business standard indian newspaper reported wednesday india remains capital deficient country biggest companies made major investments overseas would reassured bilateral treaties place protect interests draft model treaty starting point negotiations second source said india good position press better terms india finally flexing muscles said additional reporting phil blenkinsop brussels bozorg sharafedin london colin packham sydney editing euan rocha simon cameronmoore standards thomson reuters trust principles ottawa reuters kinder morgan canada kmlto sunday suspended work c74 billion 58 billion oil pipeline expansion become focus protests move underscoring uncertainty major energy projects canada file photo workers construct anchor loop section kinder morgans trans mountain pipeline expansion jasper national park 2009 file photo kinder morgan canadahandoutfile photo via reuters company chairman steve kean said would scrap plans nearly triple capacity trans mountain pipeline takes crude albertas oil sands facility pacific province british columbia unless various legal challenges could resolved may 31 announcement blow liberal government prime minister justin trudeau approved project says national interest project considered crucial oil industry hit transportation bottlenecks fiercely opposed british columbias leftleaning new democratic government many municipalities aboriginal groups environmental activists concerned possible oil spills judicious use shareholder funds keeping commitment determined current environment put kml shareholders risk remaining project spend kean said statement firm currently carrying preliminary work started construction many energy industry concerned whether new pipelines built canada sits worlds third largest proven reserves crude single largest exporter energy united states although federal government power approve major pipelines 10 provinces enjoy broad responsibility resource development result deadlock province opposes decision made ottawa good think key point shows lack confidence political regulatory system said tim pickering president auspice capital calgary alberta last october transcanada corp trpto abandoned c157 billion energy east pipeline alberta atlantic coast amid mounting regulatory hurdles slideshow 6 images inability get oil ports export means canadian crude trading discount 25 barrel year costing albertas heavy oil producers c30 million c40 million revenue per day pipeline built federal natural resources minister jim carr said statement partners continue consider available options alberta premier rachel notley said optimistic project would go ahead repeated calls trudeaus government ensure would built kinder morgan canada ltd 1844 kmlto toronto stock exchange 003 016 kmlto trpto alberta prepared investor pipeline take step significantly determined investor pipeline built told reporters trudeau visited oil sands friday reiterated governments determination expansion go ahead british columbias government proposed environmental rules year seen direct attack project later edged back pledge block increased shipments crude oil province sparked trade war alberta british columbians expect government stand interests coast everything protect land waters coastal communities local economies premier john horgan said statement mike hudema climate campaigner greenpeace canada said writing wall even kinder morgan read investors note opposition project strong deep gets bigger day additional reporting julie gordon vancouver bhanu pratap bengaluru editing david gregorio peter cooney standards thomson reuters trust principles frankfurt reuters adidas expects close stores coming years part shift towards selling goods online chief executive told newspaper adidas sport shoes seen companys annual news conference herzogenaurach germany march 14 2018 reutersmichael dalder interview financial times kasper rorsted said time fewer stores better adding coming year number adidas stores expected contract slightly website important store world adidas wants double ecommerce sales 4 billion euros 491 billion 2020 16 billion last year 2500 stores globally 13000 additional monobranded franchise stores financial times said 1 08143 euros reporting christoph steitz editing andrew roche standards thomson reuters trust principles chicago reuters escalating tensions united states china triggered flurry us soybean purchases european buyers one first signs trade tariff threats lobbed worlds top two economies disrupting global commodity trade flows file photo soybeans sorted according weight density gravity sorter machine peterson farms seed facility fargo north dakota us december 6 2017 reutersdan koeckfile photo news sales confirmed us department agriculture friday helped underpin benchmark chicago board trade soybean prices lt0sgt us president donald trump threatened slap tariffs additional 100 billion chinese goods usda said 458000 tonnes us soybeans sold undisclosed destinations traders grains analysts said included eu soybean processors netherlands germany entire volume confirmed going european union would largest oneoff sale bloc 15 years according usda data usda could immediately reached comment seeing realignment trade largely politics driving brazilian soybean prices said jack scoville analyst price futures group traders analysts said unusual trade flows likely continue near term benefiting us gulf coast shippers likely hurting exporters us pacific northwest 2 bulk grain outlet relies heavily chinese demand trade tensions washington beijing rattled markets past week soybean prices tumbled much 5 percent china threatened levy extra duties us shipments though market ultimately ended week 1 percent united states secondlargest soybean exporter world brazil china far top buyer importing twothirds soybeans traded globally big us soybean sales come time us shipments traditionally costlier newly harvested soybeans shipped brazil worlds biggest exporter accelerated buying brazilian beans chinese importers weary potentially paying steep tariffs us purchases sent brazilian export premiums historic highs nearterm soybean shipments brazil peaked near 200 cents cbot may soybean futures sk8 pulling back around 170 cents end week traders said us gulf coast shipments comparison around 90 cents bushel futures brazilian beans likely going go china short run us beans available whats happened price spreads us beans sort sale buyers said jim sutter ceo us soybean export council sales announced usda friday initially booked brazilian shipments switched cheaper us beans brazils prices spiked traders said us prices got exceedingly cheap compared brazil said us trader asked named outright new business arbitraging away brazil currentseason shipments slated loading may july said typically height brazils export season low point us shipments think well see us selling destinations volumes dont ordinarily see least short term brazilian basis calms scoville said reporting karl plume editing matthew lewis standards thomson reuters trust principles riyadh reuters saudi arabias stock exchange expects influx foreign funds smooth listing national oil firm saudi aramco despite concern among analysts whether market absorb huge offer exchanges chief executive said sunday file photo chief executive officer saudi stock exchange tadawul khalid alhussan attends signing ceremony japan exchange group jpx chief executive officer akira kiyota picture tokyo stock exchange tse japan march 14 2017 reutersissei kato foreign investors putting money every day improved liquidity capacity khalid alhussan said interview government said plans sell 5 percent aramco hoping raise 100 billion likely worlds biggest initial public offer officials said addition riyadh aramco may list one foreign markets new york london hong kong many private analysts think 100 billion target ambitious even 50 billion ipo could strain saudi market capitalization 500 billion especially burden shared foreign exchange saudi arabias biggest ipo far sale stake national commercial bank 1180se 2014 raised 6 billion january year advisory council government asked securities regulator study whether aramco sale might destabilize market hussan insisted however technical regulatory perspectives saudi exchange fully prepared handle aramco ipo alone necessary noted foreign investors permitted buy shares directly national commercial bank offer rules changed permit foreigners take part local ipos hussan also said last months decision equity index compiler ftse russell upgrade saudi arabia emerging market status similar decision fund managers expect msci make june would attract billions dollars fresh foreign money local market regional investment bank efg hermes estimates saudi arabia could see fund inflows totaling 30 billion 45 billion next two years reaches foreign ownership levels markets neighboring united arab emirates qatar foreign money started enter saudi market anticipation positive impact ftse msci decisions foreign investors including qualified foreign institutions qfis buyers stocks every week year purchasing net 217 billion exchange data shows file photo logo saudi aramco seen 20th middle east oil amp gas show conference moes 2017 manama bahrain march 7 2017 reutershamad mohammedfile photo seen beginning year foreign investor participation cash inflows number registered qfis market gives us comfortable state hussan said comment timing aramco ipo officials originally said would take place end 2018 saudi crown prince mohammed bin salman told reuters last month could occur end 2018 early 2019 depending market conditions saudi officials relying foreign fund inflows facilitate aramco ipo may tempted wait early 2019 passive funds benchmarked ftse indexes enter saudi arabia upgrade takes effect stages march 2019 december year similarly msci decides upgrade riyadh decision would probably take effect mid2019 passive funds may account roughly third half foreign mutual funds entering saudi arabia next couple years fund managers estimate writing andrew torchia editing larry king standards thomson reuters trust principles
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<p>Today, that hopeful moment has been eclipsed by a one-day blitz of terrorist attacks in Kabul and two other cities on Jan. 10 that left 50 people dead. Two attacks were claimed by the Taliban. The third, an explosion at another gathering hosted by top officials in Kandahar, took the lives of five visiting Emirati diplomats. Amid outraged recriminations from United Arab Emirates officials, Afghan security agencies launched an investigation aided by NATO, and dozens of people were arrested this week.</p>
<p>The circumstances of that bombing remain murky, and the Taliban have repeatedly denied responsibility for the blast, in which sophisticated explosives were detonated remotely after being hidden in a sofa inside a highly secured official compound. The mystery set off a flurry of conspiracy theories pointing to Iran, Pakistan and factional disputes among Kandahari leaders.</p>
<p>Analysts and people in the government said Taliban militants were almost certainly behind the attack but had denied it because they did not intend to kill the visiting envoys, whose government has been a longtime mainstay of their financial and diplomatic support. Several officials described Taliban leaders as “panicked” after learning of a monumental blunder. The insurgents sent a delegation to the UAE this week to reassure officials they were not behind the attack.</p>
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<p>Whoever was responsible, the shocking act abruptly cut off the nascent peace feelers, reinforced predictions that Afghanistan faces another long, punishing season of combat and terrorism once winter ends, and created a growing sense of gloom among officials and political leaders. Some said they fear the insurgents will be able to wear down the divided Kabul government and outlast the foreign goodwill that provides 70 percent of its budget.</p>
<p>“This was not a message of war – it was a vicious and unforgivable crime,” said Abdul Hakim Mujahid, a former Taliban diplomat and member of the government’s High Peace Council. “There is still a tendency towards peace and reconciliation in the minds of the Taliban and the government, but there is a deep lack of trust, and how to build that is extremely difficult.”</p>
<p>Mujahid said the situation had become more “ambiguous and complicated” because of increased meddling in the Afghan conflict by foreign neighbors and regional powers. “New actors are emerging whose only purpose is to advance their own interests,” he said. “The way forward is very unclear.”</p>
<p>The spate of attacks came amid growing efforts by Russia and other governments to stake out new roles and relationships in the protracted Afghan war, with some even courting the Taliban. This trend, analysts said, has come largely in response to the interregnum vacuum in American leadership and policy toward Afghanistan, where Washington’s military and economic backing have been paramount for the past 15 years.</p>
<p>Russia, which had remained largely aloof from Afghan affairs since the disastrous Soviet military and political intervention that ended 28 years ago, has launched a high-profile initiative to reengage on its own terms, in part to counter Islamic State predations in Central Asia. Last month, Moscow convened a meeting with Pakistan and China to discuss the Afghan situation, without inviting any officials from Kabul.</p>
<p>Privately, the Kremlin has extended feelers to the Taliban, a former enemy that it sees as an antidote to the Islamic State and a potential future force in Afghan power; the Russian ambassador to Kabul was summoned by parliament last month to explain this outreach.</p>
<p>Afghan officials were also angered when Russia opposed a recent U.N. Security Council vote to drop anti-terrorism sanctions against Afghan former warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. The sanctions lift would allow him to return home under a peace deal that Afghan and U.S. officials hope will spur the Taliban to follow suit.</p>
<p>Pakistan, which has long sheltered Taliban leaders and sought to dominate the peace process, is scrambling to reassert that control and seek new foreign partners after finding itself increasingly isolated abroad. American officials blame Pakistan for sponsoring aggressive Taliban factions, and some Afghan officials publicly blamed Pakistan for orchestrating the Kandahar bombing. Officials said it was linked to several Islamic seminaries across the Pakistan border.</p>
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<p>Iran, which has long sought to establish a foothold for Shiite Islam in next-door Afghanistan, has also reached out to the extremist Sunni Taliban, inviting its representatives to a recent conference. In another role reversal, UAE officials, after years of providing a financial operating base and diplomatic outpost for the Taliban, have recently made high-profile offers of humanitarian aid to the Afghan state. The slain diplomats were in Kandahar on a mission to promote that aid.</p>
<p>“What we are seeing is like a political game of buzkashi,” the chaotic Afghan version of polo played with a goat carcass instead of a ball, said Timor Sharan, who represents the nonprofit International Crisis Group in Kabul. “Afghanistan is the goat, the American referee is missing, and the regional players are jockeying and maneuvering over where to put the goat to gain advantage for their interests.”</p>
<p>Sharan said he sees no hope for a revival of peace talks with the Taliban in the near future, in part because the insurgents are in a strong military position after months of aggressive attacks against key Afghan cities and in part because the government of President Ashraf Ghani, who faces ethnic rivalries inside and outside the government, and whose ethnic Pashtun base is in the same southern region as the Taliban’s, cannot afford to give up the fight.</p>
<p>“There is no incentive for peace now, and any talk of it is meaningless,” Sharan said. “Both sides are gearing up for serious offensives, and the situation is at a stalemate. Everyone agrees there is no military solution, but no one agrees on how to even structure a peaceful one, and Pakistan continues to benefit from the war. The Taliban can keep going for years.”</p>
<p>According to U.S. military estimates published in October, the government still controls 61 percent of Afghan territory, while 28 percent is contested and 10 percent is controlled by the Taliban. Some analysts say the amount of Taliban-dominated territory is larger, while the insurgents’ range and capacity for attack is virtually nationwide. Between October and December, the Long War Journal reported, the number of Taliban-dominated or contested districts increased from 70 to 97 of the 240 total.</p>
<p>Some former Taliban leaders and pro-Taliban analysts said the only major stumbling block to peace talks is the issue of American troops remaining in the country. The insurgents have demanded a firm timetable for their withdrawal and have insisted that this be negotiated with U.S. officials; the Obama administration rejected that idea, and it is unclear what position the Trump administration would take.</p>
<p>These figures allege that peace prospects are being sabotaged by some groups within Afghanistan that have economic or ethnic motives for keeping the conflict alive. But they also said they had been encouraged by recent statements of support for peace talks by numerous onetime domestic adversaries, including senior militia leaders.</p>
<p>Several people who attended the December outreach meeting in Kandahar said they felt especially optimistic afterward. They noted that provincial police chief Abdul Razik, a tough, legendary anti-Taliban fighter, had personally called for dialogue and offered protection to potential insurgent negotiators.</p>
<p>But Razik, who has faced numerous Taliban threats and attacks in the past, is believed to have been the intended target for the Jan. 10 bombing, along with other local security officials. He survived after suddenly leaving the room just before the explosion, spurring speculation that he might have been alerted or part of the plot, though people familiar with the investigation said he had stepped out to smoke a cigarette.</p>
<p>With the government guesthouse a charred ruin, and the deputy governor and five foreign diplomats among the dead, whatever positive momentum for peace had been generated in Kandahar last month suddenly seemed long gone.</p>
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today hopeful moment eclipsed oneday blitz terrorist attacks kabul two cities jan 10 left 50 people dead two attacks claimed taliban third explosion another gathering hosted top officials kandahar took lives five visiting emirati diplomats amid outraged recriminations united arab emirates officials afghan security agencies launched investigation aided nato dozens people arrested week circumstances bombing remain murky taliban repeatedly denied responsibility blast sophisticated explosives detonated remotely hidden sofa inside highly secured official compound mystery set flurry conspiracy theories pointing iran pakistan factional disputes among kandahari leaders analysts people government said taliban militants almost certainly behind attack denied intend kill visiting envoys whose government longtime mainstay financial diplomatic support several officials described taliban leaders panicked learning monumental blunder insurgents sent delegation uae week reassure officials behind attack advertisement whoever responsible shocking act abruptly cut nascent peace feelers reinforced predictions afghanistan faces another long punishing season combat terrorism winter ends created growing sense gloom among officials political leaders said fear insurgents able wear divided kabul government outlast foreign goodwill provides 70 percent budget message war vicious unforgivable crime said abdul hakim mujahid former taliban diplomat member governments high peace council still tendency towards peace reconciliation minds taliban government deep lack trust build extremely difficult mujahid said situation become ambiguous complicated increased meddling afghan conflict foreign neighbors regional powers new actors emerging whose purpose advance interests said way forward unclear spate attacks came amid growing efforts russia governments stake new roles relationships protracted afghan war even courting taliban trend analysts said come largely response interregnum vacuum american leadership policy toward afghanistan washingtons military economic backing paramount past 15 years russia remained largely aloof afghan affairs since disastrous soviet military political intervention ended 28 years ago launched highprofile initiative reengage terms part counter islamic state predations central asia last month moscow convened meeting pakistan china discuss afghan situation without inviting officials kabul privately kremlin extended feelers taliban former enemy sees antidote islamic state potential future force afghan power russian ambassador kabul summoned parliament last month explain outreach afghan officials also angered russia opposed recent un security council vote drop antiterrorism sanctions afghan former warlord gulbuddin hekmatyar sanctions lift would allow return home peace deal afghan us officials hope spur taliban follow suit pakistan long sheltered taliban leaders sought dominate peace process scrambling reassert control seek new foreign partners finding increasingly isolated abroad american officials blame pakistan sponsoring aggressive taliban factions afghan officials publicly blamed pakistan orchestrating kandahar bombing officials said linked several islamic seminaries across pakistan border advertisement iran long sought establish foothold shiite islam nextdoor afghanistan also reached extremist sunni taliban inviting representatives recent conference another role reversal uae officials years providing financial operating base diplomatic outpost taliban recently made highprofile offers humanitarian aid afghan state slain diplomats kandahar mission promote aid seeing like political game buzkashi chaotic afghan version polo played goat carcass instead ball said timor sharan represents nonprofit international crisis group kabul afghanistan goat american referee missing regional players jockeying maneuvering put goat gain advantage interests sharan said sees hope revival peace talks taliban near future part insurgents strong military position months aggressive attacks key afghan cities part government president ashraf ghani faces ethnic rivalries inside outside government whose ethnic pashtun base southern region talibans afford give fight incentive peace talk meaningless sharan said sides gearing serious offensives situation stalemate everyone agrees military solution one agrees even structure peaceful one pakistan continues benefit war taliban keep going years according us military estimates published october government still controls 61 percent afghan territory 28 percent contested 10 percent controlled taliban analysts say amount talibandominated territory larger insurgents range capacity attack virtually nationwide october december long war journal reported number talibandominated contested districts increased 70 97 240 total former taliban leaders protaliban analysts said major stumbling block peace talks issue american troops remaining country insurgents demanded firm timetable withdrawal insisted negotiated us officials obama administration rejected idea unclear position trump administration would take figures allege peace prospects sabotaged groups within afghanistan economic ethnic motives keeping conflict alive also said encouraged recent statements support peace talks numerous onetime domestic adversaries including senior militia leaders several people attended december outreach meeting kandahar said felt especially optimistic afterward noted provincial police chief abdul razik tough legendary antitaliban fighter personally called dialogue offered protection potential insurgent negotiators razik faced numerous taliban threats attacks past believed intended target jan 10 bombing along local security officials survived suddenly leaving room explosion spurring speculation might alerted part plot though people familiar investigation said stepped smoke cigarette government guesthouse charred ruin deputy governor five foreign diplomats among dead whatever positive momentum peace generated kandahar last month suddenly seemed long gone
| 769 |
<p>BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (AP) — Regulators in California, the country's third-largest oil-producing state, have authorized oil companies to inject production fluids and waste into what are now federally protected aquifers more than 2,500 times, risking contamination of underground water supplies that could be used for drinking water or irrigation, state records show.</p>
<p>While some of the permits go back decades, an Associated Press analysis found that nearly half of those injection wells — 46 percent — were permitted or began injection in the last four years under Gov. Jerry Brown, who has pushed state oil and gas regulators to speed up the permitting process. And it happened despite warnings from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency since 2011 that state regulators were failing to do enough to shield groundwater reserves from the threat of oilfield pollution.</p>
<p>In California, "we need a big course correction. We need to get the system back in compliance," said Jared Blumenfeld, regional administrator for the EPA. "Californians expect their water is not being polluted by oil producers ... This poses that very real danger."</p>
<p>The injections are convenient to oil companies because drilling brings up 13 gallons of wastewater for every gallon of petroleum. And one of the easiest disposal methods is simply to send that waste back underground.</p>
<p>The federal government is now demanding that state officials take immediate steps to find and deal with any contamination and end oil-industry operations in all aquifers set aside for families and farms.</p>
<p>Those water supplies are especially vital because California, the nation's most populous state and its agricultural leader, is now entering the fourth year of a historic drought.</p>
<p>State officials acknowledge that regulators erred, citing confusion about the boundaries of aquifers and oil fields or long-standing state misinterpretations of federal water-safety requirements. The vast majority of the permits were granted after the federal Safe Drinking Water Act in 1974.</p>
<p>For some of the permits, "we don't know how this got approved," said Jason Marshall, deputy director of the California Department of Conservation, which directly regulates the state's oil and gas industry.</p>
<p>In one case, regulators signed off on an application to inject wastewater into a federally protected aquifer, then realized their error and raced to the site.</p>
<p>"He had done injection for about 20 minutes," Marshall recalled. "We just said, 'Stop! You can't do that. Stop.'"</p>
<p>So far, state officials say they have no evidence of water contamination. But worries persist.</p>
<p>"The problem with just monitoring (for contaminants) is once you see it in the well, it's too late," said Timothy Parker, an independent Sacramento-based groundwater expert who has worked for the state Department of Water Resources and in the oil industry. "It's very difficult to clean up an aquifer once it's contaminated."</p>
<p>Over the summer, state oil and gas regulators sent the EPA lists of permits that allow oil companies to inject waste or production fluid into aquifers that were protected by the federal government. In December, the EPA gave the state until Friday to draft a plan for halting the practice and bringing the state into compliance with the 1974 Safe Drinking Water Act. The state has until 2017 to stop injections into any aquifer that has not been specifically designated for oil-industry waste disposal or drilling.</p>
<p>Officials are determined to both "manage the transition" back into compliance with federal law and to "maintain a robust oil industry," said Steve Bohlen, head of oil, gas and geothermal resources for the California Department of Conservation.</p>
<p>Of the 2,553 injection wells that the state has identified as risking contamination of protected aquifers, 1,172 were approved by the state or began injection in the last four years since Brown took office, according to state records. Marshall said Thursday that he believes the number in those years is actually lower than the records show, but the state does not know how much lower.</p>
<p>"We know our data has problems," he added.</p>
<p>Brown is a leading supporter of solar, wind and other renewable energy. But the Democratic governor has also supported tapping California's oil reserves.</p>
<p>In late 2011, Brown fired the state's top two oil-and-gas regulators after oil companies complained that their environmental reviews were slowing drilling permits. By early 2012, he was boasting of a double-digit jump in drilling-permit approvals as a result of those firings.</p>
<p>"The oil rigs are moving in Kern County. We want to use our resources ... our sun and all the other sources of power," Brown told a crowd in 2012 at the opening of a solar plant near Sacramento. "It's not going to be easy. There's going to be screw-ups. There's going to be bankruptcies. There'll be indictments, and there'll be deaths. But we're going to keep going."</p>
<p>Richard Stapler, spokesman for California's Natural Resources Agency, said neither the firings nor Brown's statements played a role in the hundreds of drilling permits granted for protected aquifers in his most recent term.</p>
<p>State officials said high oil prices earlier in the decade and a U.S. push for domestic oil production led to a surge in mistakenly granted permits.</p>
<p>"What we really want to do right now is make sure we're not currently impacting public health and to put safeguards in place to make sure this does not happen again, and then we can determine precisely how it occurred in the past," Stapler said.</p>
<p>Most of the permits were granted for drilling sites in central California's Kern County, one of the country's main oil-producing counties. Many of the injection wells are in oilfields thick with rigs, tanks and disposal wells. But others sit among citrus groves, row crops and homes.</p>
<p>The AP found more than 170 permits involved aquifers met both federal and state standards for potential drinking water. That included at least 27 permits that authorized injections into aquifers with water state documents rated clean enough to tap for drinking without treatment.</p>
<p>At issue are so-called Class II injection wells, used to inject high-pressure steam or other material underground to force up oil and gas or to dispose of water — often briny — and other waste that comes up with the oil.</p>
<p>California oil-and-gas industry wells bring up 13 barrels of water for every barrel of oil, and oil companies say having a way to dispose of the waste is essential to the industry.</p>
<p>The injected wastewater is often cleaner than the water already underground. Other times, the injections can include high concentrations of salt or other chemicals.</p>
<p>Industry representatives say any threat to underground water sources is minimal.</p>
<p>"It's not a crisis, not a wide-scale problem. I think the fact the (state) identified the issue, took action and is now seeking to remedy, suggests the system works pretty well," said Tupper Hull of the Western States Petroleum Association.</p>
<p>In an orchard within sight of a disposal wells shut down by the state, fourth-generation farmer Mike Hopkins ran a hand over his face and turned to compose himself when asked about the threat of oil-field wastewater to aquifers farmers use.</p>
<p>Hopkins said damage from injections forced him to pull up his cherry trees in 2013, and he has filed a lawsuit blaming the oil companies with fracking wells and other installations that ring his orchards. The companies deny responsibility.</p>
<p>"We're farmers," Hopkins said. Pulling up the withered fruit trees "broke our hearts."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press Writer Serdar Tumgoren in San Francisco contributed to this report.</p>
<p>BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (AP) — Regulators in California, the country's third-largest oil-producing state, have authorized oil companies to inject production fluids and waste into what are now federally protected aquifers more than 2,500 times, risking contamination of underground water supplies that could be used for drinking water or irrigation, state records show.</p>
<p>While some of the permits go back decades, an Associated Press analysis found that nearly half of those injection wells — 46 percent — were permitted or began injection in the last four years under Gov. Jerry Brown, who has pushed state oil and gas regulators to speed up the permitting process. And it happened despite warnings from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency since 2011 that state regulators were failing to do enough to shield groundwater reserves from the threat of oilfield pollution.</p>
<p>In California, "we need a big course correction. We need to get the system back in compliance," said Jared Blumenfeld, regional administrator for the EPA. "Californians expect their water is not being polluted by oil producers ... This poses that very real danger."</p>
<p>The injections are convenient to oil companies because drilling brings up 13 gallons of wastewater for every gallon of petroleum. And one of the easiest disposal methods is simply to send that waste back underground.</p>
<p>The federal government is now demanding that state officials take immediate steps to find and deal with any contamination and end oil-industry operations in all aquifers set aside for families and farms.</p>
<p>Those water supplies are especially vital because California, the nation's most populous state and its agricultural leader, is now entering the fourth year of a historic drought.</p>
<p>State officials acknowledge that regulators erred, citing confusion about the boundaries of aquifers and oil fields or long-standing state misinterpretations of federal water-safety requirements. The vast majority of the permits were granted after the federal Safe Drinking Water Act in 1974.</p>
<p>For some of the permits, "we don't know how this got approved," said Jason Marshall, deputy director of the California Department of Conservation, which directly regulates the state's oil and gas industry.</p>
<p>In one case, regulators signed off on an application to inject wastewater into a federally protected aquifer, then realized their error and raced to the site.</p>
<p>"He had done injection for about 20 minutes," Marshall recalled. "We just said, 'Stop! You can't do that. Stop.'"</p>
<p>So far, state officials say they have no evidence of water contamination. But worries persist.</p>
<p>"The problem with just monitoring (for contaminants) is once you see it in the well, it's too late," said Timothy Parker, an independent Sacramento-based groundwater expert who has worked for the state Department of Water Resources and in the oil industry. "It's very difficult to clean up an aquifer once it's contaminated."</p>
<p>Over the summer, state oil and gas regulators sent the EPA lists of permits that allow oil companies to inject waste or production fluid into aquifers that were protected by the federal government. In December, the EPA gave the state until Friday to draft a plan for halting the practice and bringing the state into compliance with the 1974 Safe Drinking Water Act. The state has until 2017 to stop injections into any aquifer that has not been specifically designated for oil-industry waste disposal or drilling.</p>
<p>Officials are determined to both "manage the transition" back into compliance with federal law and to "maintain a robust oil industry," said Steve Bohlen, head of oil, gas and geothermal resources for the California Department of Conservation.</p>
<p>Of the 2,553 injection wells that the state has identified as risking contamination of protected aquifers, 1,172 were approved by the state or began injection in the last four years since Brown took office, according to state records. Marshall said Thursday that he believes the number in those years is actually lower than the records show, but the state does not know how much lower.</p>
<p>"We know our data has problems," he added.</p>
<p>Brown is a leading supporter of solar, wind and other renewable energy. But the Democratic governor has also supported tapping California's oil reserves.</p>
<p>In late 2011, Brown fired the state's top two oil-and-gas regulators after oil companies complained that their environmental reviews were slowing drilling permits. By early 2012, he was boasting of a double-digit jump in drilling-permit approvals as a result of those firings.</p>
<p>"The oil rigs are moving in Kern County. We want to use our resources ... our sun and all the other sources of power," Brown told a crowd in 2012 at the opening of a solar plant near Sacramento. "It's not going to be easy. There's going to be screw-ups. There's going to be bankruptcies. There'll be indictments, and there'll be deaths. But we're going to keep going."</p>
<p>Richard Stapler, spokesman for California's Natural Resources Agency, said neither the firings nor Brown's statements played a role in the hundreds of drilling permits granted for protected aquifers in his most recent term.</p>
<p>State officials said high oil prices earlier in the decade and a U.S. push for domestic oil production led to a surge in mistakenly granted permits.</p>
<p>"What we really want to do right now is make sure we're not currently impacting public health and to put safeguards in place to make sure this does not happen again, and then we can determine precisely how it occurred in the past," Stapler said.</p>
<p>Most of the permits were granted for drilling sites in central California's Kern County, one of the country's main oil-producing counties. Many of the injection wells are in oilfields thick with rigs, tanks and disposal wells. But others sit among citrus groves, row crops and homes.</p>
<p>The AP found more than 170 permits involved aquifers met both federal and state standards for potential drinking water. That included at least 27 permits that authorized injections into aquifers with water state documents rated clean enough to tap for drinking without treatment.</p>
<p>At issue are so-called Class II injection wells, used to inject high-pressure steam or other material underground to force up oil and gas or to dispose of water — often briny — and other waste that comes up with the oil.</p>
<p>California oil-and-gas industry wells bring up 13 barrels of water for every barrel of oil, and oil companies say having a way to dispose of the waste is essential to the industry.</p>
<p>The injected wastewater is often cleaner than the water already underground. Other times, the injections can include high concentrations of salt or other chemicals.</p>
<p>Industry representatives say any threat to underground water sources is minimal.</p>
<p>"It's not a crisis, not a wide-scale problem. I think the fact the (state) identified the issue, took action and is now seeking to remedy, suggests the system works pretty well," said Tupper Hull of the Western States Petroleum Association.</p>
<p>In an orchard within sight of a disposal wells shut down by the state, fourth-generation farmer Mike Hopkins ran a hand over his face and turned to compose himself when asked about the threat of oil-field wastewater to aquifers farmers use.</p>
<p>Hopkins said damage from injections forced him to pull up his cherry trees in 2013, and he has filed a lawsuit blaming the oil companies with fracking wells and other installations that ring his orchards. The companies deny responsibility.</p>
<p>"We're farmers," Hopkins said. Pulling up the withered fruit trees "broke our hearts."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press Writer Serdar Tumgoren in San Francisco contributed to this report.</p>
| false | 2 |
bakersfield calif ap regulators california countrys thirdlargest oilproducing state authorized oil companies inject production fluids waste federally protected aquifers 2500 times risking contamination underground water supplies could used drinking water irrigation state records show permits go back decades associated press analysis found nearly half injection wells 46 percent permitted began injection last four years gov jerry brown pushed state oil gas regulators speed permitting process happened despite warnings us environmental protection agency since 2011 state regulators failing enough shield groundwater reserves threat oilfield pollution california need big course correction need get system back compliance said jared blumenfeld regional administrator epa californians expect water polluted oil producers poses real danger injections convenient oil companies drilling brings 13 gallons wastewater every gallon petroleum one easiest disposal methods simply send waste back underground federal government demanding state officials take immediate steps find deal contamination end oilindustry operations aquifers set aside families farms water supplies especially vital california nations populous state agricultural leader entering fourth year historic drought state officials acknowledge regulators erred citing confusion boundaries aquifers oil fields longstanding state misinterpretations federal watersafety requirements vast majority permits granted federal safe drinking water act 1974 permits dont know got approved said jason marshall deputy director california department conservation directly regulates states oil gas industry one case regulators signed application inject wastewater federally protected aquifer realized error raced site done injection 20 minutes marshall recalled said stop cant stop far state officials say evidence water contamination worries persist problem monitoring contaminants see well late said timothy parker independent sacramentobased groundwater expert worked state department water resources oil industry difficult clean aquifer contaminated summer state oil gas regulators sent epa lists permits allow oil companies inject waste production fluid aquifers protected federal government december epa gave state friday draft plan halting practice bringing state compliance 1974 safe drinking water act state 2017 stop injections aquifer specifically designated oilindustry waste disposal drilling officials determined manage transition back compliance federal law maintain robust oil industry said steve bohlen head oil gas geothermal resources california department conservation 2553 injection wells state identified risking contamination protected aquifers 1172 approved state began injection last four years since brown took office according state records marshall said thursday believes number years actually lower records show state know much lower know data problems added brown leading supporter solar wind renewable energy democratic governor also supported tapping californias oil reserves late 2011 brown fired states top two oilandgas regulators oil companies complained environmental reviews slowing drilling permits early 2012 boasting doubledigit jump drillingpermit approvals result firings oil rigs moving kern county want use resources sun sources power brown told crowd 2012 opening solar plant near sacramento going easy theres going screwups theres going bankruptcies therell indictments therell deaths going keep going richard stapler spokesman californias natural resources agency said neither firings browns statements played role hundreds drilling permits granted protected aquifers recent term state officials said high oil prices earlier decade us push domestic oil production led surge mistakenly granted permits really want right make sure currently impacting public health put safeguards place make sure happen determine precisely occurred past stapler said permits granted drilling sites central californias kern county one countrys main oilproducing counties many injection wells oilfields thick rigs tanks disposal wells others sit among citrus groves row crops homes ap found 170 permits involved aquifers met federal state standards potential drinking water included least 27 permits authorized injections aquifers water state documents rated clean enough tap drinking without treatment issue socalled class ii injection wells used inject highpressure steam material underground force oil gas dispose water often briny waste comes oil california oilandgas industry wells bring 13 barrels water every barrel oil oil companies say way dispose waste essential industry injected wastewater often cleaner water already underground times injections include high concentrations salt chemicals industry representatives say threat underground water sources minimal crisis widescale problem think fact state identified issue took action seeking remedy suggests system works pretty well said tupper hull western states petroleum association orchard within sight disposal wells shut state fourthgeneration farmer mike hopkins ran hand face turned compose asked threat oilfield wastewater aquifers farmers use hopkins said damage injections forced pull cherry trees 2013 filed lawsuit blaming oil companies fracking wells installations ring orchards companies deny responsibility farmers hopkins said pulling withered fruit trees broke hearts ___ associated press writer serdar tumgoren san francisco contributed report bakersfield calif ap regulators california countrys thirdlargest oilproducing state authorized oil companies inject production fluids waste federally protected aquifers 2500 times risking contamination underground water supplies could used drinking water irrigation state records show permits go back decades associated press analysis found nearly half injection wells 46 percent permitted began injection last four years gov jerry brown pushed state oil gas regulators speed permitting process happened despite warnings us environmental protection agency since 2011 state regulators failing enough shield groundwater reserves threat oilfield pollution california need big course correction need get system back compliance said jared blumenfeld regional administrator epa californians expect water polluted oil producers poses real danger injections convenient oil companies drilling brings 13 gallons wastewater every gallon petroleum one easiest disposal methods simply send waste back underground federal government demanding state officials take immediate steps find deal contamination end oilindustry operations aquifers set aside families farms water supplies especially vital california nations populous state agricultural leader entering fourth year historic drought state officials acknowledge regulators erred citing confusion boundaries aquifers oil fields longstanding state misinterpretations federal watersafety requirements vast majority permits granted federal safe drinking water act 1974 permits dont know got approved said jason marshall deputy director california department conservation directly regulates states oil gas industry one case regulators signed application inject wastewater federally protected aquifer realized error raced site done injection 20 minutes marshall recalled said stop cant stop far state officials say evidence water contamination worries persist problem monitoring contaminants see well late said timothy parker independent sacramentobased groundwater expert worked state department water resources oil industry difficult clean aquifer contaminated summer state oil gas regulators sent epa lists permits allow oil companies inject waste production fluid aquifers protected federal government december epa gave state friday draft plan halting practice bringing state compliance 1974 safe drinking water act state 2017 stop injections aquifer specifically designated oilindustry waste disposal drilling officials determined manage transition back compliance federal law maintain robust oil industry said steve bohlen head oil gas geothermal resources california department conservation 2553 injection wells state identified risking contamination protected aquifers 1172 approved state began injection last four years since brown took office according state records marshall said thursday believes number years actually lower records show state know much lower know data problems added brown leading supporter solar wind renewable energy democratic governor also supported tapping californias oil reserves late 2011 brown fired states top two oilandgas regulators oil companies complained environmental reviews slowing drilling permits early 2012 boasting doubledigit jump drillingpermit approvals result firings oil rigs moving kern county want use resources sun sources power brown told crowd 2012 opening solar plant near sacramento going easy theres going screwups theres going bankruptcies therell indictments therell deaths going keep going richard stapler spokesman californias natural resources agency said neither firings browns statements played role hundreds drilling permits granted protected aquifers recent term state officials said high oil prices earlier decade us push domestic oil production led surge mistakenly granted permits really want right make sure currently impacting public health put safeguards place make sure happen determine precisely occurred past stapler said permits granted drilling sites central californias kern county one countrys main oilproducing counties many injection wells oilfields thick rigs tanks disposal wells others sit among citrus groves row crops homes ap found 170 permits involved aquifers met federal state standards potential drinking water included least 27 permits authorized injections aquifers water state documents rated clean enough tap drinking without treatment issue socalled class ii injection wells used inject highpressure steam material underground force oil gas dispose water often briny waste comes oil california oilandgas industry wells bring 13 barrels water every barrel oil oil companies say way dispose waste essential industry injected wastewater often cleaner water already underground times injections include high concentrations salt chemicals industry representatives say threat underground water sources minimal crisis widescale problem think fact state identified issue took action seeking remedy suggests system works pretty well said tupper hull western states petroleum association orchard within sight disposal wells shut state fourthgeneration farmer mike hopkins ran hand face turned compose asked threat oilfield wastewater aquifers farmers use hopkins said damage injections forced pull cherry trees 2013 filed lawsuit blaming oil companies fracking wells installations ring orchards companies deny responsibility farmers hopkins said pulling withered fruit trees broke hearts ___ associated press writer serdar tumgoren san francisco contributed report
| 1,456 |
<p>Changfeng Energy Inc:</p>
<p>* CHANGFENG ANNOUNCES NATURAL GAS SUBSIDIARY ESTABLISHED IN HEBEI PROVINCE</p>
<p>* CHANGFENG ENERGY SAYS HEBEI RIHENG CLEAN ENERGY HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED TO PURSUE GAS DISTRIBUTION, CLEAN ENERGY RELATED PROJECTS IN HEBEI PROVINCE Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>THE HAGUE (Reuters) - The Dutch government said on Thursday it will phase out gas production at the Groningen field, once Europe’s largest, by 2030 as part of efforts to reduce the danger caused by small but damaging earthquakes.</p> FILE PHOTO - A view of a gas production plant is seen in 't Zand in Groningen February 24, 2015. REUTERS/Michael Kooren
<p>Production is set for 21.6 billion cubic meters (bcm) this year, already down from a peak of 53.8 bcm in 2013, following a series of cuts as decades of extraction have led to dozens of earthquakes each year, damaging thousands of homes and buildings.</p>
<p>“Our intention is (to cut production) to get towards 12 bcm in the coming four or five years, and to zero at the end of the coming decade,” Prime Minister Mark Rutte told a press conference.</p>
<p>A chart produced by the Dutch Economy Ministry showed production falling to below 20 bcm for the production year beginning October 2018, and to below 17.5 bcm for the 2019 year, assuming average temperatures.</p>
<p>Economy Minister Eric Wiebes confirmed there will be reductions in both years, but will not make his official decision on production until he has received advice on safety considerations this summer.</p>
<p>Wiebes said the cuts will be achieved in part by forcing large industrial users to seek other sources of energy by 2022. In addition, the Netherlands is building a conversion plant to make high-calorific foreign gas suitable for use in Dutch systems.</p>
<p>Foreign users of Dutch gas in Germany and Belgium will be encouraged to seek other sources, and their contracts not renewed, while Dutch households will be incentivized to reduce gas use and switch to non-gas heating systems.</p>
<p>Dutch wholesale prices at the TTF hub were little changed after the statement — both the summer 2018 and winter 2018 contracts were up less than one euro cent, trading at 18.23 euros per megawatt-hour (MWh) and 19.02 euros/MWh respectively.</p>
<p>“This is in the neutral to slightly bullish range,” said Oliver Sanderson, a Thomson Reuters gas analyst, of the government’s base case scenario. “Our view for this gas year (Oct 2017-Sept 2018) is around 19 bcm.</p>
<p>“However, the Groningen quota should continue to be seen as low and a general cause of price spikes in cold weather,” he said, noting that storages have been depleted after a cold 2018 winter.</p>
<p>The government said last month that it intended to cut production at the field from current levels of 21.6 bcm per year to 12 bcm as quickly as possible, after the country’s northern region was hit by the strongest earthquake in years in January.</p>
<p>Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg, Toby Sterling, Bart Meijer and Sabina Zawadzki; Editing by Susan Fenton</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>LONDON (Reuters) - A London court has indicated that it will give the green light to a group lawsuit by around 60,000 English car owners against Volkswagen ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=VOWG_p.DE" type="external">VOWG_p.DE</a>), Europe’s largest carmaker, over the “dieselgate” scandal.</p> FILE PHOTO: A flag of a Volkswagen VW car dealer is seen in Bochum, Germany March 16,2016. REUTERS/Ina Fassbender
<p>Lawyers for Slater and Gordon and Leigh Day said on Thursday</p>
<p>they had been awarded a joint legal lead in the lawsuit, which will be the largest in English legal history, subject to any further applications by other law firms.</p>
<p>Volkswagen (VW) has said about 11 million cars worldwide were fitted with software that cheated U.S. diesel emissions tests designed to limit noxious car fumes and carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution. About 1.2 million VW, Audi, Skoda and SEAT vehicles are affected in Britain.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=VOWG_p.DE" type="external">Volkswagen AG</a> 161.38 VOWG_p.DE Xetra +6.38 (+4.12%) VOWG_p.DE
<p>English lawyers are bringing a series of allegations, including that VW manufacturers defrauded drivers, that “defeat devices” - engine management software designed to mask pollution levels - broke EU rules, that a VW software fix has caused other problems with cars and that drivers overpaid for vehicles.</p>
<p>The German company denies the allegations and has said it will defend itself robustly. It says it broke no English laws, that drivers here suffered no loss and that the legal proceedings are premature and unfounded.</p>
<p>The court application for a so-called Group Litigation Order (GLO), a key step in the litigation, is expected to be finalised after the Easter break, a spokeswoman for one law firm said.</p>
<p>The first pre-trial hearing is expected in early 2019.</p>
<p>Reporting by Kirstin Ridley; Editing by Adrian Croft</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Walmart Inc launched a program on Thursday to help its Chinese suppliers cut emissions of climate-warming greenhouse gas by 50 million tonnes by the end of the next decade.</p> FILE PHOTO: Pedestrians walk past a signboard of Walmart at its branch store in Beijing, China, October 15, 2015. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon/File Photo
<p>The move is part of a bigger push by the U.S. retailing giant that aims to remove 1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide from its global value chain by the end of 2030, equivalent to taking 211 million vehicles off roads for a year.</p>
<p>Walmart said it had created a specific program for China that would begin with around 100 major Chinese suppliers and provide tools to measure emissions and set targets.</p>
<p>“We are working with our suppliers on areas such as energy efficiency, renewables, packaging, waste reduction, and thinking about areas like deforestation and improving energy efficiency,” said Laura Phillips, senior vice president for sustainability.</p>
<p>The company aims to eventually expand the program to its entire China supply chain.</p>
<p>Walmart has already enrolled 800 Chinese factories into an energy efficiency program launched in 2014, helping them cut costs by $40 million a year, said Bill Foudy, Walmart’s China-based vice president for global sourcing.</p>
<p>“It is often misunderstood that energy efficiency costs money, when we’ve found it to be the opposite,” he said.</p>
<p>China, the world’s biggest producer of greenhouse gas, aims to cut its energy intensity - or consumption per unit of economic growth - by 15 percent over the 2016-2020 period.</p>
<p>The country aims to bring carbon emissions to a peak by “around 2030”. It said this week that a target to cut carbon intensity by 40 percent to 45 percent over 2005-2020 had been met three years early.</p>
<p>(This version of the story corrects headline and first paragraph to show aggregate emissions to be cut, not annual emissions)</p>
<p>Reporting by David Stanway; editing by Richard Pullin</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany must do all it can to avert driving bans for diesel cars, the country’s new finance minister said in an interview published on Thursday, urging cities and local communities to boost investments in charging stations for electric cars.</p> German Finance Minister and Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz attends a news conference following his meeting with French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire in Paris, France March 16, 2018. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier
<p>In an interview with the Funke Mediengruppe newspaper chain, Olaf Scholz expressed scepticism that changes in taxation - for instance, scrapping tax breaks for diesel as a fuel - would speed moves by the car industry to introduce cleaner cars.</p>
<p>He also rejected calls for the government to offer financial incentives to get more clean-burning diesel cars on the road and bring down emissions in heavily polluted cities.</p>
<p>“It is the task of industry to develop vehicles that meet existing and future rules for clean air,” Scholz told the newspaper group, adding: “We must talk seriously about how we can get more electric cars or expand public transportation.”</p>
<p>Scholz, who owns a diesel car himself, said he shared other drivers’ concerns about limited access to certain areas in the future, if driving bans were imposed. “We must do all we can to prevent driving bans for diesel vehicles,” he said.</p>
<p>Instead, he said cities and local communities seeking to reduce overall emissions should build more charging stations to promote use of electric cars and buses, and the car industry should accelerate its work on clean car technologies.</p>
<p>“Industry must deliver now. It would be good if such a technological advance came from Germany.”</p>
<p>Scholz, a Social Democrat, joined conservative Transportation Minister Andreas Scheuer and Chancellor Angela Merkel in speaking out against comprehensive diesel driving bans.</p>
<p>Merkel last week told lawmakers she favored tailored solutions to bring down car emissions in heavily polluted cities.</p>
<p>Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Mark Potter</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
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changfeng energy inc changfeng announces natural gas subsidiary established hebei province changfeng energy says hebei riheng clean energy established pursue gas distribution clean energy related projects hebei province source text eikon company coverage standards thomson reuters trust principles hague reuters dutch government said thursday phase gas production groningen field europes largest 2030 part efforts reduce danger caused small damaging earthquakes file photo view gas production plant seen zand groningen february 24 2015 reutersmichael kooren production set 216 billion cubic meters bcm year already peak 538 bcm 2013 following series cuts decades extraction led dozens earthquakes year damaging thousands homes buildings intention cut production get towards 12 bcm coming four five years zero end coming decade prime minister mark rutte told press conference chart produced dutch economy ministry showed production falling 20 bcm production year beginning october 2018 175 bcm 2019 year assuming average temperatures economy minister eric wiebes confirmed reductions years make official decision production received advice safety considerations summer wiebes said cuts achieved part forcing large industrial users seek sources energy 2022 addition netherlands building conversion plant make highcalorific foreign gas suitable use dutch systems foreign users dutch gas germany belgium encouraged seek sources contracts renewed dutch households incentivized reduce gas use switch nongas heating systems dutch wholesale prices ttf hub little changed statement summer 2018 winter 2018 contracts less one euro cent trading 1823 euros per megawatthour mwh 1902 eurosmwh respectively neutral slightly bullish range said oliver sanderson thomson reuters gas analyst governments base case scenario view gas year oct 2017sept 2018 around 19 bcm however groningen quota continue seen low general cause price spikes cold weather said noting storages depleted cold 2018 winter government said last month intended cut production field current levels 216 bcm per year 12 bcm quickly possible countrys northern region hit strongest earthquake years january reporting stephanie van den berg toby sterling bart meijer sabina zawadzki editing susan fenton standards thomson reuters trust principles london reuters london court indicated give green light group lawsuit around 60000 english car owners volkswagen vowg_pde europes largest carmaker dieselgate scandal file photo flag volkswagen vw car dealer seen bochum germany march 162016 reutersina fassbender lawyers slater gordon leigh day said thursday awarded joint legal lead lawsuit largest english legal history subject applications law firms volkswagen vw said 11 million cars worldwide fitted software cheated us diesel emissions tests designed limit noxious car fumes carbon dioxide co2 pollution 12 million vw audi skoda seat vehicles affected britain volkswagen ag 16138 vowg_pde xetra 638 412 vowg_pde english lawyers bringing series allegations including vw manufacturers defrauded drivers defeat devices engine management software designed mask pollution levels broke eu rules vw software fix caused problems cars drivers overpaid vehicles german company denies allegations said defend robustly says broke english laws drivers suffered loss legal proceedings premature unfounded court application socalled group litigation order glo key step litigation expected finalised easter break spokeswoman one law firm said first pretrial hearing expected early 2019 reporting kirstin ridley editing adrian croft standards thomson reuters trust principles shanghai reuters walmart inc launched program thursday help chinese suppliers cut emissions climatewarming greenhouse gas 50 million tonnes end next decade file photo pedestrians walk past signboard walmart branch store beijing china october 15 2015 reuterskim kyunghoonfile photo move part bigger push us retailing giant aims remove 1 billion tonnes carbon dioxide global value chain end 2030 equivalent taking 211 million vehicles roads year walmart said created specific program china would begin around 100 major chinese suppliers provide tools measure emissions set targets working suppliers areas energy efficiency renewables packaging waste reduction thinking areas like deforestation improving energy efficiency said laura phillips senior vice president sustainability company aims eventually expand program entire china supply chain walmart already enrolled 800 chinese factories energy efficiency program launched 2014 helping cut costs 40 million year said bill foudy walmarts chinabased vice president global sourcing often misunderstood energy efficiency costs money weve found opposite said china worlds biggest producer greenhouse gas aims cut energy intensity consumption per unit economic growth 15 percent 20162020 period country aims bring carbon emissions peak around 2030 said week target cut carbon intensity 40 percent 45 percent 20052020 met three years early version story corrects headline first paragraph show aggregate emissions cut annual emissions reporting david stanway editing richard pullin standards thomson reuters trust principles berlin reuters germany must avert driving bans diesel cars countrys new finance minister said interview published thursday urging cities local communities boost investments charging stations electric cars german finance minister vice chancellor olaf scholz attends news conference following meeting french finance minister bruno le maire paris france march 16 2018 reutersbenoit tessier interview funke mediengruppe newspaper chain olaf scholz expressed scepticism changes taxation instance scrapping tax breaks diesel fuel would speed moves car industry introduce cleaner cars also rejected calls government offer financial incentives get cleanburning diesel cars road bring emissions heavily polluted cities task industry develop vehicles meet existing future rules clean air scholz told newspaper group adding must talk seriously get electric cars expand public transportation scholz owns diesel car said shared drivers concerns limited access certain areas future driving bans imposed must prevent driving bans diesel vehicles said instead said cities local communities seeking reduce overall emissions build charging stations promote use electric cars buses car industry accelerate work clean car technologies industry must deliver would good technological advance came germany scholz social democrat joined conservative transportation minister andreas scheuer chancellor angela merkel speaking comprehensive diesel driving bans merkel last week told lawmakers favored tailored solutions bring car emissions heavily polluted cities reporting andrea shalal editing mark potter standards thomson reuters trust principles
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<p>Copyright © 2014 Albuquerque Journal</p>
<p>It was anything but a typical summer afternoon on Albuquerque’s West Side.</p>
<p>Three Albuquerque public schools were shut down along with part of the Taylor Ranch neighborhood while Bernalillo County Sheriff’s deputies and federal agents searched for a homicide suspect they considered “armed and dangerous.” The suspect, who was wounded, was eventually taken into custody after at least one deputy fired a gun during the incident. The suspect also fired at deputies, according to the sheriff’s office, but he was not armed when police found him hiding in the closet of a nearby home.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>He was identified by BCSO as Alexander Trinidad Gallegos, 45, and was captured after a four-hour manhunt in the suburban neighborhood. His injuries were not life-threatening and he was taken to a hospital, deputies said.</p>
<p>Gallegos</p>
<p>Neighbors coming home from work around 5 p.m. lined up their cars near crime scene tape at Calle Nortena and Wagon Mound, waiting to be able to go home. A BCSO helicopter circled the area for hours, and SWAT officers climbed onto an armored vehicle. Both BCSO and APD’s mobile command centers were on the scene.</p>
<p>Neighbors said they were worried that an armed man was on the loose in their neighborhood.</p>
<p>The manhunt that began after a confrontation between Gallegos and law enforcement officers tied the area in knots.</p>
<p>Chamiza Elementary School, L.B. Johnson Middle School and Marie Hughes Elementary School were locked down around 2 p.m. The lockdowns had been lifted by 5 p.m.</p>
<p>Of the three schools, only L.B. Johnson was still in session at the time. There were about 100 students combined at the two elementary schools for after-school programs, according to a district spokesman.</p>
<p>Parents waited outside the middle school Wednesday for their children’s names to be read over the loudspeaker so they could take them home. Police blocked nearby streets and entrances to the school.</p>
<p>“When I first heard I was really worried,” said Mary Layson, who was picking up her 12-year-old son around 5:30 p.m. Wednesday. “There have been lockdowns before, but nothing like this, not that bad.”</p>
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<p>Stakeout</p>
<p>Sheriff Dan Houston said deputies, along with Homeland Security Investigations agents, were conducting surveillance around 2 p.m. Wednesday at a home in the 5100 block of Hattiesburg NW connected to Gallegos, who is suspected in a May homicide.</p>
<p>At some point, Gallegos showed up and got into an altercation with at least one of the law enforcement officers, BCSO spokesman Aaron Williamson said. He fled and then tried to break into four houses in the neighborhood to avoid the police search, according to Chief Deputy Greg Rees. He got into two of them. In the first, a woman was in the home. He told her he was shot, and she went to get the phone. When she returned, he was gone.</p>
<p>Police said a blood trail led them to each of the homes.</p>
<p>At the final home, in the 7500 block of Staunton Place NW, a BCSO SWAT team saw blood on the windowsill, and the window was open. They found Gallegos hiding in a closet there around 6:30 p.m., and Rees said he fought with deputies who arrested him. At least two women who were at the Hattiesburg home were detained and questioned by deputies, though Rees said he didn’t know if they were suspected of any crime.</p>
<p>“When we set a perimeter, I know it’s inconvenient, I see the cars lined up down the road. However, … you don’t find much worse suspects than that,” Rees said. “I know it affects the community. I know it’s a pain and we’re still dealing with it, but we have to deal with these situations in a way that we can contain.”</p>
<p>Kristan Galbraith was supposed to drop off her 2-year-old son with her mom, a teacher at LBJ Middle School, Wednesday night.</p>
<p>“When I was leaving to head over here, I was like, ‘I’m not sure I want my son in this area if they haven’t caught the guy,’ ” she said. “Now seeing this, I think I am going to rearrange my plans, I don’t want him over here. I don’t even want my mom over here.</p>
<p>“We’ve never had any problems. It’s one of those ‘leave your garage door unlocked’ kind of neighborhoods,” Galbraith said.</p>
<p>A bus transporting students home from Volcano Vista High School had to return the students to the school’s campus, according to Albuquerque Public Schools. Sports practices at nearby Mariposa Park were canceled while police searched it, according to APD.</p>
<p>May homicide</p>
<p>Police believe Gallegos was involved in a homicide in May. In that case, 41-year-old Sergio Bickham was found shot dead in a tunnel under Interstate 40 near the Route 66 Casino Hotel, the same day he was kidnapped in broad daylight from a gas station, according to police reports.</p>
<p>Three people have been arrested in the case.</p>
<p>In June, Warren Esquirell, 40, was arrested on suspicion of kidnapping, conspiracy and felon in possession of a firearm in connection to the case.</p>
<p>Esquirell told police he was driving a GMC pickup truck and blocked in Bickham’s vehicle at the Valero Gas Station at 5600 Edith NE on May 10, according to the criminal complaint.</p>
<p>Two suspects then got out of another vehicle and used a Taser on Bickham. They pulled him from his truck, which the suspects then towed from the gas station.</p>
<p>Gallegos was arrested and charged with aggravated battery and kidnapping in relation to the homicide case in June and had been released on bail, according to court records. Deputies said he had an active warrant charging him with murder after “new evidence” surfaced in the case. Gallegos will face state charges for Wednesday’s incident, and he may face federal charges as well.</p>
<p>Charles Cordova, 43, was also arrested in June and charged with kidnapping in relation to the homicide.</p>
<p>Police said Bickham owed Gallegos for an ounce of meth at the time.</p>
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copyright 2014 albuquerque journal anything typical summer afternoon albuquerques west side three albuquerque public schools shut along part taylor ranch neighborhood bernalillo county sheriffs deputies federal agents searched homicide suspect considered armed dangerous suspect wounded eventually taken custody least one deputy fired gun incident suspect also fired deputies according sheriffs office armed police found hiding closet nearby home advertisement identified bcso alexander trinidad gallegos 45 captured fourhour manhunt suburban neighborhood injuries lifethreatening taken hospital deputies said gallegos neighbors coming home work around 5 pm lined cars near crime scene tape calle nortena wagon mound waiting able go home bcso helicopter circled area hours swat officers climbed onto armored vehicle bcso apds mobile command centers scene neighbors said worried armed man loose neighborhood manhunt began confrontation gallegos law enforcement officers tied area knots chamiza elementary school lb johnson middle school marie hughes elementary school locked around 2 pm lockdowns lifted 5 pm three schools lb johnson still session time 100 students combined two elementary schools afterschool programs according district spokesman parents waited outside middle school wednesday childrens names read loudspeaker could take home police blocked nearby streets entrances school first heard really worried said mary layson picking 12yearold son around 530 pm wednesday lockdowns nothing like bad advertisement stakeout sheriff dan houston said deputies along homeland security investigations agents conducting surveillance around 2 pm wednesday home 5100 block hattiesburg nw connected gallegos suspected may homicide point gallegos showed got altercation least one law enforcement officers bcso spokesman aaron williamson said fled tried break four houses neighborhood avoid police search according chief deputy greg rees got two first woman home told shot went get phone returned gone police said blood trail led homes final home 7500 block staunton place nw bcso swat team saw blood windowsill window open found gallegos hiding closet around 630 pm rees said fought deputies arrested least two women hattiesburg home detained questioned deputies though rees said didnt know suspected crime set perimeter know inconvenient see cars lined road however dont find much worse suspects rees said know affects community know pain still dealing deal situations way contain kristan galbraith supposed drop 2yearold son mom teacher lbj middle school wednesday night leaving head like im sure want son area havent caught guy said seeing think going rearrange plans dont want dont even want mom weve never problems one leave garage door unlocked kind neighborhoods galbraith said bus transporting students home volcano vista high school return students schools campus according albuquerque public schools sports practices nearby mariposa park canceled police searched according apd may homicide police believe gallegos involved homicide may case 41yearold sergio bickham found shot dead tunnel interstate 40 near route 66 casino hotel day kidnapped broad daylight gas station according police reports three people arrested case june warren esquirell 40 arrested suspicion kidnapping conspiracy felon possession firearm connection case esquirell told police driving gmc pickup truck blocked bickhams vehicle valero gas station 5600 edith ne may 10 according criminal complaint two suspects got another vehicle used taser bickham pulled truck suspects towed gas station gallegos arrested charged aggravated battery kidnapping relation homicide case june released bail according court records deputies said active warrant charging murder new evidence surfaced case gallegos face state charges wednesdays incident may face federal charges well charles cordova 43 also arrested june charged kidnapping relation homicide police said bickham owed gallegos ounce meth time 160
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<p>PASADENA, Calif. (AP) - Although Baker Mayfield had the ball in his hands a few times with chances to win the Rose Bowl for Oklahoma, the Heisman Trophy winner couldn't convert those opportunities.</p>
<p>Plenty of Sooners fans wished Mayfield had been given a whole lot more chances to conjure his usual magic during Georgia's epic 54-48, double-overtime win Monday night.</p>
<p>Mayfield went 23 of 35 for 287 yards and two touchdowns in his final college football game, but the swashbuckling senior ended the night with his hands on his knees, staring down at the turf in Arroyo Seco while the Bulldogs celebrated Sony Michel's winning TD run.</p>
<p>"Can't believe it's over," Mayfield said afterward in a strikingly hoarse voice, his eyes tearing up. "It's been a wild ride."</p>
<p>The Sooners were already lamenting the plays that Mayfield never even got a chance to make on a wild night at the College Football Playoff semifinal.</p>
<p>The most exciting quarterback in the sport threw only 17 passes after halftime, including a single shovel pass in the first overtime, while running the plays called by rookie head coach Lincoln Riley.</p>
<p>Mayfield showed no obvious effects from the illness that dogged him throughout the week of preparation before the game, aside from that scratchy throat. Yet Riley's play-calling didn't give Mayfield every chance to shine, and the coach acknowledged he might not have been aggressive enough.</p>
<p>"Sure, I'll look back at it, and there will be calls that I wish I would have done different," Riley said. "You do the very best you can in that moment. I called the plays at that time that I thought were the very best. Will there be ones that I want to have back? Yeah."</p>
<p>Mayfield passed for only 87 yards after halftime, making only a handful of game-altering throws.</p>
<p>Mayfield stayed firmly behind Riley, calling the rookie boss "the best coach in the country."</p>
<p>"There's a reason I'm sitting here today," Mayfield added. "There's a reason we've won three Big 12 titles in a row, and that I've put myself in a good position going forward in the future. There's a reason our team is in the playoffs this year. Words can't describe what he's meant to me."</p>
<p>The third quarter was mostly miserable for Mayfield: He was sacked three times and ran the ball three more times, going just 2 for 4 through the air. He went 5 of 9 for 57 yards in the fourth quarter, but most of those yards came on one 36-yard throw to CeeDee Lamb.</p>
<p>Mayfield also threw his only interception to Dominick Sanders on the first snap of the fourth quarter. Sanders returned it to the Oklahoma 4, and the Bulldogs punched in a go-ahead touchdown.</p>
<p>Mayfield responded by leading a tying 88-yard touchdown drive in just six plays ending with 8:47 left in regulation, but the Oklahoma offense didn't reach the end zone again.</p>
<p>And whenever there was a late chance for Mayfield to add another moment to his incredible season, the Sooners couldn't find a winning formula.</p>
<p>Oklahoma attempted only that single shovel pass during its first overtime possession, which resulted in a field goal. With the Bulldogs already leading by three points, Riley decided to kick on fourth and 1 from the Georgia 16 instead of putting the game in Mayfield's hands.</p>
<p>"I don't know," Riley said. "My gut said to kick it, and we did."</p>
<p>Mayfield then threw an incompletion and an interception that was wiped out by a penalty on the second drive. Two short completions on conservative plays only got the Sooners in position for a field goal that was blocked by Georgia's Lorenzo Carter.</p>
<p>Mayfield went 34-6 while spending three seasons as the Sooners' starter, but the former walk-on couldn't push them to the championship game in Atlanta next week.</p>
<p>After the game ended and Mayfield rose from his agonized crouch, he sought out Georgia freshman quarterback Jake Fromm to congratulate him.</p>
<p>"Baker, he's a special name in college football," Oklahoma safety Steven Parker said. "He's always going to be remembered. A lot of people always say Johnny Manziel, or maybe a nice running back like Eddie George, but he's going to be a person that is always going to be remembered in college football forever and I don't think anyone can take his place."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>More AP college football: <a href="http://www.collegefootball.ap.org" type="external">www.collegefootball.ap.org</a> and <a href="http://www.twitter.com/AP_Top25" type="external">www.twitter.com/AP_Top25</a></p>
<p>PASADENA, Calif. (AP) - Although Baker Mayfield had the ball in his hands a few times with chances to win the Rose Bowl for Oklahoma, the Heisman Trophy winner couldn't convert those opportunities.</p>
<p>Plenty of Sooners fans wished Mayfield had been given a whole lot more chances to conjure his usual magic during Georgia's epic 54-48, double-overtime win Monday night.</p>
<p>Mayfield went 23 of 35 for 287 yards and two touchdowns in his final college football game, but the swashbuckling senior ended the night with his hands on his knees, staring down at the turf in Arroyo Seco while the Bulldogs celebrated Sony Michel's winning TD run.</p>
<p>"Can't believe it's over," Mayfield said afterward in a strikingly hoarse voice, his eyes tearing up. "It's been a wild ride."</p>
<p>The Sooners were already lamenting the plays that Mayfield never even got a chance to make on a wild night at the College Football Playoff semifinal.</p>
<p>The most exciting quarterback in the sport threw only 17 passes after halftime, including a single shovel pass in the first overtime, while running the plays called by rookie head coach Lincoln Riley.</p>
<p>Mayfield showed no obvious effects from the illness that dogged him throughout the week of preparation before the game, aside from that scratchy throat. Yet Riley's play-calling didn't give Mayfield every chance to shine, and the coach acknowledged he might not have been aggressive enough.</p>
<p>"Sure, I'll look back at it, and there will be calls that I wish I would have done different," Riley said. "You do the very best you can in that moment. I called the plays at that time that I thought were the very best. Will there be ones that I want to have back? Yeah."</p>
<p>Mayfield passed for only 87 yards after halftime, making only a handful of game-altering throws.</p>
<p>Mayfield stayed firmly behind Riley, calling the rookie boss "the best coach in the country."</p>
<p>"There's a reason I'm sitting here today," Mayfield added. "There's a reason we've won three Big 12 titles in a row, and that I've put myself in a good position going forward in the future. There's a reason our team is in the playoffs this year. Words can't describe what he's meant to me."</p>
<p>The third quarter was mostly miserable for Mayfield: He was sacked three times and ran the ball three more times, going just 2 for 4 through the air. He went 5 of 9 for 57 yards in the fourth quarter, but most of those yards came on one 36-yard throw to CeeDee Lamb.</p>
<p>Mayfield also threw his only interception to Dominick Sanders on the first snap of the fourth quarter. Sanders returned it to the Oklahoma 4, and the Bulldogs punched in a go-ahead touchdown.</p>
<p>Mayfield responded by leading a tying 88-yard touchdown drive in just six plays ending with 8:47 left in regulation, but the Oklahoma offense didn't reach the end zone again.</p>
<p>And whenever there was a late chance for Mayfield to add another moment to his incredible season, the Sooners couldn't find a winning formula.</p>
<p>Oklahoma attempted only that single shovel pass during its first overtime possession, which resulted in a field goal. With the Bulldogs already leading by three points, Riley decided to kick on fourth and 1 from the Georgia 16 instead of putting the game in Mayfield's hands.</p>
<p>"I don't know," Riley said. "My gut said to kick it, and we did."</p>
<p>Mayfield then threw an incompletion and an interception that was wiped out by a penalty on the second drive. Two short completions on conservative plays only got the Sooners in position for a field goal that was blocked by Georgia's Lorenzo Carter.</p>
<p>Mayfield went 34-6 while spending three seasons as the Sooners' starter, but the former walk-on couldn't push them to the championship game in Atlanta next week.</p>
<p>After the game ended and Mayfield rose from his agonized crouch, he sought out Georgia freshman quarterback Jake Fromm to congratulate him.</p>
<p>"Baker, he's a special name in college football," Oklahoma safety Steven Parker said. "He's always going to be remembered. A lot of people always say Johnny Manziel, or maybe a nice running back like Eddie George, but he's going to be a person that is always going to be remembered in college football forever and I don't think anyone can take his place."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>More AP college football: <a href="http://www.collegefootball.ap.org" type="external">www.collegefootball.ap.org</a> and <a href="http://www.twitter.com/AP_Top25" type="external">www.twitter.com/AP_Top25</a></p>
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pasadena calif ap although baker mayfield ball hands times chances win rose bowl oklahoma heisman trophy winner couldnt convert opportunities plenty sooners fans wished mayfield given whole lot chances conjure usual magic georgias epic 5448 doubleovertime win monday night mayfield went 23 35 287 yards two touchdowns final college football game swashbuckling senior ended night hands knees staring turf arroyo seco bulldogs celebrated sony michels winning td run cant believe mayfield said afterward strikingly hoarse voice eyes tearing wild ride sooners already lamenting plays mayfield never even got chance make wild night college football playoff semifinal exciting quarterback sport threw 17 passes halftime including single shovel pass first overtime running plays called rookie head coach lincoln riley mayfield showed obvious effects illness dogged throughout week preparation game aside scratchy throat yet rileys playcalling didnt give mayfield every chance shine coach acknowledged might aggressive enough sure ill look back calls wish would done different riley said best moment called plays time thought best ones want back yeah mayfield passed 87 yards halftime making handful gamealtering throws mayfield stayed firmly behind riley calling rookie boss best coach country theres reason im sitting today mayfield added theres reason weve three big 12 titles row ive put good position going forward future theres reason team playoffs year words cant describe hes meant third quarter mostly miserable mayfield sacked three times ran ball three times going 2 4 air went 5 9 57 yards fourth quarter yards came one 36yard throw ceedee lamb mayfield also threw interception dominick sanders first snap fourth quarter sanders returned oklahoma 4 bulldogs punched goahead touchdown mayfield responded leading tying 88yard touchdown drive six plays ending 847 left regulation oklahoma offense didnt reach end zone whenever late chance mayfield add another moment incredible season sooners couldnt find winning formula oklahoma attempted single shovel pass first overtime possession resulted field goal bulldogs already leading three points riley decided kick fourth 1 georgia 16 instead putting game mayfields hands dont know riley said gut said kick mayfield threw incompletion interception wiped penalty second drive two short completions conservative plays got sooners position field goal blocked georgias lorenzo carter mayfield went 346 spending three seasons sooners starter former walkon couldnt push championship game atlanta next week game ended mayfield rose agonized crouch sought georgia freshman quarterback jake fromm congratulate baker hes special name college football oklahoma safety steven parker said hes always going remembered lot people always say johnny manziel maybe nice running back like eddie george hes going person always going remembered college football forever dont think anyone take place ___ ap college football wwwcollegefootballaporg wwwtwittercomap_top25 pasadena calif ap although baker mayfield ball hands times chances win rose bowl oklahoma heisman trophy winner couldnt convert opportunities plenty sooners fans wished mayfield given whole lot chances conjure usual magic georgias epic 5448 doubleovertime win monday night mayfield went 23 35 287 yards two touchdowns final college football game swashbuckling senior ended night hands knees staring turf arroyo seco bulldogs celebrated sony michels winning td run cant believe mayfield said afterward strikingly hoarse voice eyes tearing wild ride sooners already lamenting plays mayfield never even got chance make wild night college football playoff semifinal exciting quarterback sport threw 17 passes halftime including single shovel pass first overtime running plays called rookie head coach lincoln riley mayfield showed obvious effects illness dogged throughout week preparation game aside scratchy throat yet rileys playcalling didnt give mayfield every chance shine coach acknowledged might aggressive enough sure ill look back calls wish would done different riley said best moment called plays time thought best ones want back yeah mayfield passed 87 yards halftime making handful gamealtering throws mayfield stayed firmly behind riley calling rookie boss best coach country theres reason im sitting today mayfield added theres reason weve three big 12 titles row ive put good position going forward future theres reason team playoffs year words cant describe hes meant third quarter mostly miserable mayfield sacked three times ran ball three times going 2 4 air went 5 9 57 yards fourth quarter yards came one 36yard throw ceedee lamb mayfield also threw interception dominick sanders first snap fourth quarter sanders returned oklahoma 4 bulldogs punched goahead touchdown mayfield responded leading tying 88yard touchdown drive six plays ending 847 left regulation oklahoma offense didnt reach end zone whenever late chance mayfield add another moment incredible season sooners couldnt find winning formula oklahoma attempted single shovel pass first overtime possession resulted field goal bulldogs already leading three points riley decided kick fourth 1 georgia 16 instead putting game mayfields hands dont know riley said gut said kick mayfield threw incompletion interception wiped penalty second drive two short completions conservative plays got sooners position field goal blocked georgias lorenzo carter mayfield went 346 spending three seasons sooners starter former walkon couldnt push championship game atlanta next week game ended mayfield rose agonized crouch sought georgia freshman quarterback jake fromm congratulate baker hes special name college football oklahoma safety steven parker said hes always going remembered lot people always say johnny manziel maybe nice running back like eddie george hes going person always going remembered college football forever dont think anyone take place ___ ap college football wwwcollegefootballaporg wwwtwittercomap_top25
| 868 |
<p>IQUIQUE, Chile (AP) — It was all in a day's work for the ever-unpredictable Pope Francis.</p>
<p>First he celebrated the first-ever airborne papal wedding, marrying two flight attendants at 36,000 feet during a flight on Thursday to this northern Chilean beachside town.</p>
<p>Then after landing, Francis came to the rescue of a policewoman who was thrown from her rearing horse as his popemobile passed by.</p>
<p>In between, he did what he actually came to do: celebrate Mass for some 50,000 people in a desert-hot field near the town of Iquique.</p>
<p>And as a final gesture to cap a most remarkable day even by Franciscan standards, the 81-year-old Argentine set off a near-national uproar by accusing victims of Chile's most notorious pedophile priest of slander.</p>
<p>Welcome to the Francis papacy, five years on.</p>
<p>It all began with LATAM Flight 1250 from Santiago.</p>
<p>The crew of Chile's flagship carrier was gathering in the first-class section for the usual photo with the pope when flight attendants Paula Podest and Carlos Ciuffardi revealed that they were a married couple. Francis motioned for them to sit next to him for the photo and asked if they had been married in the church.</p>
<p>They told Francis that they had been wed in a civil service in 2010 but had been unable to follow up with a church ceremony because the Feb. 27, 2010 earthquake that rocked Chile had damaged the church.</p>
<p>Francis then made a proposal of his own: "I'll marry you!" and they readily agreed. The head of the airline served as the witness.</p>
<p>"He told me it's historic, that there has never before been a pope who married someone aboard a plane," the 41-year-old groom told journalists aboard the flight after he exchanged his "I do's" with his beaming bride.</p>
<p>Ciuffardi said the pope also told them: "This is the sacrament that is missing in the world, the sacrament of marriage. May this motivate others to get the sacrament of marriage. I'll do it for this reason."</p>
<p>Ciuffardi and the 39-year-old Podest have two children, 6-year-old Rafaela and 3-year-old Isabela. They said they plan to take a "mini-honeymoon" and return to Santiago on Friday.</p>
<p>The airborne wedding came about spontaneously, as is often the case with the ever-surprising Francis.</p>
<p>"We told him that we are husband and wife, that we have two daughters and that we would have loved to receive his blessing," Ciuffardi said. "All of a sudden he asked us if we were married in the church, too."</p>
<p>The couple explained that their church's bell tower had fallen during the quake, forcing the cancellation of the church service. One thing led to another, and they never followed up.</p>
<p>"He liked us and he asked, 'Do you want me to marry you?'" Ciuffardi said. "He asked: 'Are you sure?' 'Yes, of course!' we said."</p>
<p>A Vatican official then hastily drew up an official, albeit handwritten, marriage certificate, stating that the two had consented to the sacrament of marriage on Jan. 18, 2018, and that Francis had blessed it "aboard the papal plane from Santiago to Iquique."</p>
<p>Recounting the story to the 70 or so journalists who travel with the pope on his foreign trips, Podest said Francis offered a bit of advice to the not-so-newlyweds.</p>
<p>"He also said that the wedding rings shouldn't be too tight, because they'll torture you, but that if they're too loose, they'll fall off. So we have to be careful," she said blushing.</p>
<p>She said she and Ciuffardi also told the pope that when they first started dating, she was his boss at LATAM. Francis asked if she was still the boss, and both readily agreed.</p>
<p>"And that's why the marriage works," Ciuffardi said.</p>
<p>An hour after the impromptu ceremony, after the flight attendants had passed through the cabin with breakfast trays of fruit cups and warmed croissants, coffee and tea, the plane landed in Iquique and the happy couple bid the passengers farewell.</p>
<p>"We hope you had a good flight," Podest said.</p>
<p>Francis then moved on to the real purpose of his visit, celebrating Mass for the region's migrant community.</p>
<p>During his homily, he urged the Chilean government to continue welcoming migrants and caring for the least fortunate among them, saying, "There is no Christian joy when doors are closed."</p>
<p>The Argentine pope, who has frequently called on wealthy countries to welcome migrants and refugees, praised Iquique for having been a "land of dreams" for so many newcomers. And he urged Chile to continue to be a place of hospitality, employment and justice, especially for migrants, who are often exploited.</p>
<p>"Let us be attentive to the lack of steady employment, which destroys lives and homes," he said. "Let us be attentive to those who profit from the irregular status of many immigrants who don't know the language or who don't have their papers in order."</p>
<p>After the Mass, as his entourage headed back to Iquique, Francis had a scare when a police horse reared up just as his popemobile was passing by, throwing the rider and forcing the pope's driver to swerve slightly to get out of the way.</p>
<p>Francis, who wasn't hurt, had his driver stop so he could get out to check on the officer, described by the Vatican as a Chilean policewoman.</p>
<p>Francis stayed with her, bending down to speak with her, until an ambulance arrived. The Vatican said the rider remained conscious "and received some words of consolation from the Holy Father."</p>
<p>After she was taken away, Francis resumed his ride.</p>
<p>It was the second such incident in recent months. Francis got a black eye in Cartagena, Colombia, in September when his popemobile stopped short and he hit his head on the side rail. He cut his eyebrow and wore a cassock stained with a few drops of blood for the rest of the day.</p>
<p>Francis has insisted on using minimally covered popemobiles on his foreign visits so he can be close to his flock. But Thursday's incident again underscored his vulnerability in the open-sided vehicles that often pass through tight, crowded spaces.</p>
<p>Earlier in the trip, Francis was hit in the head with a flying object that someone in the crowd had thrown toward him. He wasn't hurt, and the Vatican later revealed the offending object: A rolled up canvas hat with the words "Pray for the Chilean family."</p>
<p>Francis' visit though ended on a sour note for many in Chile, as he was asked by a Chilean reporter about his controversial decision to appoint a bishop accused of helping keep quiet about the crimes of Chile's most prominent sexual abuser, the Rev. Fernando Karadima.</p>
<p>Francis said that until he sees proof that Bishop Juan Barros was complicit in covering up Karadima's crimes, accusations of complicity by the victims of against Barros are "all calumny."</p>
<p>Patricio Navia, political science professor at Diego Portales University in Santiago, said the comment will likely erase any good will the pope had won over the issue.</p>
<p>IQUIQUE, Chile (AP) — It was all in a day's work for the ever-unpredictable Pope Francis.</p>
<p>First he celebrated the first-ever airborne papal wedding, marrying two flight attendants at 36,000 feet during a flight on Thursday to this northern Chilean beachside town.</p>
<p>Then after landing, Francis came to the rescue of a policewoman who was thrown from her rearing horse as his popemobile passed by.</p>
<p>In between, he did what he actually came to do: celebrate Mass for some 50,000 people in a desert-hot field near the town of Iquique.</p>
<p>And as a final gesture to cap a most remarkable day even by Franciscan standards, the 81-year-old Argentine set off a near-national uproar by accusing victims of Chile's most notorious pedophile priest of slander.</p>
<p>Welcome to the Francis papacy, five years on.</p>
<p>It all began with LATAM Flight 1250 from Santiago.</p>
<p>The crew of Chile's flagship carrier was gathering in the first-class section for the usual photo with the pope when flight attendants Paula Podest and Carlos Ciuffardi revealed that they were a married couple. Francis motioned for them to sit next to him for the photo and asked if they had been married in the church.</p>
<p>They told Francis that they had been wed in a civil service in 2010 but had been unable to follow up with a church ceremony because the Feb. 27, 2010 earthquake that rocked Chile had damaged the church.</p>
<p>Francis then made a proposal of his own: "I'll marry you!" and they readily agreed. The head of the airline served as the witness.</p>
<p>"He told me it's historic, that there has never before been a pope who married someone aboard a plane," the 41-year-old groom told journalists aboard the flight after he exchanged his "I do's" with his beaming bride.</p>
<p>Ciuffardi said the pope also told them: "This is the sacrament that is missing in the world, the sacrament of marriage. May this motivate others to get the sacrament of marriage. I'll do it for this reason."</p>
<p>Ciuffardi and the 39-year-old Podest have two children, 6-year-old Rafaela and 3-year-old Isabela. They said they plan to take a "mini-honeymoon" and return to Santiago on Friday.</p>
<p>The airborne wedding came about spontaneously, as is often the case with the ever-surprising Francis.</p>
<p>"We told him that we are husband and wife, that we have two daughters and that we would have loved to receive his blessing," Ciuffardi said. "All of a sudden he asked us if we were married in the church, too."</p>
<p>The couple explained that their church's bell tower had fallen during the quake, forcing the cancellation of the church service. One thing led to another, and they never followed up.</p>
<p>"He liked us and he asked, 'Do you want me to marry you?'" Ciuffardi said. "He asked: 'Are you sure?' 'Yes, of course!' we said."</p>
<p>A Vatican official then hastily drew up an official, albeit handwritten, marriage certificate, stating that the two had consented to the sacrament of marriage on Jan. 18, 2018, and that Francis had blessed it "aboard the papal plane from Santiago to Iquique."</p>
<p>Recounting the story to the 70 or so journalists who travel with the pope on his foreign trips, Podest said Francis offered a bit of advice to the not-so-newlyweds.</p>
<p>"He also said that the wedding rings shouldn't be too tight, because they'll torture you, but that if they're too loose, they'll fall off. So we have to be careful," she said blushing.</p>
<p>She said she and Ciuffardi also told the pope that when they first started dating, she was his boss at LATAM. Francis asked if she was still the boss, and both readily agreed.</p>
<p>"And that's why the marriage works," Ciuffardi said.</p>
<p>An hour after the impromptu ceremony, after the flight attendants had passed through the cabin with breakfast trays of fruit cups and warmed croissants, coffee and tea, the plane landed in Iquique and the happy couple bid the passengers farewell.</p>
<p>"We hope you had a good flight," Podest said.</p>
<p>Francis then moved on to the real purpose of his visit, celebrating Mass for the region's migrant community.</p>
<p>During his homily, he urged the Chilean government to continue welcoming migrants and caring for the least fortunate among them, saying, "There is no Christian joy when doors are closed."</p>
<p>The Argentine pope, who has frequently called on wealthy countries to welcome migrants and refugees, praised Iquique for having been a "land of dreams" for so many newcomers. And he urged Chile to continue to be a place of hospitality, employment and justice, especially for migrants, who are often exploited.</p>
<p>"Let us be attentive to the lack of steady employment, which destroys lives and homes," he said. "Let us be attentive to those who profit from the irregular status of many immigrants who don't know the language or who don't have their papers in order."</p>
<p>After the Mass, as his entourage headed back to Iquique, Francis had a scare when a police horse reared up just as his popemobile was passing by, throwing the rider and forcing the pope's driver to swerve slightly to get out of the way.</p>
<p>Francis, who wasn't hurt, had his driver stop so he could get out to check on the officer, described by the Vatican as a Chilean policewoman.</p>
<p>Francis stayed with her, bending down to speak with her, until an ambulance arrived. The Vatican said the rider remained conscious "and received some words of consolation from the Holy Father."</p>
<p>After she was taken away, Francis resumed his ride.</p>
<p>It was the second such incident in recent months. Francis got a black eye in Cartagena, Colombia, in September when his popemobile stopped short and he hit his head on the side rail. He cut his eyebrow and wore a cassock stained with a few drops of blood for the rest of the day.</p>
<p>Francis has insisted on using minimally covered popemobiles on his foreign visits so he can be close to his flock. But Thursday's incident again underscored his vulnerability in the open-sided vehicles that often pass through tight, crowded spaces.</p>
<p>Earlier in the trip, Francis was hit in the head with a flying object that someone in the crowd had thrown toward him. He wasn't hurt, and the Vatican later revealed the offending object: A rolled up canvas hat with the words "Pray for the Chilean family."</p>
<p>Francis' visit though ended on a sour note for many in Chile, as he was asked by a Chilean reporter about his controversial decision to appoint a bishop accused of helping keep quiet about the crimes of Chile's most prominent sexual abuser, the Rev. Fernando Karadima.</p>
<p>Francis said that until he sees proof that Bishop Juan Barros was complicit in covering up Karadima's crimes, accusations of complicity by the victims of against Barros are "all calumny."</p>
<p>Patricio Navia, political science professor at Diego Portales University in Santiago, said the comment will likely erase any good will the pope had won over the issue.</p>
| false | 2 |
iquique chile ap days work everunpredictable pope francis first celebrated firstever airborne papal wedding marrying two flight attendants 36000 feet flight thursday northern chilean beachside town landing francis came rescue policewoman thrown rearing horse popemobile passed actually came celebrate mass 50000 people deserthot field near town iquique final gesture cap remarkable day even franciscan standards 81yearold argentine set nearnational uproar accusing victims chiles notorious pedophile priest slander welcome francis papacy five years began latam flight 1250 santiago crew chiles flagship carrier gathering firstclass section usual photo pope flight attendants paula podest carlos ciuffardi revealed married couple francis motioned sit next photo asked married church told francis wed civil service 2010 unable follow church ceremony feb 27 2010 earthquake rocked chile damaged church francis made proposal ill marry readily agreed head airline served witness told historic never pope married someone aboard plane 41yearold groom told journalists aboard flight exchanged dos beaming bride ciuffardi said pope also told sacrament missing world sacrament marriage may motivate others get sacrament marriage ill reason ciuffardi 39yearold podest two children 6yearold rafaela 3yearold isabela said plan take minihoneymoon return santiago friday airborne wedding came spontaneously often case eversurprising francis told husband wife two daughters would loved receive blessing ciuffardi said sudden asked us married church couple explained churchs bell tower fallen quake forcing cancellation church service one thing led another never followed liked us asked want marry ciuffardi said asked sure yes course said vatican official hastily drew official albeit handwritten marriage certificate stating two consented sacrament marriage jan 18 2018 francis blessed aboard papal plane santiago iquique recounting story 70 journalists travel pope foreign trips podest said francis offered bit advice notsonewlyweds also said wedding rings shouldnt tight theyll torture theyre loose theyll fall careful said blushing said ciuffardi also told pope first started dating boss latam francis asked still boss readily agreed thats marriage works ciuffardi said hour impromptu ceremony flight attendants passed cabin breakfast trays fruit cups warmed croissants coffee tea plane landed iquique happy couple bid passengers farewell hope good flight podest said francis moved real purpose visit celebrating mass regions migrant community homily urged chilean government continue welcoming migrants caring least fortunate among saying christian joy doors closed argentine pope frequently called wealthy countries welcome migrants refugees praised iquique land dreams many newcomers urged chile continue place hospitality employment justice especially migrants often exploited let us attentive lack steady employment destroys lives homes said let us attentive profit irregular status many immigrants dont know language dont papers order mass entourage headed back iquique francis scare police horse reared popemobile passing throwing rider forcing popes driver swerve slightly get way francis wasnt hurt driver stop could get check officer described vatican chilean policewoman francis stayed bending speak ambulance arrived vatican said rider remained conscious received words consolation holy father taken away francis resumed ride second incident recent months francis got black eye cartagena colombia september popemobile stopped short hit head side rail cut eyebrow wore cassock stained drops blood rest day francis insisted using minimally covered popemobiles foreign visits close flock thursdays incident underscored vulnerability opensided vehicles often pass tight crowded spaces earlier trip francis hit head flying object someone crowd thrown toward wasnt hurt vatican later revealed offending object rolled canvas hat words pray chilean family francis visit though ended sour note many chile asked chilean reporter controversial decision appoint bishop accused helping keep quiet crimes chiles prominent sexual abuser rev fernando karadima francis said sees proof bishop juan barros complicit covering karadimas crimes accusations complicity victims barros calumny patricio navia political science professor diego portales university santiago said comment likely erase good pope issue iquique chile ap days work everunpredictable pope francis first celebrated firstever airborne papal wedding marrying two flight attendants 36000 feet flight thursday northern chilean beachside town landing francis came rescue policewoman thrown rearing horse popemobile passed actually came celebrate mass 50000 people deserthot field near town iquique final gesture cap remarkable day even franciscan standards 81yearold argentine set nearnational uproar accusing victims chiles notorious pedophile priest slander welcome francis papacy five years began latam flight 1250 santiago crew chiles flagship carrier gathering firstclass section usual photo pope flight attendants paula podest carlos ciuffardi revealed married couple francis motioned sit next photo asked married church told francis wed civil service 2010 unable follow church ceremony feb 27 2010 earthquake rocked chile damaged church francis made proposal ill marry readily agreed head airline served witness told historic never pope married someone aboard plane 41yearold groom told journalists aboard flight exchanged dos beaming bride ciuffardi said pope also told sacrament missing world sacrament marriage may motivate others get sacrament marriage ill reason ciuffardi 39yearold podest two children 6yearold rafaela 3yearold isabela said plan take minihoneymoon return santiago friday airborne wedding came spontaneously often case eversurprising francis told husband wife two daughters would loved receive blessing ciuffardi said sudden asked us married church couple explained churchs bell tower fallen quake forcing cancellation church service one thing led another never followed liked us asked want marry ciuffardi said asked sure yes course said vatican official hastily drew official albeit handwritten marriage certificate stating two consented sacrament marriage jan 18 2018 francis blessed aboard papal plane santiago iquique recounting story 70 journalists travel pope foreign trips podest said francis offered bit advice notsonewlyweds also said wedding rings shouldnt tight theyll torture theyre loose theyll fall careful said blushing said ciuffardi also told pope first started dating boss latam francis asked still boss readily agreed thats marriage works ciuffardi said hour impromptu ceremony flight attendants passed cabin breakfast trays fruit cups warmed croissants coffee tea plane landed iquique happy couple bid passengers farewell hope good flight podest said francis moved real purpose visit celebrating mass regions migrant community homily urged chilean government continue welcoming migrants caring least fortunate among saying christian joy doors closed argentine pope frequently called wealthy countries welcome migrants refugees praised iquique land dreams many newcomers urged chile continue place hospitality employment justice especially migrants often exploited let us attentive lack steady employment destroys lives homes said let us attentive profit irregular status many immigrants dont know language dont papers order mass entourage headed back iquique francis scare police horse reared popemobile passing throwing rider forcing popes driver swerve slightly get way francis wasnt hurt driver stop could get check officer described vatican chilean policewoman francis stayed bending speak ambulance arrived vatican said rider remained conscious received words consolation holy father taken away francis resumed ride second incident recent months francis got black eye cartagena colombia september popemobile stopped short hit head side rail cut eyebrow wore cassock stained drops blood rest day francis insisted using minimally covered popemobiles foreign visits close flock thursdays incident underscored vulnerability opensided vehicles often pass tight crowded spaces earlier trip francis hit head flying object someone crowd thrown toward wasnt hurt vatican later revealed offending object rolled canvas hat words pray chilean family francis visit though ended sour note many chile asked chilean reporter controversial decision appoint bishop accused helping keep quiet crimes chiles prominent sexual abuser rev fernando karadima francis said sees proof bishop juan barros complicit covering karadimas crimes accusations complicity victims barros calumny patricio navia political science professor diego portales university santiago said comment likely erase good pope issue
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<p />
<p>I soon discovered endurance was only the beginning of the physical challenges I’d experience as a new mom. Pregnancy and childbirth can also weaken abdominal muscles, loosen ligaments and cause structural changes in the rib cage and pelvis. All of this makes a woman prone to injury if she pursues a bikini body too quickly.</p>
<p>Pregnancy hormones stay in the body for about three months postpartum, continuing to loosen joints, muscles, tendons and ligaments as they did in preparation for delivery. For those breast-feeding, hormones can have a loosening effect even a few months after nursing stops.</p>
<p>Marianne Ryan, owner of Marianne Ryan Physical Therapy in Manhattan and author of “Baby Bod: Turn Flab to Fab in 12 Weeks Flat,” urges new and especially breast-feeding mothers to exercise carefully. “Don’t do too much too soon,” she says.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Jackie Zipkin, an environmental engineer from Northern California, tore her anterior cruciate ligament while playing volleyball six weeks after giving birth. “After jumping to hit the ball, I landed and felt my knee pop,” says Zipkin, who says less exercise during pregnancy and postpartum weakness contributed to her injury.</p>
<p>Another common postpartum problem is diastasis recti, a separation of the “six-pack,” or rectus abdominis, caused, in part, by loose connective tissue. It goes hand in hand with abdominal weakness and instability and is often associated with back pain, “mommy tummy,” urinary incontinence, pelvic organ prolapse and umbilical hernias. Ryan says up to 60 percent of new mothers have the condition, with 30 percent still affected one month postpartum.</p>
<p>Diastasis recti is considered, from a medical standpoint, a hernia, says Joan Loveland, a gynecologist and obstetrician in Washington. Most hernias are ignored until they become symptomatic, which is one of the reasons physicians don’t check for diastasis recti in postpartum mothers. In recent years, physical therapists’ insistence that diastasis recti and pelvic floor problems are treatable has become more mainstream.</p>
<p>“Everything comes from the pelvis. It’s such a critical area to ensure strength and wellness and fitness,” Loveland says, describing why diastasis recti affects a woman’s well-being. “I think [physicians] always thought of it as more of a cosmetic thing.”</p>
<p>Yet after an obstetrician gives the green light for all activity at the six- to eight-week checkup, a woman is typically left to her own devices, whether she delivered vaginally or via C-section. As a result, a new mother may overdo it when exercising without rehabilitative guidance, or may avoid fitness altogether for fear of damage.</p>
<p>Women’s health experts emphasize rehabilitation before fitness.</p>
<p>“You can work out for an hour every day, but what you do in the remaining 23 hours adds up to more,” says Kelly Dean, a physical therapist and founder of the Tummy Team, a Washington state clinic and online program. “Birth is probably the most physically demanding thing many women are going to do, but we expect them to jump into a Zumba class right away. More is not better. Better is better.”</p>
<p>Here’s what specialists recommend for new mothers.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>– Rehabilitate with daily activities</p>
<p>Everyday movements such as picking up a baby, loading a stroller into a car and walking are opportunities to engage the core muscles, which refer collectively to multiple muscle groups including the transverse abdominis (deep corset-like muscle), six-pack, obliques, diaphragm, lower back and pelvic floor.</p>
<p>Ryan recommends getting up from a chair by bending forward, pressing the heels of your hands into your thighs to take the weight off the belly and exhaling. To get out of bed, roll onto your side, shoulders and hips moving together with knees bent, drop your legs down off the bed and push up with your arms. Avoid jackknife movements.</p>
<p>– Sit on your sit bones, not your tailbone.</p>
<p>Says Dean: “Visualize a cable from the crown of your head drawing you up. Keep arms in line with your torso and eyes on the horizon.” This gets the spine into a neutral position with the rib cage stacked directly above the pelvis and perpendicular to the ground, and shoulder blades resting back and down.</p>
<p>– Breathe</p>
<p>Diaphragm or “belly” breathing is another simple way to engage and strengthen the abdominals. “When you inhale, fill your rib cage up with air. When you exhale, bring your belly to the spine,” says Cheryl Bjornson, a certified personal trainer in Northern California who specializes in core and diastasis recti rehabilitation.</p>
<p>Ryan recommends exhaling to match the level of effort during daily tasks. “If they lift up the baby, it might be a little exhale. If they lift up a pot of pasta, it must be a big exhale.”</p>
<p>– Get checked</p>
<p>Because physicians generally don’t check for diastasis recti, ask your doctor to do so at your postnatal appointment. If you’ve already had your postnatal checkup and are experiencing symptoms, here is an instructional video from the Tummy Team on how to do it yourself.</p>
<p>– Get moving</p>
<p>As soon as you feel well enough to leave the house, start walking – first around the block, then slowly increasing to three to five miles daily, if possible, Bjornson says. Remember during any activity to have the spine in a neutral position, engage the core and belly, breathe.</p>
<p>After walking for a few weeks and feeling strong, consider adding activities that boost the heart rate: light jogging, using the elliptical machine, strengthening/toning and group workouts with other moms. “Do these same activities for a couple of weeks, see how your tummy feels, then try something more challenging like cycling, swimming or yoga,” Bjornson says. “But don’t do it all at once. Patience is key.”</p>
<p>– Ditch the crunch</p>
<p>Avoid movements that put pressure on the abdominals, including push-ups, mountain climbers, planks, Pilates 100s and, especially, crunches, which focus on the outer abdominals but don’t develop the entire core and can worsen the separation for women with diastasis recti. Replace burpees with squats or squat jumps. Opt for modified push-ups and planks. Instead of crunches, try heel slides, bridges and head lifts. Avoid positions where the belly is parallel to the ground until you can engage your deep corset muscle throughout the exercise, Bjornson says.</p>
<p>– Don’t do it alone</p>
<p>More resources are becoming available to new mothers, such as physical therapists specializing in prenatal, postnatal and pelvic floor health, as well as books and online programs.</p>
<p>“Be vocal if you feel you have core instability and diastasis,” Bjornson says. “Don’t assume that the trainer knows more than you do. Be your own advocate.”</p>
<p>health-postpartum</p>
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soon discovered endurance beginning physical challenges id experience new mom pregnancy childbirth also weaken abdominal muscles loosen ligaments cause structural changes rib cage pelvis makes woman prone injury pursues bikini body quickly pregnancy hormones stay body three months postpartum continuing loosen joints muscles tendons ligaments preparation delivery breastfeeding hormones loosening effect even months nursing stops marianne ryan owner marianne ryan physical therapy manhattan author baby bod turn flab fab 12 weeks flat urges new especially breastfeeding mothers exercise carefully dont much soon says advertisement jackie zipkin environmental engineer northern california tore anterior cruciate ligament playing volleyball six weeks giving birth jumping hit ball landed felt knee pop says zipkin says less exercise pregnancy postpartum weakness contributed injury another common postpartum problem diastasis recti separation sixpack rectus abdominis caused part loose connective tissue goes hand hand abdominal weakness instability often associated back pain mommy tummy urinary incontinence pelvic organ prolapse umbilical hernias ryan says 60 percent new mothers condition 30 percent still affected one month postpartum diastasis recti considered medical standpoint hernia says joan loveland gynecologist obstetrician washington hernias ignored become symptomatic one reasons physicians dont check diastasis recti postpartum mothers recent years physical therapists insistence diastasis recti pelvic floor problems treatable become mainstream everything comes pelvis critical area ensure strength wellness fitness loveland says describing diastasis recti affects womans wellbeing think physicians always thought cosmetic thing yet obstetrician gives green light activity six eightweek checkup woman typically left devices whether delivered vaginally via csection result new mother may overdo exercising without rehabilitative guidance may avoid fitness altogether fear damage womens health experts emphasize rehabilitation fitness work hour every day remaining 23 hours adds says kelly dean physical therapist founder tummy team washington state clinic online program birth probably physically demanding thing many women going expect jump zumba class right away better better better heres specialists recommend new mothers advertisement rehabilitate daily activities everyday movements picking baby loading stroller car walking opportunities engage core muscles refer collectively multiple muscle groups including transverse abdominis deep corsetlike muscle sixpack obliques diaphragm lower back pelvic floor ryan recommends getting chair bending forward pressing heels hands thighs take weight belly exhaling get bed roll onto side shoulders hips moving together knees bent drop legs bed push arms avoid jackknife movements sit sit bones tailbone says dean visualize cable crown head drawing keep arms line torso eyes horizon gets spine neutral position rib cage stacked directly pelvis perpendicular ground shoulder blades resting back breathe diaphragm belly breathing another simple way engage strengthen abdominals inhale fill rib cage air exhale bring belly spine says cheryl bjornson certified personal trainer northern california specializes core diastasis recti rehabilitation ryan recommends exhaling match level effort daily tasks lift baby might little exhale lift pot pasta must big exhale get checked physicians generally dont check diastasis recti ask doctor postnatal appointment youve already postnatal checkup experiencing symptoms instructional video tummy team get moving soon feel well enough leave house start walking first around block slowly increasing three five miles daily possible bjornson says remember activity spine neutral position engage core belly breathe walking weeks feeling strong consider adding activities boost heart rate light jogging using elliptical machine strengtheningtoning group workouts moms activities couple weeks see tummy feels try something challenging like cycling swimming yoga bjornson says dont patience key ditch crunch avoid movements put pressure abdominals including pushups mountain climbers planks pilates 100s especially crunches focus outer abdominals dont develop entire core worsen separation women diastasis recti replace burpees squats squat jumps opt modified pushups planks instead crunches try heel slides bridges head lifts avoid positions belly parallel ground engage deep corset muscle throughout exercise bjornson says dont alone resources becoming available new mothers physical therapists specializing prenatal postnatal pelvic floor health well books online programs vocal feel core instability diastasis bjornson says dont assume trainer knows advocate healthpostpartum
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<p>LOS ANGELES (AP) — The NBA has spoken to Clippers star Blake Griffin as well as other players from the Houston Rockets and Los Angeles as part of its investigation into late-game and postgame incidents involving the teams.</p>
<p>Griffin confirmed Tuesday that he had been contacted by league officials.</p>
<p>“I’ve spoken to them,” he said after attending a L.A. Clippers Foundation event at an elementary school. “I’m sure they’ve talked to everybody by now. We’ll see what they come up with.”</p>
<p>Tempers boiled over Monday night late in the <a href="" type="internal">Clippers’ 113-102 victory</a> , to the point where several security guards were needed outside the Houston locker room afterward.</p>
<p>“I wouldn’t call it pretty crazy,” Griffin said. “In this day and age everything kind of gets blown a little bit out of proportion.”</p>
<p>Citing anonymous NBA sources, <a href="http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/22116253/houston-rockets-push-la-clippers-locker-room" type="external">ESPN reported</a> several Rockets players headed toward the Clippers’ locker room afterward, seeking a confrontation, but were escorted away by security before anything got physical.</p>
<p>“We were exactly where we were supposed to be. All our guys were in the locker room talking,” Griffin said Tuesday. “We were doing the right thing.”</p>
<p>There were incidents as well in the closing minutes of Chris Paul’s first game against the Clippers at Staples Center since he was traded to the Rockets last summer. Griffin appeared to bump Houston coach Mike D’Antoni, and they exchanged words. Griffin and Houston’s Trevor Ariza were later ejected after another incident.</p>
<p>“I think the NBA should finish their investigation,” Clippers owner Steve Ballmer said Tuesday. “I’m glad we got the win last night and I’m glad all our guys were in our locker room all night last night.”</p>
<p>Afterward, neither team offered specifics on what happened, if anything, in the Clippers’ locker room.</p>
<p>Paul was asked about it and dodged the question.</p>
<p>“I don’t know,” he said. “We took our loss. Tough loss.”</p>
<p>It seems almost inevitable the NBA would take some disciplinary action against players. Paul is also the president of the National Basketball Players Association, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.</p>
<p>“Chris was a great Clipper, solid citizen his whole time here,” Ballmer said. “But as I told him last time we had dinner, ‘Every time we play, I’m against you the whole time.’”</p>
<p>Both teams were off Tuesday. The Clippers host Denver on Wednesday, and Houston is off until it hosts Minnesota on Thursday.</p>
<p>Clippers coach Doc Rivers also said his team was in its own locker room.</p>
<p>“Their entire team was not in their locker room,” he said, referring to the Rockets. Walking into his postgame interview, Rivers joked, “We’re honoring Martin Luther King Jr. Day; we’re non-violent.”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>More AP NBA: <a href="" type="internal" /> <a href="" type="internal">https://apnews.com/tag/NBAbasketball</a></p>
<p>LOS ANGELES (AP) — The NBA has spoken to Clippers star Blake Griffin as well as other players from the Houston Rockets and Los Angeles as part of its investigation into late-game and postgame incidents involving the teams.</p>
<p>Griffin confirmed Tuesday that he had been contacted by league officials.</p>
<p>“I’ve spoken to them,” he said after attending a L.A. Clippers Foundation event at an elementary school. “I’m sure they’ve talked to everybody by now. We’ll see what they come up with.”</p>
<p>Tempers boiled over Monday night late in the <a href="" type="internal">Clippers’ 113-102 victory</a> , to the point where several security guards were needed outside the Houston locker room afterward.</p>
<p>“I wouldn’t call it pretty crazy,” Griffin said. “In this day and age everything kind of gets blown a little bit out of proportion.”</p>
<p>Citing anonymous NBA sources, <a href="http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/22116253/houston-rockets-push-la-clippers-locker-room" type="external">ESPN reported</a> several Rockets players headed toward the Clippers’ locker room afterward, seeking a confrontation, but were escorted away by security before anything got physical.</p>
<p>“We were exactly where we were supposed to be. All our guys were in the locker room talking,” Griffin said Tuesday. “We were doing the right thing.”</p>
<p>There were incidents as well in the closing minutes of Chris Paul’s first game against the Clippers at Staples Center since he was traded to the Rockets last summer. Griffin appeared to bump Houston coach Mike D’Antoni, and they exchanged words. Griffin and Houston’s Trevor Ariza were later ejected after another incident.</p>
<p>“I think the NBA should finish their investigation,” Clippers owner Steve Ballmer said Tuesday. “I’m glad we got the win last night and I’m glad all our guys were in our locker room all night last night.”</p>
<p>Afterward, neither team offered specifics on what happened, if anything, in the Clippers’ locker room.</p>
<p>Paul was asked about it and dodged the question.</p>
<p>“I don’t know,” he said. “We took our loss. Tough loss.”</p>
<p>It seems almost inevitable the NBA would take some disciplinary action against players. Paul is also the president of the National Basketball Players Association, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.</p>
<p>“Chris was a great Clipper, solid citizen his whole time here,” Ballmer said. “But as I told him last time we had dinner, ‘Every time we play, I’m against you the whole time.’”</p>
<p>Both teams were off Tuesday. The Clippers host Denver on Wednesday, and Houston is off until it hosts Minnesota on Thursday.</p>
<p>Clippers coach Doc Rivers also said his team was in its own locker room.</p>
<p>“Their entire team was not in their locker room,” he said, referring to the Rockets. Walking into his postgame interview, Rivers joked, “We’re honoring Martin Luther King Jr. Day; we’re non-violent.”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>More AP NBA: <a href="" type="internal" /> <a href="" type="internal">https://apnews.com/tag/NBAbasketball</a></p>
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los angeles ap nba spoken clippers star blake griffin well players houston rockets los angeles part investigation lategame postgame incidents involving teams griffin confirmed tuesday contacted league officials ive spoken said attending la clippers foundation event elementary school im sure theyve talked everybody well see come tempers boiled monday night late clippers 113102 victory point several security guards needed outside houston locker room afterward wouldnt call pretty crazy griffin said day age everything kind gets blown little bit proportion citing anonymous nba sources espn reported several rockets players headed toward clippers locker room afterward seeking confrontation escorted away security anything got physical exactly supposed guys locker room talking griffin said tuesday right thing incidents well closing minutes chris pauls first game clippers staples center since traded rockets last summer griffin appeared bump houston coach mike dantoni exchanged words griffin houstons trevor ariza later ejected another incident think nba finish investigation clippers owner steve ballmer said tuesday im glad got win last night im glad guys locker room night last night afterward neither team offered specifics happened anything clippers locker room paul asked dodged question dont know said took loss tough loss seems almost inevitable nba would take disciplinary action players paul also president national basketball players association immediately respond request comment tuesday chris great clipper solid citizen whole time ballmer said told last time dinner every time play im whole time teams tuesday clippers host denver wednesday houston hosts minnesota thursday clippers coach doc rivers also said team locker room entire team locker room said referring rockets walking postgame interview rivers joked honoring martin luther king jr day nonviolent ___ ap nba httpsapnewscomtagnbabasketball los angeles ap nba spoken clippers star blake griffin well players houston rockets los angeles part investigation lategame postgame incidents involving teams griffin confirmed tuesday contacted league officials ive spoken said attending la clippers foundation event elementary school im sure theyve talked everybody well see come tempers boiled monday night late clippers 113102 victory point several security guards needed outside houston locker room afterward wouldnt call pretty crazy griffin said day age everything kind gets blown little bit proportion citing anonymous nba sources espn reported several rockets players headed toward clippers locker room afterward seeking confrontation escorted away security anything got physical exactly supposed guys locker room talking griffin said tuesday right thing incidents well closing minutes chris pauls first game clippers staples center since traded rockets last summer griffin appeared bump houston coach mike dantoni exchanged words griffin houstons trevor ariza later ejected another incident think nba finish investigation clippers owner steve ballmer said tuesday im glad got win last night im glad guys locker room night last night afterward neither team offered specifics happened anything clippers locker room paul asked dodged question dont know said took loss tough loss seems almost inevitable nba would take disciplinary action players paul also president national basketball players association immediately respond request comment tuesday chris great clipper solid citizen whole time ballmer said told last time dinner every time play im whole time teams tuesday clippers host denver wednesday houston hosts minnesota thursday clippers coach doc rivers also said team locker room entire team locker room said referring rockets walking postgame interview rivers joked honoring martin luther king jr day nonviolent ___ ap nba httpsapnewscomtagnbabasketball
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<p>The Dow Jones industrial average and Standard &amp; Poor’s 500 index spent much of the day hovering slightly below their most-recent highs. But the Nasdaq composite mounted a late-afternoon comeback that extended its recent win streak for the ninth day in a row.</p>
<p>Oil drilling companies and homebuilders notched broad declines, while traders bid up shares in utilities stocks.</p>
<p>Investors were looking ahead to the start of a two-day round of Congressional testimony by Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen. The remarks could provide insight into when the central bank will begin raising its key interest rate from near zero.</p>
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<p>“The markets are in a holding pattern,” said Erik Davidson, chief investment officer of Wells Fargo Private Bank. “We’ll have some very interesting information coming up from Janet Yellen tomorrow and Wednesday, so the markets are looking at that very closely.”</p>
<p>The Dow ended down 23.60 points, or 0.1 percent, to 18,116.84. The S&amp;P 500 fell 0.64 points, or 0.03 percent, to 2,109.66. The Nasdaq gained 5.01 points, or 0.1 percent, to 4,960.97. The index, which has yet to reclaim its record high from the dot-com era, in now within 87 points of that March 2000 peak.</p>
<p>The three stock indexes are up for the year.</p>
<p>Stocks started off the day basically flat as investors weighed developments in Greece and falling oil prices.</p>
<p>Greece’s new government and its creditors reached an agreement over the weekend that staved off the threat of a Greek bankruptcy and an exit from the euro. Athens was expected to send creditors a list of reforms tied to the four-month bailout pact early Tuesday.</p>
<p>The price of oil fell for the fourth day in a row as the return of a Libyan oil field raised expectations for more oil supply. Benchmark U.S. crude fell $1.36 to close at $49.45 a barrel in New York.</p>
<p>That helped drag down shares in several offshore oil drilling and oilfield services companies.</p>
<p>Transocean fell 75 cents, or 4.4 percent, to $16.26, while Ensco shed $1.11, or 3.7 percent, to $28.65. Nabors Industries fell the most among stocks in the S&amp;P 500, losing 67 cents, or 5 percent, to $12.85.</p>
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<p>Investors bought up shares in Valeant Pharmaceuticals, which announced on Sunday a deal to buy rival drugmaker Salix Pharmaceuticals for about $10 billion in cash. Valeant rose $25.49, or 15 percent, to $198.75.</p>
<p>A midmorning report showing that sales of previously occupied homes tumbled 4.9 percent last month sent most homebuilder shares lower. UCP declined the most, shedding 45 cents, or 4.8 percent, to $8.97.</p>
<p>“The home numbers were a little disappointing,” said Bob Doll, chief equity strategist at Nuveen Asset Management.</p>
<p>All told, six of the 10 sectors in the S&amp;P 500 fell. Telecommunications stocks declined the most. Utilities stocks led the gainers.</p>
<p>Tuesday will provide investors with some fresh insight on the U.S. consumer.</p>
<p>The Conference Board will report its latest consumer confidence index. January’s reading surged to the highest level since August 2007, and economists anticipate a pullback in this month’s reading.</p>
<p>But the biggest market-moving news could come from the Fed.</p>
<p>Yellen is scheduled to deliver her semiannual report to Congress on the economy and interest rates. Investors will be listening for any hints of when the central bank will move to raise its key interest rate. Higher Fed rates would affect rates on many consumer and business loans and could depress stock and bond prices.</p>
<p>The Fed’s most recent policy statement expressed the intention to be “patient” about raising rates. Many economists have predicted the central bank will raise rates in June.</p>
<p>In other futures trading Monday, Brent crude, a benchmark for international oils used by many U.S. refineries, fell $1.32 to close at $58.90 in London. Wholesale gasoline rose 0.5 cents to close at $1.646 a gallon. Heating oil rose 10.6 cents to close at $2.218 a gallon, and natural gas fell 7.2 cents to close at $2.879 per 1,000 cubic feet.</p>
<p>Precious and industrial metals futures closed slightly lower. Gold fell $4.10 to $1,200.80 an ounce, silver fell two cents to $16.25 an ounce and copper edged down less than a penny to $2.59 a pound.</p>
<p>U.S. government bond prices rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 2.06 percent from 2.11 percent late Friday.</p>
<p>Among other stocks making moves Monday:</p>
<p>— Cooper Tire &amp; Rubber fell 5 percent after the tire maker reported fourth-quarter earnings that fell short of what Wall Street analysts had expected. The stock shed $1.89 to $35.82.</p>
<p>— Tower Semiconductor reported a profit during its fourth quarter after reporting a loss in the same period a year earlier. Shares in the chipmaker vaulted $2.07, or 15.1 percent, to $15.76.</p>
<p>— Polypore International surged 12.7 percent on news the company is selling its energy storage business to Asahi Kasei for $2.2 billion after it sells another segment to 3M for $1 billion. The stock gained $6.75 to $59.70.</p>
<p>———</p>
<p>AP Business Writer Elaine Kurtenbach in Tokyo contributed to this report.</p>
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dow jones industrial average standard amp poors 500 index spent much day hovering slightly mostrecent highs nasdaq composite mounted lateafternoon comeback extended recent win streak ninth day row oil drilling companies homebuilders notched broad declines traders bid shares utilities stocks investors looking ahead start twoday round congressional testimony federal reserve chair janet yellen remarks could provide insight central bank begin raising key interest rate near zero advertisement markets holding pattern said erik davidson chief investment officer wells fargo private bank well interesting information coming janet yellen tomorrow wednesday markets looking closely dow ended 2360 points 01 percent 1811684 sampp 500 fell 064 points 003 percent 210966 nasdaq gained 501 points 01 percent 496097 index yet reclaim record high dotcom era within 87 points march 2000 peak three stock indexes year stocks started day basically flat investors weighed developments greece falling oil prices greeces new government creditors reached agreement weekend staved threat greek bankruptcy exit euro athens expected send creditors list reforms tied fourmonth bailout pact early tuesday price oil fell fourth day row return libyan oil field raised expectations oil supply benchmark us crude fell 136 close 4945 barrel new york helped drag shares several offshore oil drilling oilfield services companies transocean fell 75 cents 44 percent 1626 ensco shed 111 37 percent 2865 nabors industries fell among stocks sampp 500 losing 67 cents 5 percent 1285 advertisement investors bought shares valeant pharmaceuticals announced sunday deal buy rival drugmaker salix pharmaceuticals 10 billion cash valeant rose 2549 15 percent 19875 midmorning report showing sales previously occupied homes tumbled 49 percent last month sent homebuilder shares lower ucp declined shedding 45 cents 48 percent 897 home numbers little disappointing said bob doll chief equity strategist nuveen asset management told six 10 sectors sampp 500 fell telecommunications stocks declined utilities stocks led gainers tuesday provide investors fresh insight us consumer conference board report latest consumer confidence index januarys reading surged highest level since august 2007 economists anticipate pullback months reading biggest marketmoving news could come fed yellen scheduled deliver semiannual report congress economy interest rates investors listening hints central bank move raise key interest rate higher fed rates would affect rates many consumer business loans could depress stock bond prices feds recent policy statement expressed intention patient raising rates many economists predicted central bank raise rates june futures trading monday brent crude benchmark international oils used many us refineries fell 132 close 5890 london wholesale gasoline rose 05 cents close 1646 gallon heating oil rose 106 cents close 2218 gallon natural gas fell 72 cents close 2879 per 1000 cubic feet precious industrial metals futures closed slightly lower gold fell 410 120080 ounce silver fell two cents 1625 ounce copper edged less penny 259 pound us government bond prices rose yield 10year treasury note fell 206 percent 211 percent late friday among stocks making moves monday cooper tire amp rubber fell 5 percent tire maker reported fourthquarter earnings fell short wall street analysts expected stock shed 189 3582 tower semiconductor reported profit fourth quarter reporting loss period year earlier shares chipmaker vaulted 207 151 percent 1576 polypore international surged 127 percent news company selling energy storage business asahi kasei 22 billion sells another segment 3m 1 billion stock gained 675 5970 ap business writer elaine kurtenbach tokyo contributed report
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<p>Albuquerque’s network of bicycle trails, bridges and dedicated on-street bike lanes have become a kind of alternative roadway enabling two-wheeled commuters, recreational and sports riders to navigate the city, often with minimal exposure to motor traffic.</p>
<p>Now covering more than 400 miles, the network’s routes and bridges connect sectors of the city north and south of Interstate 40 and east and west of the Rio Grande.</p>
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<p>The city has also dedicated resources to education programs to teach adults and children how to ride safely in traffic, to perform basic maintenance and plans to open a community bicycle workshop next year.</p>
<p>These resources and other factors landed Albuquerque the 17th spot in Bicycling magazine’s annual list of 50 Bicycle Friendly Cities in May.</p>
<p>The roots of the present system go back decades, with city planners developing the concept for a paved trail network that could be used by cyclists, walkers, runners and roller skaters, said Susan Kelly, who worked in the city’s planning department in the 1980s and early 1990s.</p>
<p>Although a city-produced bike route map and the heavily used Rio Grande Bosque Trail date back before 2000, the pace of large bicycle-related projects has accelerated since then, said Chuck Malagodi, the city’s community recreation coordinator who specializes in bicycle education.</p>
<p>Since 2000, city or county projects have extended the Bosque Trail deep into the South Valley and north as far as the Balloon Fiesta Park, repaved an 11-mile section of the trail from Bridge Boulevard to Alameda, created a limited-speed “bike boulevard” on a section of Silver, enhanced and extended bike trails and lanes on the east and west sides of the city, built new bicycle/pedestrian bridges and four underpasses that route bicycle traffic beneath roads that cross the North Diversion Channel.</p>
<p>A quarter-cent transportation gross receipts tax that voters approved in 1999 and reauthorized in 2009, county funds, bond money, state grants and federal dollars have provided the majority of the funds.</p>
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<p>Guiding principles for the improvements have been system connectivity and safety, said Don Simonsen, who has been chair of the Greater Albuquerque Bicycling Advisory Committee for the past five years.</p>
<p>Malagodi regards the Gail Ryba Bridge over the Rio Grande just north of Interstate 40 as the most important addition to the bicycle route network in the last decade. Named after a longtime cycling advocate who died of cancer in 2010, the bridge was opened in August of that year. It is part of a 0.9-mile section of new trailway linking trail systems east and west of the river.</p>
<p>Project work was estimated at $7.5 million, of which about $5.3 million came from federal stimulus package funds. The final cost came in under the estimate and the remainder of the funding.</p>
<p>A major project completed this summer involved building four underpasses on the popular north-south bicycle/pedestrian trail along the North Diversion Channel. Underpasses at Osuna, Comanche, Candelaria and Menaul allow cyclists and pedestrians to avoid crossing those busy streets as they travel from the university area north.</p>
<p>“They really make a north/south trip across the city much faster now too, which I bet commuters appreciate,” said Jennifer Buntz, the president of the cycling advocacy group Duke City Wheelmen.</p>
<p>An additional section of trail and an underpass at Alameda completed in 2009 at a cost of just less than $1 million enables cyclists to reach Balloon Fiesta Park. A volunteer-run valet bike parking service launched in 2009 gives cyclists an alternative way to access the annual hot-air balloon event.</p>
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<p>County projects include a roughly $1.9 million trail opened in late September that provided a cycling trail and bridge along Alameda from Fourth Street to east of Edith. In about a month, the county plans to start a $1.1 million project to rehabilitate about approximately five miles of the Bosque Trail from Bridge south to the South Diversion Channel to eliminate cracks and bumps.</p>
<p>Apart from road-type projects, the city produces about 80,000 full-color bicycle trails map each year that are distributed free, Malagodi said. The 2013 edition of the maps are being distributed in November to local bike shops and city libraries; call (505) 768-2680 to request to have one mailed to you.</p>
<p>Malagodi also oversees programs that provide safe cycling courses for adults and school children.</p>
<p>Soon to come is a bicycle/pedestrian bridge over Interstate 25 currently under construction near the San Mateo intersection, which is expected to open by the end of the year.</p>
<p>And the city is developing a plan to create a 50-mile bicycling, running and walking trail circle around Albuquerque. Amenities along the trail may include benches, shade structures, landscaping, small parks and water fountains. The city has allocated $150,000 in property-tax backed bond money and hired engineering firm Wilson &amp; Company Inc. to help produce the plan and is holding multiple public meetings to gather input.</p>
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albuquerques network bicycle trails bridges dedicated onstreet bike lanes become kind alternative roadway enabling twowheeled commuters recreational sports riders navigate city often minimal exposure motor traffic covering 400 miles networks routes bridges connect sectors city north south interstate 40 east west rio grande advertisement city also dedicated resources education programs teach adults children ride safely traffic perform basic maintenance plans open community bicycle workshop next year resources factors landed albuquerque 17th spot bicycling magazines annual list 50 bicycle friendly cities may roots present system go back decades city planners developing concept paved trail network could used cyclists walkers runners roller skaters said susan kelly worked citys planning department 1980s early 1990s although cityproduced bike route map heavily used rio grande bosque trail date back 2000 pace large bicyclerelated projects accelerated since said chuck malagodi citys community recreation coordinator specializes bicycle education since 2000 city county projects extended bosque trail deep south valley north far balloon fiesta park repaved 11mile section trail bridge boulevard alameda created limitedspeed bike boulevard section silver enhanced extended bike trails lanes east west sides city built new bicyclepedestrian bridges four underpasses route bicycle traffic beneath roads cross north diversion channel quartercent transportation gross receipts tax voters approved 1999 reauthorized 2009 county funds bond money state grants federal dollars provided majority funds advertisement guiding principles improvements system connectivity safety said simonsen chair greater albuquerque bicycling advisory committee past five years malagodi regards gail ryba bridge rio grande north interstate 40 important addition bicycle route network last decade named longtime cycling advocate died cancer 2010 bridge opened august year part 09mile section new trailway linking trail systems east west river project work estimated 75 million 53 million came federal stimulus package funds final cost came estimate remainder funding major project completed summer involved building four underpasses popular northsouth bicyclepedestrian trail along north diversion channel underpasses osuna comanche candelaria menaul allow cyclists pedestrians avoid crossing busy streets travel university area north really make northsouth trip across city much faster bet commuters appreciate said jennifer buntz president cycling advocacy group duke city wheelmen additional section trail underpass alameda completed 2009 cost less 1 million enables cyclists reach balloon fiesta park volunteerrun valet bike parking service launched 2009 gives cyclists alternative way access annual hotair balloon event advertisement county projects include roughly 19 million trail opened late september provided cycling trail bridge along alameda fourth street east edith month county plans start 11 million project rehabilitate approximately five miles bosque trail bridge south south diversion channel eliminate cracks bumps apart roadtype projects city produces 80000 fullcolor bicycle trails map year distributed free malagodi said 2013 edition maps distributed november local bike shops city libraries call 505 7682680 request one mailed malagodi also oversees programs provide safe cycling courses adults school children soon come bicyclepedestrian bridge interstate 25 currently construction near san mateo intersection expected open end year city developing plan create 50mile bicycling running walking trail circle around albuquerque amenities along trail may include benches shade structures landscaping small parks water fountains city allocated 150000 propertytax backed bond money hired engineering firm wilson amp company inc help produce plan holding multiple public meetings gather input
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<p>Dana Towsey, Walmart.com senior manager II for product development in merchandise innovation, left, eats lunch with Julia McCullough, senior manager for site merchandising, outside of the cafeteria at the Walmart.com office in San Bruno, Calif. Wal-Mart has embraced a Silicon Valley startup feel with its San Bruno offices. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)</p>
<p>SAN FRANCISCO – Software engineers wearing jeans and flip flops test the latest smartphone apps. Walls and windows double as whiteboards where ideas are jotted down. And a minibasketball net is in the center of it all.</p>
<p>At first glance, this workplace resembles any Silicon Valley startup. There’s just one exception: Target’s trademark red bulls-eye at the entrance.</p>
<p>Target, Kohl’s and home-shopping network QVC are among a half-dozen retailers opening technology test labs in the San Francisco area to do things like improve their websites and create mobile shopping apps. They’re setting up shop in modern spaces and competing for top Silicon Valley talent to replicate the creativity, culture and nimbleness of online startups.</p>
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<p>The goal is to stay on top of tech trends and better compete with online rivals like Amazon.com that attract shoppers with convenient ordering and cheap prices.</p>
<p>The labs are a shift for retailers, which like many older industries, have been slow to adapt to rapidly changing technology.</p>
<p>But retailers say the labs are essential to satisfy shoppers who more often are buying on their PCs, tablets and smartphones.</p>
<p>“Consumers expect immediate gratification,” says Lori Schafer, executive adviser at SAS Institute, which creates software for retailers.</p>
<p>As a result, she says, retailers need to develop technology in weeks, instead of months or years.</p>
<p>ABOVE: Target Corp., based in Minneapolis, is among a growing number of old-line retailers opening technology hubs in recent months in high-tech colonies, particularly in Silicon Valley and San Francisco. These employees work at the Target Technology Innovation Center office in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)</p>
<p>Behind the curve</p>
<p>Retailers are playing catch-up after several years of watching shoppers gradually move from physical stores to the Web. Online sales have grown from 5.9 percent of the $2.64 trillion in total retail sales in 2009 to 7.6 percent of the $3.1 trillion in revenue last year, according to Forrester Research.</p>
<p>The explosion of people using smartphones to shop has pushed stores to move faster. U.S. consumers now are spending more than half of their time on retailers’ websites using their smartphones and tablets, according to the National Retail Federation, a retail trade group.</p>
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<p>Retailers knew they needed to figure out how to create online and mobile technology to please their shoppers. So they began looking to Silicon Valley, where they hoped to tap the talent, culture and creativity that come from tech giants like Facebook and Apple.</p>
<p>Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, was the first to open a tech lab in Silicon Valley. Since opening Wal-MartLabs in San Bruno in 2011, the company has rolled out a number of technologies that it developed there.</p>
<p>One of the biggest projects? Wal-Mart rebuilt its website’s search engine, which launched in 2012.</p>
<p>It can guess a customer’s intent when he or she types a term rather than just returning specific search results. A search for “denim” yields results for “jeans” instead of products with “denim,” for example.</p>
<p>Wal-Mart’s mobile app also has been a big focus at Wal-MartLabs, which has 1,200 workers and all the trappings of a Silicon Valley startup, including treadmill desks and ping pong tables.</p>
<p>For instance, Wal-MartLabs developed technology that enables Wal-Mart’s mobile app to help guide shoppers to products. It also developed technology that enables the mobile app to track customers’ spending based on a predetermined budget.</p>
<p>LEFT: Pranay Kuruvilla, senior software engineer for WalmartLabs, left, plays pingpong with Benjamin Pellow, principal software engineer, at the Walmart.com office in San Bruno, Calif. Wal-Mart has embraced a Silicon Valley startup feel with its San Bruno offices. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)</p>
<p>Presence invaluable</p>
<p>Wal-Mart, which is based in Bentonville, Ark., says having a presence in Silicon Valley has been invaluable in part because it offers the company early access to technology entrepreneurs.</p>
<p>For example, two years ago, Wal-MartLabs met the founders of a startup called Grabble as they were in Silicon Valley pitching their technology that enables customers to get receipts for their purchases by email. Wal-Mart has since bought the startup, hired the founders, and next year, shoppers will be able to get the so-called e-receipts.</p>
<p>The company says it’s so pleased with its results at Wal-MartLabs that it plans to open another tech office in nearby Sunnyvale in January. It also has smaller tech hubs elsewhere.</p>
<p>“We are not a retailer in Silicon Valley,” says Neil Ashe, CEO of Wal-Mart’s global e-commerce operations. “We are building an Internet technology company inside the largest retailer.”</p>
<p>Teen retailer American Eagle opened its tech center in San Francisco in July. The 10,000-square-foot location is filled with movable desks to encourage spontaneous brainstorming sessions among its 20 workers. The goal: to get to know more about American Eagle’s customers.</p>
<p>Among its projects is an effort to consolidate the personal data of American Eagle customers, including their shopping history, from the company’s email campaigns and loyalty programs. The retailer wants to gain information that would help it better target its marketing around a customer’s buying habits.</p>
<p>Executives at American Eagle, which is based in Pittsburgh, say that’s just the beginning of the types of technology that could come out of its Silicon Valley center.</p>
<p>Joe Megibow, a senior vice president and director of American Eagle’s tech center, says he envisions a future when customers can go into the store and have the clerk pull up information on a tablet, such as the shopper’s email address and buying history.</p>
<p>Target’s focus at its 5,000-square-foot office in the historic Folgers Coffee Co. building is more futuristic. The lab, which opened with 20 workers in May, is looking at how wearable gadgets like smart watches – computerized watches that communicate with smartphones – can be used in its stores.</p>
<p>Additionally, Target, which is based in Minneapolis, is experimenting with a mobile app feature that would allow customers to call up information like whether certain cereal is gluten-free by taking a photo of the box with their cell-phone camera.</p>
<p>None of the projects at Target’s lab have made it to shoppers yet, but David Newman, director of the center, says the goal is to test “the unexplored and underexplored.”</p>
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dana towsey walmartcom senior manager ii product development merchandise innovation left eats lunch julia mccullough senior manager site merchandising outside cafeteria walmartcom office san bruno calif walmart embraced silicon valley startup feel san bruno offices ap photojeff chiu san francisco software engineers wearing jeans flip flops test latest smartphone apps walls windows double whiteboards ideas jotted minibasketball net center first glance workplace resembles silicon valley startup theres one exception targets trademark red bullseye entrance target kohls homeshopping network qvc among halfdozen retailers opening technology test labs san francisco area things like improve websites create mobile shopping apps theyre setting shop modern spaces competing top silicon valley talent replicate creativity culture nimbleness online startups advertisement goal stay top tech trends better compete online rivals like amazoncom attract shoppers convenient ordering cheap prices labs shift retailers like many older industries slow adapt rapidly changing technology retailers say labs essential satisfy shoppers often buying pcs tablets smartphones consumers expect immediate gratification says lori schafer executive adviser sas institute creates software retailers result says retailers need develop technology weeks instead months years target corp based minneapolis among growing number oldline retailers opening technology hubs recent months hightech colonies particularly silicon valley san francisco employees work target technology innovation center office san francisco ap photojeff chiu behind curve retailers playing catchup several years watching shoppers gradually move physical stores web online sales grown 59 percent 264 trillion total retail sales 2009 76 percent 31 trillion revenue last year according forrester research explosion people using smartphones shop pushed stores move faster us consumers spending half time retailers websites using smartphones tablets according national retail federation retail trade group advertisement retailers knew needed figure create online mobile technology please shoppers began looking silicon valley hoped tap talent culture creativity come tech giants like facebook apple walmart worlds largest retailer first open tech lab silicon valley since opening walmartlabs san bruno 2011 company rolled number technologies developed one biggest projects walmart rebuilt websites search engine launched 2012 guess customers intent types term rather returning specific search results search denim yields results jeans instead products denim example walmarts mobile app also big focus walmartlabs 1200 workers trappings silicon valley startup including treadmill desks ping pong tables instance walmartlabs developed technology enables walmarts mobile app help guide shoppers products also developed technology enables mobile app track customers spending based predetermined budget left pranay kuruvilla senior software engineer walmartlabs left plays pingpong benjamin pellow principal software engineer walmartcom office san bruno calif walmart embraced silicon valley startup feel san bruno offices ap photojeff chiu presence invaluable walmart based bentonville ark says presence silicon valley invaluable part offers company early access technology entrepreneurs example two years ago walmartlabs met founders startup called grabble silicon valley pitching technology enables customers get receipts purchases email walmart since bought startup hired founders next year shoppers able get socalled ereceipts company says pleased results walmartlabs plans open another tech office nearby sunnyvale january also smaller tech hubs elsewhere retailer silicon valley says neil ashe ceo walmarts global ecommerce operations building internet technology company inside largest retailer teen retailer american eagle opened tech center san francisco july 10000squarefoot location filled movable desks encourage spontaneous brainstorming sessions among 20 workers goal get know american eagles customers among projects effort consolidate personal data american eagle customers including shopping history companys email campaigns loyalty programs retailer wants gain information would help better target marketing around customers buying habits executives american eagle based pittsburgh say thats beginning types technology could come silicon valley center joe megibow senior vice president director american eagles tech center says envisions future customers go store clerk pull information tablet shoppers email address buying history targets focus 5000squarefoot office historic folgers coffee co building futuristic lab opened 20 workers may looking wearable gadgets like smart watches computerized watches communicate smartphones used stores additionally target based minneapolis experimenting mobile app feature would allow customers call information like whether certain cereal glutenfree taking photo box cellphone camera none projects targets lab made shoppers yet david newman director center says goal test unexplored underexplored
| 674 |
<p>Jan 25 (Reuters) - Neimeth International Pharmaceuticals Plc :</p>
<p>* FOR Q1 ENDED DEC 31, TURNOVER OF 394.3 MILLION NAIRA VERSUS 137.4 MILLION NAIRA</p>
<p>* PROFIT BEFORE TAXATION FOR 3 MONTHS ENDED DEC.31 AT 13.5 MILLION NAIRA VERSUS A LOSS OF 248.4 MILLION NAIRA YEAR AGO‍​ Source text ( <a href="http://bit.ly/2Brqp0w" type="external">bit.ly/2Brqp0w</a>) Further company coverage:</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - Simmering political tensions roiled stocks and bonds across the globe on Wednesday, with U.S. yield curves continuing to flatten and stock markets losing ground as industrial companies took a beating.</p>
<p>Despite strong economic data out of China and the United States this week, stock markets could not shake a hangover from Tuesday’s news that U.S. President Donald Trump was looking to impose tariffs on up to $60 billion of Chinese imports.</p>
<p>Trump also spooked investors on Tuesday by firing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who was viewed as a supporter of free trade. Together, those moves worried some investors about a global trade war.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, the Russian Foreign Ministry said it would retaliate after 23 of its were expelled by British Prime Minister Theresa May over a chemical attack on a former Russian double agent in England that May blamed on Moscow.</p>
<p>That helped continue a trend of flattening yield curves on U.S. government bonds, with the spread between two- and 10-year Treasury yields down 2.6 basis points to 55.7 basis points from Tuesday’s close.</p>
<p>The spread between five- and 30-year yields was down 2.8 basis points to 55.7 basis points.</p>
<p>Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury notes US10YT=RR last rose 10/32 in price to yield 2.8116 percent, from 2.848 percent late on Tuesday.</p>
<p>The 30-year bond US30YT=RR last rose 30/32 in price to yield 3.0527 percent, from 3.101 percent Tuesday.</p>
<p>Germany’s 10-year government bond yield DE10YT=RR fell to a 1-1/2-month low on trade war fears, while Italian borrowing costs rose after right-wing leader and aspiring prime minister Matteo Salvini reiterated his party’s view that the euro was a flawed currency.</p>
<p>Salvini also said he was open to forming any sort of coalition government as long as it did not include the Democratic Party.</p>
<p>Salvini’s comments, along with the ongoing trade war concerns, sent European stocks slightly into the red despite a banner day for Adidas and a strong showing for mining stocks.</p> Slideshow (3 Images)
<p>Adidas, the German sports fashion company, gained more than 11 percent on Wednesday after announcing a share buyback of up to 3 billion euros.</p>
<p>But the pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.FTEU3" type="external">.FTEU3</a> lost 0.14 percent and MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe .MIWD00000PUS shed 0.42 percent.</p>
<p>On Wall Street, the Dow Jones was down around 1 percent, thanks in part to hefty losses at industrial companies like Boeing ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BA.N" type="external">BA.N</a>), which had been down more than 4 percent before regaining some ground Wednesday afternoon.</p>
<a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.FTEU3" type="external">FTSE International</a> 1466.1 .FTEU3 FT-SE International -2.08 (-0.14%) .FTEU3 BA.N .DJI .SPX .IXIC
<p>That was despite encouraging economic news that had spurred the U.S. indexes to open higher on Wednesday morning.</p>
<p>China reported industrial output expanding at a surprisingly faster pace at the start of the year. Fixed asset investment also beat forecasts, while retail sales improved.</p>
<p>Political uncertainty outweighed that, said Paul Nolte, portfolio manager at Kingsview Asset Management in Chicago. “Given the rearrangement that [Trump] has made to his cabinet ... it’s being read as a lot more protectionist now than it was two weeks ago.”</p>
<p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.DJI" type="external">.DJI</a> fell 238.52 points, or 0.95 percent, to 24,768.51, the S&amp;P 500 <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.SPX" type="external">.SPX</a> lost 14.81 points, or 0.54 percent, to 2,750.5 and the Nasdaq Composite <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.IXIC" type="external">.IXIC</a> dropped 14.93 points, or 0.2 percent, to 7,496.08.</p>
<p>Emerging market stocks .MSCIEF, meanwhile, lost 0.40 percent.</p>
<p>Oil prices were choppy, up slightly in the afternoon after losing ground through the morning.</p>
<p>U.S. crude CLcv1 rose 0.31 percent to $60.90 per barrel and Brent LCOcv1 was last at $64.82, up 0.28 percent.</p>
<p>The dollar index .DXY rose 0.06 percent, with the euro <a href="/finance/currencies/quote?srcCurr=EUR&amp;destCurr=USD" type="external">EUR=</a> down 0.14 percent to $1.2372.</p>
<p>Additional reporting by Sujata Rao, Sruthi Shankar and Kate Duguid; Editing by Bernadette Baum and James Dalgleish</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>PARKLAND, Fla. (Reuters) - U.S. students spilled out of classrooms by the thousands on Wednesday, chanting slogans like “No more silence” and “We want change” as part of a coast-to-coast protest over gun violence prompted by last month’s massacre at a Florida high school.</p>
<p>The #ENOUGH National School Walkout was intended to pressure federal and state lawmakers to tighten laws on gun ownership despite opposition by the National Rifle Association (NRA), the powerful gun rights advocacy group.</p>
<p>With some students dressed in orange, the color adopted by the gun control movement, the walkouts began at 10 a.m. local time in each time zone and were scheduled to last 17 minutes, though many rallies went longer.</p>
<p>The duration was a tribute to the number of students and staff killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on Feb. 14. It was the latest in a series of shootings that have plagued U.S. schools and colleges over the past two decades.</p>
<p>While many school districts gave their blessings to the walkouts, others said anyone who participated would face discipline. Many students defied the warnings and left school anyway.</p>
<p>In Parkland, thousands of students slowly filed onto the Stoneman Douglas school football field to the applause of families and supporters beyond the fences as law enforcement officers looked on. News helicopters hovered overhead.</p>
<p>Ty Thompson, the principal, called for the “biggest group hug,” and the students obliged around the 50-yard line.</p>
<p>“We want change!” students chanted on the sidewalks outside the school. “Can you hear the children screaming?” read one of the signs.</p>
<p>But not all students in Florida were in favor of more gun control. Around 80 miles (129 kms) north of Parkland at Vero Beach High School, chants of “No More Silence, end gun violence,” were countered by shouts of “Trump!” and “We want guns” from other students, according to video posted by local newspaper TCPalm.</p>
<p>At New York City’s Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School, crowds of students poured into the streets of Manhattan, many dressed in orange, symbolic of the bright color worn by hunters to avoid being shot by accident.</p>
<p>“Thoughts and prayers are not enough,” read one sign at LaGuardia, a jab at a response often uttered by lawmakers after mass shootings.</p>
<p>Hundreds of students wearing orange t-shirts with black targets on the front walked out of Firestone High School in Akron, Ohio. One student used a bullhorn and recited an anti-violence poem as parents stood on the sidewalks in solidarity.</p>
<p>At Granada Hills Charter High School in Los Angeles, students laid prone on the field of a football stadium to form a giant #ENOUGH, symbolizing the thousands of youth who die of gun violence every year in the United States.</p> Students release 17 white doves outside Crescenta Valley High School as part of a National School Walkout to honor the victims of the shooting at Florida's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in La Crescenta, California, U.S., March 14, 2018. REUTERS/Kyle Grillot LOBBYING LAWMAKERS
<p>The walkouts were part of a burgeoning, grassroots movement prompted by the Parkland attack. Survivors have lobbied lawmakers, and even talked with President Donald Trump, in a push for new restrictions on gun ownership, a right protected by the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment.</p>
<p>“We don’t feel safe in schools anymore,” said Sarah Chatfield, a high school student from Maryland, standing with hundreds of other protesters outside the White House.</p>
<p>Chanting “Hey hey, ho ho, the NRA has got to go!” some of the students marched to the U.S. Capitol, where Democratic lawmakers emerged from the white-domed landmark to praise them.</p>
<p>The student-led initiative helped bring about a tightening of Florida’s gun laws last week, when the minimum age of 21 for buying any handguns was extended to all firearms. But lawmakers rejected a ban on the sort of semiautomatic rifle used in the Parkland attack.</p> Slideshow (31 Images)
<p>In Washington, however, proposals to strengthen the background-check system for gun sales, among other measures, appear to be languishing.</p> SCHOOLS VARY IN RESPONSE
<p>Students from more than 2,800 schools and groups joined the walkouts, many with the backing of their school districts, according to the event’s organizers, who also coordinated the Women’s March protests staged nationwide over the past two years.</p>
<p>In districts where school authorities warned against joining the demonstrations, some students protested anyway.</p> Related Coverage
<a href="/article/us-usa-guns-florida/suspected-florida-school-shooter-silent-in-court-judge-enters-not-guilty-plea-idUSKCN1GQ2OB" type="external">Suspected Florida school shooter silent in court, judge enters not-guilty plea</a>
<p>More than 100 students walked out of the Council Rock High School North building in Newtown, Pennsylvania, despite warnings from school administration that doing so would bring discipline.</p>
<p>“Students deserve the right to go to school feeling safe and comfortable, not feeling scared that their school will be the next target,” a student said into a megaphone to the group outside.</p>
<p>At Norton High School in the rural-suburban district in northeastern Ohio, a small group of students, including a teenage boy with an American flag draped over his shoulder, stood apart from a larger gathering of nearly 300 students who walked out of class. One of the students also flew a large Trump flag at the end of his truck.</p>
<p>Ryan Shanor, the school’s principal, said the small group wanted to honor the victims but disagreed with sentiment they considered to be against the Second Amendment.</p>
<p>“They did not agree with everything they thought the protest was about,” he said.</p>
<p>Additional reporting by Gina Cherelus in New York; Jonathan Allen and Alice Popovici in New York; Suzanne Barlyn in Newtown, Pennsylvania; Joe Skipper in Parkland, Florida; Scott Malone in Boston; Kim Palmer in Cleveland; and Susan Heavey, Richard Cowan, Sarah N. Lynch and Ian Simpson in Washington; Lindsey Wasson in Seattle; Writing by Jonathan Allen and Andrew Hay, Editing by Frank McGurty and Jonathan Oatis</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. television commentator and conservative economic analyst Larry Kudlow said on Wednesday that President Donald Trump had picked him to replace Gary Cohn as the top White House economic adviser.</p>
<p>“The president offered me the position last evening and I accepted,” Kudlow told Reuters, adding that he expected a formal announcement on his appointment as director of the National Economic Council could come on Thursday.</p>
<p>White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders confirmed that Trump spoke to Kudlow on Tuesday, but she would not confirm that the president had offered the 70-year-old CNBC contributor the position. “No personnel announcements,” she told reporters.</p>
<p>The appointment of Kudlow, a supporter of supply-side economics and familiar face in both Washington and on Wall Street, comes as Trump increasingly seeks to surround himself with like-minded advisers.</p>
<p>The president, who has described Kudlow as a long-time friend, hinted on Tuesday morning that he was likely to give him the job.</p>
<p>Trump told reporters at the White House that Kudlow, a Republican who served as an economic adviser to former President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s and also worked on Wall Street, had “a very good chance” of being selected to replace Cohn.</p> FILE PHOTO - Economic analyst Lawrence "Larry" Kudlow appears on CNBC at the New York Stock Exchange, (NYSE) in New York, U.S., March 7, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo
<p>Cohn, a Democrat and “globalist” who was seen as a moderating influence on the president’s economic policies, resigned after a disagreement with Trump’s decision to impose steep tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum.</p>
<p>Kudlow, an informal advisor to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, had also criticized the president’s decision, saying tariffs would harm steel-consuming producers.</p> FILE PHOTO: Economic analyst Lawrence "Larry" Kudlow appears on CNBC at the New York Stock Exchange, (NYSE) in New York, U.S., March 7, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
<p>But Trump said on Wednesday that Kudlow had “come around” to view tariffs as a useful tool for renegotiating trade deals.</p>
<p>Kudlow has championed what he describes as “pro-growth” economic policies that include cutting taxes and regulation and boosting free trade.</p>
<p>The White House economic adviser can have wide influence over the president on a wide variety of issues from steering economic policy to offering guidance on whom to choose for open positions at the U.S. Federal Reserve.</p>
<p>Cohn helped lead Trump’s overhaul of the tax code last year and was slated to spearhead efforts to pass an infrastructure spending bill this year.</p>
<p>Additional reporting by Makini Brice; Editing by Paul Simao</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The former FBI deputy director scheduled to retire on Sunday, Andrew McCabe, may be fired over allegations that he misled investigators about sharing sensitive information with the media, which would make him ineligible for full retirement benefits, according to the Washington Post and New York Times on Wednesday.</p> FILE PHOTO: Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe testifies before a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, U.S., June 7, 2017. REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein/File Photo
<p>McCabe, a frequent target of President Donald Trump’s wrath, let Federal Bureau of Investigation officials in 2016 speak with reporters about a probe into Hillary Clinton’s family foundation, according to media reports. Trump defeated Clinton in the presidential election that year.</p>
<p>The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility said McCabe made misleading comments about the interview later and has recommended McCabe be dismissed, according to the Washington Post and New York Times.</p>
<p>When asked about the reports, the Justice Department said in a statement: “The Department follows a prescribed process by which an employee may be terminated. That process includes recommendations from career employees and no termination decision is final until the conclusion of that process. We have no personnel announcements at this time.”</p>
<p>Through a representative, McCabe declined to comment to the Washington Post. McCabe did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.</p>
<p>McCabe stepped down from his post as the FBI’s second-in-command in January after Trump repeatedly accused him of political bias, but remained on the payrolls in order to qualify for full retirement benefits.</p>
<p>Reporting by Lisa Lambert and Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Lisa Shumaker</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
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jan 25 reuters neimeth international pharmaceuticals plc q1 ended dec 31 turnover 3943 million naira versus 1374 million naira profit taxation 3 months ended dec31 135 million naira versus loss 2484 million naira year ago source text bitly2brqp0w company coverage standards thomson reuters trust principles new york reuters simmering political tensions roiled stocks bonds across globe wednesday us yield curves continuing flatten stock markets losing ground industrial companies took beating despite strong economic data china united states week stock markets could shake hangover tuesdays news us president donald trump looking impose tariffs 60 billion chinese imports trump also spooked investors tuesday firing secretary state rex tillerson viewed supporter free trade together moves worried investors global trade war wednesday russian foreign ministry said would retaliate 23 expelled british prime minister theresa may chemical attack former russian double agent england may blamed moscow helped continue trend flattening yield curves us government bonds spread two 10year treasury yields 26 basis points 557 basis points tuesdays close spread five 30year yields 28 basis points 557 basis points benchmark 10year us treasury notes us10ytrr last rose 1032 price yield 28116 percent 2848 percent late tuesday 30year bond us30ytrr last rose 3032 price yield 30527 percent 3101 percent tuesday germanys 10year government bond yield de10ytrr fell 112month low trade war fears italian borrowing costs rose rightwing leader aspiring prime minister matteo salvini reiterated partys view euro flawed currency salvini also said open forming sort coalition government long include democratic party salvinis comments along ongoing trade war concerns sent european stocks slightly red despite banner day adidas strong showing mining stocks slideshow 3 images adidas german sports fashion company gained 11 percent wednesday announcing share buyback 3 billion euros paneuropean ftseurofirst 300 index fteu3 lost 014 percent mscis gauge stocks across globe miwd00000pus shed 042 percent wall street dow jones around 1 percent thanks part hefty losses industrial companies like boeing ban 4 percent regaining ground wednesday afternoon ftse international 14661 fteu3 ftse international 208 014 fteu3 ban dji spx ixic despite encouraging economic news spurred us indexes open higher wednesday morning china reported industrial output expanding surprisingly faster pace start year fixed asset investment also beat forecasts retail sales improved political uncertainty outweighed said paul nolte portfolio manager kingsview asset management chicago given rearrangement trump made cabinet read lot protectionist two weeks ago dow jones industrial average dji fell 23852 points 095 percent 2476851 sampp 500 spx lost 1481 points 054 percent 27505 nasdaq composite ixic dropped 1493 points 02 percent 749608 emerging market stocks mscief meanwhile lost 040 percent oil prices choppy slightly afternoon losing ground morning us crude clcv1 rose 031 percent 6090 per barrel brent lcocv1 last 6482 028 percent dollar index dxy rose 006 percent euro eur 014 percent 12372 additional reporting sujata rao sruthi shankar kate duguid editing bernadette baum james dalgleish standards thomson reuters trust principles parkland fla reuters us students spilled classrooms thousands wednesday chanting slogans like silence want change part coasttocoast protest gun violence prompted last months massacre florida high school enough national school walkout intended pressure federal state lawmakers tighten laws gun ownership despite opposition national rifle association nra powerful gun rights advocacy group students dressed orange color adopted gun control movement walkouts began 10 local time time zone scheduled last 17 minutes though many rallies went longer duration tribute number students staff killed marjory stoneman douglas high school parkland florida feb 14 latest series shootings plagued us schools colleges past two decades many school districts gave blessings walkouts others said anyone participated would face discipline many students defied warnings left school anyway parkland thousands students slowly filed onto stoneman douglas school football field applause families supporters beyond fences law enforcement officers looked news helicopters hovered overhead ty thompson principal called biggest group hug students obliged around 50yard line want change students chanted sidewalks outside school hear children screaming read one signs students florida favor gun control around 80 miles 129 kms north parkland vero beach high school chants silence end gun violence countered shouts trump want guns students according video posted local newspaper tcpalm new york citys fiorello h laguardia high school crowds students poured streets manhattan many dressed orange symbolic bright color worn hunters avoid shot accident thoughts prayers enough read one sign laguardia jab response often uttered lawmakers mass shootings hundreds students wearing orange tshirts black targets front walked firestone high school akron ohio one student used bullhorn recited antiviolence poem parents stood sidewalks solidarity granada hills charter high school los angeles students laid prone field football stadium form giant enough symbolizing thousands youth die gun violence every year united states students release 17 white doves outside crescenta valley high school part national school walkout honor victims shooting floridas marjory stoneman douglas high school la crescenta california us march 14 2018 reuterskyle grillot lobbying lawmakers walkouts part burgeoning grassroots movement prompted parkland attack survivors lobbied lawmakers even talked president donald trump push new restrictions gun ownership right protected us constitutions second amendment dont feel safe schools anymore said sarah chatfield high school student maryland standing hundreds protesters outside white house chanting hey hey ho ho nra got go students marched us capitol democratic lawmakers emerged whitedomed landmark praise studentled initiative helped bring tightening floridas gun laws last week minimum age 21 buying handguns extended firearms lawmakers rejected ban sort semiautomatic rifle used parkland attack slideshow 31 images washington however proposals strengthen backgroundcheck system gun sales among measures appear languishing schools vary response students 2800 schools groups joined walkouts many backing school districts according events organizers also coordinated womens march protests staged nationwide past two years districts school authorities warned joining demonstrations students protested anyway related coverage suspected florida school shooter silent court judge enters notguilty plea 100 students walked council rock high school north building newtown pennsylvania despite warnings school administration would bring discipline students deserve right go school feeling safe comfortable feeling scared school next target student said megaphone group outside norton high school ruralsuburban district northeastern ohio small group students including teenage boy american flag draped shoulder stood apart larger gathering nearly 300 students walked class one students also flew large trump flag end truck ryan shanor schools principal said small group wanted honor victims disagreed sentiment considered second amendment agree everything thought protest said additional reporting gina cherelus new york jonathan allen alice popovici new york suzanne barlyn newtown pennsylvania joe skipper parkland florida scott malone boston kim palmer cleveland susan heavey richard cowan sarah n lynch ian simpson washington lindsey wasson seattle writing jonathan allen andrew hay editing frank mcgurty jonathan oatis standards thomson reuters trust principles washington reuters us television commentator conservative economic analyst larry kudlow said wednesday president donald trump picked replace gary cohn top white house economic adviser president offered position last evening accepted kudlow told reuters adding expected formal announcement appointment director national economic council could come thursday white house spokeswoman sarah sanders confirmed trump spoke kudlow tuesday would confirm president offered 70yearold cnbc contributor position personnel announcements told reporters appointment kudlow supporter supplyside economics familiar face washington wall street comes trump increasingly seeks surround likeminded advisers president described kudlow longtime friend hinted tuesday morning likely give job trump told reporters white house kudlow republican served economic adviser former president ronald reagan 1980s also worked wall street good chance selected replace cohn file photo economic analyst lawrence larry kudlow appears cnbc new york stock exchange nyse new york us march 7 2018 reutersbrendan mcdermidfile photo cohn democrat globalist seen moderating influence presidents economic policies resigned disagreement trumps decision impose steep tariffs imports steel aluminum kudlow informal advisor trumps 2016 presidential campaign also criticized presidents decision saying tariffs would harm steelconsuming producers file photo economic analyst lawrence larry kudlow appears cnbc new york stock exchange nyse new york us march 7 2018 reutersbrendan mcdermid trump said wednesday kudlow come around view tariffs useful tool renegotiating trade deals kudlow championed describes progrowth economic policies include cutting taxes regulation boosting free trade white house economic adviser wide influence president wide variety issues steering economic policy offering guidance choose open positions us federal reserve cohn helped lead trumps overhaul tax code last year slated spearhead efforts pass infrastructure spending bill year additional reporting makini brice editing paul simao standards thomson reuters trust principles washington reuters former fbi deputy director scheduled retire sunday andrew mccabe may fired allegations misled investigators sharing sensitive information media would make ineligible full retirement benefits according washington post new york times wednesday file photo acting fbi director andrew mccabe testifies senate intelligence committee hearing capitol hill washington dc us june 7 2017 reutersaaron p bernsteinfile photo mccabe frequent target president donald trumps wrath let federal bureau investigation officials 2016 speak reporters probe hillary clintons family foundation according media reports trump defeated clinton presidential election year justice departments office professional responsibility said mccabe made misleading comments interview later recommended mccabe dismissed according washington post new york times asked reports justice department said statement department follows prescribed process employee may terminated process includes recommendations career employees termination decision final conclusion process personnel announcements time representative mccabe declined comment washington post mccabe immediately respond request comment reuters mccabe stepped post fbis secondincommand january trump repeatedly accused political bias remained payrolls order qualify full retirement benefits reporting lisa lambert sarah n lynch editing lisa shumaker standards thomson reuters trust principles
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<p>Voters in Tennessee, Missouri and Virginia&#160;– three states where polls have shown the Senate candidates to be neck-and-neck&#160;– have been particularly swamped with ads.</p>
<p>A Tennessee ad&#160;falsely implies tax dodging on the part of Republican Bob Corker,&#160;while Republicans leave out context&#160;while accusing Rep. Harold Ford, Jr. of&#160;condoning President Clinton’s pardon of 16 individuals associated with a 1970’s Puerto Rican terrorist group.&#160;In Missouri, Republicans accuse Democrat Claire McCaskill of&#160;failing to act against a nursing-home rape when she had no authority to do so. And&#160;Democrats&#160;accuse Republican Sen. Jim Talent of favoring tax incentives for shipping jobs overseas, when Missouri has actually gained jobs.&#160;In Virginia, Republicans quote Democrat Jim Webb out of context regarding an old&#160;Navy sex-harassment scandal, and a Democratic ad&#160;falsely implies that Republican Sen. George Allen opposed all stem-cell research.</p>
<p>On Nov. 4, The Washington Post&#160; <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/03/AR2006110301706.html" type="external">reported</a>&#160;that political analysts on both the right and the left “agreed that Missouri, Virginia and Tennessee are the keys to controlling the 100-member Senate.” We look at ads on both sides. Some pay about as much attention to the&#160;truth as the candidates pay to&#160;voters from the Lesser Antilles.</p>
<p>In Tennessee, the Corker campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign committee&#160;sparred with misleading&#160;attacks.</p>
<p>&#160;DSCC Ad: “Tax Free”</p>
<p>Announcer: Bob Corker makes the system work. For himself. He admits there have been years when he paid no taxes at all. Not surprising Corker won’t release his taxes, but he’s seen our go up. First, Corker was Don Sundquist’s Finance Commissioner, then came Sundquist’s plan to raise income taxes. Then Mayor Corker raised property taxes 24%. Bob Corker, taxing Tennessee after he went tax free.</p>
<p>An Oct. 25 DSCC ad claims&#160;Corker, “admits there have been years when he paid no taxes at all” and that&#160;it’s “not surprising Corker won’t release his taxes.” In fact, as&#160;we stated in an&#160;earlier&#160; <a href="" type="internal">report</a> when&#160;this deceptive line of attack&#160;was first used by one of Corker’s Republican primary opponents, there’s no evidence that Corker illegally evaded taxes, cut any ethical corners or paid one dime less than he owed. And while Corker hasn’t made a general public release of his income-tax returns, he has allowed reporters to review copies of the basic returns.</p>
<p>The reason Corker “paid no taxes” in some years is that he didn’t owe any. Those were&#160;years he could claim sizeable, legal&#160;deductions resulting from&#160;his&#160;real-estate ventures.&#160;According to a Sept 29 report in the Memphis Commercial Appeal, which the ad cites, “Corker owed no taxes in 1985, writing off all of his $326,700 in income, and also in 1989, when he generated $344,600 in income.”&#160;And as we noted before, in those years&#160;Corker voluntarily paid the IRS several thousand dollars which he earmarked for reducing the national debt.</p>
<p>The&#160;claim that&#160;Corker “won’t release his taxes” is not exactly true.&#160;The fact is Corker has made 29 years worth of his basic IRS Form 1040s&#160;available to Tennessee reporters for review, though&#160;he hasn’t allowed the&#160;documents to be copied and distributed.&#160;He has also withheld the schedules to those tax returns, which&#160;cover such things as&#160;details of his capital gains and losses and specific business expenses for which he claimed deductions.</p>
<p>On another matter, the&#160;ad also claims “Corker was Don Sundquist’s Finance Commissioner, then came Sundquist’s plan to raise income taxes.” It’s true that then-Tennessee Governor Sundquist proposed to raise Tennessee income taxes, but&#160;that was three years after&#160;Corker left the finance commissioner post.</p>
<p>Corker for Senate Ad : “Terrorism”</p>
<p>Announcer :&#160;Harold Ford,&#160;Jr. tough on terrorism? When Bill Clinton pardoned 16 members of a terrorist group, responsible&#160;for 150 bombings and 6 US deaths, the Director of the FBI, Mayor Giuliani and the Tennessee Congressional delegation all opposed the pardons. Well, all but one. Guess who? Harold&#160;Ford, Jr. That’s the real Harold Ford, Jr.</p>
<p>Bob Corker: I’m Bob Corker and I’ve approved this message.</p>
<p>An ad aired by the Corker campaign on Nov. 1, accuses Ford of&#160;not opposing President Clinton’s pardon of “sixteen members of a terrorist group, responsible for 150 bombings and six US deaths.” In truth, none of the&#160;16 pardoned members of the&#160;Puerto Rican terrorist group&#160;Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN) had been&#160;involved in&#160;any killings, which dated back to the 1970’s and early 1980’s. As The Associated Press reported at the time of the pardons:</p>
<p>AP: The 16 people offered clemency were associated with mostly FALN members , but were neither involved in any killings nor convicted in the bombings. They were found guilty of seditious conspiracy or possessions of weapons and explosives and were sentenced up to 90 years.</p>
<p>It’s true Ford was the only member of his&#160; <a href="http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/107_pictorial/tn.html" type="external">delegation</a> who <a href="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/1999/roll398.xml" type="external">voted</a>&#160;“present” when the House considered a symbolic “sense of the Congress” resolution Sept. 9, 1999, condemning the pardons. All House Republicans supported it, while a total of 71 House Democrats abstained by voting “present.” At the time The AP quoted Ford as saying,&#160;“I voted present because it would have been like rebuking the Constitution. . . This was obviously just an effort to embarrass the President.”</p>
<p>In Missouri the DSCC and the&#160;Republican National Committee have been running&#160;competing ads against incumbent Republican Sen. Jim Talent and Democratic challenger Claire McCaskill.</p>
<p>RNC Ad: “Her Mansion”</p>
<p>Announcer: It’s a new low, even for Claire McCaskill — exploiting the medical tragedy of others just to get votes. But when rape, poor care, even wrongful death were going on in her current husband’s nursing homes — nursing homes she pledged to sanction — where was she? And the profit from the family’s nursing homes? She used it to try to buy an election and build her mansion. McCaskill talks big about health care and seniors, but her record is painful.</p>
<p>An Oct 31 RNC ad attacking McCaskill claims McCaskill used “profit from the family’s nursing homes” to “try to buy an election.” Loose wording like that could lead some to think McCaskill was being accused of election fraud, which isn’t the case.&#160;In 2002 McCaskill married Joseph Shepard, a real-estate developer who co-owned and operated six nursing homes at the time,&#160;according to&#160;Missouri’s Columbia Daily Tribune. The&#160;ad refers to a $1.6 million campaign loan she&#160;took from their&#160;family assets&#160;towards her 2004 campaign for governor. It was perfectly legal.</p>
<p>The ad also&#160;implies&#160;that McCaskill, a state auditor,&#160;failed to act&#160;when&#160;“rape, poor care, even wrongful death were going on in her current husband’s nursing homes.”</p>
<p>It’s true that a rape occurred in one of Shepard’s six nursing homes, according to a March 2002 report in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Shepard is also among those named&#160;in a civil lawsuit alleging wrongful death in an apartment complex for the elderly (not a “nursing home”) managed by a company in which he is a general partner.</p>
<p>However, McCaskill&#160;had no authority as auditor to sanction individual&#160;nursing homes.&#160;Her job was to examine how well&#160;state agencies did their work, and&#160;her <a href="http://auditor.mo.gov/auditreports/nursinghomes.htm" type="external">audits</a>&#160;brought to light numerous errors and instances of mismanagement&#160;on the part of state nursing-home investigators. She&#160;said&#160;her husband’s nursing homes&#160;“should be sanctioned just like any others if the care is not what it should be,” according to&#160;a&#160;2002 AP report.</p>
<p>DSCC Ad: “Actually Done”</p>
<p>Talent: A big part of what I do is to try to get things actually done.</p>
<p>Announcer: But Jim Talent’s record tells a different story. Talent voted for tax breaks for companies that send jobs overseas. It makes no sense. We’ve lost over sixty thousand manufacturing jobs and Talent’s helping to ship jobs out&#160;of the&#160;country. He calls that standing up for Missouri values. Is that what you call it? Isn’t it time for a change?</p>
<p>An Oct. 28 DSCC ad claims that Talent “voted for tax breaks for companies that send jobs overseas,” and&#160;adds&#160;that Missouri has lost 60,000 manufacturing jobs.&#160;While it’s true Talent <a href="http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&amp;session=1&amp;vote=00063" type="external">voted</a>&#160;against an amendment that called for repeal of tax subsidies for companies that move their operations overseas, the ad fails to paint a full picture.</p>
<p>For one thing, Missouri has gained jobs.&#160;According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics,&#160;Missouri has&#160; <a href="http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?series_id=SMS2900000300000001&amp;data_tool=%2522EaG%2522" type="external">lost</a> &#160;59,800 manufacturing jobs between Dec 2000 and Sept. 2006, but&#160;gains in other job categories have more than offset that. Overall, the state has gained 35,930 <a href="http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?data_tool=latest_numbers&amp;series_id=LASST29000003" type="external">jobs</a> during the same period.</p>
<p>Furthermore, the amendment Talent opposed would not actually have repealed a single dollar&#160;of tax breaks. It was an amendment offered to a budget resolution ( <a href="http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getpage.cgi?position=all&amp;page=S2832&amp;dbname=2005_record" type="external">number 210</a>) and simply set a goal for Congress to “to repeal the tax subsidy for certain domestic companies which move manufacturing operations and American jobs.” Actually accomplishing such a feat is not so simple as it may sound. As we <a href="" type="internal">reported</a> in 2004,&#160;the tax incentives for locating new plants overseas&#160;has been a&#160;feature of the&#160;federal&#160;corporate income tax since its inception, and&#160;flows mainly from the fact that the US taxes corporations at much higher rates that many other nations. In any case,&#160;removing the tax benefit would do little to keep US jobs at home. Economists say lower wages and proximity to overseas markets are much more powerful incentives than taxes to locate plants in other countries.</p>
<p>The NRSC’s ad “Right for 1806,”&#160;strafes Democrat Jim Webb for comments&#160;about the 1991 Tailhook scandal and for his works of fiction. Meanwhile the DSCC has been attacking the incumbent Republican, George Allen, for hewing close to Bush’s legislative goals.</p>
<p>NRSC Ad: “Right for 1806”</p>
<p>Announcer: When we first heard of Jim Webb, he sounded too good to be true. He was. Webb called the Tailhook Scandal a ‘feminist plot’ ‘a witch hunt.’ His writing routinely stereotype women as promiscuous objects. And arrogantly and outrageously, Webb refuses to be ashamed of what he’s written. Jim Webb, right for 06, 1806. The National Republican Senatorial Committee is responsible for the content of this ad.</p>
<p>The NRSC ad says Webb referred to Tailhook – in which 83 women and 7 men reported being assaulted or sexually harassed at a wild party for Navy aviators, according to a Pentagon report&#160;–&#160;as a “feminist plot” and a “witch hunt.” But there’s more to it than that.</p>
<p>Webb did&#160;describe the official investigation of the affair as a “witch hunt” in an Oct. 6, 1992 article in The New York Times &#160;headlined “Witch Hunt in the Navy.” But he also called the treatment of the women at the convention “inexcusable harassment.”</p>
<p>Webb was upset that the investigation had dragged out more than a year and had ended the careers of some officers who hadn’t even been at the event. Here’s what he wrote:</p>
<p>Webb: The Tailhook scandal has been “spun up,” to borrow a service phrase, into a crisis that affects the Navy leadership’s credibility on a wide range of issues. A botched internal investigation and the ongoing revelations of inexcusable harassment of women at a Las Vegas convention of naval aviators a year ago have also left in their wake a witch hunt that threatens to swamp the entire naval service.</p>
<p>Careers have been ruined, often on the basis of mere innuendo and without a shred of due process. And on Sept. 25 Acting Navy Secretary Sean O’Keefe made a series of sweeping decisions – and one altogether remarkable pronouncement – guaranteeing that the effects of this scandal will reverberate for years.</p>
<p>The ad also says that Webb called Tailhook “a feminist plot.” But in fact, there’s no record of Webb ever using the phrase “feminist plot” or anything vaguely like it to&#160;describe Tailhook. He did say that Tailhook had been “seized upon and used by feminists to attack the military culture.” Here’s&#160;the full quote from&#160;his piece “The War on the Military Culture” in The Weekly Standard on Jan. 20, 1997:</p>
<p>Webb: Events such as the 1991 Tailhook debacle have been seized upon and used by feminists to attack the military culture and bring about major concessions.</p>
<p>Saying that feminists have “used” Tailhook is a very different thing than saying the scandal itself was a “plot.”</p>
<p>The ad also says Webb’s novels “routinely stereotype women as promiscuous objects.” He’s written six novels, and whether or not any of them “stereotype” women is a matter on which opinions may differ. The books&#160;do include sex&#160;scenes. The&#160;ad shows excerpts but obliterates the passages with the word “Censored.”</p>
<p>DSCC AD: “Siding With”</p>
<p>Announcer: What does it mean that George Allen sides with George Bush 96% of the time? It means Allen voted against stem cell research that could provide life saving cures. Allen opposed letting women take unpaid leave after the birth of a child. And 96% means Allen is one of the biggest supporters of Bush’s ‘Stay the Course’ strategy in Iraq. What dose Allen siding 96% with Bush mean? It means he’s not siding with you.</p>
<p>A DSCC ad dating from Oct. 31 announces that Allen voted with George Bush 96 percent of the time. According to Congressional Quarterly,&#160;Allen did vote with Bush 96 percent of the time in 2005, the last full year for which data is available;&#160;his rate for 2006 so far is 90 percent.</p>
<p>Allen didn’t vote against all stem cell research, however, as one might conclude from the ad. In July he&#160; <a href="http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&amp;session=2&amp;vote=00206" type="external">voted</a> against expanded federal support for&#160; embryonic stem cell research, a crucial distinction in this debate. President Bush eventually vetoed the measure.</p>
<p>Allen did, on the other hand, vote against the Family and Medical Leave Act, as the ad says,&#160;when he was in the House&#160;– twice in September 2002, in fact. He&#160; <a href="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/1992/roll390.xml" type="external">voted</a>&#160;against it once when the House passed it 241-161, and&#160; <a href="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/1992/roll443.xml" type="external">again</a> when the House failed to get a two-thirds majority to override the veto of then-President George H.W. Bush, 258-169. Has he supported Bush’s “stay-the-course strategy” in Iraq? Yes, until recently, when he began saying that “progress has been too slow” and “We can’t keep doing things the same way.”</p>
<p>&lt;iframe style="width: 500px; height:300px;" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen src="https://video.factcheck.org/play/legacy-250-1"&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;</p>
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<p>Locker, Richard.&#160; “Sundquist Hints At 4% State Income Tax Plan: Rules Out Lotter In Special Session,” The Commercial Appeal (Memphis). 26 Oct 1999.</p>
<p>“Sales Tax Urged on Now-Exempt Services,” The Associated Press. 6 Nov 1997.</p>
<p>Young, Virginia.&#160; “A campaign of contrasts for Missouri Challenger is known for her zest and&#160;her freewheeling style,”&#160;The St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 1 Oct 2006.</p>
<p>Ganey, Terry. “Attack ads intensify Senate race: Negative tactics suggest tenor of desperation in Talent campaign,” The Columbia Daily Tribune. 31 Oct 2006.</p>
<p>“Frist, GOP Attack Ford being only Tennessean not to denounce Clinton,” Associated Press.&#160; 17 Sep 1999.</p>
<p>Babington, Charles and Jonathan Weisman. “Anxious GOP Focuses on Not Losing Senate: Tight Races in VA., Mo. and Tenn. Seen as Crucial; House Outlook remains Grim,” <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/03/AR2006110301706.html" type="external">The Washington Post</a>. 4 Nov 2006.</p>
<p>Perrusquia, Marc. “Corker’s tax details a mystery; Releases basic forms, but won’t disclose accompanying records,” The Commercial Appeal. 29 Sept 2006.</p>
<p>“Frist, GOP attack Ford being only Tennessean not to denounce Clinton,” The Associated Press.&#160; 17 Sept 1999.</p>
<p>Young, Virginia. “Governor criticizes rival and her husband,” The St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 31 July 2004.</p>
<p>Young, Virginia. “Magazine Rates 28 Nursing Homes In Area As Substandard; Consumer Reports Used State Inspection Records For Its ‘Watch List,'” The St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 24 Mar 2002.</p>
<p>O’Connor, Phillip. “Residents Sue Over Deaths At Apartments in Berkeley,” The St. Louis Post-Dispatch.&#160; 28 Jul 2001.</p>
<p>“McCaskill: Husband will stop seeking state aid for businesses,” <a href="http://www.kmov.com/news/Election/stories/102704cccakmovmccaskillconflict.2f5d392b.html" type="external">The Associated Press</a>. 27 Oct 2006.</p>
<p>“Freed activist vows to fight for Puerto Rico in ‘humane’ way,” The Associated Press. 20 Sept 1999.</p>
<p>“State auditor says marrying mursing home businessman won’t slow her reform-seeking,” The Associated Press.&#160; 11 Feb 2002.</p>
<p>West, Paul. “An Ugly, Unexpected Senate Race in VA,” The Baltimore Sun. 3 Nov. 2006.</p>
<p>“Hollow Assurances on Progress in Iraq,” The Virginian-Pilot. 6 June 2006.</p>
<p>James Webb, “Witch Hunt in the Navy,” The New York Times. 6 Oct 1992.</p>
| false | 2 |
voters tennessee missouri virginia160 three states polls shown senate candidates neckandneck160 particularly swamped ads tennessee ad160falsely implies tax dodging part republican bob corker160while republicans leave context160while accusing rep harold ford jr of160condoning president clintons pardon 16 individuals associated 1970s puerto rican terrorist group160in missouri republicans accuse democrat claire mccaskill of160failing act nursinghome rape authority and160democrats160accuse republican sen jim talent favoring tax incentives shipping jobs overseas missouri actually gained jobs160in virginia republicans quote democrat jim webb context regarding old160navy sexharassment scandal democratic ad160falsely implies republican sen george allen opposed stemcell research nov 4 washington post160 reported160that political analysts right left agreed missouri virginia tennessee keys controlling 100member senate look ads sides pay much attention the160truth candidates pay to160voters lesser antilles tennessee corker campaign democratic senatorial campaign committee160sparred misleading160attacks 160dscc ad tax free announcer bob corker makes system work admits years paid taxes surprising corker wont release taxes hes seen go first corker sundquists finance commissioner came sundquists plan raise income taxes mayor corker raised property taxes 24 bob corker taxing tennessee went tax free oct 25 dscc ad claims160corker admits years paid taxes that160its surprising corker wont release taxes fact as160we stated an160earlier160 report when160this deceptive line attack160was first used one corkers republican primary opponents theres evidence corker illegally evaded taxes cut ethical corners paid one dime less owed corker hasnt made general public release incometax returns allowed reporters review copies basic returns reason corker paid taxes years didnt owe were160years could claim sizeable legal160deductions resulting from160his160realestate ventures160according sept 29 report memphis commercial appeal ad cites corker owed taxes 1985 writing 326700 income also 1989 generated 344600 income160and noted years160corker voluntarily paid irs several thousand dollars earmarked reducing national debt the160claim that160corker wont release taxes exactly true160the fact corker made 29 years worth basic irs form 1040s160available tennessee reporters review though160he hasnt allowed the160documents copied distributed160he also withheld schedules tax returns which160cover things as160details capital gains losses specific business expenses claimed deductions another matter the160ad also claims corker sundquists finance commissioner came sundquists plan raise income taxes true thentennessee governor sundquist proposed raise tennessee income taxes but160that three years after160corker left finance commissioner post corker senate ad terrorism announcer 160harold ford160jr tough terrorism bill clinton pardoned 16 members terrorist group responsible160for 150 bombings 6 us deaths director fbi mayor giuliani tennessee congressional delegation opposed pardons well one guess harold160ford jr thats real harold ford jr bob corker im bob corker ive approved message ad aired corker campaign nov 1 accuses ford of160not opposing president clintons pardon sixteen members terrorist group responsible 150 bombings six us deaths truth none the16016 pardoned members the160puerto rican terrorist group160armed forces national liberation faln been160involved in160any killings dated back 1970s early 1980s associated press reported time pardons ap 16 people offered clemency associated mostly faln members neither involved killings convicted bombings found guilty seditious conspiracy possessions weapons explosives sentenced 90 years true ford member his160 delegation voted160present house considered symbolic sense congress resolution sept 9 1999 condemning pardons house republicans supported total 71 house democrats abstained voting present time ap quoted ford saying160i voted present would like rebuking constitution obviously effort embarrass president missouri dscc the160republican national committee running160competing ads incumbent republican sen jim talent democratic challenger claire mccaskill rnc ad mansion announcer new low even claire mccaskill exploiting medical tragedy others get votes rape poor care even wrongful death going current husbands nursing homes nursing homes pledged sanction profit familys nursing homes used try buy election build mansion mccaskill talks big health care seniors record painful oct 31 rnc ad attacking mccaskill claims mccaskill used profit familys nursing homes try buy election loose wording like could lead think mccaskill accused election fraud isnt case160in 2002 mccaskill married joseph shepard realestate developer coowned operated six nursing homes time160according to160missouris columbia daily tribune the160ad refers 16 million campaign loan she160took their160family assets160towards 2004 campaign governor perfectly legal ad also160implies160that mccaskill state auditor160failed act160when160rape poor care even wrongful death going current husbands nursing homes true rape occurred one shepards six nursing homes according march 2002 report st louis postdispatch shepard also among named160in civil lawsuit alleging wrongful death apartment complex elderly nursing home managed company general partner however mccaskill160had authority auditor sanction individual160nursing homes160her job examine well160state agencies work and160her audits160brought light numerous errors instances mismanagement160on part state nursinghome investigators she160said160her husbands nursing homes160should sanctioned like others care according to160a1602002 ap report dscc ad actually done talent big part try get things actually done announcer jim talents record tells different story talent voted tax breaks companies send jobs overseas makes sense weve lost sixty thousand manufacturing jobs talents helping ship jobs out160of the160country calls standing missouri values call isnt time change oct 28 dscc ad claims talent voted tax breaks companies send jobs overseas and160adds160that missouri lost 60000 manufacturing jobs160while true talent voted160against amendment called repeal tax subsidies companies move operations overseas ad fails paint full picture one thing missouri gained jobs160according bureau labor statistics160missouri has160 lost 16059800 manufacturing jobs dec 2000 sept 2006 but160gains job categories offset overall state gained 35930 jobs period furthermore amendment talent opposed would actually repealed single dollar160of tax breaks amendment offered budget resolution number 210 simply set goal congress repeal tax subsidy certain domestic companies move manufacturing operations american jobs actually accomplishing feat simple may sound reported 2004160the tax incentives locating new plants overseas160has a160feature the160federal160corporate income tax since inception and160flows mainly fact us taxes corporations much higher rates many nations case160removing tax benefit would little keep us jobs home economists say lower wages proximity overseas markets much powerful incentives taxes locate plants countries nrscs ad right 1806160strafes democrat jim webb comments160about 1991 tailhook scandal works fiction meanwhile dscc attacking incumbent republican george allen hewing close bushs legislative goals nrsc ad right 1806 announcer first heard jim webb sounded good true webb called tailhook scandal feminist plot witch hunt writing routinely stereotype women promiscuous objects arrogantly outrageously webb refuses ashamed hes written jim webb right 06 1806 national republican senatorial committee responsible content ad nrsc ad says webb referred tailhook 83 women 7 men reported assaulted sexually harassed wild party navy aviators according pentagon report160160as feminist plot witch hunt theres webb did160describe official investigation affair witch hunt oct 6 1992 article new york times 160headlined witch hunt navy also called treatment women convention inexcusable harassment webb upset investigation dragged year ended careers officers hadnt even event heres wrote webb tailhook scandal spun borrow service phrase crisis affects navy leaderships credibility wide range issues botched internal investigation ongoing revelations inexcusable harassment women las vegas convention naval aviators year ago also left wake witch hunt threatens swamp entire naval service careers ruined often basis mere innuendo without shred due process sept 25 acting navy secretary sean okeefe made series sweeping decisions one altogether remarkable pronouncement guaranteeing effects scandal reverberate years ad also says webb called tailhook feminist plot fact theres record webb ever using phrase feminist plot anything vaguely like to160describe tailhook say tailhook seized upon used feminists attack military culture heres160the full quote from160his piece war military culture weekly standard jan 20 1997 webb events 1991 tailhook debacle seized upon used feminists attack military culture bring major concessions saying feminists used tailhook different thing saying scandal plot ad also says webbs novels routinely stereotype women promiscuous objects hes written six novels whether stereotype women matter opinions may differ books160do include sex160scenes the160ad shows excerpts obliterates passages word censored dscc ad siding announcer mean george allen sides george bush 96 time means allen voted stem cell research could provide life saving cures allen opposed letting women take unpaid leave birth child 96 means allen one biggest supporters bushs stay course strategy iraq dose allen siding 96 bush mean means hes siding dscc ad dating oct 31 announces allen voted george bush 96 percent time according congressional quarterly160allen vote bush 96 percent time 2005 last full year data available160his rate 2006 far 90 percent allen didnt vote stem cell research however one might conclude ad july he160 voted expanded federal support for160 embryonic stem cell research crucial distinction debate president bush eventually vetoed measure allen hand vote family medical leave act ad says160when house160 twice september 2002 fact he160 voted160against house passed 241161 and160 house failed get twothirds majority override veto thenpresident george hw bush 258169 supported bushs staythecourse strategy iraq yes recently began saying progress slow cant keep things way ltiframe stylewidth 500px height300px frameborder0 allowfullscreen srchttpsvideofactcheckorgplaylegacy2501gtltiframegt ltiframe stylewidth 500px height300px frameborder0 allowfullscreen srchttpsvideofactcheckorgplaylegacy2502gtltiframegt ltiframe stylewidth 500px height300px frameborder0 allowfullscreen srchttpsvideofactcheckorgplaylegacy2503gtltiframegt ltiframe stylewidth 500px height300px frameborder0 allowfullscreen srchttpsvideofactcheckorgplaylegacy2504gtltiframegt ltiframe stylewidth 500px height300px frameborder0 allowfullscreen srchttpsvideofactcheckorgplaylegacy2505gtltiframegt ltiframe stylewidth 500px height300px frameborder0 allowfullscreen srchttpsvideofactcheckorgplaylegacy2506gtltiframegt locker richard160 sundquist hints 4 state income tax plan rules lotter special session commercial appeal memphis 26 oct 1999 sales tax urged nowexempt services associated press 6 nov 1997 young virginia160 campaign contrasts missouri challenger known zest and160her freewheeling style160the st louis postdispatch 1 oct 2006 ganey terry attack ads intensify senate race negative tactics suggest tenor desperation talent campaign columbia daily tribune 31 oct 2006 frist gop attack ford tennessean denounce clinton associated press160 17 sep 1999 babington charles jonathan weisman anxious gop focuses losing senate tight races va mo tenn seen crucial house outlook remains grim washington post 4 nov 2006 perrusquia marc corkers tax details mystery releases basic forms wont disclose accompanying records commercial appeal 29 sept 2006 frist gop attack ford tennessean denounce clinton associated press160 17 sept 1999 young virginia governor criticizes rival husband st louis postdispatch 31 july 2004 young virginia magazine rates 28 nursing homes area substandard consumer reports used state inspection records watch list st louis postdispatch 24 mar 2002 oconnor phillip residents sue deaths apartments berkeley st louis postdispatch160 28 jul 2001 mccaskill husband stop seeking state aid businesses associated press 27 oct 2006 freed activist vows fight puerto rico humane way associated press 20 sept 1999 state auditor says marrying mursing home businessman wont slow reformseeking associated press160 11 feb 2002 west paul ugly unexpected senate race va baltimore sun 3 nov 2006 hollow assurances progress iraq virginianpilot 6 june 2006 james webb witch hunt navy new york times 6 oct 1992
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<p>* Zeth Hung and Carsten Stoehr to replace senior banker Chow</p>
<p>* Hung named co-head APAC investment banking, capital markets</p>
<p>* Stoehr adds the role of Greater China chief executive (Adds details from Credit Suisse statement)</p>
<p>HONG KONG, Jan 22 (Reuters) - Credit Suisse named two senior executives of the bank on Monday to replace departing senior banker Mervyn Chow as its Greater China chief executive and co-head of Asia Pacific investment banking and capital markets.</p>
<p>Chow, who is leaving Credit Suisse after nearly two decades, has held various senior positions and was responsible for key client coverage at the bank. He is leaving the bank to pursue other opportunities, the Swiss bank said in a statement on Monday, confirming a Reuters story of last week.</p>
<p>In October, Chow was named CEO for Greater China to lead the bank’s strategy across its private banking and investment banking platform.</p>
<p>The veteran dealmaker’s exit from Credit Suisse comes at a time when capital markets and M&amp;A activities in Asia Pacific, mainly in China, are set to pick up this year, amid intensifying competition among investment banks.</p>
<p>Zeth Hung will take over the responsibility of Asia Pacific co-head of investment banking and capital markets, while Carsten Stoehr will become the chief executive for Greater China, which includes Hong Kong, Credit Suisse said.</p>
<p>Hung was earlier heading the bank’s Greater China investment banking and capital markets business. Stoehr will retain current roles as head of the Asia Pacific financing group and chairman of the board of the bank’s Hong Kong and local securities units.</p>
<p>Both Hung and Stoehr will report to Helman Sitohang, Credit Suisse’s Asia Pacific chief executive.</p>
<p>Credit Suisse ranked sixth in the Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) M&amp;A fee ranking league table in 2017, lagging its global peers including Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and UBS, according to Thomson Reuters data.</p>
<p>In the equity capital markets (ECM) business, which includes initial public offerings, the Swiss bank was ranked ninth in the bookrunners’ league table last year, up from 15th in the previous year, the data showed. (Reporting by Sumeet Chatterjee; Editing by Malcolm Foster and Muralikumar Anantharaman)</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>LONDON (Reuters) - Oil rose towards $70 a barrel on Monday, lifted by a drop in drilling activity in the United States and concerns that Washington could reintroduce sanctions against Iran.</p> FILE PHOTO: Crude oil storage tanks are seen from above at the Cushing oil hub, in Cushing, Oklahoma, March 24, 2016. REUTERS/Nick Oxford/File Photo
<p>U.S. drillers cut seven oil rigs in the week to March 29, bringing the total down to 797, the first decline in three weeks. The rig count is closely watched as an indicator of future U.S. oil output.</p>
<p>Brent crude, the international benchmark, rose 58 cents to $69.92 a barrel at 0850 GMT. It was still below its 2018 high of $71.28 reached on Jan. 25. U.S. crude added 38 cents to $65.32.</p>
<p>Trading volume was lower than normal as many countries were still on Easter holiday.</p>
<p>“The market is set for a re-test of the highs of 2018,” said Olivier Jakob, oil analyst at Petromatrix.</p>
<p>“The Iranian factor is going to be a very significant input for the next four weeks. It is going to be an underlying support for the whole month.”</p>
<p>U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to pull out of a 2015 international nuclear deal with Tehran under which Iranian oil exports have risen. He has given the European signatories a May 12 deadline to “fix the terrible flaws” of the deal.</p>
<p>Oil has risen from a multi-year low near $27 in January 2016, helped by production cuts led by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and Russia, which started in 2017 and is due to run until the end of 2018.</p>
<p>The revival in prices has helped to support a surge in U.S. drilling, which has boosted U.S. production to a record 10.43 million barrels per day (bpd), taking it past top exporter Saudi Arabia.</p>
<p>Russian oil output rose in March despite the output deal, to 10.97 million bpd from 10.95 million bpd in February, Russian Energy Ministry data showed, putting Russia ahead of the United States as the world’s biggest crude producer.</p>
<p>Also potentially weighing on markets were rising trade tensions between the United States and China.</p>
<p>China increased tariffs by up to 25 percent on 128 U.S. products from Monday, escalating a spat between the world’s biggest economies in response to U.S. duties on imports of aluminum and steel.</p>
<p>“Investors took their cue from falling U.S drilling counts,” said Wang Xiao of Guotai Junan Futures. “But increasing trade friction between China and the U.S. is likely to rock global markets and tarnish bullish sentiment in crude oil markets.”</p>
<p>Additional reporting by Meng Meng in BEIJING and Henning Gloystein in SINGAPORE; Editing by Susan Fenton</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration this week will unveil the list of Chinese imports targeted for U.S. tariffs to punish Beijing over technology transfer policies, a move expected to intensify trade tensions between the world’s two largest economies.</p> U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks on the Infrastructure Initiative at the Local 18 Richfield Training Site in Richfield, Ohio, U.S., March 29, 2018. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas
<p>The list of $50 billion to $60 billion worth of annual imports is expected to target “largely high-technology” products and it may be more than two months before tariffs take effect, administration officials have said.</p>
<p>The U.S. Trade Representative’s office needs to unveil the list of products by Friday under President Donald Trump’s China tariff proclamation signed on March 22.</p>
<p>The tariffs are aimed at forcing changes to Chinese government policies that USTR says results in the “uneconomic” transfer of U.S. intellectual property to Chinese companies.</p>
<p>The agency’s “Section 301” investigation authorizing the tariffs alleges China has systematically sought to misappropriate U.S. intellectual property through joint venture requirements, unfair technology licensing rules, purchases of U.S. technology firms with state funding and outright theft.</p>
<p>China has denied that its laws require technology transfers and has threatened to retaliate against any U.S. tariffs with trade sanctions of its own, with potential targets such as U.S. soybeans, aircraft or heavy equipment.</p>
<p>On Sunday, Beijing slapped extra tariffs of up to 25 percent on 128 U.S. products including frozen pork, as well as wine and certain fruits and nuts in response to steep U.S. tariffs on imports of aluminum and steel announced last month by the Trump administration.</p>
<p>Fears have arisen that the two countries will spiral into a trade war that will crush global growth.</p> TARGETING ‘MADE IN CHINA 2025’
<p>U.S. technology industry officials said they expected the Trump administration’s list to target products that benefit from Beijing’s “Made in China 2025” program, which aims to upgrade the country’s domestic manufacturing base with more advanced products.</p>
<p>The state-led program targets 10 strategic industries for replacing imports with Chinese-made products: advanced information technology, robotics, aircraft, shipbuilding and marine engineering, advanced rail equipment, new energy vehicles, electrical generation equipment, agricultural machinery, pharmaceuticals and advanced materials.</p>
<p>“Foreign technology acquisition through various means remains a prime focus under Made in China 2025 because China is still catching up in many of the areas prioritized for development,” USTR said in its report justifying the tariffs.</p>
<p>U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has said that preserving America’s technological edge is “the future of the U.S. economy.”</p>
<p>Reports that the tariff list may also include consumer goods such as clothing and footwear drew strong protests from U.S. business groups, which argued that it would raise prices for U.S. consumers.</p> LIMITED TIME FOR TALKS
<p>While there have been contacts between senior members of the Trump administration and their Chinese counterparts since Trump announced his intention to impose tariffs, there has been little evidence of intensive negotiations to forestall them.</p>
<p>“The administration is following the Japan model from the 1980s,” said a tech industry executive. “They’ll publish a Federal Register notice of tariffs on certain products, then try to reach a negotiated settlement over the next 60 days.”During his first stint at USTR in the Reagan administration, Lighthizer employed similar tactics to win voluntary Japanese export restraints on steel and autos.</p>
<p>Wendy Cutler, a former deputy USTR in charge of Asia negotiations, said that addressing the sweeping intellectual property allegations identified by USTR would require major changes to China’s industrial policy. A 60-day settlement may not be realistic in that case.</p>
<p>“I think they’ve set up a high bar for what they need to achieve, in order not to impose these types of tariffs and investment restrictions,” Cutler said.</p>
<p>Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Peter Cooney</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>(Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures fell on the first trading day of the new quarter as China’s decision to raise import tariffs on U.S. products rekindled global trade war fears and technology stocks showed little signs of recovery.</p> FILE PHOTO - Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., March 29, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
<p>Nasdaq futures NQc1 pointed to a 0.6 percent decline at the open on Monday, as big names including Facebook ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FB.O" type="external">FB.O</a>) and Amazon ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AMZN.O" type="external">AMZN.O</a>) fell in premarket trading.</p>
<p>China, late on Sunday, said it would increase tariffs by up to 25 percent on 128 U.S. products, from frozen pork and wine to certain fruits and nuts, escalating a spat between the world’s biggest economies. The move came in response to U.S. duties on imports of aluminum and steel.</p>
<p>U.S. President Donald Trump is separately preparing to impose tariffs of more than $50 billion targeting “largely high-technology” Chinese products.</p>
<p>At 7:18 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis 1YMc1 were down 113 points, or 0.47 percent, with 28,512 contracts changing hands.</p>
<p>S&amp;P 500 e-minis ESc1 were down 11 points, or 0.42 percent, with 78,340 contracts traded.</p>
<p>Nasdaq 100 e-minis NQc1 were down 58.25 points, or 0.88 percent, on volume of 32,382 contracts.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FB.O" type="external">Facebook Inc</a> 159.79 FB.O Nasdaq +0.00 (+0.00%) FB.O AMZN.O .SPX .DJI TSLA.O
<p>Amazon fell 1.5 percent after Trump launched his second attack over the weekend, accusing the world’s biggest online retailer of getting unfairly cheap rates from the U.S. Postal Service and not paying enough tax.</p>
<p>Facebook was down marginally as the data scandal last month continued to weigh. On Monday, brokerage Pivotal Research slashed its price target to $138 from $152.</p>
<p>After stellar gains in 2017 and early this year, the S&amp;P technology index .SPLRCT posted its worst performance in March in nearly two years.</p>
<p>Hit by concerns about a possible trade war, rising interest rates and valuations in the technology sector, the S&amp;P 500 <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.SPX" type="external">.SPX</a> and the Dow Jones Industrial Average <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.DJI" type="external">.DJI</a> posted their worst declines in more than two years in the quarter ended March.</p>
<p>Nervous stock investors are hoping an unusually U.S. strong earnings season can restore some of the optimism that characterized equity markets last year.</p>
<p>Tesla ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TSLA.O" type="external">TSLA.O</a>) shares fell about 5 percent after the electric car maker said the Model X vehicle that crashed was on Autopilot. The company also announced a recall.</p>
<p>Reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>BEIJING (Reuters) - China has increased tariffs by up to 25 percent on 128 U.S. products, from frozen pork and wine to certain fruits and nuts, escalating a spat between the world’s biggest economies in response to U.S. duties on imports of aluminum and steel.</p> FILE PHOTO: Several-week-old pigs stand in a pen inside a barn at Paustian Enterprises in Walcott, Iowa, November 19, 2014. REUTERS/Daniel Acker/File Photo
<p>The tariffs, to take effect on Monday, were announced late on Sunday by China’s finance ministry and matched a list of potential tariffs on up to $3 billion in U.S. goods published by China on March 23.</p>
<p>Soon after the announcement, an editorial in the widely read Chinese tabloid Global Times warned that if the U.S. had thought China would not retaliate or would only take symbolic counter-measures, it can now “say goodbye to that delusion.”</p> Related Coverage
<a href="/article/us-usa-trade-china-aluminium/china-metals-group-eyeing-new-counter-measures-in-u-s-trade-row-idUSKCN1H90RG" type="external">China metals group eyeing new counter-measures in U.S. trade row</a>
<a href="/article/us-usa-trade-china-ethanol/china-tariffs-on-u-s-ethanol-to-cut-off-imports-in-short-term-idUSKCN1H90RO" type="external">China tariffs on U.S. ethanol to cut off imports in short-term</a>
<p>“Even though China and the U.S. have not publicly said they are in a trade war, the sparks of such a war have already started to fly,” the editorial said.</p>
<p>China’s Ministry of Commerce said it was suspending its obligations to the World Trade Organization (WTO) to reduce tariffs on 120 U.S. goods, including fruit and ethanol. The tariffs on those products will be raised by an extra 15 percent.</p>
<p>Eight other products, including pork and scrap aluminum, will now be subject to additional tariffs of 25 percent, it said, with the measures effective from April 2.</p>
<p>“China’s suspension of its tariff concessions is a legitimate action adopted under WTO rules to safeguard China’s interests,” the Chinese finance ministry said.</p> FILE PHOTO: A butcher cuts a piece of pork at a market in Beijing, China, March 25, 2016. REUTERS/Jason Lee/File Photo
<p>China is moving swiftly with retaliatory action amid escalating trade tensions between Beijing and Washington, which have rocked global financial markets in the past week as investors feared a full-blown trade spat between the two countries will be damaging for world growth.</p>
<p>U.S. President Donald Trump is separately preparing to impose tariffs of more than $50 billion on Chinese goods intended to punish Beijing over U.S. accusations that China systematically misappropriated American intellectual property - allegations Beijing denies.</p>
<p>China has repeatedly promised to open its economy further, but many foreign companies continue to complain of unfair treatment. China warned the United States on Thursday not to open a Pandora’s Box and spark a flurry of protectionist practices across the globe.</p>
<p>“There are some people in the West who think that China looks tough for the sake of a domestic audience, and would easily make concessions in the end,” the Global Times editorial said.</p>
<p>“But they are wrong.”</p>
<p>The Global Times is run by the ruling Communist Party’s official People’s Daily, although its stance does not necessarily reflect Chinese government policy.</p> FILE PHOTO: A labourer works on coils of steel wire at a steel wholesale market in Beijing, China, January 17, 2012. REUTERS/Soo Hoo Zheyang/File Photo
<p>Reaction to China’s measures varied on Chinese social media, with some saying Chinese customers would be the one ultimately paying for the trade war.</p>
<p>“Why not directly target soybean and planes? The tariffs that China announced today don’t sound a lot to me,” said a user on Weibo, a Twitter-like microblog popular in China.</p>
<p>Aircraft and soybeans were China’s biggest U.S. imports by value last year.</p>
<p>In a statement published on Monday morning, the Chinese commerce ministry said the United States had “seriously violated” the principles of non-discrimination enshrined in World Trade Organization rules, and had also damaged China’s interests.</p>
<p>“China’s suspension of some of its obligations to the United States is its legitimate right as a member of the World Trade Organization,” it said, adding that differences between the world’s two largest economies should be resolved through dialogue and negotiation.</p>
<p>Weibo prominently featured the list of U.S. goods that China is targeting among the day’s “hot” trending topics.</p>
<p>“I will never buy fruit from the U.S.,” a Weibo user wrote.</p>
<p>Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Tony Munroe; Additional reporting by David Stanway in SHANGHAI and Stella Qiu and Lusha Zhang in BEIJING; Additional Writing by Ryan Woo; Editing by Eric Meijer and Shri Navaratnam</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
| false | 2 |
zeth hung carsten stoehr replace senior banker chow hung named cohead apac investment banking capital markets stoehr adds role greater china chief executive adds details credit suisse statement hong kong jan 22 reuters credit suisse named two senior executives bank monday replace departing senior banker mervyn chow greater china chief executive cohead asia pacific investment banking capital markets chow leaving credit suisse nearly two decades held various senior positions responsible key client coverage bank leaving bank pursue opportunities swiss bank said statement monday confirming reuters story last week october chow named ceo greater china lead banks strategy across private banking investment banking platform veteran dealmakers exit credit suisse comes time capital markets mampa activities asia pacific mainly china set pick year amid intensifying competition among investment banks zeth hung take responsibility asia pacific cohead investment banking capital markets carsten stoehr become chief executive greater china includes hong kong credit suisse said hung earlier heading banks greater china investment banking capital markets business stoehr retain current roles head asia pacific financing group chairman board banks hong kong local securities units hung stoehr report helman sitohang credit suisses asia pacific chief executive credit suisse ranked sixth asia pacific excluding japan mampa fee ranking league table 2017 lagging global peers including morgan stanley goldman sachs ubs according thomson reuters data equity capital markets ecm business includes initial public offerings swiss bank ranked ninth bookrunners league table last year 15th previous year data showed reporting sumeet chatterjee editing malcolm foster muralikumar anantharaman standards thomson reuters trust principles london reuters oil rose towards 70 barrel monday lifted drop drilling activity united states concerns washington could reintroduce sanctions iran file photo crude oil storage tanks seen cushing oil hub cushing oklahoma march 24 2016 reutersnick oxfordfile photo us drillers cut seven oil rigs week march 29 bringing total 797 first decline three weeks rig count closely watched indicator future us oil output brent crude international benchmark rose 58 cents 6992 barrel 0850 gmt still 2018 high 7128 reached jan 25 us crude added 38 cents 6532 trading volume lower normal many countries still easter holiday market set retest highs 2018 said olivier jakob oil analyst petromatrix iranian factor going significant input next four weeks going underlying support whole month us president donald trump threatened pull 2015 international nuclear deal tehran iranian oil exports risen given european signatories may 12 deadline fix terrible flaws deal oil risen multiyear low near 27 january 2016 helped production cuts led organization petroleum exporting countries opec russia started 2017 due run end 2018 revival prices helped support surge us drilling boosted us production record 1043 million barrels per day bpd taking past top exporter saudi arabia russian oil output rose march despite output deal 1097 million bpd 1095 million bpd february russian energy ministry data showed putting russia ahead united states worlds biggest crude producer also potentially weighing markets rising trade tensions united states china china increased tariffs 25 percent 128 us products monday escalating spat worlds biggest economies response us duties imports aluminum steel investors took cue falling us drilling counts said wang xiao guotai junan futures increasing trade friction china us likely rock global markets tarnish bullish sentiment crude oil markets additional reporting meng meng beijing henning gloystein singapore editing susan fenton standards thomson reuters trust principles washington reuters trump administration week unveil list chinese imports targeted us tariffs punish beijing technology transfer policies move expected intensify trade tensions worlds two largest economies us president donald trump delivers remarks infrastructure initiative local 18 richfield training site richfield ohio us march 29 2018 reutersyuri gripas list 50 billion 60 billion worth annual imports expected target largely hightechnology products may two months tariffs take effect administration officials said us trade representatives office needs unveil list products friday president donald trumps china tariff proclamation signed march 22 tariffs aimed forcing changes chinese government policies ustr says results uneconomic transfer us intellectual property chinese companies agencys section 301 investigation authorizing tariffs alleges china systematically sought misappropriate us intellectual property joint venture requirements unfair technology licensing rules purchases us technology firms state funding outright theft china denied laws require technology transfers threatened retaliate us tariffs trade sanctions potential targets us soybeans aircraft heavy equipment sunday beijing slapped extra tariffs 25 percent 128 us products including frozen pork well wine certain fruits nuts response steep us tariffs imports aluminum steel announced last month trump administration fears arisen two countries spiral trade war crush global growth targeting made china 2025 us technology industry officials said expected trump administrations list target products benefit beijings made china 2025 program aims upgrade countrys domestic manufacturing base advanced products stateled program targets 10 strategic industries replacing imports chinesemade products advanced information technology robotics aircraft shipbuilding marine engineering advanced rail equipment new energy vehicles electrical generation equipment agricultural machinery pharmaceuticals advanced materials foreign technology acquisition various means remains prime focus made china 2025 china still catching many areas prioritized development ustr said report justifying tariffs us trade representative robert lighthizer said preserving americas technological edge future us economy reports tariff list may also include consumer goods clothing footwear drew strong protests us business groups argued would raise prices us consumers limited time talks contacts senior members trump administration chinese counterparts since trump announced intention impose tariffs little evidence intensive negotiations forestall administration following japan model 1980s said tech industry executive theyll publish federal register notice tariffs certain products try reach negotiated settlement next 60 daysduring first stint ustr reagan administration lighthizer employed similar tactics win voluntary japanese export restraints steel autos wendy cutler former deputy ustr charge asia negotiations said addressing sweeping intellectual property allegations identified ustr would require major changes chinas industrial policy 60day settlement may realistic case think theyve set high bar need achieve order impose types tariffs investment restrictions cutler said reporting david lawder editing peter cooney standards thomson reuters trust principles reuters us stock index futures fell first trading day new quarter chinas decision raise import tariffs us products rekindled global trade war fears technology stocks showed little signs recovery file photo traders work floor new york stock exchange nyse new york us march 29 2018 reutersbrendan mcdermid nasdaq futures nqc1 pointed 06 percent decline open monday big names including facebook fbo amazon amzno fell premarket trading china late sunday said would increase tariffs 25 percent 128 us products frozen pork wine certain fruits nuts escalating spat worlds biggest economies move came response us duties imports aluminum steel us president donald trump separately preparing impose tariffs 50 billion targeting largely hightechnology chinese products 718 et dow eminis 1ymc1 113 points 047 percent 28512 contracts changing hands sampp 500 eminis esc1 11 points 042 percent 78340 contracts traded nasdaq 100 eminis nqc1 5825 points 088 percent volume 32382 contracts facebook inc 15979 fbo nasdaq 000 000 fbo amzno spx dji tslao amazon fell 15 percent trump launched second attack weekend accusing worlds biggest online retailer getting unfairly cheap rates us postal service paying enough tax facebook marginally data scandal last month continued weigh monday brokerage pivotal research slashed price target 138 152 stellar gains 2017 early year sampp technology index splrct posted worst performance march nearly two years hit concerns possible trade war rising interest rates valuations technology sector sampp 500 spx dow jones industrial average dji posted worst declines two years quarter ended march nervous stock investors hoping unusually us strong earnings season restore optimism characterized equity markets last year tesla tslao shares fell 5 percent electric car maker said model x vehicle crashed autopilot company also announced recall reporting sruthi shankar bengaluru editing sriraj kalluvila standards thomson reuters trust principles beijing reuters china increased tariffs 25 percent 128 us products frozen pork wine certain fruits nuts escalating spat worlds biggest economies response us duties imports aluminum steel file photo severalweekold pigs stand pen inside barn paustian enterprises walcott iowa november 19 2014 reutersdaniel ackerfile photo tariffs take effect monday announced late sunday chinas finance ministry matched list potential tariffs 3 billion us goods published china march 23 soon announcement editorial widely read chinese tabloid global times warned us thought china would retaliate would take symbolic countermeasures say goodbye delusion related coverage china metals group eyeing new countermeasures us trade row china tariffs us ethanol cut imports shortterm even though china us publicly said trade war sparks war already started fly editorial said chinas ministry commerce said suspending obligations world trade organization wto reduce tariffs 120 us goods including fruit ethanol tariffs products raised extra 15 percent eight products including pork scrap aluminum subject additional tariffs 25 percent said measures effective april 2 chinas suspension tariff concessions legitimate action adopted wto rules safeguard chinas interests chinese finance ministry said file photo butcher cuts piece pork market beijing china march 25 2016 reutersjason leefile photo china moving swiftly retaliatory action amid escalating trade tensions beijing washington rocked global financial markets past week investors feared fullblown trade spat two countries damaging world growth us president donald trump separately preparing impose tariffs 50 billion chinese goods intended punish beijing us accusations china systematically misappropriated american intellectual property allegations beijing denies china repeatedly promised open economy many foreign companies continue complain unfair treatment china warned united states thursday open pandoras box spark flurry protectionist practices across globe people west think china looks tough sake domestic audience would easily make concessions end global times editorial said wrong global times run ruling communist partys official peoples daily although stance necessarily reflect chinese government policy file photo labourer works coils steel wire steel wholesale market beijing china january 17 2012 reuterssoo hoo zheyangfile photo reaction chinas measures varied chinese social media saying chinese customers would one ultimately paying trade war directly target soybean planes tariffs china announced today dont sound lot said user weibo twitterlike microblog popular china aircraft soybeans chinas biggest us imports value last year statement published monday morning chinese commerce ministry said united states seriously violated principles nondiscrimination enshrined world trade organization rules also damaged chinas interests chinas suspension obligations united states legitimate right member world trade organization said adding differences worlds two largest economies resolved dialogue negotiation weibo prominently featured list us goods china targeting among days hot trending topics never buy fruit us weibo user wrote reporting ben blanchard tony munroe additional reporting david stanway shanghai stella qiu lusha zhang beijing additional writing ryan woo editing eric meijer shri navaratnam standards thomson reuters trust principles
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<p>TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Jameis Winston smiles and keeps a positive attitude with just about everything these days.</p>
<p>And that includes Florida’s stifling heat and working mostly with second- and third-stringers on the opening day of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ mandatory minicamp.</p>
<p>The start of training camp is more than a month away, and the regular season doesn’t begin until Sept. 13, so there’s no reason for the first overall pick in the NFL draft to be alarmed Tuesday after working with backups instead of many of Tampa Bay’s projected starters.</p>
<p>“I’m just excited to play. Right now it doesn’t matter. What matters is this team gets better every single day, and I learn every single day,” Winston said after a two-hour workout in temperatures that climbed to the mid-90s.</p>
<p>“This is the last week we have to get to put in some work to play this great game of football, so you’ve got to enjoy,” the 2013 Heisman Trophy winner said. “It’s a little humid out here. But I’m from Alabama, and we love the heat.”</p>
<p>The minicamp, which drew 100 percent participation, concludes the team’s offseason program. Coach Lovie Smith reiterated he’s pleased with Winston’s progress.</p>
<p>Third-year pro Mike Glennon worked with the first-string offense, but Smith stressed that Winston’s done plenty of that during voluntary workouts.</p>
<p>“I have a plan, and a part of that plan is for Jameis to get a certain amount of reps with certain guys. He’s gone with the 1s, he’s gone with the 2s,” Smith said. “At the same time, it’s not just about Jameis. We need to get our backup quarterback ready, too.”</p>
<p>Winston said he expects to take over the huddle ’as soon as I earn it.”</p>
<p>The Bucs went 2-14 last season, ranking 29th in scoring and 30th in total offense. In addition to drafting Winston, Smith and general manager Jason Licht used a pair of second-round picks on offensive linemen Donovan Smith and Ali Marpet, who also will get an opportunity to earn starting jobs in training camp.</p>
<p>Winston said he feels he’s getting better every day.</p>
<p>“You’ve got to get better every single day, and I feel like I’ve done that,” the former Florida State star said, adding that he and Glennon have alternated taking snaps with the starters during OTAs.</p>
<p>“I’m not frustrated at all. In this world, you’ve got to earn everything that you get. ... With this camp being the last week (of workouts before training camp), I feel like I’ve had great practices day in and day out, and I’m just enjoying it.”</p>
<p>Asked if he felt he had “earned” a chance to work with the No. 1s, the rookie replied: “I haven’t earned it until I get it.”</p>
<p>Smith suggested too much is being made of who’s working with whom in June.</p>
<p>“To me, it’s not what group. You’re working with different guys,” the coach, beginning his second season with the Bucs, said.</p>
<p>“He has come a long way in a short period of time,” Smith added. “Very impressive, the amount of knowledge he has now about our offense.”</p>
<p>Tuesday marked the return of right tackle Demar Dotson, who skipped the past two weeks of voluntary workouts because he’s unhappy with his contract.</p>
<p>“I didn’t want to lose any money. It’s like $100,000, and I got some good advice that you don’t want to lose that money,” Dotson said. “I don’t have $100,000 to lose, so I wanted to keep my money. And that was the only way to keep negotiations going throughout these six weeks going into training camp.”</p>
<p>Dotson has two years remaining on a contract extension he signed in 2013. He’s scheduled to earn $2.5 million in the upcoming season.</p>
<p>“It’s good to get him back. He needed today,” Smith said, adding that every player can benefit from participating in OTAs.</p>
<p>“But you can’t live in the past. That was voluntary work,” the coach added. “Players all have to be here (mandatory minicamp), and they all are here. It’s just good to see Demar back out there with the group.”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Online: AP NFL website: www.pro32.ap.org and www.twitter.com/AP_NFL</p>
<p>TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Jameis Winston smiles and keeps a positive attitude with just about everything these days.</p>
<p>And that includes Florida’s stifling heat and working mostly with second- and third-stringers on the opening day of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ mandatory minicamp.</p>
<p>The start of training camp is more than a month away, and the regular season doesn’t begin until Sept. 13, so there’s no reason for the first overall pick in the NFL draft to be alarmed Tuesday after working with backups instead of many of Tampa Bay’s projected starters.</p>
<p>“I’m just excited to play. Right now it doesn’t matter. What matters is this team gets better every single day, and I learn every single day,” Winston said after a two-hour workout in temperatures that climbed to the mid-90s.</p>
<p>“This is the last week we have to get to put in some work to play this great game of football, so you’ve got to enjoy,” the 2013 Heisman Trophy winner said. “It’s a little humid out here. But I’m from Alabama, and we love the heat.”</p>
<p>The minicamp, which drew 100 percent participation, concludes the team’s offseason program. Coach Lovie Smith reiterated he’s pleased with Winston’s progress.</p>
<p>Third-year pro Mike Glennon worked with the first-string offense, but Smith stressed that Winston’s done plenty of that during voluntary workouts.</p>
<p>“I have a plan, and a part of that plan is for Jameis to get a certain amount of reps with certain guys. He’s gone with the 1s, he’s gone with the 2s,” Smith said. “At the same time, it’s not just about Jameis. We need to get our backup quarterback ready, too.”</p>
<p>Winston said he expects to take over the huddle ’as soon as I earn it.”</p>
<p>The Bucs went 2-14 last season, ranking 29th in scoring and 30th in total offense. In addition to drafting Winston, Smith and general manager Jason Licht used a pair of second-round picks on offensive linemen Donovan Smith and Ali Marpet, who also will get an opportunity to earn starting jobs in training camp.</p>
<p>Winston said he feels he’s getting better every day.</p>
<p>“You’ve got to get better every single day, and I feel like I’ve done that,” the former Florida State star said, adding that he and Glennon have alternated taking snaps with the starters during OTAs.</p>
<p>“I’m not frustrated at all. In this world, you’ve got to earn everything that you get. ... With this camp being the last week (of workouts before training camp), I feel like I’ve had great practices day in and day out, and I’m just enjoying it.”</p>
<p>Asked if he felt he had “earned” a chance to work with the No. 1s, the rookie replied: “I haven’t earned it until I get it.”</p>
<p>Smith suggested too much is being made of who’s working with whom in June.</p>
<p>“To me, it’s not what group. You’re working with different guys,” the coach, beginning his second season with the Bucs, said.</p>
<p>“He has come a long way in a short period of time,” Smith added. “Very impressive, the amount of knowledge he has now about our offense.”</p>
<p>Tuesday marked the return of right tackle Demar Dotson, who skipped the past two weeks of voluntary workouts because he’s unhappy with his contract.</p>
<p>“I didn’t want to lose any money. It’s like $100,000, and I got some good advice that you don’t want to lose that money,” Dotson said. “I don’t have $100,000 to lose, so I wanted to keep my money. And that was the only way to keep negotiations going throughout these six weeks going into training camp.”</p>
<p>Dotson has two years remaining on a contract extension he signed in 2013. He’s scheduled to earn $2.5 million in the upcoming season.</p>
<p>“It’s good to get him back. He needed today,” Smith said, adding that every player can benefit from participating in OTAs.</p>
<p>“But you can’t live in the past. That was voluntary work,” the coach added. “Players all have to be here (mandatory minicamp), and they all are here. It’s just good to see Demar back out there with the group.”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Online: AP NFL website: www.pro32.ap.org and www.twitter.com/AP_NFL</p>
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tampa fla ap jameis winston smiles keeps positive attitude everything days includes floridas stifling heat working mostly second thirdstringers opening day tampa bay buccaneers mandatory minicamp start training camp month away regular season doesnt begin sept 13 theres reason first overall pick nfl draft alarmed tuesday working backups instead many tampa bays projected starters im excited play right doesnt matter matters team gets better every single day learn every single day winston said twohour workout temperatures climbed mid90s last week get put work play great game football youve got enjoy 2013 heisman trophy winner said little humid im alabama love heat minicamp drew 100 percent participation concludes teams offseason program coach lovie smith reiterated hes pleased winstons progress thirdyear pro mike glennon worked firststring offense smith stressed winstons done plenty voluntary workouts plan part plan jameis get certain amount reps certain guys hes gone 1s hes gone 2s smith said time jameis need get backup quarterback ready winston said expects take huddle soon earn bucs went 214 last season ranking 29th scoring 30th total offense addition drafting winston smith general manager jason licht used pair secondround picks offensive linemen donovan smith ali marpet also get opportunity earn starting jobs training camp winston said feels hes getting better every day youve got get better every single day feel like ive done former florida state star said adding glennon alternated taking snaps starters otas im frustrated world youve got earn everything get camp last week workouts training camp feel like ive great practices day day im enjoying asked felt earned chance work 1s rookie replied havent earned get smith suggested much made whos working june group youre working different guys coach beginning second season bucs said come long way short period time smith added impressive amount knowledge offense tuesday marked return right tackle demar dotson skipped past two weeks voluntary workouts hes unhappy contract didnt want lose money like 100000 got good advice dont want lose money dotson said dont 100000 lose wanted keep money way keep negotiations going throughout six weeks going training camp dotson two years remaining contract extension signed 2013 hes scheduled earn 25 million upcoming season good get back needed today smith said adding every player benefit participating otas cant live past voluntary work coach added players mandatory minicamp good see demar back group ___ online ap nfl website wwwpro32aporg wwwtwittercomap_nfl tampa fla ap jameis winston smiles keeps positive attitude everything days includes floridas stifling heat working mostly second thirdstringers opening day tampa bay buccaneers mandatory minicamp start training camp month away regular season doesnt begin sept 13 theres reason first overall pick nfl draft alarmed tuesday working backups instead many tampa bays projected starters im excited play right doesnt matter matters team gets better every single day learn every single day winston said twohour workout temperatures climbed mid90s last week get put work play great game football youve got enjoy 2013 heisman trophy winner said little humid im alabama love heat minicamp drew 100 percent participation concludes teams offseason program coach lovie smith reiterated hes pleased winstons progress thirdyear pro mike glennon worked firststring offense smith stressed winstons done plenty voluntary workouts plan part plan jameis get certain amount reps certain guys hes gone 1s hes gone 2s smith said time jameis need get backup quarterback ready winston said expects take huddle soon earn bucs went 214 last season ranking 29th scoring 30th total offense addition drafting winston smith general manager jason licht used pair secondround picks offensive linemen donovan smith ali marpet also get opportunity earn starting jobs training camp winston said feels hes getting better every day youve got get better every single day feel like ive done former florida state star said adding glennon alternated taking snaps starters otas im frustrated world youve got earn everything get camp last week workouts training camp feel like ive great practices day day im enjoying asked felt earned chance work 1s rookie replied havent earned get smith suggested much made whos working june group youre working different guys coach beginning second season bucs said come long way short period time smith added impressive amount knowledge offense tuesday marked return right tackle demar dotson skipped past two weeks voluntary workouts hes unhappy contract didnt want lose money like 100000 got good advice dont want lose money dotson said dont 100000 lose wanted keep money way keep negotiations going throughout six weeks going training camp dotson two years remaining contract extension signed 2013 hes scheduled earn 25 million upcoming season good get back needed today smith said adding every player benefit participating otas cant live past voluntary work coach added players mandatory minicamp good see demar back group ___ online ap nfl website wwwpro32aporg wwwtwittercomap_nfl
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<p>On the eve of his first meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, President Donald Trump made some questionable claims about the U.S. intelligence community’s finding that Russia hacked into U.S. political organizations to interfere in the 2016 presidential election:</p>
<p>The president <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/06/politics/trump-election-meddling-russia/index.html" type="external">made his remarks</a>&#160;during a joint press conference with&#160;Polish President Andrzej Duda in Warsaw on July 6. Trump made the stop in Poland on his way to&#160;a Group of 20 summit meeting in Germany, where he is <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/340605-white-house-details-trump-meeting-with-putin-report" type="external">scheduled to meet</a> with Putin on July 7.</p>
<p>Hallie Jackson of NBC News <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/trump-downplays-russian-election-meddling-yet-again-n780031" type="external">asked</a> the president if he would “once and for all, yes or no, definitively say that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.” He <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/06/politics/trump-election-meddling-russia/index.html" type="external">gave</a> a less-than-definitive answer.</p>
<p>Trump, July 6:&#160;I think it was Russia. And I think it could have been other people and other countries. It could have been a lot of people interfered. I’ve said it very simply. I think it could very well have been Russia but I think it could very well have been other countries, and I won’t be specific. But I think a lot of people interfere. I think it has been happening for a long time. It has been happening for many, many years.</p>
<p>There is no evidence that other countries were involved in the cyberattacks.</p>
<p>The Department of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a&#160; <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2016/10/07/joint-statement-department-homeland-security-and-office-director-national" type="external">joint statement</a>&#160;on Oct. 7, 2016, that said the U.S. intelligence community is “confident” that hacks into the email systems of the Democratic Party and its officials were directed by “Russia’s senior most officials.” The U.S. intelligence community includes <a href="https://www.intelligencecareers.gov/icmembers.html" type="external">17 separate intelligence agencies</a>.</p>
<p>“Such activity is not new to Moscow — the Russians have used similar tactics and techniques across Europe and Eurasia, for example, to influence public opinion there,” the statement said. “We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.”</p>
<p>After the election, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a <a href="https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf" type="external">declassified report on Jan. 6</a> that went even further. That report said that “Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump” and that&#160;“Putin ordered an influence campaign” to help Trump and damage his opponent, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.</p>
<p>The 25-page report&#160;was “drafted and coordinated” among three intelligence agencies — the CIA, FBI and the National Security Agency — based on “intelligence information collected and disseminated by those three agencies.”</p>
<p>Among other things, the report said, Russian military intelligence gained access to Democratic National Committee computers from July 2015 to June 2016 and then used WikiLeaks, DCLeaks.com and “Guccifer 2.0, who claimed to be an independent Romanian hacker,” to publicly release hacked emails&#160;and documents. The cyberattacks and public release of hacked material were part of larger “Russian propaganda efforts” to hurt Clinton and help Trump, the report said.</p>
<p>“Russia’s state-run propaganda machine — comprised of its domestic media apparatus, outlets targeting global audiences such as RT and Sputnik, and a network of quasi-government trolls — contributed to the influence campaign by serving as a platform for Kremlin messaging to Russian and international audiences,” the report said. “State-owned Russian media made increasingly favorable comments about President-elect Trump as the 2016 US general and primary election campaigns progressed while consistently offering negative coverage of Secretary Clinton.”</p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/08/full-text-james-comey-trump-russia-testimony-239295" type="external">sworn testimony</a> before the Senate intelligence committee on June 8, former FBI Director James Comey said there should be no confusion that Russia interfered with the election.</p>
<p>Comey, June 8: There should be no fuzz on this whatsoever. The Russians interfered in our election during the 2016 cycle. They did with purpose. They did it with sophistication. They did it with overwhelming technical efforts. It was an active measures campaign driven from the top of that government. There is no fuzz on that. It is a high confidence judgment of the entire intelligence community and the members of this committee have seen the intelligence. It’s not a close call. That happened. That’s about as unfake as you can possibly get. It is very, very serious, which is why it’s so refreshing to see a bipartisan focus on that. This is about America, not about a particular party.</p>
<p>Of course, this isn’t the first time that Trump has questioned U.S. intelligence on Russia. He did so <a href="" type="internal">before and after</a> winning the election, sometimes in the same way as he did at his Warsaw press conference.</p>
<p>After the election,&#160;Trump <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/trump-team-russia-cia-intel-election-232460" type="external">issued</a>&#160;a statement on Dec. 9 that compared U.S. intelligence on Russia’s election meddling to U.S. intelligence on&#160;Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. At his press conference in Poland, Trump again raised the issue of WMDs. He said “everybody was 100 percent sure that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction,” but faulty intelligence “led to one big mess.”</p>
<p>And, as he did in Poland, Trump told Time magazine in a&#160; <a href="http://time.com/4591183/time-person-of-the-year-2016-donald-trump-interview/" type="external">Nov. 28, 2016, interview</a>:&#160;“It could be Russia. And it could be China. And it could be some guy in his home in New Jersey.”</p>
<p>But no evidence to date has emerged that China or any other country was involved.</p>
<p>Update, July 7: Two House members – a Republican and a Democrat – said they have seen no evidence that any country other than Russia interfered in the 2016 election.</p>
<p>CNN’s John Berman asked Rep. Jim Himes in a <a href="http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1707/06/acd.02.html" type="external">July 6 interview</a>: “[H]ave you seen any evidence that any other country besides Russia tried to meddle in the 2016 election?” Himes, a <a href="https://intelligence.house.gov/about/hpsci-minority-members.htm" type="external">Democratic member</a> of the House intelligence committee, responded, “None. None.”</p>
<p>Republican Rep. Michael McCaul, <a href="https://homeland.house.gov/" type="external">chairman</a> of the House Committee on Homeland Security, said in a <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/congressman-expresses-topic-wish-list-for-meeting-985898563835" type="external">July 7 interview on MSNBC</a> that the intelligence reports and briefings that he has received show “very clear and convincing evidence that it was a nation state attack by Russia.”</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Even though he continues to question the U.S. intelligence community’s findings, Trump criticized Obama for doing “nothing” about Russia’s attempts to influence the election.</p>
<p>Trump, July 6: Now, the thing I have to mention is that Barack Obama, when he was president, found out about this in terms of if it were Russia, found out about it in August. Now the election was in November. That’s a lot of time. He did nothing about it. Why did he do nothing about it? He was told it was Russia by the CIA, as I understand it. It was well reported. And he did nothing about it. They say he choked. Well, I don’t think he choked. I think what happened is he thought Hillary Clinton was going to win the election and he said, “Let’s not do anything about it.” Had he thought the other way he would have done something about it.</p>
<p>Trump is referring to a&#160;Washington Post&#160;story — <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/world/national-security/obama-putin-election-hacking/?utm_term=.ced1eca64186" type="external">“Obama’s secret struggle to punish Russia for Putin’s election assault</a>” — that said Obama received a CIA report in early August that detailed Putin’s “direct involvement in a cyber campaign to disrupt and discredit the U.S. presidential race.” The story said the CIA “captured Putin’s specific instructions on the operation’s audacious objectives — defeat or at least damage the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, and help elect her opponent, Donald Trump.”</p>
<p>The Post story detailed the internal debate within the Obama administration on what action to take against Russia.</p>
<p>Washington Post, June 23:&#160;It took time for other parts of the intelligence community to endorse the CIA’s view [on Putin’s objectives]. Only in the administration’s final weeks in office did it tell the public, in a declassified report, what officials had learned from [CIA Director John] Brennan in August — that Putin was working to elect Trump.</p>
<p>Over that five-month interval, the Obama administration secretly debated dozens of options for deterring or punishing Russia, including cyberattacks on Russian infrastructure, the release of CIA-gathered material that might embarrass Putin and sanctions that officials said could “crater” the Russian economy.</p>
<p>It wasn’t until Dec. 29 that Obama&#160; <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/12/29/fact-sheet-actions-response-russian-malicious-cyber-activity-and" type="external">announced</a>&#160;that he would impose sanctions on Russia for interfering in the election. At the time, Trump&#160;criticized&#160;the sanctions. “It’s time for our country to move on to bigger and better things,” Trump <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eaV5f3gR_o" type="external">said</a> in a statement.</p>
<p>There are&#160; <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/25/politics/adam-schiff-obama-russia/index.html" type="external">certainly</a>&#160; <a href="http://freebeacon.com/national-security/warner-obama-administration-choked-handling-russian-interference/" type="external">Democrats</a>&#160;who believe that Obama didn’t do enough to alert the public about the extent of Russia’s meddling in the election. But Trump goes too far when he — repeatedly — says that Obama “did nothing about it.”</p>
<p>So, what did Obama and his administration do from early August until Election Day on Nov. 8?</p>
<p>Obama answered that question during a <a href="https://ge.usembassy.gov/press-conference-president/" type="external">Dec. 16 press conference</a> when he was asked about the “perception that you’re letting President Putin get away with interfering in the U.S. election.” At the time, the president had yet to impose sanctions, which would not come for nearly two more weeks.</p>
<p>Obama, Dec. 16: At the beginning of the summer, we’re alerted to the possibility that the DNC has been hacked, and I immediately order law enforcement as well as our intelligence teams to find out everything about it, investigate it thoroughly, to brief the potential victims of this hacking, to brief on a bipartisan basis the leaders of both the House and the Senate and the relevant intelligence committees. And once we had clarity and certainty around what, in fact, had happened, we publicly announced that, in fact, Russia had hacked into the DNC.</p>
<p>That public announcement was made, as we said earlier, in a statement by the Department of Homeland Security and DNI on Oct. 7. But that announcement competed for public attention with other major breaking news in that same 24-hour news cycle: The Washington Post&#160; <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-recorded-having-extremely-lewd-conversation-about-women-in-2005/2016/10/07/3b9ce776-8cb4-11e6-bf8a-3d26847eeed4_story.html?utm_term=.744afba670e0" type="external">published a story and video</a> of lewd comments that Trump made about women while talking with Billy Bush, then of “Access Hollywood.”</p>
<p>In addition to the Oct. 7 announcement, Obama also said that he confronted Putin about the hacking at a G-20 summit in September.</p>
<p>Obama, Dec. 16:&#160;And so in early September, when I saw President Putin in China, I felt that the most effective way to ensure that that didn’t happen was to talk to him directly and tell him to cut it out, and there were going to be some serious consequences if he didn’t. And, in fact, we did not see further tampering of the election process. But the leaks through WikiLeaks had already occurred.</p>
<p>WikiLeaks <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/07/22/on-eve-of-democratic-convention-wikileaks-releases-thousands-of-documents-about-clinton-the-campaign-and-internal-deliberations/?utm_term=.eff31af1e456" type="external">began to release</a>&#160;hacked emails on July 22 — about two weeks before Obama had been briefed by the CIA on Putin’s direct role in the hacking. That damage was already done, so the Obama administration turned its attention to securing the nation’s voting systems.</p>
<p>Obama said his “principal goal leading up to the election” was to prevent Russia from hacking into voting systems and tampering with registration rolls and ballots. That was accomplished through the Department of Homeland Security, and it started at about the time that Obama first learned in mid-August about Putin’s desire to help Trump win the election.</p>
<p>On Aug. 15, then-Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson held a <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2016/08/15/readout-secretary-johnsons-call-state-election-officials-cybersecurity" type="external">conference call</a> with members of the National Association of Secretaries of State and other election officials. A readout of the call said, “While DHS is not aware of any specific or credible cybersecurity threats relating to the upcoming general election systems, Secretary Johnson reiterated that DHS, the Election Assistance Commission, NIST, and DOJ are available to offer support and assistance in protecting against cyber attacks.” He also said that the department “would be examining whether designating certain electoral systems as critical infrastructure would be an effective way to offer this support.”</p>
<p>The designation of “critical infrastructure”&#160;would have given states “priority in terms of the assistance we give on cyber security,” Johnson <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/jeh-johnson-trump-rigging-talk-russian-meddling" type="external">testified</a> at a June 21 House intelligence committee hearing on Russia’s meddling. Other sectors designated as “critical” include the defense, energy and financial sectors, <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/critical-infrastructure-sectors" type="external">according to</a>the Department of Homeland Security.</p>
<p>Many state officials were “resisting the idea of a designation to be critical infrastructure,” Johnson testified.</p>
<p>On Aug. 29, two weeks after Johnson’s conference call with election officials, the&#160;Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbi-is-investigating-foreign-hacks-of-state-election-systems/2016/08/29/6e758ff4-6e00-11e6-8365-b19e428a975e_story.html?utm_term=.cce6a6fe7e09" type="external">reported</a> that hackers were targeting voter registration systems in Arizona and Illinois. The story said, “[T]he FBI alerted Arizona officials in June that Russians were behind the assault on the election system in that state.”</p>
<p>On Sept. 15, the Election Assistance Commission <a href="" type="external">issued security tips</a> for securing voter registration databases. A day later,&#160;Johnson issued a <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2016/09/16/statement-secretary-johnson-concerning-cybersecurity-nation%E2%80%99s-election-systems" type="external">statement</a> that warned about attacks on voter registration data.</p>
<p>“In recent months we have seen cyber intrusions involving political institutions and personal communications,” <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2016/09/16/statement-secretary-johnson-concerning-cybersecurity-nation%E2%80%99s-election-systems" type="external">Johnson’s statement said</a>. “We have also seen some efforts at cyber intrusions of voter registration data maintained in state election systems.”</p>
<p>On Oct. 1,&#160;Johnson issued <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2016/10/01/statement-secretary-johnson-about-election-systems-cybersecurity" type="external">another statement</a> that warned about attacks on voting-related systems, including a few successful attacks. “In recent months, malicious cyber actors have been scanning a large number of state systems, which could be a preamble to attempted intrusions,” the statement said. “In a few cases, we have determined that malicious actors gained access to state voting-related systems. However, we are not aware at this time of any manipulation of data.”</p>
<p>The statement urged states to seek the department’s help to secure their voting data and equipment. “So far, 21 states have contacted us about our services,” the statement said. By Oct. 10, that number had risen to 33 states, <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2016/10/10/update-secretary-johnson-dhs-election-cybersecurity-services" type="external">the department said</a>.</p>
<p>“I can tell you for certain that, in the late summer, fall, I was very concerned about what I was seeing, and this was on my front burner all throughout the pre-election period in August, September, October, and early November — to encourage the states to come in and seek our assistance,” Johnson testified. “And I’m glad that most of them, red and blue, did.”</p>
<p>In the end, there was no evidence that votes were changed, Johnson told the House committee.</p>
<p>Trump — as Democrats have done — can question whether the Obama administration did enough. That’s an opinion. But Trump is wrong to say Obama “did nothing” from early August to Nov. 8. In addition to directly raising the issue with Putin, Obama’s administration worked with state officials to secure voting machines and issued a statement identifying Russia as the state actor behind the cyberattacks.</p>
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eve first meeting russian president vladimir putin president donald trump made questionable claims us intelligence communitys finding russia hacked us political organizations interfere 2016 presidential election president made remarks160during joint press conference with160polish president andrzej duda warsaw july 6 trump made stop poland way to160a group 20 summit meeting germany scheduled meet putin july 7 hallie jackson nbc news asked president would yes definitively say russia interfered 2016 election gave lessthandefinitive answer trump july 6160i think russia think could people countries could lot people interfered ive said simply think could well russia think could well countries wont specific think lot people interfere think happening long time happening many many years evidence countries involved cyberattacks department homeland security office director national intelligence issued a160 joint statement160on oct 7 2016 said us intelligence community confident hacks email systems democratic party officials directed russias senior officials us intelligence community includes 17 separate intelligence agencies activity new moscow russians used similar tactics techniques across europe eurasia example influence public opinion statement said believe based scope sensitivity efforts russias seniormost officials could authorized activities election office director national intelligence issued declassified report jan 6 went even report said putin russian government developed clear preference presidentelect trump that160putin ordered influence campaign help trump damage opponent democratic presidential nominee hillary clinton 25page report160was drafted coordinated among three intelligence agencies cia fbi national security agency based intelligence information collected disseminated three agencies among things report said russian military intelligence gained access democratic national committee computers july 2015 june 2016 used wikileaks dcleakscom guccifer 20 claimed independent romanian hacker publicly release hacked emails160and documents cyberattacks public release hacked material part larger russian propaganda efforts hurt clinton help trump report said russias staterun propaganda machine comprised domestic media apparatus outlets targeting global audiences rt sputnik network quasigovernment trolls contributed influence campaign serving platform kremlin messaging russian international audiences report said stateowned russian media made increasingly favorable comments presidentelect trump 2016 us general primary election campaigns progressed consistently offering negative coverage secretary clinton sworn testimony senate intelligence committee june 8 former fbi director james comey said confusion russia interfered election comey june 8 fuzz whatsoever russians interfered election 2016 cycle purpose sophistication overwhelming technical efforts active measures campaign driven top government fuzz high confidence judgment entire intelligence community members committee seen intelligence close call happened thats unfake possibly get serious refreshing see bipartisan focus america particular party course isnt first time trump questioned us intelligence russia winning election sometimes way warsaw press conference election160trump issued160a statement dec 9 compared us intelligence russias election meddling us intelligence on160iraqs weapons mass destruction press conference poland trump raised issue wmds said everybody 100 percent sure iraq weapons mass destruction faulty intelligence led one big mess poland trump told time magazine a160 nov 28 2016 interview160it could russia could china could guy home new jersey evidence date emerged china country involved update july 7 two house members republican democrat said seen evidence country russia interfered 2016 election cnns john berman asked rep jim himes july 6 interview seen evidence country besides russia tried meddle 2016 election himes democratic member house intelligence committee responded none none republican rep michael mccaul chairman house committee homeland security said july 7 interview msnbc intelligence reports briefings received show clear convincing evidence nation state attack russia 160 even though continues question us intelligence communitys findings trump criticized obama nothing russias attempts influence election trump july 6 thing mention barack obama president found terms russia found august election november thats lot time nothing nothing told russia cia understand well reported nothing say choked well dont think choked think happened thought hillary clinton going win election said lets anything thought way would done something trump referring a160washington post160story obamas secret struggle punish russia putins election assault said obama received cia report early august detailed putins direct involvement cyber campaign disrupt discredit us presidential race story said cia captured putins specific instructions operations audacious objectives defeat least damage democratic nominee hillary clinton help elect opponent donald trump post story detailed internal debate within obama administration action take russia washington post june 23160it took time parts intelligence community endorse cias view putins objectives administrations final weeks office tell public declassified report officials learned cia director john brennan august putin working elect trump fivemonth interval obama administration secretly debated dozens options deterring punishing russia including cyberattacks russian infrastructure release ciagathered material might embarrass putin sanctions officials said could crater russian economy wasnt dec 29 obama160 announced160that would impose sanctions russia interfering election time trump160criticized160the sanctions time country move bigger better things trump said statement are160 certainly160 democrats160who believe obama didnt enough alert public extent russias meddling election trump goes far repeatedly says obama nothing obama administration early august election day nov 8 obama answered question dec 16 press conference asked perception youre letting president putin get away interfering us election time president yet impose sanctions would come nearly two weeks obama dec 16 beginning summer alerted possibility dnc hacked immediately order law enforcement well intelligence teams find everything investigate thoroughly brief potential victims hacking brief bipartisan basis leaders house senate relevant intelligence committees clarity certainty around fact happened publicly announced fact russia hacked dnc public announcement made said earlier statement department homeland security dni oct 7 announcement competed public attention major breaking news 24hour news cycle washington post160 published story video lewd comments trump made women talking billy bush access hollywood addition oct 7 announcement obama also said confronted putin hacking g20 summit september obama dec 16160and early september saw president putin china felt effective way ensure didnt happen talk directly tell cut going serious consequences didnt fact see tampering election process leaks wikileaks already occurred wikileaks began release160hacked emails july 22 two weeks obama briefed cia putins direct role hacking damage already done obama administration turned attention securing nations voting systems obama said principal goal leading election prevent russia hacking voting systems tampering registration rolls ballots accomplished department homeland security started time obama first learned midaugust putins desire help trump win election aug 15 thenhomeland security secretary jeh johnson held conference call members national association secretaries state election officials readout call said dhs aware specific credible cybersecurity threats relating upcoming general election systems secretary johnson reiterated dhs election assistance commission nist doj available offer support assistance protecting cyber attacks also said department would examining whether designating certain electoral systems critical infrastructure would effective way offer support designation critical infrastructure160would given states priority terms assistance give cyber security johnson testified june 21 house intelligence committee hearing russias meddling sectors designated critical include defense energy financial sectors according tothe department homeland security many state officials resisting idea designation critical infrastructure johnson testified aug 29 two weeks johnsons conference call election officials the160washington post reported hackers targeting voter registration systems arizona illinois story said fbi alerted arizona officials june russians behind assault election system state sept 15 election assistance commission issued security tips securing voter registration databases day later160johnson issued statement warned attacks voter registration data recent months seen cyber intrusions involving political institutions personal communications johnsons statement said also seen efforts cyber intrusions voter registration data maintained state election systems oct 1160johnson issued another statement warned attacks votingrelated systems including successful attacks recent months malicious cyber actors scanning large number state systems could preamble attempted intrusions statement said cases determined malicious actors gained access state votingrelated systems however aware time manipulation data statement urged states seek departments help secure voting data equipment far 21 states contacted us services statement said oct 10 number risen 33 states department said tell certain late summer fall concerned seeing front burner throughout preelection period august september october early november encourage states come seek assistance johnson testified im glad red blue end evidence votes changed johnson told house committee trump democrats done question whether obama administration enough thats opinion trump wrong say obama nothing early august nov 8 addition directly raising issue putin obamas administration worked state officials secure voting machines issued statement identifying russia state actor behind cyberattacks
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<p>Sous chef David Tsabetsaye, shown here trimming beef tenderloins at Seasons Rotisserie and Grill, says most customers do not ask about the calorie content. There’s “butter here, heavy cream there,” he says, noting they come because they are wanting something that’s not part of their regular diet. (Adolphe Pierre-Louis/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Two men are sitting at a diner counter in a January New Yorker cartoon, one with a five o’clock shadow eating a burger, the other in a lab coat consulting a clipboard.</p>
<p>“If it’s all the same to you,” says the guy with the burger, “I’d rather eat this not knowing what the latest science suggests.”</p>
<p>That seems to be the case at some Albuquerque eateries – according to local chefs and restaurant managers, their customers are fine not knowing how many calories are on their plates. That’s not because the customers don’t want the science, but because they’re dining out for a good time and don’t care, the restaurant staffers say.</p>
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<p>The cartoon contradicts, however, what an Associated Press-GfK poll that was conducted in December revealed: More than half of the 1,010 people surveyed online said they would prefer calorie information on menus.</p>
<p>Specifically, 56 percent said they favored it as a requirement on fast food restaurant menus, and 54 percent said they favored it as a requirement on sit-down restaurant menus, according to an AP article published in the Jan. 2 Journal.</p>
<p>“People may pass on that bacon double cheeseburger if they know it has hundreds of calories,” the article states, “and, in turn, restaurants may make their foods healthier to keep calorie counts down.”</p>
<p>The poll came out shortly after the Food and Drug Administration announced that restaurants that sell prepared foods and have at least 20 locations must post calorie counts on their menus and menu boards by November 2015.</p>
<p>Restaurateurs from around Albuquerque – both from chains that fall under the new FDA rule, and smaller, locally owned fine dining restaurants that won’t – weighed in.</p>
<p>Bradley Chapman of Artichoke Café said that most people who dine at the Edo restaurant come to celebrate. “They know they are splurging a bit,” he says. (Adolphe Pierre-Louis/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>A place for celebration</p>
<p>At the independently owned Artichoke Café, in the 400 block of Central SE, assistant manager Bradley Chapman said the menu doesn’t offer calorie breakdowns because people usually don’t ask. Even if it were required to, he said, the numbers would be approximate because no two plates are the same.</p>
<p>“We do everything to order, so we don’t measure everything,” Chapman said. “We do a spoon of this, a spoon of that.”</p>
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<p>After checking with the chef, he said that making public the caloric information would be feasible, but it’s not in much demand at the restaurant, which prepares New American cuisine using French bistro techniques.</p>
<p>“When people are at the Artichoke Café, they’re celebrating,” he said. “They know they are splurging a bit. If you’re out to have an indulgent dinner, people aren’t concerned with calorie count.”</p>
<p>In the six years he has worked there, he added, “I’ve never had one person ask about the calorie count.”</p>
<p>Ryan Hallum, general manager and executive chef at Marcello’s Chophouse, says he thinks larger restaurant companies should be able to offer calorie information without too much fuss. (Adolphe Pierre-Louis/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>A special occasion</p>
<p>That’s the case, too, at Seasons Rotisserie and Grill in Old Town.</p>
<p>The grill features an exhibition kitchen, so people can see their meals prepared before them. But how much fat and cholesterol are they getting in those meals?</p>
<p>“Customers don’t tend to ask,” according to sous chef David Tsabetsaye. The restaurant has catered to a slightly older clientele for almost two decades, who aren’t calorie counting because they come for something different than what they’d eat at home.</p>
<p>“Some people come here for special occasions,” he said. “It’s not part of their regular diet. It’s not feasible for people to come here every day. (There’s) butter here, heavy cream there, so people who come are not thinking it’s the healthiest place to eat.”</p>
<p>Online, or on the menu?</p>
<p>Diners are a bit more curious at Rudy’s Country Store &amp; Barbecue, which would have to comply with the FDA rules. The chain has approximately three dozen locations in southwestern states of Texas, Colorado, Oklahoma and Arizona, and two in New Mexico – one on Carlisle near Interstate 40, the other on Coors and Alameda.</p>
<p>At the westside location, that planning wasn’t yet in the works. General manager Santiago Romero said some customers want to know the calorie values from the menu, which includes Texas-style barbecue ribs, brisket, sausage, turkey, chicken and pork loin, along with sides like coleslaw and beans. “Some customers do come in and request that,” he said, “but it’s online on our website.”</p>
<p>Clicking the half-pound brisket option on the website’s menu yields the brisket’s nutrition content: 640 calories, 100 from fat, as well as 41 grams of protein, and no dietary fibers or sugars.</p>
<p>Romero said he didn’t know yet about plans to post calorie breakdowns on, for example, a chalkboard near the restaurant entrance come November.</p>
<p>David Tsabetsaye, sous chef of Seasons Rotisserie and Grill, shown fileting a salmon in the kitchen of the Old Town restaurant, says most people who come to the restaurant are there for a special occasion, which means not worrying about the calories. (Adolphe Pierre-Louis/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>Getting there</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Bravo! Cucina Italiana, an upscale chain restaurant in ABQ Uptown, is already partway there. With hundreds of locations nationwide, the eatery will fall under the new rule.</p>
<p>Now, Bravo! offers meals with 600 calories or less on its “Lighter Side of Rome” menu, listing the calorie count, according to manager Korey Shrader. He added that he wasn’t sure why calories for richer platters are not also printed on the menus.</p>
<p>Ryan Hallum, general manager and executive chef of Marcello’s Chophouse, an independent restaurant near Bravo! also in ABQ Uptown, said he thinks restaurants that are part of larger companies can and should offer calorie information without too much fuss. They can use the U.S. Department of Agriculture website, where calorie values of various foods are available. But “it’s hard to find the time to sit down to do it,” he said.</p>
<p>It would also be a challenge for mom-and-pop restaurants that offer daily specials. “If every time they put a special together, then they have to go to the USDA website and approximate the caloric information or purchase an expensive computer program that will do it for them, it’s less likely they are going to do it,” he said.</p>
<p>By contrast, larger dining establishments may find it easier. “An executive chef (at a larger eatery) has all the time, and an office, and the resources to get it done,” he said.</p>
<p>When asked if he’d do it if it were required of non-chain restaurants like his, he said: “We’re here to please the people, so if that were something we were told we had to do, we’d get it done.”</p>
<p />
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sous chef david tsabetsaye shown trimming beef tenderloins seasons rotisserie grill says customers ask calorie content theres butter heavy cream says noting come wanting something thats part regular diet adolphe pierrelouisalbuquerque journal albuquerque nm two men sitting diner counter january new yorker cartoon one five oclock shadow eating burger lab coat consulting clipboard says guy burger id rather eat knowing latest science suggests seems case albuquerque eateries according local chefs restaurant managers customers fine knowing many calories plates thats customers dont want science theyre dining good time dont care restaurant staffers say advertisement cartoon contradicts however associated pressgfk poll conducted december revealed half 1010 people surveyed online said would prefer calorie information menus specifically 56 percent said favored requirement fast food restaurant menus 54 percent said favored requirement sitdown restaurant menus according ap article published jan 2 journal people may pass bacon double cheeseburger know hundreds calories article states turn restaurants may make foods healthier keep calorie counts poll came shortly food drug administration announced restaurants sell prepared foods least 20 locations must post calorie counts menus menu boards november 2015 restaurateurs around albuquerque chains fall new fda rule smaller locally owned fine dining restaurants wont weighed bradley chapman artichoke café said people dine edo restaurant come celebrate know splurging bit says adolphe pierrelouisalbuquerque journal place celebration independently owned artichoke café 400 block central se assistant manager bradley chapman said menu doesnt offer calorie breakdowns people usually dont ask even required said numbers would approximate two plates everything order dont measure everything chapman said spoon spoon advertisement checking chef said making public caloric information would feasible much demand restaurant prepares new american cuisine using french bistro techniques people artichoke café theyre celebrating said know splurging bit youre indulgent dinner people arent concerned calorie count six years worked added ive never one person ask calorie count ryan hallum general manager executive chef marcellos chophouse says thinks larger restaurant companies able offer calorie information without much fuss adolphe pierrelouisalbuquerque journal special occasion thats case seasons rotisserie grill old town grill features exhibition kitchen people see meals prepared much fat cholesterol getting meals customers dont tend ask according sous chef david tsabetsaye restaurant catered slightly older clientele almost two decades arent calorie counting come something different theyd eat home people come special occasions said part regular diet feasible people come every day theres butter heavy cream people come thinking healthiest place eat online menu diners bit curious rudys country store amp barbecue would comply fda rules chain approximately three dozen locations southwestern states texas colorado oklahoma arizona two new mexico one carlisle near interstate 40 coors alameda westside location planning wasnt yet works general manager santiago romero said customers want know calorie values menu includes texasstyle barbecue ribs brisket sausage turkey chicken pork loin along sides like coleslaw beans customers come request said online website clicking halfpound brisket option websites menu yields briskets nutrition content 640 calories 100 fat well 41 grams protein dietary fibers sugars romero said didnt know yet plans post calorie breakdowns example chalkboard near restaurant entrance come november david tsabetsaye sous chef seasons rotisserie grill shown fileting salmon kitchen old town restaurant says people come restaurant special occasion means worrying calories adolphe pierrelouisalbuquerque journal getting meanwhile bravo cucina italiana upscale chain restaurant abq uptown already partway hundreds locations nationwide eatery fall new rule bravo offers meals 600 calories less lighter side rome menu listing calorie count according manager korey shrader added wasnt sure calories richer platters also printed menus ryan hallum general manager executive chef marcellos chophouse independent restaurant near bravo also abq uptown said thinks restaurants part larger companies offer calorie information without much fuss use us department agriculture website calorie values various foods available hard find time sit said would also challenge momandpop restaurants offer daily specials every time put special together go usda website approximate caloric information purchase expensive computer program less likely going said contrast larger dining establishments may find easier executive chef larger eatery time office resources get done said asked hed required nonchain restaurants like said please people something told wed get done
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<p>NEW YORK (AP) — Starbucks reported disappointing sales growth in its most recent quarter, and shares of the coffee chain fell in after-hours trading Thursday.</p>
<p>But the company also said it expects to earn more this year than it had previously expected, due to the recent changes in U.S. tax law that slashed the corporate tax rate.</p>
<p>Looking ahead, the company said it will focus on streamlining its business, like the recent sale of its Tazo tea brand, but it didn’t provide details. It also wants to lure more customers to buy coffee and food in the afternoon, and it will focus on opening more stores in China, its fastest-growing market.</p>
<p>Starbucks said sales rose 2 percent at established stores worldwide during its fiscal first quarter, missing the 3 percent growth analysts expected, according to FactSet. It was also below the 3 percent growth the company posted in the same quarter a year ago.</p>
<p>CEO Kevin Johnson said that mugs, tumblers and other merchandise in Starbucks stores didn’t perform well during the holidays. He said the company would reconsider what merchandise it sells in the future.</p>
<p>Because it will spend less on taxes, Starbucks said it now expects full-year earnings between $2.48 per share and $2.53 per share, up from its previous forecast between $2.30 per share and $2.33 per share.</p>
<p>Earlier this week Starbucks also said it would spend some of its tax savings by giving its 150,000 workers, including baristas and store managers, raises, stock grants and expanding their benefits.</p>
<p>The company’s profit soared in the quarter, but most of that gain came from the Tazo tea brand sale and its takeover of 1,400 stores in China that were previously part of a joint venture.</p>
<p>It reported net income of $2.25 billion, or $1.57 per share, in the three months that ended Dec. 31, 2017. That compares with $751.8 million, or 51 cents per share, in the same period a year ago.</p>
<p>Earnings, adjusted for non-recurring gains, came to 65 cents per share, beating the 57 cents per share analysts expected, according to Zacks Investment Research.</p>
<p>Revenue rose 6 percent to $6.07 billion, which still fell short of Street forecasts. Analysts expected revenue of $6.14 billion, according to Zacks.</p>
<p>After the results were released, shares of Starbucks Corp. fell nearly 5 percent to $57.55 in after-hours trading.</p>
<p>_____</p>
<p>Elements of this story were generated by Automated Insights ( <a href="http://automatedinsights.com/ap)" type="external">http://automatedinsights.com/ap)</a> using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on SBUX at <a href="https://www.zacks.com/ap/SBUX" type="external">https://www.zacks.com/ap/SBUX</a></p>
<p>NEW YORK (AP) — Starbucks reported disappointing sales growth in its most recent quarter, and shares of the coffee chain fell in after-hours trading Thursday.</p>
<p>But the company also said it expects to earn more this year than it had previously expected, due to the recent changes in U.S. tax law that slashed the corporate tax rate.</p>
<p>Looking ahead, the company said it will focus on streamlining its business, like the recent sale of its Tazo tea brand, but it didn’t provide details. It also wants to lure more customers to buy coffee and food in the afternoon, and it will focus on opening more stores in China, its fastest-growing market.</p>
<p>Starbucks said sales rose 2 percent at established stores worldwide during its fiscal first quarter, missing the 3 percent growth analysts expected, according to FactSet. It was also below the 3 percent growth the company posted in the same quarter a year ago.</p>
<p>CEO Kevin Johnson said that mugs, tumblers and other merchandise in Starbucks stores didn’t perform well during the holidays. He said the company would reconsider what merchandise it sells in the future.</p>
<p>Because it will spend less on taxes, Starbucks said it now expects full-year earnings between $2.48 per share and $2.53 per share, up from its previous forecast between $2.30 per share and $2.33 per share.</p>
<p>Earlier this week Starbucks also said it would spend some of its tax savings by giving its 150,000 workers, including baristas and store managers, raises, stock grants and expanding their benefits.</p>
<p>The company’s profit soared in the quarter, but most of that gain came from the Tazo tea brand sale and its takeover of 1,400 stores in China that were previously part of a joint venture.</p>
<p>It reported net income of $2.25 billion, or $1.57 per share, in the three months that ended Dec. 31, 2017. That compares with $751.8 million, or 51 cents per share, in the same period a year ago.</p>
<p>Earnings, adjusted for non-recurring gains, came to 65 cents per share, beating the 57 cents per share analysts expected, according to Zacks Investment Research.</p>
<p>Revenue rose 6 percent to $6.07 billion, which still fell short of Street forecasts. Analysts expected revenue of $6.14 billion, according to Zacks.</p>
<p>After the results were released, shares of Starbucks Corp. fell nearly 5 percent to $57.55 in after-hours trading.</p>
<p>_____</p>
<p>Elements of this story were generated by Automated Insights ( <a href="http://automatedinsights.com/ap)" type="external">http://automatedinsights.com/ap)</a> using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on SBUX at <a href="https://www.zacks.com/ap/SBUX" type="external">https://www.zacks.com/ap/SBUX</a></p>
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new york ap starbucks reported disappointing sales growth recent quarter shares coffee chain fell afterhours trading thursday company also said expects earn year previously expected due recent changes us tax law slashed corporate tax rate looking ahead company said focus streamlining business like recent sale tazo tea brand didnt provide details also wants lure customers buy coffee food afternoon focus opening stores china fastestgrowing market starbucks said sales rose 2 percent established stores worldwide fiscal first quarter missing 3 percent growth analysts expected according factset also 3 percent growth company posted quarter year ago ceo kevin johnson said mugs tumblers merchandise starbucks stores didnt perform well holidays said company would reconsider merchandise sells future spend less taxes starbucks said expects fullyear earnings 248 per share 253 per share previous forecast 230 per share 233 per share earlier week starbucks also said would spend tax savings giving 150000 workers including baristas store managers raises stock grants expanding benefits companys profit soared quarter gain came tazo tea brand sale takeover 1400 stores china previously part joint venture reported net income 225 billion 157 per share three months ended dec 31 2017 compares 7518 million 51 cents per share period year ago earnings adjusted nonrecurring gains came 65 cents per share beating 57 cents per share analysts expected according zacks investment research revenue rose 6 percent 607 billion still fell short street forecasts analysts expected revenue 614 billion according zacks results released shares starbucks corp fell nearly 5 percent 5755 afterhours trading _____ elements story generated automated insights httpautomatedinsightscomap using data zacks investment research access zacks stock report sbux httpswwwzackscomapsbux new york ap starbucks reported disappointing sales growth recent quarter shares coffee chain fell afterhours trading thursday company also said expects earn year previously expected due recent changes us tax law slashed corporate tax rate looking ahead company said focus streamlining business like recent sale tazo tea brand didnt provide details also wants lure customers buy coffee food afternoon focus opening stores china fastestgrowing market starbucks said sales rose 2 percent established stores worldwide fiscal first quarter missing 3 percent growth analysts expected according factset also 3 percent growth company posted quarter year ago ceo kevin johnson said mugs tumblers merchandise starbucks stores didnt perform well holidays said company would reconsider merchandise sells future spend less taxes starbucks said expects fullyear earnings 248 per share 253 per share previous forecast 230 per share 233 per share earlier week starbucks also said would spend tax savings giving 150000 workers including baristas store managers raises stock grants expanding benefits companys profit soared quarter gain came tazo tea brand sale takeover 1400 stores china previously part joint venture reported net income 225 billion 157 per share three months ended dec 31 2017 compares 7518 million 51 cents per share period year ago earnings adjusted nonrecurring gains came 65 cents per share beating 57 cents per share analysts expected according zacks investment research revenue rose 6 percent 607 billion still fell short street forecasts analysts expected revenue 614 billion according zacks results released shares starbucks corp fell nearly 5 percent 5755 afterhours trading _____ elements story generated automated insights httpautomatedinsightscomap using data zacks investment research access zacks stock report sbux httpswwwzackscomapsbux
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<p>Artist Bert Benally, center, is interviewed by a Gallup PBS station crew in Coyote Canyon in 2013 during an experimental sonic art installation. (Courtesy of Julien McRoberts)</p>
<p>SANTA FE, N.M. - It's hard enough to collaborate with an artist you don't know, but imagine doing it with someone on the other side of the world who is under strict restrictions imposed by a foreign government.</p>
<p>Navajo artist Bert Benally has been in Beijing this week trying to do just that with famous Chinese dissident Ai Weiwei.</p>
<p>"You can't say you're meeting him" in seeking a visa to China, said project coordinator and curator Eileen Braziel of Santa Fe earlier this week. "They're still holding him (Ai) under strict confinement in home and in Beijing - I'm not sure which day (Benally) will be able to meet him - it might be something very spontaneous."</p>
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<p>The pairing of the two artists has come about through TIME at Coyote Canyon 2014 Biennale.</p>
<p>TIME - Temporary Installations Made for the Environment - has been a project of the state's Art in Public Places program since 2004, the last three years in partnership with the Navajo Nation, according to Chuck Zimmer, deputy director for New Mexico Arts in the Department of Cultural Affairs.</p>
<p>"It's gotten a little bigger each year," he said. For this year, the project aimed to attract a world-class artist for the collaboration and Braziel, who runs Eileen Braziel Art Advisors and is under contract for this project, suggested inviting Ai.</p>
<p>Manuelito Wheeler, director of the Navajo Nation Museum, walks down Coyote Canyon during the first visit for the TIME at Coyote Canyon project. (Courtesy of Julien McRoberts)</p>
<p>After all, she noted, nothing ventured, nothing gained.</p>
<p>"For him to be interested in a project like this is like one in a million," she said, adding that it's not too hard to get word to him through his studio staff. "He immediately said he was interested."</p>
<p>As it turns out, Ai agreed to involve himself with the outdoor installation piece in remote Coyote Canyon because pictures of the landscape reminded him of the Mongolian camp where his family was held for 13 years during the Cultural Revolution, she said.</p>
<p>Since then, contact between the artists has been "cloak and dagger," said Zimmer. Messages have come to Benally, based in Shiprock, telling him to contact Ai at a certain time through a certain email address - but to never use that address again, he said.</p>
<p>They are able to communicate in English - Ai lived in the United States, mostly New York, from 1981-93, briefly attending the Parsons School of Design, according to Wikipedia.</p>
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<p>Their work eventually will come to Santa Fe, in a way, via a high-tech screening in July.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Focus on exile</p>
<p>"What they have in common is kind of tragic: The Navajos and the Long Walk, and Ai Weiwei and his family and the Cultural Revolution and being interned," Zimmer said. "It's a strong cultural connection that they're building the piece off of."</p>
<p>Perhaps fittingly, the project itself focuses on a sort of exile - and the return home.</p>
<p>Already under construction, "Pull of the Moon" is based on a Navajo story about two brothers helping their family find the way home after the Long Walk. A rendering of the installation has yet to be released.</p>
<p>The Bitsui and Wheeler families, who live in Coyote Canyon, have agreed to work with the project.</p>
<p>The Long Walk, which began in January of 1864 and which the Navajo view as their death march, sent 8,000-9,000 tribal members along 300 miles from their homelands in the Four Corners to Fort Sumner in the Bosque Redondo.</p>
<p>Artist Ai Weiwei is shown in 2010. He is cooperating on an art installation with Navajo artist Bert Benally in Coyote Canyon. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)</p>
<p>Depending on the source you consult, at least 200 Navajo, and maybe more, are believed to have died along the way, and many more undoubtedly perished from starvation and other hardships - some say as many as 25 percent of the people living there. Admitting failure, the U.S. government finally released the remaining Navajo to walk back to their lands in June 1868.</p>
<p>Ai, meanwhile, named in 2011 by ArtReview magazine the most powerful artist in the world, was arrested and jailed for three months in 2011 for purported tax evasion and has had his passport confiscated.</p>
<p>Director Alison Klayman featured the artist in her documentary, "Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry," which was nominated for and received many film festival prizes in 2012-13. The film included some of the artist's more controversial projects, including a "performance piece" in which he dropped and smashed what was said to be an old and very valuable Chinese vase, as well as a project that painted over a number of reportedly historic Chinese pots.</p>
<p>Some shots included a defiant middle finger raised to buildings of government authority.</p>
<p>One of his more publicized acts of defiance came after a 2008 earthquake in Sichuan province, in which Ai blamed shoddy construction for the collapse of schools that killed many children. He and a crew filmed the sites, Ai created a blog critical of the circumstances behind the tragedy and collected names of children who died in the earthquake - more than 5,000 by his count - before the blog was shut down by government authorities in 2009.</p>
<p>Traveling dome</p>
<p>So Ai won't be coming to New Mexico as part of the Coyote Canyon project. But the project will be coming to New Mexicans.</p>
<p>Coyote Canyon, east of Crownpoint and north of Gallup, isn't easily accessible and probably couldn't accommodate many visitors anyway, according to Zimmer. The Navajo Nation Museum, whose director Manuelito Wheeler is working closely with the project, probably will organize some guided visits to the site, he said.</p>
<p>But photographers Eric Hanson and Greg Downing from XRez will document the construction, which already has started, of the six, 10-foot wood structures that are part of the installation. They also will film when they are lit with fire by the local families, symbolizing their return home.</p>
<p>That video will then travel around the state, but it will premiere in Santa Fe.</p>
<p>The Art in Public Places Project is buying a large "full-immersion" dome for $10,000 and will set it up in downtown Santa Fe for the July 16 reception for the TIME project, according to Zimmer. From inside the dome, viewers will be surrounded on all sides by the 3D film, which will be screened from 7-8 p.m. that day, following a 5-7 p.m. reception at the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts. Bennally and German sonic artist Robert Henke will present an outdoor sound installation as part of the program.</p>
<p>The dome is then expected to travel to various locations around the state afterward to show the film, Zimmer said.</p>
<p />
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artist bert benally center interviewed gallup pbs station crew coyote canyon 2013 experimental sonic art installation courtesy julien mcroberts santa fe nm hard enough collaborate artist dont know imagine someone side world strict restrictions imposed foreign government navajo artist bert benally beijing week trying famous chinese dissident ai weiwei cant say youre meeting seeking visa china said project coordinator curator eileen braziel santa fe earlier week theyre still holding ai strict confinement home beijing im sure day benally able meet might something spontaneous advertisement pairing two artists come time coyote canyon 2014 biennale time temporary installations made environment project states art public places program since 2004 last three years partnership navajo nation according chuck zimmer deputy director new mexico arts department cultural affairs gotten little bigger year said year project aimed attract worldclass artist collaboration braziel runs eileen braziel art advisors contract project suggested inviting ai manuelito wheeler director navajo nation museum walks coyote canyon first visit time coyote canyon project courtesy julien mcroberts noted nothing ventured nothing gained interested project like like one million said adding hard get word studio staff immediately said interested turns ai agreed involve outdoor installation piece remote coyote canyon pictures landscape reminded mongolian camp family held 13 years cultural revolution said since contact artists cloak dagger said zimmer messages come benally based shiprock telling contact ai certain time certain email address never use address said able communicate english ai lived united states mostly new york 198193 briefly attending parsons school design according wikipedia advertisement work eventually come santa fe way via hightech screening july focus exile common kind tragic navajos long walk ai weiwei family cultural revolution interned zimmer said strong cultural connection theyre building piece perhaps fittingly project focuses sort exile return home already construction pull moon based navajo story two brothers helping family find way home long walk rendering installation yet released bitsui wheeler families live coyote canyon agreed work project long walk began january 1864 navajo view death march sent 80009000 tribal members along 300 miles homelands four corners fort sumner bosque redondo artist ai weiwei shown 2010 cooperating art installation navajo artist bert benally coyote canyon ap photoandy wong file depending source consult least 200 navajo maybe believed died along way many undoubtedly perished starvation hardships say many 25 percent people living admitting failure us government finally released remaining navajo walk back lands june 1868 ai meanwhile named 2011 artreview magazine powerful artist world arrested jailed three months 2011 purported tax evasion passport confiscated director alison klayman featured artist documentary ai weiwei never sorry nominated received many film festival prizes 201213 film included artists controversial projects including performance piece dropped smashed said old valuable chinese vase well project painted number reportedly historic chinese pots shots included defiant middle finger raised buildings government authority one publicized acts defiance came 2008 earthquake sichuan province ai blamed shoddy construction collapse schools killed many children crew filmed sites ai created blog critical circumstances behind tragedy collected names children died earthquake 5000 count blog shut government authorities 2009 traveling dome ai wont coming new mexico part coyote canyon project project coming new mexicans coyote canyon east crownpoint north gallup isnt easily accessible probably couldnt accommodate many visitors anyway according zimmer navajo nation museum whose director manuelito wheeler working closely project probably organize guided visits site said photographers eric hanson greg downing xrez document construction already started six 10foot wood structures part installation also film lit fire local families symbolizing return home video travel around state premiere santa fe art public places project buying large fullimmersion dome 10000 set downtown santa fe july 16 reception time project according zimmer inside dome viewers surrounded sides 3d film screened 78 pm day following 57 pm reception museum contemporary native arts bennally german sonic artist robert henke present outdoor sound installation part program dome expected travel various locations around state afterward show film zimmer said
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<p>JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi’s system for assigning A-to-F letter grades to public schools keeps changing, and it looks like the state may have to reset the scale again in 2018.</p>
<p>The U.S. Department of Education <a href="https://www2.ed.gov/admins/lead/account/stateplan17/msinterimfeedbackletter.pdf" type="external">rejected</a> parts of Mississippi’s system in December. Mississippi is among several states that have been asked to make changes in plans to comply with the Every Student Succeeds Act, signed in 2015.</p>
<p>At issue is how the state calculates points used to assign grades to schools. Establishing those scores is contentious, particularly because districts complain when the state changes rules in midstream. The current school year was supposed to be the first since 2010-2011 that Mississippi schools taught the same curriculum, gave the same standardized test and were graded using the same scoring system as the year before.</p>
<p>Nathan Oakley, who directs elementary education and reading for the Mississippi Department of Education, told state Board of Education members Thursday that the “unexpected” federal objections mean that Mississippi must now include a score this year for students learning English as a second language in its system, even though the school year is half over.</p>
<p>“The biggest issue as we see it is we’re not only going to have to include it, we’re going to have to include it this year,” said state Superintendent Carey Wright.</p>
<p>Mississippi had planned to phase in the English learner measures, fully incorporating them in three years. Of Mississippi’s 142 school districts, 68 report no English learners, while only 58 have more than 10 districtwide.</p>
<p>Oakley said the federal agency also objects to a performance measure that looks at the lowest-scoring quarter of students. State officials say it was meant to make sure that school districts wouldn’t ignore achievement gaps between high-scoring and low-scoring students. But Oakley and Wright said federal officials demanded that such a measure include all students. Wright said officials are exploring replacements, including a plan that would heavily emphasize scores of the lowest 25 percent of students, but include data from all students.</p>
<p>State officials are happy about one change. Mississippi had planned to pay to create an Algebra II exam and administer it in high school to students who take Algebra I in eighth grade. But Oakley said federal officials now say Mississippi can continue with its current practice of giving both the eighth-grade math test and the Algebra I exam to those students in the same year, later crediting the Algebra I exam score to the students’ high schools.</p>
<p>Mississippi will submit an updated plan to the federal agency by Feb. 1, but it could be three or four months before changes are finally approved by the board.</p>
<p>Oakley promised to “minimize the impact” of any changes. That was good news to board members, who have navigated contentious score-setting processes in the last two years.</p>
<p>“The idea of changing the cut scores again makes everyone go a little bonkers,” said board Vice Chair Jason Dean of Madison.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /> <a href="" type="internal">https://www.apnews.com/search/Jeff_Amy</a> .Follow Jeff Amy at: <a href="http://twitter.com/jeffamy" type="external">http://twitter.com/jeffamy</a> . Read his work at</p>
<p>JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi’s system for assigning A-to-F letter grades to public schools keeps changing, and it looks like the state may have to reset the scale again in 2018.</p>
<p>The U.S. Department of Education <a href="https://www2.ed.gov/admins/lead/account/stateplan17/msinterimfeedbackletter.pdf" type="external">rejected</a> parts of Mississippi’s system in December. Mississippi is among several states that have been asked to make changes in plans to comply with the Every Student Succeeds Act, signed in 2015.</p>
<p>At issue is how the state calculates points used to assign grades to schools. Establishing those scores is contentious, particularly because districts complain when the state changes rules in midstream. The current school year was supposed to be the first since 2010-2011 that Mississippi schools taught the same curriculum, gave the same standardized test and were graded using the same scoring system as the year before.</p>
<p>Nathan Oakley, who directs elementary education and reading for the Mississippi Department of Education, told state Board of Education members Thursday that the “unexpected” federal objections mean that Mississippi must now include a score this year for students learning English as a second language in its system, even though the school year is half over.</p>
<p>“The biggest issue as we see it is we’re not only going to have to include it, we’re going to have to include it this year,” said state Superintendent Carey Wright.</p>
<p>Mississippi had planned to phase in the English learner measures, fully incorporating them in three years. Of Mississippi’s 142 school districts, 68 report no English learners, while only 58 have more than 10 districtwide.</p>
<p>Oakley said the federal agency also objects to a performance measure that looks at the lowest-scoring quarter of students. State officials say it was meant to make sure that school districts wouldn’t ignore achievement gaps between high-scoring and low-scoring students. But Oakley and Wright said federal officials demanded that such a measure include all students. Wright said officials are exploring replacements, including a plan that would heavily emphasize scores of the lowest 25 percent of students, but include data from all students.</p>
<p>State officials are happy about one change. Mississippi had planned to pay to create an Algebra II exam and administer it in high school to students who take Algebra I in eighth grade. But Oakley said federal officials now say Mississippi can continue with its current practice of giving both the eighth-grade math test and the Algebra I exam to those students in the same year, later crediting the Algebra I exam score to the students’ high schools.</p>
<p>Mississippi will submit an updated plan to the federal agency by Feb. 1, but it could be three or four months before changes are finally approved by the board.</p>
<p>Oakley promised to “minimize the impact” of any changes. That was good news to board members, who have navigated contentious score-setting processes in the last two years.</p>
<p>“The idea of changing the cut scores again makes everyone go a little bonkers,” said board Vice Chair Jason Dean of Madison.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /> <a href="" type="internal">https://www.apnews.com/search/Jeff_Amy</a> .Follow Jeff Amy at: <a href="http://twitter.com/jeffamy" type="external">http://twitter.com/jeffamy</a> . Read his work at</p>
| false | 2 |
jackson miss ap mississippis system assigning atof letter grades public schools keeps changing looks like state may reset scale 2018 us department education rejected parts mississippis system december mississippi among several states asked make changes plans comply every student succeeds act signed 2015 issue state calculates points used assign grades schools establishing scores contentious particularly districts complain state changes rules midstream current school year supposed first since 20102011 mississippi schools taught curriculum gave standardized test graded using scoring system year nathan oakley directs elementary education reading mississippi department education told state board education members thursday unexpected federal objections mean mississippi must include score year students learning english second language system even though school year half biggest issue see going include going include year said state superintendent carey wright mississippi planned phase english learner measures fully incorporating three years mississippis 142 school districts 68 report english learners 58 10 districtwide oakley said federal agency also objects performance measure looks lowestscoring quarter students state officials say meant make sure school districts wouldnt ignore achievement gaps highscoring lowscoring students oakley wright said federal officials demanded measure include students wright said officials exploring replacements including plan would heavily emphasize scores lowest 25 percent students include data students state officials happy one change mississippi planned pay create algebra ii exam administer high school students take algebra eighth grade oakley said federal officials say mississippi continue current practice giving eighthgrade math test algebra exam students year later crediting algebra exam score students high schools mississippi submit updated plan federal agency feb 1 could three four months changes finally approved board oakley promised minimize impact changes good news board members navigated contentious scoresetting processes last two years idea changing cut scores makes everyone go little bonkers said board vice chair jason dean madison ___ httpswwwapnewscomsearchjeff_amy follow jeff amy httptwittercomjeffamy read work jackson miss ap mississippis system assigning atof letter grades public schools keeps changing looks like state may reset scale 2018 us department education rejected parts mississippis system december mississippi among several states asked make changes plans comply every student succeeds act signed 2015 issue state calculates points used assign grades schools establishing scores contentious particularly districts complain state changes rules midstream current school year supposed first since 20102011 mississippi schools taught curriculum gave standardized test graded using scoring system year nathan oakley directs elementary education reading mississippi department education told state board education members thursday unexpected federal objections mean mississippi must include score year students learning english second language system even though school year half biggest issue see going include going include year said state superintendent carey wright mississippi planned phase english learner measures fully incorporating three years mississippis 142 school districts 68 report english learners 58 10 districtwide oakley said federal agency also objects performance measure looks lowestscoring quarter students state officials say meant make sure school districts wouldnt ignore achievement gaps highscoring lowscoring students oakley wright said federal officials demanded measure include students wright said officials exploring replacements including plan would heavily emphasize scores lowest 25 percent students include data students state officials happy one change mississippi planned pay create algebra ii exam administer high school students take algebra eighth grade oakley said federal officials say mississippi continue current practice giving eighthgrade math test algebra exam students year later crediting algebra exam score students high schools mississippi submit updated plan federal agency feb 1 could three four months changes finally approved board oakley promised minimize impact changes good news board members navigated contentious scoresetting processes last two years idea changing cut scores makes everyone go little bonkers said board vice chair jason dean madison ___ httpswwwapnewscomsearchjeff_amy follow jeff amy httptwittercomjeffamy read work
| 608 |
<p>PARIS (AP) — Neymar scored four goals and set up two in a dazzling performance as Paris Saint-Germain beat Dijon 8-0 on Wednesday, yet still the Brazil star left the field bitterly shaking his head in disappointment.</p>
<p>Perhaps it was hearing some fans jeering him when he refused to let striker Edinson Cavani take a late penalty. Runaway league leader PSG was already 7-0 up and Cavani needed one goal to become PSG’s outright all-time leading scorer.</p>
<p>It was the perfect moment to show generosity but — perhaps because the pair had previously clashed over a penalty — Neymar was having none of it.</p>
<p>Instead, with some fans chanting “Cavani, Cavani,” he jealously guarded the ball as Cavani gingerly approached, and then totally blanked him. Coolly, he sent goalkeper Baptiste Reynet the wrong way.</p>
<p>The incident in September — amusingly known as Penalty-gate — saw Cavani refusing to let Neymar take a penalty and then <a href="" type="internal">missing</a> . It still seems to linger.</p>
<p>At the end, Neymar took the match ball from the referee — players can keep it after a hat trick — but looked downcast as he trudged off the field at Parc des Princes.</p>
<p>After shaking his head, he even palmed off his Man of the Match award to a PSG staff member as he walked hurriedly back to the dressing room, having not stopped for waiting television reporters.</p>
<p>“He was a bit bitter, maybe. A lot of players would have reacted the same way,” PSG teammate Thomas Meunier said. “When you get whistled after scoring four goals and providing two assists, it’s a bit ungrateful by the supporters.”</p>
<p>Neymar’s other goals were a free kick in the 42nd, an assured finish from inside the area in the 57th, and a fine run and shot from just outside of it in the 73rd.</p>
<p>“We knew we would suffer, but not as much as this,” Dijon midfielder Jordan Marie said.</p>
<p>The pick of Neymar’s goals was a superb first-half free kick which flew into the top right corner before Reynet moved. The Brazil star set up PSG’s second goal for Angel Di Maria and the seventh for Kylian Mbappe.</p>
<p>He earned the free kick from which he scored, too, getting chopped down following a mazy run in the 42nd minute. Neymar has scored 15 goals in 15 league games since joining for a world record 222 million euros ($262 million) from Barcelona this summer.</p>
<p>“Whenever he gets on the ball, the opponents have a real sense of fear,” Meunier said.</p>
<p>Di Maria signaled his fine return to form with the opening two goals — the first a magnificent curling strike from the left of the area into the top right corner — and then set up Cavani’s header to make it 3-0.</p>
<p>Cavani moved level with Zlatan Ibrahimovic as the club’s leading scorer with 156 goals in 226 games, since joining from Napoli in the summer of 2013 for a then-club record of 64 million euros ($76 million).</p>
<p>By comparison, Ibrahimovic scored his in 180 games. He left after the 2015-16 season, after which Cavani came into his own — having often been pushed out wide right to accommodate the Swedish star.</p>
<p>PSG is 11 points clear of second-place Lyon at the top. Marseille is 12 behind while defending champion Monaco trails by 13 in fourth spot. They seem to be already fighting for second place.</p>
<p>PSG’s goal difference of + 52 is almost double Lyon’s and they are flowing from everywhere — with Di Maria netting five in his last four games.</p>
<p>It was PSG’s record home win, although it won 9-0 away to Troyes two seasons ago.</p>
<p>“We’re ashamed of what we did tonight,” Dijon coach Olivier Dall’Oglio said. “There was no fight.”</p>
<p>Lyon faces a tall order keeping Neymar quiet when PSG visits on Sunday.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>FEKIR IN FORM</p>
<p>Nabil Fekir’s 15th goal of the season helped Lyon win 2-0 win away to Guingamp.</p>
<p>He pounced in the 26th minute with a low shot from Maxwell Cornet’s pass. The roaming forward is pushing to be included in France’s World Cup squad later this year.</p>
<p>Houssem Aouar, one of the rising stars in the French league, sealed the win in the 58th with a composed finish.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>OTHER MATCHES</p>
<p>Fifth-place Nantes drew 1-1 away to struggling Toulouse after conceding a penalty five minutes into injury time.</p>
<p>Montpellier missed the chance to climb up to seventh after drawing 1-1 away to Amiens.</p>
<p>Ninth-place Rennes grabbed two late goals to win 2-1 away to Lille.</p>
<p>Angers moved out of the relegation zone with a 3-1 home win against Troyes, which dropped into the bottom three.</p>
<p>Metz remains in last place but strikers Emmanuel Riviere and Nolan Roux are finding form. They scored against their former side Saint-Etienne in a 3-0 home win.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>More AP French soccer: <a href="" type="internal" /> <a href="" type="internal">https://apnews.com/tag/Ligue1</a></p>
<p>PARIS (AP) — Neymar scored four goals and set up two in a dazzling performance as Paris Saint-Germain beat Dijon 8-0 on Wednesday, yet still the Brazil star left the field bitterly shaking his head in disappointment.</p>
<p>Perhaps it was hearing some fans jeering him when he refused to let striker Edinson Cavani take a late penalty. Runaway league leader PSG was already 7-0 up and Cavani needed one goal to become PSG’s outright all-time leading scorer.</p>
<p>It was the perfect moment to show generosity but — perhaps because the pair had previously clashed over a penalty — Neymar was having none of it.</p>
<p>Instead, with some fans chanting “Cavani, Cavani,” he jealously guarded the ball as Cavani gingerly approached, and then totally blanked him. Coolly, he sent goalkeper Baptiste Reynet the wrong way.</p>
<p>The incident in September — amusingly known as Penalty-gate — saw Cavani refusing to let Neymar take a penalty and then <a href="" type="internal">missing</a> . It still seems to linger.</p>
<p>At the end, Neymar took the match ball from the referee — players can keep it after a hat trick — but looked downcast as he trudged off the field at Parc des Princes.</p>
<p>After shaking his head, he even palmed off his Man of the Match award to a PSG staff member as he walked hurriedly back to the dressing room, having not stopped for waiting television reporters.</p>
<p>“He was a bit bitter, maybe. A lot of players would have reacted the same way,” PSG teammate Thomas Meunier said. “When you get whistled after scoring four goals and providing two assists, it’s a bit ungrateful by the supporters.”</p>
<p>Neymar’s other goals were a free kick in the 42nd, an assured finish from inside the area in the 57th, and a fine run and shot from just outside of it in the 73rd.</p>
<p>“We knew we would suffer, but not as much as this,” Dijon midfielder Jordan Marie said.</p>
<p>The pick of Neymar’s goals was a superb first-half free kick which flew into the top right corner before Reynet moved. The Brazil star set up PSG’s second goal for Angel Di Maria and the seventh for Kylian Mbappe.</p>
<p>He earned the free kick from which he scored, too, getting chopped down following a mazy run in the 42nd minute. Neymar has scored 15 goals in 15 league games since joining for a world record 222 million euros ($262 million) from Barcelona this summer.</p>
<p>“Whenever he gets on the ball, the opponents have a real sense of fear,” Meunier said.</p>
<p>Di Maria signaled his fine return to form with the opening two goals — the first a magnificent curling strike from the left of the area into the top right corner — and then set up Cavani’s header to make it 3-0.</p>
<p>Cavani moved level with Zlatan Ibrahimovic as the club’s leading scorer with 156 goals in 226 games, since joining from Napoli in the summer of 2013 for a then-club record of 64 million euros ($76 million).</p>
<p>By comparison, Ibrahimovic scored his in 180 games. He left after the 2015-16 season, after which Cavani came into his own — having often been pushed out wide right to accommodate the Swedish star.</p>
<p>PSG is 11 points clear of second-place Lyon at the top. Marseille is 12 behind while defending champion Monaco trails by 13 in fourth spot. They seem to be already fighting for second place.</p>
<p>PSG’s goal difference of + 52 is almost double Lyon’s and they are flowing from everywhere — with Di Maria netting five in his last four games.</p>
<p>It was PSG’s record home win, although it won 9-0 away to Troyes two seasons ago.</p>
<p>“We’re ashamed of what we did tonight,” Dijon coach Olivier Dall’Oglio said. “There was no fight.”</p>
<p>Lyon faces a tall order keeping Neymar quiet when PSG visits on Sunday.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>FEKIR IN FORM</p>
<p>Nabil Fekir’s 15th goal of the season helped Lyon win 2-0 win away to Guingamp.</p>
<p>He pounced in the 26th minute with a low shot from Maxwell Cornet’s pass. The roaming forward is pushing to be included in France’s World Cup squad later this year.</p>
<p>Houssem Aouar, one of the rising stars in the French league, sealed the win in the 58th with a composed finish.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>OTHER MATCHES</p>
<p>Fifth-place Nantes drew 1-1 away to struggling Toulouse after conceding a penalty five minutes into injury time.</p>
<p>Montpellier missed the chance to climb up to seventh after drawing 1-1 away to Amiens.</p>
<p>Ninth-place Rennes grabbed two late goals to win 2-1 away to Lille.</p>
<p>Angers moved out of the relegation zone with a 3-1 home win against Troyes, which dropped into the bottom three.</p>
<p>Metz remains in last place but strikers Emmanuel Riviere and Nolan Roux are finding form. They scored against their former side Saint-Etienne in a 3-0 home win.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>More AP French soccer: <a href="" type="internal" /> <a href="" type="internal">https://apnews.com/tag/Ligue1</a></p>
| false | 2 |
paris ap neymar scored four goals set two dazzling performance paris saintgermain beat dijon 80 wednesday yet still brazil star left field bitterly shaking head disappointment perhaps hearing fans jeering refused let striker edinson cavani take late penalty runaway league leader psg already 70 cavani needed one goal become psgs outright alltime leading scorer perfect moment show generosity perhaps pair previously clashed penalty neymar none instead fans chanting cavani cavani jealously guarded ball cavani gingerly approached totally blanked coolly sent goalkeper baptiste reynet wrong way incident september amusingly known penaltygate saw cavani refusing let neymar take penalty missing still seems linger end neymar took match ball referee players keep hat trick looked downcast trudged field parc des princes shaking head even palmed man match award psg staff member walked hurriedly back dressing room stopped waiting television reporters bit bitter maybe lot players would reacted way psg teammate thomas meunier said get whistled scoring four goals providing two assists bit ungrateful supporters neymars goals free kick 42nd assured finish inside area 57th fine run shot outside 73rd knew would suffer much dijon midfielder jordan marie said pick neymars goals superb firsthalf free kick flew top right corner reynet moved brazil star set psgs second goal angel di maria seventh kylian mbappe earned free kick scored getting chopped following mazy run 42nd minute neymar scored 15 goals 15 league games since joining world record 222 million euros 262 million barcelona summer whenever gets ball opponents real sense fear meunier said di maria signaled fine return form opening two goals first magnificent curling strike left area top right corner set cavanis header make 30 cavani moved level zlatan ibrahimovic clubs leading scorer 156 goals 226 games since joining napoli summer 2013 thenclub record 64 million euros 76 million comparison ibrahimovic scored 180 games left 201516 season cavani came often pushed wide right accommodate swedish star psg 11 points clear secondplace lyon top marseille 12 behind defending champion monaco trails 13 fourth spot seem already fighting second place psgs goal difference 52 almost double lyons flowing everywhere di maria netting five last four games psgs record home win although 90 away troyes two seasons ago ashamed tonight dijon coach olivier dalloglio said fight lyon faces tall order keeping neymar quiet psg visits sunday ___ fekir form nabil fekirs 15th goal season helped lyon win 20 win away guingamp pounced 26th minute low shot maxwell cornets pass roaming forward pushing included frances world cup squad later year houssem aouar one rising stars french league sealed win 58th composed finish ___ matches fifthplace nantes drew 11 away struggling toulouse conceding penalty five minutes injury time montpellier missed chance climb seventh drawing 11 away amiens ninthplace rennes grabbed two late goals win 21 away lille angers moved relegation zone 31 home win troyes dropped bottom three metz remains last place strikers emmanuel riviere nolan roux finding form scored former side saintetienne 30 home win ___ ap french soccer httpsapnewscomtagligue1 paris ap neymar scored four goals set two dazzling performance paris saintgermain beat dijon 80 wednesday yet still brazil star left field bitterly shaking head disappointment perhaps hearing fans jeering refused let striker edinson cavani take late penalty runaway league leader psg already 70 cavani needed one goal become psgs outright alltime leading scorer perfect moment show generosity perhaps pair previously clashed penalty neymar none instead fans chanting cavani cavani jealously guarded ball cavani gingerly approached totally blanked coolly sent goalkeper baptiste reynet wrong way incident september amusingly known penaltygate saw cavani refusing let neymar take penalty missing still seems linger end neymar took match ball referee players keep hat trick looked downcast trudged field parc des princes shaking head even palmed man match award psg staff member walked hurriedly back dressing room stopped waiting television reporters bit bitter maybe lot players would reacted way psg teammate thomas meunier said get whistled scoring four goals providing two assists bit ungrateful supporters neymars goals free kick 42nd assured finish inside area 57th fine run shot outside 73rd knew would suffer much dijon midfielder jordan marie said pick neymars goals superb firsthalf free kick flew top right corner reynet moved brazil star set psgs second goal angel di maria seventh kylian mbappe earned free kick scored getting chopped following mazy run 42nd minute neymar scored 15 goals 15 league games since joining world record 222 million euros 262 million barcelona summer whenever gets ball opponents real sense fear meunier said di maria signaled fine return form opening two goals first magnificent curling strike left area top right corner set cavanis header make 30 cavani moved level zlatan ibrahimovic clubs leading scorer 156 goals 226 games since joining napoli summer 2013 thenclub record 64 million euros 76 million comparison ibrahimovic scored 180 games left 201516 season cavani came often pushed wide right accommodate swedish star psg 11 points clear secondplace lyon top marseille 12 behind defending champion monaco trails 13 fourth spot seem already fighting second place psgs goal difference 52 almost double lyons flowing everywhere di maria netting five last four games psgs record home win although 90 away troyes two seasons ago ashamed tonight dijon coach olivier dalloglio said fight lyon faces tall order keeping neymar quiet psg visits sunday ___ fekir form nabil fekirs 15th goal season helped lyon win 20 win away guingamp pounced 26th minute low shot maxwell cornets pass roaming forward pushing included frances world cup squad later year houssem aouar one rising stars french league sealed win 58th composed finish ___ matches fifthplace nantes drew 11 away struggling toulouse conceding penalty five minutes injury time montpellier missed chance climb seventh drawing 11 away amiens ninthplace rennes grabbed two late goals win 21 away lille angers moved relegation zone 31 home win troyes dropped bottom three metz remains last place strikers emmanuel riviere nolan roux finding form scored former side saintetienne 30 home win ___ ap french soccer httpsapnewscomtagligue1
| 984 |
<p>Jan 18 (Reuters) - Royole Corporation​:</p>
<p>* ROYOLE CORPORATION​ - HAS SIGNED A STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT WITH JD.COM Source text for Eikon:</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May needed to act with speed when she ordered a missile attack on Syria and she will update parliament on Monday, Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson told BBC radio.</p> Britain's Secretary of State for Defence Gavin Williamson leaves 10 Downing Street in London, Britain, April 12, 2018. REUTERS/Simon Dawson
<p>Britain joined the United States and France on Saturday in what May cast as a “limited and targeted” strike after intelligence indicated Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government was responsible for an attack using chemical weapons in Douma.</p>
<p>All crews from the Royal Air Force Tornado jets returned safely, Williamson said. When asked if there would be more military action against Syria, Williamson said he thought the Western strikes had so far had sufficient effect.</p>
<p>Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; editing by Michael Holden</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey was informed ahead of U.S., British and French strikes on Syria, ruling AK Party spokesman Mahir Unal said in a televised interview on CNN Turk.</p>
<p>Earlier on Saturday, a Turkish foreign ministry source described the air strikes against the Syrian government as an “appropriate” response.</p>
<p>U.S., British and French forces hit Syria with air strikes early on Saturday in a coordinated intervention by Western powers against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in response to a suspected poison gas attack that killed dozens of people last week.</p>
<p>Reporting by Ece Toksabay; editing by Jason Neely</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>JERUSALEM (Reuters) - U.S.-led strikes in Syria are an “important signal” to Iran, Syria and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, a senior Israeli cabinet minister said on Saturday.</p> A plane preparing to take off as part of the joint airstrike operation by the British, French and U.S. militaries in Syria, is seen in this picture obtained on April 14, 2018 via social media. Courtesy French Military/Twitter/via REUTERS
<p>“The use of chemical weapons crosses a red line that humanity can no longer tolerate,” Yoav Gallant, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet, said on Twitter.</p>
<p>U.S., British and French forces hit Syria with air strikes overnight in response to a poison gas attack that killed dozens of people last week. U.S. President Donald Trump said he was prepared to sustain the response until Assad’s government stopped its use of chemical weapons.</p>
<p>“The American attack is an important signal to the axis of evil - Iran, Syria and Hezbollah,” Gallant said.</p>
<p>An Israeli official said Israel was notified of the strikes ahead of time. Asked how much advanced warning Israel had received, the official told Reuters: “Between 12 and 24 hours, I believe.”</p>
<p>Asked whether Israel helped choose targets, the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said: “Not to my knowledge.”</p>
<p>Iran’s involvement in Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad has alarmed Israel, which has said it would counter any threat. Iran-backed Hezbollah, which has an extensive missile arsenal, last fought a war with Israel in 2006.</p>
<p>Syria, Iran and Russia say Israel was behind an air strike on a Syrian air base on Monday that killed seven Iranian military personnel, something Israel has neither confirmed nor denied.</p>
<p>On Wednesday Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and urged him to do nothing to destabilize Syria, according to a Kremlin statement.</p>
<p>Israel has mounted air strikes in Syria on a regular basis, targeting suspected weapons shipments to Hezbollah.</p>
<p>Reporting by Maayan Lubell, Ari Rabinovitch and Dan Williams; Editing by Angus MacSwan</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>WASHINGTON/BEIRUT (Reuters) - U.S., British and French forces launched air strikes on Syria in response to a suspected poison gas attack that killed dozens of people, aiming to degrade its chemical weapons capabilities in the biggest intervention yet in the conflict by Western powers.</p>
<p>U.S. President Donald Trump announced the military action from the White House, saying the three allies had “marshalled their righteous power against barbarism and brutality.”</p>
<p>As he spoke, explosions rocked Damascus.</p>
<p>British Prime Minister Theresa May described the strike as “limited and targeted” and said she had authorized the British action after intelligence indicated Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government was responsible for an attack using chemical weapons in Douma last Saturday.</p>
<p>French President Emmanuel Macron said the strikes had been limited so far to Syria’s chemical weapons facilities.</p>
<p>With more than 100 missiles fired from ships and manned aircraft, the allies struck three of Syria’s main chemical weapons facilities, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Joseph Dunford said.</p>
<p>The targets included a Syrian center in the greater Damascus area for the research, development, production and testing of chemical and biological weaponry as well as a chemical weapons storage facility near the city of Homs. A third target, also near Homs, contained both a chemical weapons equipment storage facility and a command post.</p>
<p>Mattis called the strikes a “one time shot,” but Trump raised the prospect of further strikes if Assad’s government again used chemical weapons.</p> Related Coverage
<a href="/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-russia/russia-likely-to-call-u-n-meeting-over-syria-attack-russian-lawmaker-idUSKBN1HL075" type="external">Russia likely to call U.N. meeting over Syria attack: Russian lawmaker</a>
<a href="/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-israel/syria-strikes-an-important-signal-to-iran-and-hezbollah-israeli-minister-idUSKBN1HL0A4" type="external">Syria strikes an 'important signal' to Iran and Hezbollah: Israeli minister</a>
<a href="/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-explosions/western-attack-struck-syrian-research-center-other-targets-idUSKBN1HL02U" type="external">Western attack struck Syrian research center, other targets</a>
<p>“We are prepared to sustain this response until the Syrian regime stops its use of prohibited chemical agents,” the U.S. president said in a televised address.</p>
<p>The Syrian conflict pits a complex myriad of parties against each other, with Russia and Iran giving Assad military and political help while fractured opposition forces have had varying levels of support at different times from the West, Arab states and Turkey.</p>
<p>The strikes risked raising tensions in an already combustible region, but appeared designed not to trigger a military response from Russia and Iran.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, Assad’s government and Russia responded angrily.</p>
<p>“Again, we are being threatened. We warned that such actions will not be left without consequences,” Anatoly Antonov, Russia’s ambassador to the United States, said on Twitter.</p>
<p>Syrian state media said the attack would fail and called it a “flagrant violation of international law.”</p>
<p>Russia was likely to call for a meeting of the United Nations Security Council to discuss the air strikes, lawmaker Vladimir Dzhabarov, the deputy head of Russia’s foreign affairs committee, was quoted by the RIA news agency as saying.</p>
<p>The strikes seemed unlikely to have much impact on the balance of power in Syria’s seven-year-old civil war, in which Assad’s government has steadily gained the upper hand against armed opponents since Russia intervened in 2015.</p> ‘ABSORBED THE STRIKE’
<p>At least six loud explosions were heard in Damascus and smoke was seen rising over the city, a Reuters witness said. A second witness said the Barzah district of Damascus had been hit in the strikes. Barzah is the location of a major Syrian scientific research center.</p>
<p>A senior official in a regional alliance that backs Damascus told Reuters the Syrian government and its allies had “absorbed” the attack, and that targeted sites were evacuated days ago thanks to a warning from Russia.</p>
<p>Iran’s Foreign Ministry condemned the U.S.-led attacks and said Washington and its allies would bear responsibility for the consequences in the region and beyond, state media reported.</p>
<p>State-controlled Syrian TV said Syrian air defenses shot down 13 missiles fired in the attack. The Russian defense ministry said none of the rockets launched had entered zones where Russian air defense systems are protecting military facilities in Tartus and Hmeimim.</p>
<p>The combined U.S., British and French assault appeared more intense than a similar strike Trump ordered almost exactly a year ago against a Syrian air base in retaliation for an earlier chemical weapons attack that Washington attributed to Assad.</p>
<p>At a Pentagon briefing, Dunford said the air strikes on Saturday were planned to minimize the risk of casualties among Russia’s forces in Syria.</p>
<p>May said the missile strike was designed to minimize any civilian casualties and was not an attempt to change the Syrian government. Britain’s defense ministry said initial indications were that the precision weapons and meticulous target planning had “resulted in a successful attack”.</p>
<p>Mattis acknowledged that the United States conducted the air strikes only with conclusive evidence that chlorine gas was used in the April 7 attack in Syria. Evidence that the nerve agent sarin also was used is inconclusive, he said.</p>
<p>Allegations of Assad’s chlorine use are frequent in Syria’s conflict, raising questions about whether Washington had lowered the threshold for military action in Syria by now deciding to strike after a chlorine gas attack.</p>
<p>Mattis, who U.S. officials said had earlier warned in internal debates that too large an attack would risk confrontation with Russia, described the strikes as a one-off to dissuade Assad from “doing this again.”</p>
<p>But a U.S. official familiar with the military planning said there could be more air strikes if the intelligence indicates that Assad has not stopped manufacturing, importing, storing or using chemical weapons, including weaponized chlorine.</p>
<p>The official acknowledged that could require a more sustained U.S. air and naval presence in the region, as well as intensified satellite and other surveillance of Syria.</p> A missile is seen crossing over Damascus, Syria April 14, 2018. SANA/Handout via REUTERS TRUMP STILL WANTS TO EXIT SYRIA
<p>Trump has been leery of U.S. military involvement in the Middle East, and is eager to withdraw roughly 2,000 troops who are in Syria as part of the battle against Islamic State militants.</p>
<p>The air strikes, however, risk dragging the United States further into Syria’s civil war, particularly if Russia, Iran and Assad opt to retaliate.</p>
<p>“America does not seek an indefinite presence in Syria, under no circumstances,” Trump said in his eight-minute address.</p>
<p>“The purpose of our actions tonight is to establish a strong deterrent against the production, spread and use of chemical weapons,” he said.</p>
<p>The U.S. president, who has tried to build good relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, had sharply critical words for Russia and Iran over their support of Assad.</p>
<p>“To Iran and to Russia, I ask, what kind of a nation wants to be associated with the mass murder of innocent men, women and children?” Trump said.</p>
<p>Last year, the United States fired 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles from the guided missile destroyers USS Porter and the USS Ross that struck the Shayrat air base.</p>
<p>The targets of that strike included Syrian aircraft, aircraft shelters, petroleum and logistical storage facilities, ammunition supply bunkers, air defense systems and radar. At the time, the Pentagon said that a fifth of Syria’s operational aircraft were either damaged or destroyed.</p> Slideshow (11 Images)
<p>The U.S.-led attack on Syria will be seen as limited if it is now over and there is no second round of strikes, said a senior official in the regional alliance that has supported Assad in the Syrian war.</p>
<p>“If it is finished, and there is no second round, it will be considered limited,” the official told Reuters.</p>
<p>Reporting by Steve Holland and Tom Perry; Additional reporting by Phil Stewart, Tim Ahmann, Eric Beech, Lesley Wroughton, Lucia Mutikani, Idrees Ali, Patricia Zengerle, Matt Spetalnick and John Walcott in Washington; Samia Nakhoul, Tom Perry, Laila Bassam Ellen Francis in Beirut; Michael Holden and Guy Faulconbridge in London; and Jean-Baptiste Vey, Geert de Clerq and Matthias Blamont in Paris; Polina Ivanova in Moscow; Writing by Yara Bayoumy, Warren Strobel and Nick Tattersall; Editing by Kieran Murray, Clive McKeef, Robert Birsel and Mike Collett-White</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
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jan 18 reuters royole corporation royole corporation signed strategic partnership agreement jdcom source text eikon standards thomson reuters trust principles london reuters british prime minister theresa may needed act speed ordered missile attack syria update parliament monday defence secretary gavin williamson told bbc radio britains secretary state defence gavin williamson leaves 10 downing street london britain april 12 2018 reuterssimon dawson britain joined united states france saturday may cast limited targeted strike intelligence indicated syrian president bashar alassads government responsible attack using chemical weapons douma crews royal air force tornado jets returned safely williamson said asked would military action syria williamson said thought western strikes far sufficient effect reporting guy faulconbridge editing michael holden standards thomson reuters trust principles ankara reuters turkey informed ahead us british french strikes syria ruling ak party spokesman mahir unal said televised interview cnn turk earlier saturday turkish foreign ministry source described air strikes syrian government appropriate response us british french forces hit syria air strikes early saturday coordinated intervention western powers syrian president bashar alassad response suspected poison gas attack killed dozens people last week reporting ece toksabay editing jason neely standards thomson reuters trust principles jerusalem reuters usled strikes syria important signal iran syria lebanese militant group hezbollah senior israeli cabinet minister said saturday plane preparing take part joint airstrike operation british french us militaries syria seen picture obtained april 14 2018 via social media courtesy french militarytwittervia reuters use chemical weapons crosses red line humanity longer tolerate yoav gallant member prime minister benjamin netanyahus security cabinet said twitter us british french forces hit syria air strikes overnight response poison gas attack killed dozens people last week us president donald trump said prepared sustain response assads government stopped use chemical weapons american attack important signal axis evil iran syria hezbollah gallant said israeli official said israel notified strikes ahead time asked much advanced warning israel received official told reuters 12 24 hours believe asked whether israel helped choose targets official spoke condition anonymity said knowledge irans involvement syria support president bashar alassad alarmed israel said would counter threat iranbacked hezbollah extensive missile arsenal last fought war israel 2006 syria iran russia say israel behind air strike syrian air base monday killed seven iranian military personnel something israel neither confirmed denied wednesday russian president vladimir putin spoke israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu urged nothing destabilize syria according kremlin statement israel mounted air strikes syria regular basis targeting suspected weapons shipments hezbollah reporting maayan lubell ari rabinovitch dan williams editing angus macswan standards thomson reuters trust principles washingtonbeirut reuters us british french forces launched air strikes syria response suspected poison gas attack killed dozens people aiming degrade chemical weapons capabilities biggest intervention yet conflict western powers us president donald trump announced military action white house saying three allies marshalled righteous power barbarism brutality spoke explosions rocked damascus british prime minister theresa may described strike limited targeted said authorized british action intelligence indicated syrian president bashar alassads government responsible attack using chemical weapons douma last saturday french president emmanuel macron said strikes limited far syrias chemical weapons facilities 100 missiles fired ships manned aircraft allies struck three syrias main chemical weapons facilities us defense secretary jim mattis joint chiefs staff chairman general joseph dunford said targets included syrian center greater damascus area research development production testing chemical biological weaponry well chemical weapons storage facility near city homs third target also near homs contained chemical weapons equipment storage facility command post mattis called strikes one time shot trump raised prospect strikes assads government used chemical weapons related coverage russia likely call un meeting syria attack russian lawmaker syria strikes important signal iran hezbollah israeli minister western attack struck syrian research center targets prepared sustain response syrian regime stops use prohibited chemical agents us president said televised address syrian conflict pits complex myriad parties russia iran giving assad military political help fractured opposition forces varying levels support different times west arab states turkey strikes risked raising tensions already combustible region appeared designed trigger military response russia iran nevertheless assads government russia responded angrily threatened warned actions left without consequences anatoly antonov russias ambassador united states said twitter syrian state media said attack would fail called flagrant violation international law russia likely call meeting united nations security council discuss air strikes lawmaker vladimir dzhabarov deputy head russias foreign affairs committee quoted ria news agency saying strikes seemed unlikely much impact balance power syrias sevenyearold civil war assads government steadily gained upper hand armed opponents since russia intervened 2015 absorbed strike least six loud explosions heard damascus smoke seen rising city reuters witness said second witness said barzah district damascus hit strikes barzah location major syrian scientific research center senior official regional alliance backs damascus told reuters syrian government allies absorbed attack targeted sites evacuated days ago thanks warning russia irans foreign ministry condemned usled attacks said washington allies would bear responsibility consequences region beyond state media reported statecontrolled syrian tv said syrian air defenses shot 13 missiles fired attack russian defense ministry said none rockets launched entered zones russian air defense systems protecting military facilities tartus hmeimim combined us british french assault appeared intense similar strike trump ordered almost exactly year ago syrian air base retaliation earlier chemical weapons attack washington attributed assad pentagon briefing dunford said air strikes saturday planned minimize risk casualties among russias forces syria may said missile strike designed minimize civilian casualties attempt change syrian government britains defense ministry said initial indications precision weapons meticulous target planning resulted successful attack mattis acknowledged united states conducted air strikes conclusive evidence chlorine gas used april 7 attack syria evidence nerve agent sarin also used inconclusive said allegations assads chlorine use frequent syrias conflict raising questions whether washington lowered threshold military action syria deciding strike chlorine gas attack mattis us officials said earlier warned internal debates large attack would risk confrontation russia described strikes oneoff dissuade assad us official familiar military planning said could air strikes intelligence indicates assad stopped manufacturing importing storing using chemical weapons including weaponized chlorine official acknowledged could require sustained us air naval presence region well intensified satellite surveillance syria missile seen crossing damascus syria april 14 2018 sanahandout via reuters trump still wants exit syria trump leery us military involvement middle east eager withdraw roughly 2000 troops syria part battle islamic state militants air strikes however risk dragging united states syrias civil war particularly russia iran assad opt retaliate america seek indefinite presence syria circumstances trump said eightminute address purpose actions tonight establish strong deterrent production spread use chemical weapons said us president tried build good relations russian president vladimir putin sharply critical words russia iran support assad iran russia ask kind nation wants associated mass murder innocent men women children trump said last year united states fired 59 tomahawk cruise missiles guided missile destroyers uss porter uss ross struck shayrat air base targets strike included syrian aircraft aircraft shelters petroleum logistical storage facilities ammunition supply bunkers air defense systems radar time pentagon said fifth syrias operational aircraft either damaged destroyed slideshow 11 images usled attack syria seen limited second round strikes said senior official regional alliance supported assad syrian war finished second round considered limited official told reuters reporting steve holland tom perry additional reporting phil stewart tim ahmann eric beech lesley wroughton lucia mutikani idrees ali patricia zengerle matt spetalnick john walcott washington samia nakhoul tom perry laila bassam ellen francis beirut michael holden guy faulconbridge london jeanbaptiste vey geert de clerq matthias blamont paris polina ivanova moscow writing yara bayoumy warren strobel nick tattersall editing kieran murray clive mckeef robert birsel mike collettwhite standards thomson reuters trust principles
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<p>NEW YORK — Barbara Cook, whose shimmering soprano made her one of Broadway’s leading ingenues and later a major cabaret and concert interpreter of popular American song, has died. She was 89.</p>
<p>Cook died early Tuesday of respiratory failure at her home in Manhattan, surrounded by family and friends, according to publicist Amanda Kaus. Her last meal was vanilla ice cream, a nod to one of her most famous roles in “She Loves Me.”</p>
<p>Throughout her nearly six decades on stage, Cook’s voice remained remarkably supple, gaining in emotional honesty and expanding on its natural ability to go straight to the heart.</p>
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<p>On social media, powerhouse singers paid their respect, including Betty Buckley, who called Cook “one of the great artists &amp; lovely being,” and Lea Salonga, who wrote “Rest In Peace” on Twitter. New Tony Award winner Ben Platt from “Dear Evan Hansen” wrote: “Thank you Barbara Cook for the beautiful songs, the indelible characters, and the masterful storytelling. Heaven must sound glorious today.”</p>
<p>On Broadway, Cook was best known for three roles: her portrayal of the saucy Cunegonde in Leonard Bernstein’s “Candide” (1956); librarian Marian opposite Robert Preston in “The Music Man” (1957); and Amalia Balash, the letter-writing heroine of “She Loves Me” (1963).</p>
<p>Yet when Cook’s pert ingenue days were over, she found a second, longer career in clubs and concert halls, working for more than 30 years with Wally Harper, a pianist and music arranger. Harper helped in shaping her material, choosing songs and providing the framework for her shows.</p>
<p>To celebrate her 80th birthday, she appeared with the New York Philharmonic in two concerts in November 2007 and then had a similar birthday salute in London. In 2011, she was saluted at the Kennedy Center Honors and remained a singer even in her 80s.</p>
<p>“Of course, I think I’ve gotten better at it,” she said in an interview with The Associated Press in her Manhattan home in 2011. “I still think this is a work in progress. I do. Seriously. As the years go by, I have more and more courage to go deeper and deeper and deeper.”</p>
<p>Born in Atlanta in 1927, Cook always hated vocal exercises, never had a vocal coach and had an effortless skill of creating beauty by just opening her mouth. “I don’t remember when I didn’t sing. I just always sang,” she said in 2011. “I think I breathed and I sang.”</p>
<p>Her father was a traveling salesman who sold hats; her mother worked for Southern Bell. Her baby sister died of pneumonia when she was 3 and her father left when she was 6. She was raised by her far-too-clingy mother, who blamed young Barbara for both the death and the abandonment.</p>
<p>Cook made her Broadway debut in “Flahooley” (1951), a short-lived musical fantasy about a mass-produced laughing doll. The show became a cult classic for musical-theater buffs, primarily because it was recorded, keeping its memory alive long after the production closed.</p>
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<p>Cook then appeared in a pair of Rodgers and Hammerstein classics, playing Ado Annie in a City Center revival of “Oklahoma!” and then on tour in 1953. She followed that by portraying Carrie Pipperidge in a 1954 revival of “Carousel.” It led to Cook’s first original musical success, a yearlong Broadway run in “Plain and Fancy” (1955), in which she portrayed an innocent, unworldly Amish girl.</p>
<p>The following year, she starred in “Candide,” which ran only 73 performances but later became a staple of opera houses around the world. In the musical, Cook got to sing “Glitter and Be Gay,” a fiendishly difficult coloratura parody of the “Jewel Song” from Charles Gounod’s “Faust.”</p>
<p>Meredith Willson’s “The Music Man” was Cook’s biggest Broadway hit, opening in December 1957 and running for more than 1,300 performances. She won a Tony Award for her portrayal of the prim librarian who realizes Professor Harold Hill (Preston) is a con man selling band instruments and uniforms to the gullible residents of a small Iowa town.</p>
<p>Cook scored a personal triumph in “She Loves Me,” a Jerry Bock-Sheldon Harnick-Joe Masteroff musical based on the film “The Shop Around the Corner.” It told of two squabbling employees in a Budapest perfume shop who, unknown to each other, are romantically inclined pen pals.</p>
<p>Harnick and Cook became lifelong friends after teaming up on the show. “Barbara was a superb singer, a fine actress and, as a person, the soul of candor. I’ll miss her in all three capacities,” he said Tuesday.</p>
<p>In the show, Cook sang a number extolling a gift of “Vanilla Ice Cream,” which became a signature number for the performer when she began appearing in cabaret. Laura Benanti, who starred in Cook’s old role on Broadway in a 2016 revival, posted a photo of her and Cook on Tuesday and wrote: “Thank you for inspiring so many of us. You will not be forgotten.”</p>
<p>Cook turned to solo shows after her Broadway career withered in the late 1960s as she battled alcoholism and weight gain. In her 2016 memoir “Then &amp; Now,” Cook describes hitting rock bottom as a drunk: “I was so broke that I was stealing food from the supermarket by slipping sandwich meat in my coat pocket.”</p>
<p>But she gave up drinking in the 1970s and, with the help of Harper, reinvented herself as a solo artist, working in small New York clubs and finally Carnegie Hall. Her first concert album, “Barbara Cook at Carnegie Hall” (1975), became a classic.</p>
<p>Cook and Harper, who died in 2004, worked methodically and carefully on her shows, mixing show tunes with standards not from musical theater. Often the programs were constructed around themes, specific composers such as Stephen Sondheim, lyricists such as Dorothy Fields, or directors such as Harold Prince and Gower Champion.</p>
<p>Sondheim became one of her biggest champions. Cook starred, along with Lee Remick, Mandy Patinkin and George Hearn, in a legendary 1985 concert version of “Follies” at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall.</p>
<p>Her marriage to acting teacher David LeGrant ended in divorce. Cook is survived by a son, Adam LeGrant.</p>
<p>When asked what her advice usually was to aspiring singers, she told The AP it boiled down to three words that she learned early on herself and have been her guide.</p>
<p>“You are enough. You are always enough. You don’t ever have to pretend to be anything other than what you are. All you have to do is deeply embrace who you are and you’ll be fine,” she said. “In life, aren’t you drawn to the more authentic people? Of course. You’re not drawn to phonies.”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Mark Kennedy is at <a href="http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits" type="external">http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits</a></p>
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new york barbara cook whose shimmering soprano made one broadways leading ingenues later major cabaret concert interpreter popular american song died 89 cook died early tuesday respiratory failure home manhattan surrounded family friends according publicist amanda kaus last meal vanilla ice cream nod one famous roles loves throughout nearly six decades stage cooks voice remained remarkably supple gaining emotional honesty expanding natural ability go straight heart advertisement social media powerhouse singers paid respect including betty buckley called cook one great artists amp lovely lea salonga wrote rest peace twitter new tony award winner ben platt dear evan hansen wrote thank barbara cook beautiful songs indelible characters masterful storytelling heaven must sound glorious today broadway cook best known three roles portrayal saucy cunegonde leonard bernsteins candide 1956 librarian marian opposite robert preston music man 1957 amalia balash letterwriting heroine loves 1963 yet cooks pert ingenue days found second longer career clubs concert halls working 30 years wally harper pianist music arranger harper helped shaping material choosing songs providing framework shows celebrate 80th birthday appeared new york philharmonic two concerts november 2007 similar birthday salute london 2011 saluted kennedy center honors remained singer even 80s course think ive gotten better said interview associated press manhattan home 2011 still think work progress seriously years go courage go deeper deeper deeper born atlanta 1927 cook always hated vocal exercises never vocal coach effortless skill creating beauty opening mouth dont remember didnt sing always sang said 2011 think breathed sang father traveling salesman sold hats mother worked southern bell baby sister died pneumonia 3 father left 6 raised fartooclingy mother blamed young barbara death abandonment cook made broadway debut flahooley 1951 shortlived musical fantasy massproduced laughing doll show became cult classic musicaltheater buffs primarily recorded keeping memory alive long production closed advertisement cook appeared pair rodgers hammerstein classics playing ado annie city center revival oklahoma tour 1953 followed portraying carrie pipperidge 1954 revival carousel led cooks first original musical success yearlong broadway run plain fancy 1955 portrayed innocent unworldly amish girl following year starred candide ran 73 performances later became staple opera houses around world musical cook got sing glitter gay fiendishly difficult coloratura parody jewel song charles gounods faust meredith willsons music man cooks biggest broadway hit opening december 1957 running 1300 performances tony award portrayal prim librarian realizes professor harold hill preston con man selling band instruments uniforms gullible residents small iowa town cook scored personal triumph loves jerry bocksheldon harnickjoe masteroff musical based film shop around corner told two squabbling employees budapest perfume shop unknown romantically inclined pen pals harnick cook became lifelong friends teaming show barbara superb singer fine actress person soul candor ill miss three capacities said tuesday show cook sang number extolling gift vanilla ice cream became signature number performer began appearing cabaret laura benanti starred cooks old role broadway 2016 revival posted photo cook tuesday wrote thank inspiring many us forgotten cook turned solo shows broadway career withered late 1960s battled alcoholism weight gain 2016 memoir amp cook describes hitting rock bottom drunk broke stealing food supermarket slipping sandwich meat coat pocket gave drinking 1970s help harper reinvented solo artist working small new york clubs finally carnegie hall first concert album barbara cook carnegie hall 1975 became classic cook harper died 2004 worked methodically carefully shows mixing show tunes standards musical theater often programs constructed around themes specific composers stephen sondheim lyricists dorothy fields directors harold prince gower champion sondheim became one biggest champions cook starred along lee remick mandy patinkin george hearn legendary 1985 concert version follies lincoln centers avery fisher hall marriage acting teacher david legrant ended divorce cook survived son adam legrant asked advice usually aspiring singers told ap boiled three words learned early guide enough always enough dont ever pretend anything deeply embrace youll fine said life arent drawn authentic people course youre drawn phonies ___ mark kennedy httptwittercomkennedytwits
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<p>Undergraduate student research assistant Kathleen Huynh is culturing human cancer cells and testing them for sensitivity to compounds designed by New Mexico Tech’s Chemical Biology and Screening Collaborative Core. (Courtesy of NM Tech)</p>
<p>The New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in Socorro is paving a path to market for new technologies, and it’s placing students in the driver’s seat.</p>
<p>The university’s newly created Center for Leadership in Technology Commercialization, launching this month, will offer a slate of new courses and hands-on experience for undergraduate and graduate students to acquire knowledge and skills to guide new technologies to market.</p>
<p>Under the program, teams of students will conduct market studies and other tasks to help researchers commercialize innovation from the university and from New Mexico’s national laboratories.</p>
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<p>Administrators expect that to lead to new startup companies, generating more revenue for the university and creating job opportunities for students, said Management Department Chairman Peter Anselmo.</p>
<p>“Students will become the bridge between researchers and the market,” Anselmo told the Journal . “That will help move technology out of the labs, while allowing students to develop skills and knowledge to create businesses.”</p>
<p>Overall, the university wants to create a “culture of entrepreneurship” on campus, said New Mexico Tech President Dan Lopez.</p>
<p>“Students will work on real-life projects that we believe have commercial potential,” Lopez said. “But if those projects don’t pan out, those students will still learn to create companies. As a result, rather than look for jobs, some of them will instead generate jobs themselves.”</p>
<p>That concept isn’t new. Rather, it reflects an emerging strategy at universities in New Mexico and elsewhere.</p>
<p>An emerging strategy</p>
<p>The clear area in the center of this culture plate demonstrates how efficiently the new IM9 compound – designed by New Mexico Tech – kills multidrug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. The compound could have many commercial applications, such as fighting drug-resistant bacteria or sterilizing equipment or wounds.</p>
<p>The University of New Mexico, for example, has built a particularly robust technology transfer program through its Science and Technology Corp. that emphasizes interdisciplinary collaboration across campus among students and faculty. In fact, UNM launched a professional science master’s program in 2010 to teach science students business skills to help move innovative research from lab to market.</p>
<p>And the Anderson School of Management’s annual technology business plan competition, now in its eighth year, aims to provide hands-on entrepreneurial skills to students while motivating them to build companies around new technology.</p>
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<p>UNM is also developing a new “Innovation Academy” as part of the Innovate ABQ research district it hopes to create Downtown. The academy will offer classes and real-world training in commercializing new technology, and in building and managing business ventures.</p>
<p>New Mexico State University in Las Cruces also offers hands-on training and assistance for students to form startup companies through its Arrowhead Center Inc.</p>
<p>New Mexico Tech, however, has lagged behind in building a tech-transfer program that incorporates faculty and students. Until now, it only has commercialized select technologies on a case-by-case basis.</p>
<p>That has led to a few big success stories, such as the now globally recognized “nicotine patch,” which originally was created by New Mexico Tech researcher Frank Etscorn. The university has earned tens of millions of dollars in revenue from that technology.</p>
<p>A new direction</p>
<p>The new commercialization program marks the university’s first concerted effort to institutionalize entrepreneurial training and technology transfer.</p>
<p>“In the past, if faculty got funding or had a potentially marketable idea, they would try to get a patent with help from the university foundation, and they would share the proceeds if the venture was successful,” Anselmo said. “But now we want to systematically introduce a market-based focus into research early on, with teams of students working with researchers to figure out how to do that.”</p>
<p>The center will begin operations this month with nine students divided into three teams that will conduct research on different technologies.</p>
<p>That includes a new, particularly promising biopharmaceutical compound that could be used to fight drug-resistant bacteria and cancer. The university’s Chemical Biology and Screening Collaborative Core developed the compound, known as IM9, which preferentially binds to the deadly MRSA bacteria, said Biology Department Chairwoman Snežna Rogelj.</p>
<p>The compound basically eliminates an ejection mechanism found in infected cells that allows them to expel antibiotics, thus reducing bacteria resistance to drugs, Rogelj said.</p>
<p>Moreover, the compound becomes much more directly toxic under white light, which means it can be turned into a far-more-powerful bacterial or cancer killer by simply shining light onto drug-infused target areas.</p>
<p>It could also potentially be used to sterilize equipment or wounds simply by spreading a thin film of the compound on an instrument or wound and shining a flashlight on it.</p>
<p>Promising applications</p>
<p>“There’s a whole spectrum of potential applications, so we’re hoping the student team can help us determine where the drug could best fit in the market,” Rogelj said. “We’d like them to help pinpoint the niches that the drug could fill in the medical system, whether as a drug for antibiotic-resistant bacteria or as a sterilizing mechanism for surgical instruments.”</p>
<p>The other two student teams will research a new technology from the university’s materials engineering department and a yet-to-be-determined technology from one of the national laboratories, which the university wants to partner with on commercialization.</p>
<p>New Mexico Tech is financing the center entirely through private donations.</p>
<p>“We decided to not seek any state appropriations, but instead look for private funding,” Anselmo said. “I call it high-end ‘crowd funding.’ We’re asking individuals and other entities for five-year commitments of about $20,000 per year.”</p>
<p>So far, the university has raised $200,000, or about $40,000 per year for five years, allowing it to immediately finance three student teams per semester. It expects to raise enough in three years to hire a full-time center director and a faculty member, support student internships at the national labs, and fund between 12 and 15 student project teams annually.</p>
<p>Given the university’s broad areas of research, the center could generate significant commercialization opportunities, said Tom Stephenson, managing partner at the Verge Fund, which sponsors a speaker series on entrepreneurship at New Mexico Tech.</p>
<p>“They have great strength in most of the physical sciences and in software capability, and they’ve done a tremendous amount of work in explosives and in mining and extractive industries,” Stephenson said. “They may well find ancillary applications for their technologies that have good commercial value. Market research through the center will help identify those things.”</p>
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undergraduate student research assistant kathleen huynh culturing human cancer cells testing sensitivity compounds designed new mexico techs chemical biology screening collaborative core courtesy nm tech new mexico institute mining technology socorro paving path market new technologies placing students drivers seat universitys newly created center leadership technology commercialization launching month offer slate new courses handson experience undergraduate graduate students acquire knowledge skills guide new technologies market program teams students conduct market studies tasks help researchers commercialize innovation university new mexicos national laboratories advertisement administrators expect lead new startup companies generating revenue university creating job opportunities students said management department chairman peter anselmo students become bridge researchers market anselmo told journal help move technology labs allowing students develop skills knowledge create businesses overall university wants create culture entrepreneurship campus said new mexico tech president dan lopez students work reallife projects believe commercial potential lopez said projects dont pan students still learn create companies result rather look jobs instead generate jobs concept isnt new rather reflects emerging strategy universities new mexico elsewhere emerging strategy clear area center culture plate demonstrates efficiently new im9 compound designed new mexico tech kills multidrugresistant staphylococcus aureus compound could many commercial applications fighting drugresistant bacteria sterilizing equipment wounds university new mexico example built particularly robust technology transfer program science technology corp emphasizes interdisciplinary collaboration across campus among students faculty fact unm launched professional science masters program 2010 teach science students business skills help move innovative research lab market anderson school managements annual technology business plan competition eighth year aims provide handson entrepreneurial skills students motivating build companies around new technology advertisement unm also developing new innovation academy part innovate abq research district hopes create downtown academy offer classes realworld training commercializing new technology building managing business ventures new mexico state university las cruces also offers handson training assistance students form startup companies arrowhead center inc new mexico tech however lagged behind building techtransfer program incorporates faculty students commercialized select technologies casebycase basis led big success stories globally recognized nicotine patch originally created new mexico tech researcher frank etscorn university earned tens millions dollars revenue technology new direction new commercialization program marks universitys first concerted effort institutionalize entrepreneurial training technology transfer past faculty got funding potentially marketable idea would try get patent help university foundation would share proceeds venture successful anselmo said want systematically introduce marketbased focus research early teams students working researchers figure center begin operations month nine students divided three teams conduct research different technologies includes new particularly promising biopharmaceutical compound could used fight drugresistant bacteria cancer universitys chemical biology screening collaborative core developed compound known im9 preferentially binds deadly mrsa bacteria said biology department chairwoman snežna rogelj compound basically eliminates ejection mechanism found infected cells allows expel antibiotics thus reducing bacteria resistance drugs rogelj said moreover compound becomes much directly toxic white light means turned farmorepowerful bacterial cancer killer simply shining light onto druginfused target areas could also potentially used sterilize equipment wounds simply spreading thin film compound instrument wound shining flashlight promising applications theres whole spectrum potential applications hoping student team help us determine drug could best fit market rogelj said wed like help pinpoint niches drug could fill medical system whether drug antibioticresistant bacteria sterilizing mechanism surgical instruments two student teams research new technology universitys materials engineering department yettobedetermined technology one national laboratories university wants partner commercialization new mexico tech financing center entirely private donations decided seek state appropriations instead look private funding anselmo said call highend crowd funding asking individuals entities fiveyear commitments 20000 per year far university raised 200000 40000 per year five years allowing immediately finance three student teams per semester expects raise enough three years hire fulltime center director faculty member support student internships national labs fund 12 15 student project teams annually given universitys broad areas research center could generate significant commercialization opportunities said tom stephenson managing partner verge fund sponsors speaker series entrepreneurship new mexico tech great strength physical sciences software capability theyve done tremendous amount work explosives mining extractive industries stephenson said may well find ancillary applications technologies good commercial value market research center help identify things
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<p>There is no shortage of love lost between CNN and the libertarian presidential candidate, former two term New Mexico Gov. <a href="http://garyjohnson2012.com" type="external">Gary Johnson</a>, nor is it a secret. The cable news network continues to remain a thorn in his side (for about a year now), carefully and quietly excluding Johnson from its polling. One small ray of hope emerged on August 29, 2011 when CNN finally included him in their <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2011/08/29/poll_perry_and_johnson_surge_paul_and_romney_hardest_hit.html" type="external">bi-weekly national poll</a>. Apparently Gov. Johnson polled a bit too high at 2%, and his name was never to be seen on all subsequent polls during his remaining tenure in the Republican primary.</p>
<p>With the arrival of a New Year, Gov. Johnson felt liberated, recharged, and right at home in his new venue– the <a href="http://lp.org" type="external">Libertarian Party</a>. Dominating state conventions and handily securing the party’s nomination on the first ballot at the national convention in Las Vegas, the newly minted presidential nominee of the nation’s third largest political party was certain to receive some much anticipated attention from CNN and the rest of the establishment press. Then Gov. Johnson realized there’s a very good reason why these media outlets are considered establishmentarian– they toe the disingenuous two-party line and narrative.</p>
<p>When Gary Johnson supporters organized a <a href="https://reason.com/blog/2012/07/12/gary-johnson-supporters-plan-protest-at" type="external">Blackout CNN</a> protest, call in, and <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/search/%23BlackoutCNN" type="external">Twitter Bomb</a> for July 15-16, this reporter felt obliged to head down to Atlanta. Johnson’s campaign adviser and southern regional director <a href="https://twitter.com/ChrisjonHill" type="external">Chris Hill</a> was kind enough to let me hunker down in the Live Free Express while he circled the CNN building blaring the audio version of Gov. Johnson’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X3QRSIXgns" type="external">Be Libertarian With Me</a> YouTube video from a bullhorn fastened to the hood of the bus.</p>
<p>Sunday turned out to be a dry run of sorts, but the real action took place Monday morning. About 100 activists took position outside and around CNN headquarters to make their message clear: Include Gary! They even donned white t-shirts that read “INCLUDE GARY ON CNN” and wandered through the CNN lobbies as roving protest billboards.</p>
<p>The makeshift PA system didn’t fail to impress and garnered plenty of attention, with random people in cars and on the streets cheering, honking, and triumphantly raising their fists in the air. Local police officers even gave the occasional thumbs up as we cruised by. It seems that everyone within an eight-block radius took notice except for CNN. Hill noted their absence:</p>
<p>“We just assumed that CNN would do their job and walk out the front door with a camera, but they didn’t. Candy Crowley, on the air months ago, said that CNN would be giving Gary fair and equal coverage, and there’s been nothing.</p>
<p>It would be one thing if we had a random third party candidate, but we don’t. We’ve got a guy on the ballot in all 50 states with an impeccable gubernatorial record and more executive experience than Obama and Romney combined. He can take this election. 80% of Americans are ready to <a href="https://reason.com/poll/2011/05/10/80-of-americans-voting" type="external">consider</a> voting third party, but if the media has no integrity and won’t allow Americans to even get to know their third choice, then we’re all being robbed.</p>
<p>It’s not that we need the media to do something for Gov. Johnson, we just need them to do their job and show a little journalistic integrity instead of being completely biased. It is completely unacceptable, and none of us are going to stop until Gary gets the equal, fair coverage that he’s earned.”</p>
<p>CNN is at least good for one thing, according to Johnson supporters – keeping them fired up and determined to win over the curious onlookers and random passersby. One such protester shared his perspective of the event:</p>
<p>“A lot of people stopped to talk with me, asking about Gary and who he is. As soon as they hear he’s going to be on the ballot in all fifty states and that he’s likely to be on the debate stage, they get really excited because almost everybody that I’ve run into so far is hungry for a third choice.”</p>
<p>An independent voter taking notice of the event underscored the point that most of his peers do consider this election to be about “Obamney” –essentially a false choice between two candidates masquerading as the antithesis of one another. “Giving us these two false choices isn’t really a choice,” remarked another onlooker. “I still don’t know too much about Gary Johnson, but if he wants to end the wars and balance the budget then I’m definitely going to look him up when I get home.”</p>
<p>Hill is encouraged by all of the engagement and interaction:</p>
<p>“Tons of people stopped to talk to protesters with little to no opposition. At first they’d never heard of Gov. Johnson. So they explain who he is and that he will be on the ballot in all fifty states. Their immediate response is, ‘I’ve got to look into this! How is he not on the news? What’s the reason?’ That’s when they say ‘that’s exactly why we’re here, to try and change that.’</p>
<p>Almost everybody wanted t-shirts, bumper stickers, and yard signs. So we gave out tons of stuff, and they’re brand new Gary Johnson supporters now! One person I spoke to didn’t know which candidate he was voting for. He voted Obama in ’08, but he’s tired of him. He’s even thinking about voting for Romney, but now he knows there’s a third choice in Gary Johnson. He said to me, ‘If Gary Johnson’s record is what you say it is, I want to vote for that guy!’ You can’t ask for a better outcome than that!”</p>
<p>The Twitter Bomb made some noise chirps as well. BlackoutCNN ended up <a href="https://twitter.com/JoshRawdon/status/224901398049984512" type="external">trending</a> in Cleveland, OH, Los Angeles, CA, and Portland, OR as Gov. Johnson’s supporters tweeted tirelessly– and continued tweeting with high frequency ten hours later.</p>
<p>Additional protests occurred in cities like Dallas, and according to Chris Hill it was larger than Atlanta’s. Most of the others were smaller protests at affiliates all over the country, and not just protesting CNN, but CBS, ABC, and NBC. Hill maintains that the protest is not over. He is encouraging supporters of Gov. Johnson from across the country to write emails, letters, and op eds to their respective local newspapers and media outlets, as well as the <a href="http://www.debates.org/" type="external">Commission on Presidential Debates</a> and polling organizations.</p>
<p>“If the polls include him, the people will choose him. And if the people choose him, he’ll get into the debates. And if he gets into the debates, he’ll crush Obama and Romney with nothing more than reason, common sense, and his track record. Then he’ll be in the White House.</p>
<p>People need to know Gov. Johnson ran as a Republican in a state that favors Democrats by a 2-1 margin and won against an incumbent. He governed as a libertarian and probably vetoed more spending bills than any other governor in the history of the republic, and got reelected! I mean he crushed it on reelection.</p>
<p>That just shows what Americans are willing to do when they have the right candidate. Just looking at what he did in New Mexico as an example, people are willing to cross party lines without any problem or hesitation and vote for the person they believe in– whether it’s a Republican, Democrat, or Libertarian.</p>
<p>We had some Ron Paul people show up today with signs, and its great seeing them come out to these events. They’re tremendous activists and advocates for the cause of liberty. We have Democrats, Republicans, Tea Partiers, and libertarians all protesting CNN for Gov. Johnson. This is a grass roots effort on everyone’s part. It wasn’t organized by the campaign. I’m just here to support them with all the resources I have.”</p>
<p>Strategically, Johnson’s campaign doesn’t require a massive amount of advertising. President Obama and Gov. Romney are doing a great job of saving Johnson’s campaign time and money by&#160;pointing out each other’s shortcoming on their own. Rather, the focus is on meeting the 15% debate threshold by the end of September, and that’s going to require some cooperating with polling and media organizations. Chris Hill doesn’t want special treatment for Gov. Gary Johnson, but he’s simply asking “journalists that claim to be journalists to be journalists.”</p>
<p>Unfortunately, its a pretty lofty goal.</p>
| false | 2 |
shortage love lost cnn libertarian presidential candidate former two term new mexico gov gary johnson secret cable news network continues remain thorn side year carefully quietly excluding johnson polling one small ray hope emerged august 29 2011 cnn finally included biweekly national poll apparently gov johnson polled bit high 2 name never seen subsequent polls remaining tenure republican primary arrival new year gov johnson felt liberated recharged right home new venue libertarian party dominating state conventions handily securing partys nomination first ballot national convention las vegas newly minted presidential nominee nations third largest political party certain receive much anticipated attention cnn rest establishment press gov johnson realized theres good reason media outlets considered establishmentarian toe disingenuous twoparty line narrative gary johnson supporters organized blackout cnn protest call twitter bomb july 1516 reporter felt obliged head atlanta johnsons campaign adviser southern regional director chris hill kind enough let hunker live free express circled cnn building blaring audio version gov johnsons libertarian youtube video bullhorn fastened hood bus sunday turned dry run sorts real action took place monday morning 100 activists took position outside around cnn headquarters make message clear include gary even donned white tshirts read include gary cnn wandered cnn lobbies roving protest billboards makeshift pa system didnt fail impress garnered plenty attention random people cars streets cheering honking triumphantly raising fists air local police officers even gave occasional thumbs cruised seems everyone within eightblock radius took notice except cnn hill noted absence assumed cnn would job walk front door camera didnt candy crowley air months ago said cnn would giving gary fair equal coverage theres nothing would one thing random third party candidate dont weve got guy ballot 50 states impeccable gubernatorial record executive experience obama romney combined take election 80 americans ready consider voting third party media integrity wont allow americans even get know third choice robbed need media something gov johnson need job show little journalistic integrity instead completely biased completely unacceptable none us going stop gary gets equal fair coverage hes earned cnn least good one thing according johnson supporters keeping fired determined win curious onlookers random passersby one protester shared perspective event lot people stopped talk asking gary soon hear hes going ballot fifty states hes likely debate stage get really excited almost everybody ive run far hungry third choice independent voter taking notice event underscored point peers consider election obamney essentially false choice two candidates masquerading antithesis one another giving us two false choices isnt really choice remarked another onlooker still dont know much gary johnson wants end wars balance budget im definitely going look get home hill encouraged engagement interaction tons people stopped talk protesters little opposition first theyd never heard gov johnson explain ballot fifty states immediate response ive got look news whats reason thats say thats exactly try change almost everybody wanted tshirts bumper stickers yard signs gave tons stuff theyre brand new gary johnson supporters one person spoke didnt know candidate voting voted obama 08 hes tired hes even thinking voting romney knows theres third choice gary johnson said gary johnsons record say want vote guy cant ask better outcome twitter bomb made noise chirps well blackoutcnn ended trending cleveland oh los angeles ca portland gov johnsons supporters tweeted tirelessly continued tweeting high frequency ten hours later additional protests occurred cities like dallas according chris hill larger atlantas others smaller protests affiliates country protesting cnn cbs abc nbc hill maintains protest encouraging supporters gov johnson across country write emails letters op eds respective local newspapers media outlets well commission presidential debates polling organizations polls include people choose people choose hell get debates gets debates hell crush obama romney nothing reason common sense track record hell white house people need know gov johnson ran republican state favors democrats 21 margin incumbent governed libertarian probably vetoed spending bills governor history republic got reelected mean crushed reelection shows americans willing right candidate looking new mexico example people willing cross party lines without problem hesitation vote person believe whether republican democrat libertarian ron paul people show today signs great seeing come events theyre tremendous activists advocates cause liberty democrats republicans tea partiers libertarians protesting cnn gov johnson grass roots effort everyones part wasnt organized campaign im support resources strategically johnsons campaign doesnt require massive amount advertising president obama gov romney great job saving johnsons campaign time money by160pointing others shortcoming rather focus meeting 15 debate threshold end september thats going require cooperating polling media organizations chris hill doesnt want special treatment gov gary johnson hes simply asking journalists claim journalists journalists unfortunately pretty lofty goal
| 761 |
<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate on Monday approved by an 81-to-18 vote a measure to fund the federal government through Feb. 8, sending the bill to the House of Representatives.</p>
<p>The House is expected to quickly vote on and pass the measure, which also includes a six-year extension of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). It would then be sent to President Donald Trump for his signature, ending a three-day government shutdown.</p>
<p>Reporting By Amanda Becker; Editing by Phil Berlowitz</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal judge on Wednesday gave the go ahead to part of a lawsuit that accuses President Donald Trump of flouting constitutional safeguards against corruption by maintaining ownership of his business empire while in office.</p> FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump takes part in a forum called Generation Next at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, U.S., March 22, 2018. REUTERS/Leah Millis/File Photo
<p>U.S. District Judge Peter Messitte in Greenbelt, Maryland refused a request by the Justice Department to throw out the case, although he narrowed the claims to include only those involving the Trump International Hotel in Washington and not Trump’s businesses outside of the U.S. capital.</p>
<p>The lawsuit was filed by the District of Columbia and the state of Maryland last June.</p>
<p>The ruling marked a setback for the administration’s efforts to quash claims that Trump has violated the U.S. Constitution’s “emoluments” provisions, which have dogged Trump since even before he took office last year. A U.S. judge in Manhattan in December threw out a similar case against Trump.</p>
<p>The provisions are designed to prevent corruption and foreign influence. One bars U.S. officials from accepting gifts or other emoluments from foreign governments without congressional approval. The other forbids the president from receiving emoluments from individual states.</p>
<p>The lawsuit said Trump has failed to disentangle himself from his hotels and other businesses, making him vulnerable to inducements by officials seeking to curry favor.</p>
<p>Trump, a wealthy businessman who as president regularly visits his own hotels, resorts and golf clubs, has ceded day-to-day control of his businesses to his sons. Critics have said that is not a sufficient safeguard.</p>
<p>This undermines democracy, the suit said, because Americans cannot be sure if Trump is acting in their best interest, or “international and domestic business dealings in which President Trump’s personal fortune is at stake.”</p>
<p>The suit said Trump had received millions of dollars in payments and benefits through leases of Trump properties held by foreign government entities, the purchase of condominiums in Trump properties, as well as hotel accommodations, restaurant purchases and the use of venues for events by foreign governments and diplomats.</p>
<p>The District of Columbia and Maryland said their local residents who compete with Trump’s businesses like Trump International Hotel in Washington are harmed by decreased patronage, wages and tips.</p>
<p>Trump’s attorneys said such claims were speculative and raised doubts that any harm to competition could be traced directly to Trump’s status as president.</p>
<p>In his ruling on Wednesday, Messitte rejected that view, saying said the plaintiffs’ allegations were sufficient to allow the case to move forward.</p>
<p>“Their allegation is bolstered by explicit statements from certain foreign government officials indicating that they are clearly choosing to stay at the president’s hotel, because, as one representative of a foreign government has stated, they want him to know ‘I love your new hotel,’” the judge wrote.</p>
<p>Messitte also noted that since the 2016 presidential election, “foreign governments have indisputably transferred business from the Four Seasons and Ritz Carlton hotels in the District to the President’s Hotel.”</p>
<p>Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A retired U.S. Supreme Court justice on Tuesday called for the repeal of the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment, which gives Americans the right to keep and bear firearms, and the White House responded by reaffirming its support for the provision.</p> Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens departs the funeral of U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, February 20, 2016. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
<p>Former Justice John Paul Stevens, who sat on the country’s highest court for 35 years before retiring in 2010, is one of the highest-profile legal figures to join the national debate on school shootings, gun violence and firearms ownership.</p>
<p>The long-running debate flared anew after a gunman killed 17 students and faculty at a Florida high school in February, prompting an upsurge of gun control activism by teenage students, including mass protests nationwide last weekend.</p>
<p>“Rarely in my lifetime have I seen the type of civic engagement schoolchildren and their supporters demonstrated in Washington and other major cities throughout the country this past Saturday,” Stevens, 97, wrote in an opinion article in the New York Times. “These demonstrations demand our respect.”</p>
<p>His repeal proposal goes further than demands by the student demonstrators, who have generally called for measures such as raising the minimum age for purchasing guns from 18 to 21 and requiring more comprehensive background checks for buying firearms.</p>
<p>Asked about Stevens’ call for repeal, presidential spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said, “The president and the administration still fully support the Second Amendment.</p>
<p>“We think that the focus has to remain on removing weapons from dangerous individuals, not on blocking all Americans from their constitutional rights,” she told a news briefing.</p>
<p>Republican President Donald Trump strongly supported the amendment during his 2016 election campaign, but following the Florida shooting has supported some gun control measures such as expanded background checks.</p>
<p>Chris Cox, executive director of the lobbying arm for the National Rifle Association, the leading proponent of gun rights, called the idea of repealing the Second Amendment “radical.”</p>
<p>“We will unapologetically continue to fight to protect this fundamental freedom,” Cox said.</p>
<p>In his article, Stevens described how the Supreme Court had curbed the Second Amendment’s reach during the 20th century and labeled the concern that prompted the amendment - that a national army might pose a threat to the separate states during the United States’ infant years - “a relic of the 18th century.”</p>
<p>The amendment’s text reads: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”</p>
<p>Stevens wrote that repealing the amendment “would eliminate the only legal rule that protects sellers of firearms in the United States — unlike every other market in the world.”</p>
<p>“It would make our schoolchildren safer than they have been since 2008 and honor the memories of the many, indeed far too many, victims of recent gun violence.”</p>
<p>Stevens, nominated to the court by Republican President Gerald Ford, had previously called for modifying the Second Amendment.</p>
<p>Changes to the Constitution can be proposed only with a two-thirds vote in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate or by a constitutional convention called by two-thirds of the states, and must be ratified by three-fourths of the 50 states.</p>
<p>The overwhelming majority of amendments have not passed, and only one has been repealed. The 27th Amendment, which concerns lawmakers’ pay, is the most recent change to the constitution. It was ratified in 1992, although it was originally proposed in 1789.</p>
<p>Reporting by Makini Brice; editing by Jonathan Oatis</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>(Reuters) - A fatal crash and vehicle fire of a Tesla Inc Model X near Mountain View, California, last week has prompted a federal field investigation, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said on Tuesday, sparking a big selloff in Tesla stock.</p>
<p>Tesla tumbled 8.2 percent, or $25 a share, to close at $279.18, the lowest close in almost a year, after news of the investigation.</p>
<p>Late on Tuesday, Moody’s Investors Service downgraded Tesla’s credit rating to B3 from B2. Moody’s said the ratings “reflect the significant shortfall in the production rate of the company’s Model 3 electric vehicle.” It also “faces liquidity pressures due to its large negative free cash flow and the pending maturities of convertible bonds.”</p>
<p>Tesla shares fell another 2.6 percent in after-hours trading.</p>
<p>Tesla has $230 million in convertible bonds maturing in November 2018 and $920 million in March 2019.</p>
<p>Moody’s said its negative outlook for Tesla “reflects the likelihood that Tesla will have to undertake a large, near-term capital raise in order to refund maturing obligations and avoid a liquidity shortfall.”</p>
<p>Moody’s said Tesla is targeting weekly production of 2,500 Model 3 vehicles by the end of March, and 5,000 per week by the end of June, down from the company’s year-earlier production expectations of 5,000 per week by the end of 2017 and 10,000 by the end of 2018. Tesla plans to provide an update on Model 3 production next week.</p>
<p>Shares of chipmaker Nvidia Corp, which supplies Uber Technologies Inc [UBER.UL], Tesla, Volkswagen AG ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=VOWG_p.DE" type="external">VOWG_p.DE</a>) and other automakers, closed down 7.8 percent after it disclosed it suspended self-driving tests across the globe.</p> QUESTIONS ABOUT ACCIDENT
<p>In last week’s accident, it was unclear if Tesla’s automated control system was driving the car. The accident involved two other cars, the NTSB and police said. Tesla vehicles have a system called Autopilot that handles some driving tasks. The 38-year-old Tesla driver died at a nearby hospital shortly after the crash.</p>
<p>Late Tuesday, Tesla said in a blog post it does “not yet know what happened in the moments leading up to the crash,” but added data shows that Tesla owners have driven the same stretch of highway with Autopilot engaged “roughly 85,000 times... and there has never been an accident that we know of.”</p>
<p>The company said it is working with authorities to recover the logs from the computer inside the vehicle to try to gain a better understanding of what happened. The company statement did not address if the crashed vehicle was in Autopilot mode.</p>
<p>“We have been deeply saddened by this accident, and we have offered our full cooperation to the authorities as we work to establish the facts of the incident,” Tesla said in a statement earlier.</p>
<p>Government scrutiny of the Palo Alto, California company is mounting. This is the second NTSB field investigation into a Tesla crash since January.</p>
<p>The California Highway Patrol said the electric-powered Tesla Model X crashed into a freeway divider on Friday and then was hit by a Mazda before colliding with an Audi.</p>
<p>The Tesla’s lithium batteries caught fire, and emergency officials consulted company engineers before determining how to extinguish the battery fire and move the vehicle safely. NTSB said the issues being examined include the post-crash fire and removing the vehicle from the scene.</p> Slideshow (5 Images)
<p>The Tesla blog post said Tesla battery packs are designed to ensure that a battery spreads slowly in the rare circumstance it catches fire.</p>
<p>In January, the NTSB and U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration sent investigators to California to investigate the crash of a fire truck and a Tesla that apparently was traveling in semi-autonomous mode. The agencies have not disclosed any findings.</p>
<p>The NTSB can make safety recommendations but only NHTSA can order automakers to recall unsafe vehicles or fine automakers if they fail to remedy safety defects in a timely fashion. Before the agency can demand a recall, it must open a formal investigation, a step it has not yet taken.</p>
<p>Tesla’s Autopilot allows drivers under certain conditions to take their hands off the wheel for extended periods. Still, Tesla requires users to agree to keep their hands on the wheel “at all times” before they can use Autopilot.</p>
<p>The NTSB faulted Tesla in a prior fatal Autopilot crash.</p>
<p>In September, NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt said operational limitations in the Tesla Model S played a major role in a May 2016 crash in Florida that killed a driver using Autopilot. That crash raised questions about the safety of systems that can perform driving tasks for long stretches but cannot completely replace human drivers.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=VOWG_p.DE" type="external">Volkswagen AG</a> 155.0 VOWG_p.DE Xetra -1.46 (-0.93%) VOWG_p.DE
<p>Tesla in September 2016 unveiled improvements to Autopilot, adding new limits on hands-off driving.</p>
<p>Reporting by David Shepardson; editing by Lisa Shumaker, David Gregorio and Cynthia Osterman</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York, California and other states vowed on Tuesday to stop the U.S. government from asking in the 2020 census whether people are citizens, arguing the question could stop immigrants from participating and skew the makeup of Congress.</p>
<p>The U.S. Census Bureau decided to include the citizenship question in the once-a-decade questionnaire, saying an accurate count of citizens would help protect minority rights under the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, according to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.</p>
<p>But liberal opponents feared that the decision would have the opposite effect. They said the move was designed to undercount immigrants, potentially reducing their representation in Congress and federal funding for local jurisdictions, which is determined by population.</p>
<p>“It is a scare tactic to try to scare Latinos and others from participating in the 2020 census,” Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund, told reporters.</p>
<p>Pending legal challenges from the states or an unlikely intervention from the Republican-controlled Congress, the citizenship question would appear in the decennial census for the first time since 1950.</p>
<p>New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said he would lead a multistate lawsuit to block the decision.</p>
<p>Separately, the State of California filed a lawsuit early Tuesday in federal court against the Commerce Department and the Census Bureau.</p>
<p>The commerce secretary, head of the federal department that runs the Census Bureau, said he authorized the question in response to a Justice Department letter arguing the citizenship question was vital to enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. <a href="https://bit.ly/2pIZlXr" type="external">bit.ly/2pIZlXr</a></p>
<p>Although a career staff member sent the Justice Department letter, it was conceived by John Gore, a political appointee who as a lawyer in private practice defended multiple Republican redistricting plans, according to emails obtained by ProPublica.</p>
<p>Last year, Gore was appointed by Attorney General Jeff Sessions as the head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, where he reversed the legal challenge to a Texas law that the administration of former President Barack Obama alleged discriminated against minorities.</p>
<p>Justice Department spokesman Devin O’Malley declined to comment on Gore’s involvement. But he said the department looked forward to defending the citizenship question, which he said was needed “to protect the right to vote and ensure free and fair elections for all Americans.”</p>
<p>Vanita Gupta, who ran the Civil Rights Division under the Obama administration, said she questioned the stated motives of President Donald Trump’s administration.</p>
<p>“The Sessions Justice Department is asking for this in the name of voting rights enforcement when it has shown time and time again a reluctance to enforce the Voting Rights Act,” Gupta told reporters.</p>
<p>Other critics said the inclusion of the question would disrupt years of planning that goes into the census. They said there was not enough time to put the question through the rigorous testing that census questions typically undergo to ensure an accurate count.</p>
<p>The U.S. Constitution mandates a census takes place every 10 years, counting every person in the United States.</p>
<p>It is used to determine the allocation to states of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and to distribute billions of dollars in federal funds to local communities.</p>
<p>“It is facially constitutional to ask the question,” said</p>
<p>James Sample, a law professor at Hofstra University, “even though it is colossally dumb” because it was likely to reduce the number of people responding to the census.</p>
<p>The Trump administration could probably win a legal case, Sample said. But the challenges may succeed if an inaccurate count leads to a range of unconstitutional consequences,</p> An attendee holds her new country's flag and her naturalization papers as she is sworn in during a U.S. citizenship ceremony in Los Angeles, U.S., July 18, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake
<p>including the unequal distribution of federal funds or potential violations of the “one-person-one-vote” principle, he said.</p>
<p>Reporting by Daniel Trotta, Sarah N. Lynch, Jonathan Stempel, and Eric Beech; Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Frank McGurty and Cynthia Osterman</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
| false | 2 |
washington reuters us senate monday approved 81to18 vote measure fund federal government feb 8 sending bill house representatives house expected quickly vote pass measure also includes sixyear extension childrens health insurance program chip would sent president donald trump signature ending threeday government shutdown reporting amanda becker editing phil berlowitz standards thomson reuters trust principles washington reuters federal judge wednesday gave go ahead part lawsuit accuses president donald trump flouting constitutional safeguards corruption maintaining ownership business empire office file photo us president donald trump takes part forum called generation next eisenhower executive office building washington us march 22 2018 reutersleah millisfile photo us district judge peter messitte greenbelt maryland refused request justice department throw case although narrowed claims include involving trump international hotel washington trumps businesses outside us capital lawsuit filed district columbia state maryland last june ruling marked setback administrations efforts quash claims trump violated us constitutions emoluments provisions dogged trump since even took office last year us judge manhattan december threw similar case trump provisions designed prevent corruption foreign influence one bars us officials accepting gifts emoluments foreign governments without congressional approval forbids president receiving emoluments individual states lawsuit said trump failed disentangle hotels businesses making vulnerable inducements officials seeking curry favor trump wealthy businessman president regularly visits hotels resorts golf clubs ceded daytoday control businesses sons critics said sufficient safeguard undermines democracy suit said americans sure trump acting best interest international domestic business dealings president trumps personal fortune stake suit said trump received millions dollars payments benefits leases trump properties held foreign government entities purchase condominiums trump properties well hotel accommodations restaurant purchases use venues events foreign governments diplomats district columbia maryland said local residents compete trumps businesses like trump international hotel washington harmed decreased patronage wages tips trumps attorneys said claims speculative raised doubts harm competition could traced directly trumps status president ruling wednesday messitte rejected view saying said plaintiffs allegations sufficient allow case move forward allegation bolstered explicit statements certain foreign government officials indicating clearly choosing stay presidents hotel one representative foreign government stated want know love new hotel judge wrote messitte also noted since 2016 presidential election foreign governments indisputably transferred business four seasons ritz carlton hotels district presidents hotel reporting andrew chung editing dunham standards thomson reuters trust principles washington reuters retired us supreme court justice tuesday called repeal us constitutions second amendment gives americans right keep bear firearms white house responded reaffirming support provision retired us supreme court justice john paul stevens departs funeral us supreme court associate justice antonin scalia basilica national shrine immaculate conception washington february 20 2016 reuterscarlos barria former justice john paul stevens sat countrys highest court 35 years retiring 2010 one highestprofile legal figures join national debate school shootings gun violence firearms ownership longrunning debate flared anew gunman killed 17 students faculty florida high school february prompting upsurge gun control activism teenage students including mass protests nationwide last weekend rarely lifetime seen type civic engagement schoolchildren supporters demonstrated washington major cities throughout country past saturday stevens 97 wrote opinion article new york times demonstrations demand respect repeal proposal goes demands student demonstrators generally called measures raising minimum age purchasing guns 18 21 requiring comprehensive background checks buying firearms asked stevens call repeal presidential spokeswoman sarah sanders said president administration still fully support second amendment think focus remain removing weapons dangerous individuals blocking americans constitutional rights told news briefing republican president donald trump strongly supported amendment 2016 election campaign following florida shooting supported gun control measures expanded background checks chris cox executive director lobbying arm national rifle association leading proponent gun rights called idea repealing second amendment radical unapologetically continue fight protect fundamental freedom cox said article stevens described supreme court curbed second amendments reach 20th century labeled concern prompted amendment national army might pose threat separate states united states infant years relic 18th century amendments text reads well regulated militia necessary security free state right people keep bear arms shall infringed stevens wrote repealing amendment would eliminate legal rule protects sellers firearms united states unlike every market world would make schoolchildren safer since 2008 honor memories many indeed far many victims recent gun violence stevens nominated court republican president gerald ford previously called modifying second amendment changes constitution proposed twothirds vote us house representatives senate constitutional convention called twothirds states must ratified threefourths 50 states overwhelming majority amendments passed one repealed 27th amendment concerns lawmakers pay recent change constitution ratified 1992 although originally proposed 1789 reporting makini brice editing jonathan oatis standards thomson reuters trust principles reuters fatal crash vehicle fire tesla inc model x near mountain view california last week prompted federal field investigation us national transportation safety board said tuesday sparking big selloff tesla stock tesla tumbled 82 percent 25 share close 27918 lowest close almost year news investigation late tuesday moodys investors service downgraded teslas credit rating b3 b2 moodys said ratings reflect significant shortfall production rate companys model 3 electric vehicle also faces liquidity pressures due large negative free cash flow pending maturities convertible bonds tesla shares fell another 26 percent afterhours trading tesla 230 million convertible bonds maturing november 2018 920 million march 2019 moodys said negative outlook tesla reflects likelihood tesla undertake large nearterm capital raise order refund maturing obligations avoid liquidity shortfall moodys said tesla targeting weekly production 2500 model 3 vehicles end march 5000 per week end june companys yearearlier production expectations 5000 per week end 2017 10000 end 2018 tesla plans provide update model 3 production next week shares chipmaker nvidia corp supplies uber technologies inc uberul tesla volkswagen ag vowg_pde automakers closed 78 percent disclosed suspended selfdriving tests across globe questions accident last weeks accident unclear teslas automated control system driving car accident involved two cars ntsb police said tesla vehicles system called autopilot handles driving tasks 38yearold tesla driver died nearby hospital shortly crash late tuesday tesla said blog post yet know happened moments leading crash added data shows tesla owners driven stretch highway autopilot engaged roughly 85000 times never accident know company said working authorities recover logs computer inside vehicle try gain better understanding happened company statement address crashed vehicle autopilot mode deeply saddened accident offered full cooperation authorities work establish facts incident tesla said statement earlier government scrutiny palo alto california company mounting second ntsb field investigation tesla crash since january california highway patrol said electricpowered tesla model x crashed freeway divider friday hit mazda colliding audi teslas lithium batteries caught fire emergency officials consulted company engineers determining extinguish battery fire move vehicle safely ntsb said issues examined include postcrash fire removing vehicle scene slideshow 5 images tesla blog post said tesla battery packs designed ensure battery spreads slowly rare circumstance catches fire january ntsb us national highway traffic safety administration sent investigators california investigate crash fire truck tesla apparently traveling semiautonomous mode agencies disclosed findings ntsb make safety recommendations nhtsa order automakers recall unsafe vehicles fine automakers fail remedy safety defects timely fashion agency demand recall must open formal investigation step yet taken teslas autopilot allows drivers certain conditions take hands wheel extended periods still tesla requires users agree keep hands wheel times use autopilot ntsb faulted tesla prior fatal autopilot crash september ntsb chairman robert sumwalt said operational limitations tesla model played major role may 2016 crash florida killed driver using autopilot crash raised questions safety systems perform driving tasks long stretches completely replace human drivers volkswagen ag 1550 vowg_pde xetra 146 093 vowg_pde tesla september 2016 unveiled improvements autopilot adding new limits handsoff driving reporting david shepardson editing lisa shumaker david gregorio cynthia osterman standards thomson reuters trust principles new york reuters new york california states vowed tuesday stop us government asking 2020 census whether people citizens arguing question could stop immigrants participating skew makeup congress us census bureau decided include citizenship question onceadecade questionnaire saying accurate count citizens would help protect minority rights landmark voting rights act 1965 according commerce secretary wilbur ross liberal opponents feared decision would opposite effect said move designed undercount immigrants potentially reducing representation congress federal funding local jurisdictions determined population scare tactic try scare latinos others participating 2020 census arturo vargas executive director national association latino elected appointed officials naleo educational fund told reporters pending legal challenges states unlikely intervention republicancontrolled congress citizenship question would appear decennial census first time since 1950 new york attorney general eric schneiderman said would lead multistate lawsuit block decision separately state california filed lawsuit early tuesday federal court commerce department census bureau commerce secretary head federal department runs census bureau said authorized question response justice department letter arguing citizenship question vital enforcement voting rights act bitly2pizlxr although career staff member sent justice department letter conceived john gore political appointee lawyer private practice defended multiple republican redistricting plans according emails obtained propublica last year gore appointed attorney general jeff sessions head justice departments civil rights division reversed legal challenge texas law administration former president barack obama alleged discriminated minorities justice department spokesman devin omalley declined comment gores involvement said department looked forward defending citizenship question said needed protect right vote ensure free fair elections americans vanita gupta ran civil rights division obama administration said questioned stated motives president donald trumps administration sessions justice department asking name voting rights enforcement shown time time reluctance enforce voting rights act gupta told reporters critics said inclusion question would disrupt years planning goes census said enough time put question rigorous testing census questions typically undergo ensure accurate count us constitution mandates census takes place every 10 years counting every person united states used determine allocation states seats us house representatives distribute billions dollars federal funds local communities facially constitutional ask question said james sample law professor hofstra university even though colossally dumb likely reduce number people responding census trump administration could probably win legal case sample said challenges may succeed inaccurate count leads range unconstitutional consequences attendee holds new countrys flag naturalization papers sworn us citizenship ceremony los angeles us july 18 2017 reutersmike blake including unequal distribution federal funds potential violations onepersononevote principle said reporting daniel trotta sarah n lynch jonathan stempel eric beech writing daniel trotta editing frank mcgurty cynthia osterman standards thomson reuters trust principles
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<p>Las Vegas Metro Assistant Sheriff Kevin McMahill and Albuquerque Police Chief Gorden Eden discuss police policy at a public housing project in Las Vegas, Nev. (Mike Gallagher/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>Copyright © 2014 Albuquerque Journal</p>
<p>LAS VEGAS – The Bolden neighborhood isn’t the neon Las Vegas. It is a post-WWII African American neighborhood of public housing projects and store-front churches.</p>
<p>It was a neighborhood with the highest crime rate, the most homicides and gangs with their graffiti on every available wall.</p>
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<p>It was a neighborhood where police had a “zero tolerance” crime policy that used “jaywalking” and “trespass” laws to stop and frisk African American men and boys.</p>
<p>It was the neighborhood where the 2,500-officer Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department began to ask itself some tough questions and challenge accepted police philosophies.</p>
<p>The toughest questions, but the most basic, were: “Are we a racist police department?” and “Does our zero tolerance crime policy work?”</p>
<p>The conclusions weren’t easy to swallow.</p>
<p>“We policed minority communities differently than white communities,” Assistant Sheriff Kevin McMahill said.</p>
<p>And the zero tolerance approach was having no impact on the neighborhood crime rate. In fact, it was creating more safety problems for police officers – nighttime foot pursuits through alleyways ending in confrontations between officers and suspects whose only suspected crime was crossing an empty residential street outside of a non-existent crosswalk and then running from the cops.</p>
<p>Assistant Sheriff Joe Lombardo said there was a general philosophy of shoot first and sort it out later.</p>
<p>The numbers bore that out. Las Vegas had 25 officer-involved shootings in 2010, a number reduced by nearly half last year.</p>
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<p>“Officers were getting hurt,” Lombardo said. “Suspects were getting away.”</p>
<p>“We would escalate the situation,” Lombardo said. “We never sought to slow down the event. We had a problem.”</p>
<p>Metro Las Vegas Police Officers go through reality-based training in which an officer pretends to have been shot. (Mike Gallagher/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>The department began to make changes.</p>
<p>But the pace of change was accelerated in 2012 after the Las Vegas Review-Journal published a five-part series examining in detail 20 years of officer-involved shootings. A few weeks later, Las Vegas police shot Stanley Goodwin, a mentally ill, unarmed African American man who had pulled into the parking lot of the wrong apartment complex.</p>
<p>Instead of waiting for the Department of Justice to begin an investigation that was apparently in the works, Sheriff Douglas Gillespie asked the DOJ for help in reforming his department, which led to major changes in officer supervision, accountability and training.</p>
<p>Albuquerque tutorial</p>
<p>McMahill explained the history of the Bolden neighborhood last week to top city officials, and members of the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce and New Mexico American Civil Liberties Union during a fact-finding trip to look at police practices. The trip was organized by the chamber.</p>
<p>Mayor Richard Berry, Albuquerque Police Chief Gorden Eden and APD Commander Anthony Montaño accompanied the group.</p>
<p>All have been involved in discussions as the Berry administration and the Department of Justice hash out a consent decree in the wake of a DOJ report that found APD had a pattern of excessive use of force – both lethal and nonlethal. APD officers have shot 37 people, 27 of them fatally, since Jan. 1, 2010.</p>
<p>The turnaround for the Bolden neighborhood began in 2006 with what was called “The Safe Village” model, a form of community policing that has not been easy. And it was a model that didn’t work overnight.</p>
<p>“We were not listening to what the community was telling us,” McMahill said.</p>
<p>McMahill said commanders made a critical mistake by passing responsibilities to lower-ranking officers.</p>
<p>“The captain has to be at the meetings,” he said. “The captain has to keep showing up even if only one person is there.”</p>
<p>The community buy-in, McMahill said, took time.</p>
<p>When police stopped using jaywalking or trespassing as pretexts to stop African American men, it changed the way police officers did their jobs.</p>
<p>Area Commander Capt. Will Scott said the department helped to put together a shoestring budget to develop a program to paint over graffiti and participate in community activities.</p>
<p>Training Sgt. Jeff Coday said that training now tells officers there is no need to engage in a foot chase with suspects in non-violent crimes – instead, officers are trained to back off and call in other officers to contain the suspect.</p>
<p>“The proper response is to slow down, don’t chase,” Coday said. The change in police enforcement tactics slowly paid dividends.</p>
<p>“The community began coming forward,” Scott said. “Our offers to assist people were accepted.”</p>
<p>The community meetings are now run by local community leaders and not the police, although Scott attends and participates.</p>
<p>Local pastors became part of a team to come out to gang shooting scenes, circulate and calm onlookers, and visit with family members of both the victim and the suspect to reduce the chances of retaliation.</p>
<p>Best practices</p>
<p>Members of the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce went to Las Vegas to look at the department’s training programs on de-escalation of potential use-of-force incidents and crisis intervention dealing with mentally ill or severely distressed people.</p>
<p>In general, they were impressed (see sidebar). The Albuquerque Police Department has also been in contact with the Las Vegas department (and other departments) since negotiations began with the DOJ to hammer out a consent decree that will be enforced by a special master backed by a federal judge.</p>
<p>Eden said the department is looking at best practices in a wide range of areas, some of them technical, like computerization of Internal Affairs reports, citizen complaints and human resource issues involving officers so they can more easily identify officers in need of remedial training or counseling.</p>
<p>Peter Simonson of the NM American Civil Liberties Union said, “We as community advocates can’t lose sight of the fact that, regardless of how committed the chief and his top-ranking officers are to implementing changes, they face significant challenges in introducing these reforms to the rank and file.</p>
<p>“Initially, officers on the street may resist because they fear that the reform measures – for example, using methods to ‘slow down’ potentially violent encounters – put them in a posture that seems weak or passive.”</p>
<p>That problem was one that Las Vegas police brass said they encountered and continue to battle as they reinforce de-escalation techniques. Getting buy-in from the officer on the street was one of their biggest challenges, they said.</p>
<p>No one during the visit said the changes being made in Las Vegas would eliminate police shootings. There are situations and circumstances that require police to use deadly force.</p>
<p>CODAY: Change slowly paid dividends</p>
<p>Shooting reviews</p>
<p>Civilian oversight has been limited in Las Vegas to private reviews of use-of-force incidents.</p>
<p>Investigations separately examine not only the individual decision to use or not use force, but also the tactical decisions that preceded and set the context for that use of force.</p>
<p>Citizens participate in both reviews, but they are closed to the public and civilians don’t vote in the panel reviewing tactical decisions.</p>
<p>But the boards have been finding officers violated procedures or didn’t follow training in close to 30 percent of cases. Those findings range from very minor to issues requiring officers be retrained or more serious ones in which the officer should be terminated. The board recommended two officers be terminated.</p>
<p>Findings made by the board reviewing tactics have also led the department to rewrite its procedures or change training, and public reports are issued containing the findings made by the boards.</p>
<p>A more robust and public citizens oversight was rejected by police unions.</p>
<p>But taking the many changes together, the Albuquerque delegation concluded that Las Vegas has changed the culture of how it does policing.</p>
<p>The new approach can be summed up in a comment by Area Commander Capt. Will Scott:</p>
<p>“Officers had to dramatically alter their approach to police work and how they dealt with people on the street. Now, the officer has to talk to the person, the individual, the human being.”</p>
<p />
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las vegas metro assistant sheriff kevin mcmahill albuquerque police chief gorden eden discuss police policy public housing project las vegas nev mike gallagheralbuquerque journal copyright 2014 albuquerque journal las vegas bolden neighborhood isnt neon las vegas postwwii african american neighborhood public housing projects storefront churches neighborhood highest crime rate homicides gangs graffiti every available wall advertisement neighborhood police zero tolerance crime policy used jaywalking trespass laws stop frisk african american men boys neighborhood 2500officer las vegas metropolitan police department began ask tough questions challenge accepted police philosophies toughest questions basic racist police department zero tolerance crime policy work conclusions werent easy swallow policed minority communities differently white communities assistant sheriff kevin mcmahill said zero tolerance approach impact neighborhood crime rate fact creating safety problems police officers nighttime foot pursuits alleyways ending confrontations officers suspects whose suspected crime crossing empty residential street outside nonexistent crosswalk running cops assistant sheriff joe lombardo said general philosophy shoot first sort later numbers bore las vegas 25 officerinvolved shootings 2010 number reduced nearly half last year advertisement officers getting hurt lombardo said suspects getting away would escalate situation lombardo said never sought slow event problem metro las vegas police officers go realitybased training officer pretends shot mike gallagheralbuquerque journal department began make changes pace change accelerated 2012 las vegas reviewjournal published fivepart series examining detail 20 years officerinvolved shootings weeks later las vegas police shot stanley goodwin mentally ill unarmed african american man pulled parking lot wrong apartment complex instead waiting department justice begin investigation apparently works sheriff douglas gillespie asked doj help reforming department led major changes officer supervision accountability training albuquerque tutorial mcmahill explained history bolden neighborhood last week top city officials members greater albuquerque chamber commerce new mexico american civil liberties union factfinding trip look police practices trip organized chamber mayor richard berry albuquerque police chief gorden eden apd commander anthony montaño accompanied group involved discussions berry administration department justice hash consent decree wake doj report found apd pattern excessive use force lethal nonlethal apd officers shot 37 people 27 fatally since jan 1 2010 turnaround bolden neighborhood began 2006 called safe village model form community policing easy model didnt work overnight listening community telling us mcmahill said mcmahill said commanders made critical mistake passing responsibilities lowerranking officers captain meetings said captain keep showing even one person community buyin mcmahill said took time police stopped using jaywalking trespassing pretexts stop african american men changed way police officers jobs area commander capt scott said department helped put together shoestring budget develop program paint graffiti participate community activities training sgt jeff coday said training tells officers need engage foot chase suspects nonviolent crimes instead officers trained back call officers contain suspect proper response slow dont chase coday said change police enforcement tactics slowly paid dividends community began coming forward scott said offers assist people accepted community meetings run local community leaders police although scott attends participates local pastors became part team come gang shooting scenes circulate calm onlookers visit family members victim suspect reduce chances retaliation best practices members greater albuquerque chamber commerce went las vegas look departments training programs deescalation potential useofforce incidents crisis intervention dealing mentally ill severely distressed people general impressed see sidebar albuquerque police department also contact las vegas department departments since negotiations began doj hammer consent decree enforced special master backed federal judge eden said department looking best practices wide range areas technical like computerization internal affairs reports citizen complaints human resource issues involving officers easily identify officers need remedial training counseling peter simonson nm american civil liberties union said community advocates cant lose sight fact regardless committed chief topranking officers implementing changes face significant challenges introducing reforms rank file initially officers street may resist fear reform measures example using methods slow potentially violent encounters put posture seems weak passive problem one las vegas police brass said encountered continue battle reinforce deescalation techniques getting buyin officer street one biggest challenges said one visit said changes made las vegas would eliminate police shootings situations circumstances require police use deadly force coday change slowly paid dividends shooting reviews civilian oversight limited las vegas private reviews useofforce incidents investigations separately examine individual decision use use force also tactical decisions preceded set context use force citizens participate reviews closed public civilians dont vote panel reviewing tactical decisions boards finding officers violated procedures didnt follow training close 30 percent cases findings range minor issues requiring officers retrained serious ones officer terminated board recommended two officers terminated findings made board reviewing tactics also led department rewrite procedures change training public reports issued containing findings made boards robust public citizens oversight rejected police unions taking many changes together albuquerque delegation concluded las vegas changed culture policing new approach summed comment area commander capt scott officers dramatically alter approach police work dealt people street officer talk person individual human
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<p>Jan 25 (Reuters) - Shenzhen Stock Exchange:</p>
<p>* FILING SHOWS BLOCK TRADE OF LESHI INTERNET INFORMATION &amp; TECHNOLOGY'S 1.0 MILLION SHARES INVOLVING 12.4 MILLION YUAN ($1.96 million) ON JAN 25 Source text in Chinese: <a href="http://bit.ly/2tdwdX9" type="external">bit.ly/2tdwdX9</a> Further company coverage: ($1 = 6.3300 Chinese yuan renminbi) (Reporting by Hong Kong newsroom)</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>(Reuters) - Bankrupt Toys ‘R’ Us Inc is preparing to sell or close all 885 stores in its U.S. chain, risking up to 33,000 jobs, after failing to reach a deal to restructure billions of dollars in debt, a person familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.</p> People pass by the Toys R Us store at Times Square in New York, U.S., March 9, 2018. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
<p>With shoppers flocking to online platforms like Amazon.com Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AMZN.O" type="external">AMZN.O</a>) and children choosing electronic gadgets over toys, Toys ‘R’ Us has struggled to service debt from a $6.6 billion leveraged buyout by private equity firms KKR &amp; Co LP ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=KKR.N" type="external">KKR.N</a>) and Bain Capital and real estate investor Vornado Realty Trust ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=VNO.N" type="external">VNO.N</a>) in 2005.</p>
<p>Toys ‘R’ Us had been closing one-fifth of its U.S. stores as part of efforts to emerge from one of the largest ever bankruptcies by a specialty retailer.</p>
<p>But creditors decided they can get more from liquidating assets of the toy seller, the largest in the United States and one of the best known in the world, rather than finding a way to keep the business alive, the person said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the private negotiations.</p>
<p>A Toys ‘R’ Us spokeswoman declined to comment.</p>
<p>The company is expected to make a filing with the bankruptcy court late on Wednesday, the person said.</p>
<p>The planned closure in coming months is a blow to generations of consumers and hundreds of toy makers that sold products at the chain, including Barbie maker Mattel Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=MAT.O" type="external">MAT.O</a>), board game company Hasbro Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=HAS.O" type="external">HAS.O</a>) and other large vendors such as Lego.</p>
<p>In Britain, the remaining 75 Toys ‘R’ Us shops will close within six weeks, joint administrators for the retailer said earlier on Wednesday, after they were unable to find a buyer for all or part of the business, resulting in the loss of about 3,000 jobs.</p>
<p>The Wall Street Journal earlier on Wednesday reported that Toys ‘R’ Us Chief Executive David Brandon told U.S. staff about the likely closures on a conference call.</p> Slideshow (3 Images)
<p>Efforts to restructure collapsed this month after lenders decided, absent a clear reorganization plan, they could recover more by closing stores and raising money from merchandise sales, sources with knowledge of the matter said.</p>
<p>“It’s a relentlessly difficult retail environment for mall-based retailers. There just aren’t the same feet coming through the doors,” said Brian Davidoff, a financial restructuring lawyer.</p>
<p>More than 8,000 U.S. retail stores closed in 2017, roughly double the average annual store closures in the previous decade, according to data from the International Council of Shopping Centers.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AMZN.O" type="external">Amazon.com Inc</a> 1591.0 AMZN.O Nasdaq +2.82 (+0.18%) AMZN.O KKR.N VNO.N MAT.O HAS.O
<p>Toys ‘R’ Us is also likely to liquidate in France, Spain, Poland and Australia, Brandon said, according to The Wall Street Journal. It quoted Brandon as adding that the retailer also planned to sell operations in Canada, Central Europe and Asia.</p>
<p>Toys ‘R’ Us was already working with liquidators Tiger Capital Group LLC, Great American Group LLC, Hilco Merchant Resources LLC and Gordon Brothers Retail Partners LLC on previously announced store closures, and the four are expected to continue with the additional closings, sources said.</p>
<p>The future of the retailer’s big-box shops, many located in strip centers, was uncertain.</p>
<p>The disappearance of Toys ‘R’ Us in the United States and the UK leaves a void for hundreds of toy makers that relied on the chain as a top customer alongside WalMart Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=WMT.N" type="external">WMT.N</a>) and Target Corp ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TGT.N" type="external">TGT.N</a>).</p>
<p>Shares in Mattel, the world’s largest toymaker, and No. 2 U.S. toymaker Hasbro tumbled last week on liquidation reports. Both companies rely on Toys ‘R’ Us for roughly 10 percent of their revenues, according to their 2016 annual reports.</p>
<p>The liquidation will be more painful for small, independent toy makers that relied on the chain as a major showcase, said Lutz Muller, president of consultancy Klosters Trading Corp.</p>
<p>“A large number will go to the wall,” Muller said.</p>
<p>Reporting by Tracy Rucinski in Chicago; Additional reporting by Ismail Shakil and Sangameswaran S in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter Henderson, Richard Chang and Leslie Adler</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>PARKLAND, Fla. (Reuters) - U.S. students spilled out of classrooms by the tens of thousands on Wednesday, chanting slogans like “No more silence” and “We want change” as part of a coast-to-coast protest over gun violence prompted by last month’s massacre at a Florida high school.</p>
<p>The #ENOUGH National School Walkout was intended to pressure federal and state lawmakers to tighten laws on gun ownership despite opposition by the National Rifle Association (NRA), the powerful gun rights advocacy group.</p>
<p>With some students dressed in orange, the color adopted by the gun control movement, the walkouts began at 10 a.m. local time in each time zone and were scheduled to last 17 minutes. Many rallies went longer.</p>
<p>The duration was a tribute to 17 students and staff killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on Feb. 14. It was the latest in a series of shootings that have plagued U.S. schools and colleges over the past two decades.</p>
<p>While many school districts gave their blessings to the walkouts, others said anyone who participated would face discipline. Many students defied the warnings and left school anyway. They included over two dozen at Lindenhurst High School on New York state’s Long Island, who were at first suspended, then had their punishment reduced to detentions, according to a senior and the school superintendent.</p>
<p>In Parkland, thousands of students slowly filed onto the Stoneman Douglas school football field to the applause of families and supporters beyond the fences as law enforcement officers looked on. News helicopters hovered overhead.</p>
<p>Ty Thompson, the principal, called for the “biggest group hug,” and the students obliged around the 50-yard line.</p>
<p>“We want change!” students chanted on the sidewalks outside the school. “Can you hear the children screaming?” read one of the signs.</p>
<p>But not all students in Florida were in favor of gun control. About 80 miles (129 km) north of Parkland at Vero Beach High School, chants of “No More Silence, end gun violence,” were countered by shouts of “Trump!” and “We want guns” from other students, according to video posted by local newspaper TCPalm.</p>
<p>At New York City’s Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School, crowds of students poured into the streets of Manhattan, many dressed in orange, symbolic of the bright color worn by hunters to avoid being shot by accident.</p>
<p>“Thoughts and prayers are not enough,” read one sign at LaGuardia, a jab at a response often uttered by lawmakers after mass shootings.</p>
<p>In Akron, Ohio, hundreds of students wearing orange t-shirts with black targets on the front walked out of Firestone High School.</p>
<p>At Granada Hills Charter High School in Los Angeles, students laid prone on the field of a football stadium to form a giant #ENOUGH, symbolizing the thousands of youth who die of gun violence every year in the United States.</p>
<p>Students at Columbine High, Colorado remembered the 1999 massacre at their school that began an era in which mass shootings became common in U.S. schools.</p> Students from Washington, DC-area schools carry signs during a protest for stricter gun control during a walkout by students at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., March 14, 2018. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
<p>“I grew up in a community still haunted by the tragedy from 19 years ago,” said 16-year-old sophomore Abigail Orton.</p> LOBBYING LAWMAKERS
<p>The walkouts were part of a burgeoning, grassroots movement prompted by the Parkland attack and came 10 days before major protests planned in Washington and elsewhere. Survivors have lobbied lawmakers and President Donald Trump in a push for new restrictions on gun ownership, a right protected by the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment.</p>
<p>“We don’t feel safe in schools anymore,” said Sarah Chatfield, a high school student from Maryland, standing with hundreds of other protesters outside the White House.</p>
<p>Chanting “Hey hey, ho ho, the NRA has got to go!” students, many of whom will be able to vote in 2020, marched to the U.S. Capitol, where Democratic lawmakers emerged from the white-domed landmark to praise them.</p> Slideshow (29 Images)
<p>The student-led initiative helped bring about a tightening of Florida’s gun laws last week, when the minimum age of 21 for buying any handguns was extended to all firearms. But lawmakers rejected a ban on the sort of semiautomatic rifle used in the Parkland attack.</p>
<p>In Washington, however, proposals to strengthen the background-check system for gun sales, among other measures, appear to be languishing.</p>
<p>After protests began on Wednesday, the NRA tweeted a picture of a semiautomatic rifle with the caption “I’ll control my own guns, thank you.”</p> SCHOOLS VARY IN RESPONSE
<p>Students from more than 3,000 schools and groups joined the walkouts, many with the backing of their school districts, according to the event’s organizers, who also coordinated the Women’s March protests staged nationwide over the past two years.</p> Related Coverage
<a href="/article/us-usa-guns-legislation-passage/house-passes-bill-to-prevent-gun-violence-in-schools-in-rare-bipartisan-vote-idUSKCN1GQ2W7" type="external">House passes bill to prevent gun violence in schools in rare bipartisan vote</a>
<a href="/article/us-usa-guns-florida/suspected-florida-school-shooter-silent-in-court-judge-enters-not-guilty-plea-idUSKCN1GQ2OB" type="external">Suspected Florida school shooter silent in court, judge enters not-guilty plea</a>
<p>In Newtown, Pennsylvania, more than 100 students walked out of Council Rock High School despite warnings they would face discipline if they left the building.</p>
<p>But after the walkout, Superintendent Robert Fraser said “the level of maturity and sincerity was amazing” among protesters, and the school district waived any punishments.</p>
<p>At Norton High School in the rural-suburban district in northeastern Ohio, a small group of students, including a teenage boy with an American flag draped over his shoulder, stood apart from a larger gathering of nearly 300 students who walked out of class. One of the students also flew a large Trump flag at the end of his truck.</p>
<p>Ryan Shanor, the school’s principal, said the small group wanted to honor the victims but disagreed with sentiment they considered to be against the Second Amendment.</p>
<p>“They did not agree with everything they thought the protest was about,” he said.</p>
<p>Additional reporting by Gina Cherelus, Jonathan Allen and Alice Popovici in New York; Suzanne Barlyn in Newtown, Pennsylvania; Joe Skipper in Parkland, Florida; Scott Malone in Boston; Kim Palmer in Cleveland; Susan Heavey, Richard Cowan, Sarah N. Lynch and Ian Simpson in Washington; Lindsey Wasson in Seattle; Keith Coffman in Colorado; writing by Jonathan Allen and Andrew Hay; editing by Frank McGurty and Jonathan Oatis</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>MOSCOW/AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The British government says Russia is to blame for poisoning former spy Sergei Skripal with a nerve agent, and most chemical weapons specialists agree.</p>
<p>But they say an alternative explanation cannot be ruled out: that the nerve agent got into the hands of people not acting for the Russian state.</p>
<p>The Soviet Union’s chemical weapons program was in such disarray in the aftermath of the Cold War that some toxic substances and know-how could have got into the hands of criminals, say people who dealt with the program at the time.</p>
<p>“Could somebody have smuggled something out?” said Amy Smithson, a biological and chemical weapons expert.</p>
<p>“I certainly wouldn’t rule that possibility out, especially a small amount and particularly in view of how lax the security was at Russian chemical facilities in the early 1990s.”</p>
<p>While nerve agents degrade over time, if the pre-cursor ingredients for the nerve agent were smuggled out back then, stored in proper conditions and mixed recently, they could still be deadly in a small-scale attack, two experts on chemical weapons told Reuters.</p>
<p>Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, remain in hospital in critical condition after being found unconscious on a bench in the city of Salisbury on March 4. A police officer was also harmed and remains in a serious condition.</p>
<p>British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Wednesday that “there is no alternative conclusion, other than that the Russian state was culpable for the attempted murder of Mr. Skripal and his daughter, and for threatening the lives of other British citizens.”</p>
<p>Russia has denied any involvement in the nerve agent attack.</p> POISONED TELEPHONE
<p>Accounts of security deficiencies at weapons facilities indicate that, at least for a period in the 1990s, Moscow was not in firm control of its chemical weapons stockpiles or the people guarding them.</p>
<p>When Russian banking magnate Ivan Kivelidi and his secretary died in 1995 from organ failure after a military-grade poison was found on the telephone receiver of his Moscow office, an employee of a state chemical research institute confessed to having secretly supplied the toxin.</p>
<p>In a closed-door trial, Kivelidi’s business partner was convicted of poisoning Kivelidi over a dispute. At the trial, prosecutors said the business partner had obtained the poison, via several intermediaries, from Leonard Rink, an employee of a state chemical research institute known as GosNIIOKhT.</p>
<p>The same institute, according to Vil Mirzayanov, a Soviet chemical weapons scientist who later turned whistleblower, was part of the state chemical weapons program and helped develop the “Novichok” family of nerve agents that Britain has said was responsible for poisoning Skripal.</p>
<p>In a statement to investigators after his arrest, viewed by Reuters, Rink said he was in possession of poisons created as part of the chemical weapons program which he stored in his garage. On more than one occasion, he said, he sold the substances to supplement his income and pay down a debt.</p>
<p>The poison in the Kivelidi case was sold in a deal brokered by an ex-policeman contact of Rink’s. Rink handed over the poison, in an ampoule hidden inside a pen presentation box, in a meeting at Moscow’s Belorussky station, according to his statement.</p>
<p>Rink received a one-year suspended prison sentence for “misuse of powers,” according to Boris Kuznetsov, who was a lawyer for Kivelidi’s business partner during the trial.</p>
<p>Kuznetsov said he believed his client was innocent, and that Kivelidi was poisoned by rogue intelligence officers acting without the knowledge of the Russian president at the time, Boris Yeltsin.</p>
<p>He added that he would share files from the case with the British authorities, because he believed they could be relevant to the Skripal investigation.</p>
<p>Reuters was not able to contact Rink.</p> The State Scientific Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology in Moscow, Russia, March 14, 2018. REUTERS/Tatyana Makeyeva STATE OF DISARRAY
<p>The Soviet chemical weapons program was a sprawling operation spread across far-flung provincial cities that incorporated the world’s largest chemical arsenal, publicly declared at 40,000 tonnes.</p>
<p>When the Soviet Union ceased to exist, funding dried up, scientists’ salaries were in several months of arrears, staff morale slumped and facilities were left to fend for themselves with little government control or oversight.</p>
<p>According to a 1995 report published by the Henry L. Stimson Center, a Washington security think-tank, and based on accounts from industry insiders, physical security at the facilities was deficient.</p>
<p>It said railroad entrances to the facilities were padlocked but unguarded, and at some sites chemical weapons were stored in buildings with wooden doors and tiled roofs that an intruder could get into with little difficulty.</p>
<p>Chemical weapons were stored in silos without tamper-proof seals, making it difficult to detect if small quantities were being siphoned off.</p> Slideshow (2 Images)
<p>A second report by the Stimson Center four years later highlighted the risk of Soviet chemical weapons scientists - who earned a pittance when they were paid at all - being recruited by criminals, terrorists, or rogue states.</p>
<p>“All the ingredients for successful black marketeering are present through the chemical and biological complexes - under- or unemployed, scientists and managers, valuable commodities at far-flung locations, and poor security,” the report said.</p> SATELLITE STATES
<p>In some cases in the early 1990s, highly toxic chemical agents wound up outside Russian territory, in ex-Soviet facilities in newly-independent states such as Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan.</p>
<p>According to Mirzayanov, the former Soviet chemical weapons scientist, the “Novichok” family of nerve agents developed by the GosNIIOKhT institute was tested in Nukus, Uzbekistan.</p>
<p>In an interview with Reuters on Tuesday, Mirzayanov, now resident in Princeton, New Jersey, said though he believed the Kremlin was behind the Skripal attack.</p>
<p>The ex-Soviet republics outside Russia that suddenly found themselves hosting ex-Soviet chemical weapons facilities were even less equipped than Moscow to secure them.</p>
<p>U.S. troops who arrived in Uzbekistan after 2001 to establish an air base in the city of Khanabad came across stockpiles of old munitions that had not been accounted for, which turned out to contain chlorine and other chemical compounds, said someone who was present at the time and who spoke on condition of anonymity.</p>
<p>People in the chemical weapons field said security since the 1990s had improved drastically, helped by Western aid, the transfer of weapons stockpiles from neighbouring states to Russia and a stronger Russian state.</p>
<p>Russia’s trade and industry ministry, which oversaw the disposal of chemical weapons stockpiles, said in a statement sent to Reuters that Russia had destroyed 100 percent of the stocks in strict compliance with international commitments, and faster than the United States.</p>
<p>The ministry did not address questions about chemical weapons smuggling in the aftermath of the Soviet collapse.</p>
<p>Ukraine’s state security service, which tracks weapons proliferation, said it had no immediate comment.</p>
<p>The Uzbek foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment. The state-owned Kazakh nuclear company which operates the Pavlodar Chemical Plant, a former chemical weapons facility, and the Energy Ministry, to which the nuclear company reports, did not reply to questions.</p>
<p>GRAPHIC: How does a nerve agent work? <a href="http://tmsnrt.rs/2FjA6EQ" type="external">tmsnrt.rs/2FjA6EQ</a></p>
<p>Additional reporting by Olzhas Auyezov in ALMATY, Pavel Polityuk in KIEV and Joseph Ax in NEW YORK; Editing by Cassell Bryan-Low</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>LONDON (Reuters) - Britain is to kick out 23 Russian diplomats, the biggest such expulsion since the Cold War, over a chemical attack on a former Russian double agent in England that Prime Minister Theresa May blamed on Moscow, an assessment backed by the United States.</p>
<p>May pointed the finger firmly at Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday as she outlined retaliatory measures in parliament.</p>
<p>Russia denies any involvement in the attack on ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, who have been critical in hospital since they were found unconscious on March 4 on a bench in the city of Salisbury.</p>
<p>May announced the potential freezing of Russian state assets that pose a security threat, new laws to counter hostile state activity and a downgrading of Britain’s attendance at the soccer World Cup in Russia this summer.</p>
<p>She had given Moscow until midnight on Tuesday to explain how the Soviet-made Novichok nerve agent came to be deployed on the streets of Salisbury, saying either the Russian state was responsible or had lost control of a stock of the substance.</p>
<p>“Their response demonstrated complete disdain for the gravity of these events,” May said in her statement to parliament. “They have treated the use of a military-grade nerve agent in Europe with sarcasm, contempt and defiance.”</p>
<p>The only possible conclusion was that the Russian state was behind the attempted murder of the Skripals and the harm that befell Nick Bailey, a police officer who is in a serious condition after being exposed to the nerve agent, May said.</p>
<p>“This represents an unlawful use of force by the Russian state against the United Kingdom,” she said.</p>
<p>The Russian Foreign Ministry said Moscow would swiftly retaliate against the British measures which had been undertaken for “short-sighted political ends”.</p>
<p>“The British government has made a choice in favor of confrontation with Russia,” it said.</p>
<p>Russia’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Vassily Nebenzia, repeated Moscow’s denial that it had anything to do with the poisoning and called for proof of its involvement.</p> MAY DENOUNCES PUTIN
<p>The two governments blamed each other for the crisis.</p>
<p>“Many of us looked at a post-Soviet Russia with hope. We wanted a better relationship and it is tragic that President Putin has chosen to act in this way,” said May.</p>
<p>Britain, which has received statements of support from the United States, the European Union and NATO, has said it would seek to coordinate an international response to the attack.</p>
<p>The White House issued a statement saying it shared Britain’s assessment that Russia was responsible and supported May’s decision to expel the diplomats “as a just response.” It was the White House’s most unequivocal statement to date blaming Russia for the poisoning.</p>
<p>At the United Nations, U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley blamed Russia for the attack and urged the Security Council to take “immediate, concrete measures to address this now.”</p> Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May addresses the House of Commons on her government's reaction to the poisoning of former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, in London, March 14, 2018. Parliament TV handout via REUTERS
<p>In a phone call between May and U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday, the two leaders agreed that Russia must provide “unambiguous answers” about how a Russian-developed chemical agent came to be used in the attack.</p>
<p>German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she took the British findings seriously and there would be a common European stance, although “we must still talk responsibly” with Russia despite differences of opinion.</p>
<p>A French government spokesman said Paris was awaiting proof before deciding if it would act in solidarity with London.</p>
<p>Skripal betrayed dozens of Russian agents to Britain before being arrested in Moscow and later jailed in 2006. He was freed under a spy swap deal in 2010 and took refuge in Britain.</p>
<p>The attack on him was likened in Britain to the killing of ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, a critic of Putin, who died in London in 2006 after drinking green tea laced with radioactive polonium 210. Russia refused to extradite the two Russians identified by Britain as the killers.</p> Slideshow (15 Images)
<p>Britain’s response to the Litvinenko affair, which included the expulsion of four Russian diplomats, was criticized domestically as too weak, and many in British politics and media have called for a much tougher response to the Skripal attack.</p>
<p>Some Russia experts cast doubt over whether May’s actions met that test.</p>
<p>“This is certainly not a strong response from Britain - it is a mild response,” said Mathieu Boulegue, a Russia expert at Chatham House think-tank in London. “It will not deter Russia because Britain is showing too little steel.”</p>
<p>May said the 23 diplomats, identified as undeclared intelligence officers, had one week to leave and Russian intelligence capabilities in Britain would be damaged for years.</p>
<p>May also said Britain would revoke an invitation to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to visit and suspend planned high level bilateral contacts between London and Moscow. The Foreign Ministry in Moscow said Lavrov had not accepted the invitation to visit Britain anyway.</p>
<p>On the soccer World Cup, which Russia is hosting in June and July, May said no ministers or members of the British royal family would attend.</p> Related Coverage
<a href="/article/us-britain-russia-usa-haley/u-s-ambassador-haley-tells-u-n-russia-responsible-for-chemical-attack-idUSKCN1GQ2YR" type="external">U.S. Ambassador Haley tells U.N. Russia responsible for chemical attack</a>
<a href="/article/us-britain-russia-response-factbox/factbox-britain-to-freeze-russian-state-assets-and-expel-23-diplomats-after-nerve-attack-idUSKCN1GQ1TN" type="external">Factbox: Britain to freeze Russian state assets and expel 23 diplomats after nerve attack</a>
<a href="/article/us-britain-russia-france-ledrian/france-to-coordinate-response-to-uk-spy-attack-at-the-highest-level-idUSKCN1GQ32L" type="external">France to coordinate response to UK spy attack at the highest level</a> ‘CORRUPT ELITES’
<p>But unlike when the United States and European Union imposed sanctions on Russia in response to its annexation of Crimea, May did not name Russian people or companies that would be specifically targeted by sanctions.</p>
<p>She said checks on private flights, customs and freight would be stepped up to better track those traveling to Britain who could represent a security threat.</p>
<p>London has been a venue of choice for many rich Russian to buy property and the in-flow of Russian money has led to the capital being nicknamed “Londongrad”.</p>
<p>Russian gas giant Gazprom will cut hundreds of jobs at its overseas trading and export offices, including Britain where it has its largest such office by far, and move them to St Petersburg, as part of a drive by Putin to repatriate capital to reduce exposure to sanctions, according to two sources familiar with the plan.</p>
<p>In a separate development, British media regulator Ofcom said it could strip Russia Today, a Kremlin-funded TV channel, of its UK licence. Russia has said British media would be expelled in retaliation should that happen.</p>
<p>Reporting by Costas Pitas, Estelle Shirbon, Guy Faulconbridge, Michael Holden, Alistair Smout, Elizabeth Piper and William James in London, Christian Lowe in Moscow, writing by Estelle Shirbon; Editing by Grant McCool and Alistair Bell</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
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jan 25 reuters shenzhen stock exchange filing shows block trade leshi internet information amp technologys 10 million shares involving 124 million yuan 196 million jan 25 source text chinese bitly2tdwdx9 company coverage 1 63300 chinese yuan renminbi reporting hong kong newsroom standards thomson reuters trust principles reuters bankrupt toys r us inc preparing sell close 885 stores us chain risking 33000 jobs failing reach deal restructure billions dollars debt person familiar matter said wednesday people pass toys r us store times square new york us march 9 2018 reuterseduardo munoz shoppers flocking online platforms like amazoncom inc amzno children choosing electronic gadgets toys toys r us struggled service debt 66 billion leveraged buyout private equity firms kkr amp co lp kkrn bain capital real estate investor vornado realty trust vnon 2005 toys r us closing onefifth us stores part efforts emerge one largest ever bankruptcies specialty retailer creditors decided get liquidating assets toy seller largest united states one best known world rather finding way keep business alive person said speaking condition anonymity discuss private negotiations toys r us spokeswoman declined comment company expected make filing bankruptcy court late wednesday person said planned closure coming months blow generations consumers hundreds toy makers sold products chain including barbie maker mattel inc mato board game company hasbro inc haso large vendors lego britain remaining 75 toys r us shops close within six weeks joint administrators retailer said earlier wednesday unable find buyer part business resulting loss 3000 jobs wall street journal earlier wednesday reported toys r us chief executive david brandon told us staff likely closures conference call slideshow 3 images efforts restructure collapsed month lenders decided absent clear reorganization plan could recover closing stores raising money merchandise sales sources knowledge matter said relentlessly difficult retail environment mallbased retailers arent feet coming doors said brian davidoff financial restructuring lawyer 8000 us retail stores closed 2017 roughly double average annual store closures previous decade according data international council shopping centers amazoncom inc 15910 amzno nasdaq 282 018 amzno kkrn vnon mato haso toys r us also likely liquidate france spain poland australia brandon said according wall street journal quoted brandon adding retailer also planned sell operations canada central europe asia toys r us already working liquidators tiger capital group llc great american group llc hilco merchant resources llc gordon brothers retail partners llc previously announced store closures four expected continue additional closings sources said future retailers bigbox shops many located strip centers uncertain disappearance toys r us united states uk leaves void hundreds toy makers relied chain top customer alongside walmart inc wmtn target corp tgtn shares mattel worlds largest toymaker 2 us toymaker hasbro tumbled last week liquidation reports companies rely toys r us roughly 10 percent revenues according 2016 annual reports liquidation painful small independent toy makers relied chain major showcase said lutz muller president consultancy klosters trading corp large number go wall muller said reporting tracy rucinski chicago additional reporting ismail shakil sangameswaran bengaluru editing peter henderson richard chang leslie adler standards thomson reuters trust principles parkland fla reuters us students spilled classrooms tens thousands wednesday chanting slogans like silence want change part coasttocoast protest gun violence prompted last months massacre florida high school enough national school walkout intended pressure federal state lawmakers tighten laws gun ownership despite opposition national rifle association nra powerful gun rights advocacy group students dressed orange color adopted gun control movement walkouts began 10 local time time zone scheduled last 17 minutes many rallies went longer duration tribute 17 students staff killed marjory stoneman douglas high school parkland florida feb 14 latest series shootings plagued us schools colleges past two decades many school districts gave blessings walkouts others said anyone participated would face discipline many students defied warnings left school anyway included two dozen lindenhurst high school new york states long island first suspended punishment reduced detentions according senior school superintendent parkland thousands students slowly filed onto stoneman douglas school football field applause families supporters beyond fences law enforcement officers looked news helicopters hovered overhead ty thompson principal called biggest group hug students obliged around 50yard line want change students chanted sidewalks outside school hear children screaming read one signs students florida favor gun control 80 miles 129 km north parkland vero beach high school chants silence end gun violence countered shouts trump want guns students according video posted local newspaper tcpalm new york citys fiorello h laguardia high school crowds students poured streets manhattan many dressed orange symbolic bright color worn hunters avoid shot accident thoughts prayers enough read one sign laguardia jab response often uttered lawmakers mass shootings akron ohio hundreds students wearing orange tshirts black targets front walked firestone high school granada hills charter high school los angeles students laid prone field football stadium form giant enough symbolizing thousands youth die gun violence every year united states students columbine high colorado remembered 1999 massacre school began era mass shootings became common us schools students washington dcarea schools carry signs protest stricter gun control walkout students us capitol washington us march 14 2018 reutersjoshua roberts grew community still haunted tragedy 19 years ago said 16yearold sophomore abigail orton lobbying lawmakers walkouts part burgeoning grassroots movement prompted parkland attack came 10 days major protests planned washington elsewhere survivors lobbied lawmakers president donald trump push new restrictions gun ownership right protected us constitutions second amendment dont feel safe schools anymore said sarah chatfield high school student maryland standing hundreds protesters outside white house chanting hey hey ho ho nra got go students many able vote 2020 marched us capitol democratic lawmakers emerged whitedomed landmark praise slideshow 29 images studentled initiative helped bring tightening floridas gun laws last week minimum age 21 buying handguns extended firearms lawmakers rejected ban sort semiautomatic rifle used parkland attack washington however proposals strengthen backgroundcheck system gun sales among measures appear languishing protests began wednesday nra tweeted picture semiautomatic rifle caption ill control guns thank schools vary response students 3000 schools groups joined walkouts many backing school districts according events organizers also coordinated womens march protests staged nationwide past two years related coverage house passes bill prevent gun violence schools rare bipartisan vote suspected florida school shooter silent court judge enters notguilty plea newtown pennsylvania 100 students walked council rock high school despite warnings would face discipline left building walkout superintendent robert fraser said level maturity sincerity amazing among protesters school district waived punishments norton high school ruralsuburban district northeastern ohio small group students including teenage boy american flag draped shoulder stood apart larger gathering nearly 300 students walked class one students also flew large trump flag end truck ryan shanor schools principal said small group wanted honor victims disagreed sentiment considered second amendment agree everything thought protest said additional reporting gina cherelus jonathan allen alice popovici new york suzanne barlyn newtown pennsylvania joe skipper parkland florida scott malone boston kim palmer cleveland susan heavey richard cowan sarah n lynch ian simpson washington lindsey wasson seattle keith coffman colorado writing jonathan allen andrew hay editing frank mcgurty jonathan oatis standards thomson reuters trust principles moscowamsterdam reuters british government says russia blame poisoning former spy sergei skripal nerve agent chemical weapons specialists agree say alternative explanation ruled nerve agent got hands people acting russian state soviet unions chemical weapons program disarray aftermath cold war toxic substances knowhow could got hands criminals say people dealt program time could somebody smuggled something said amy smithson biological chemical weapons expert certainly wouldnt rule possibility especially small amount particularly view lax security russian chemical facilities early 1990s nerve agents degrade time precursor ingredients nerve agent smuggled back stored proper conditions mixed recently could still deadly smallscale attack two experts chemical weapons told reuters skripal 66 daughter yulia 33 remain hospital critical condition found unconscious bench city salisbury march 4 police officer also harmed remains serious condition british prime minister theresa may said wednesday alternative conclusion russian state culpable attempted murder mr skripal daughter threatening lives british citizens russia denied involvement nerve agent attack poisoned telephone accounts security deficiencies weapons facilities indicate least period 1990s moscow firm control chemical weapons stockpiles people guarding russian banking magnate ivan kivelidi secretary died 1995 organ failure militarygrade poison found telephone receiver moscow office employee state chemical research institute confessed secretly supplied toxin closeddoor trial kivelidis business partner convicted poisoning kivelidi dispute trial prosecutors said business partner obtained poison via several intermediaries leonard rink employee state chemical research institute known gosniiokht institute according vil mirzayanov soviet chemical weapons scientist later turned whistleblower part state chemical weapons program helped develop novichok family nerve agents britain said responsible poisoning skripal statement investigators arrest viewed reuters rink said possession poisons created part chemical weapons program stored garage one occasion said sold substances supplement income pay debt poison kivelidi case sold deal brokered expoliceman contact rinks rink handed poison ampoule hidden inside pen presentation box meeting moscows belorussky station according statement rink received oneyear suspended prison sentence misuse powers according boris kuznetsov lawyer kivelidis business partner trial kuznetsov said believed client innocent kivelidi poisoned rogue intelligence officers acting without knowledge russian president time boris yeltsin added would share files case british authorities believed could relevant skripal investigation reuters able contact rink state scientific research institute organic chemistry technology moscow russia march 14 2018 reuterstatyana makeyeva state disarray soviet chemical weapons program sprawling operation spread across farflung provincial cities incorporated worlds largest chemical arsenal publicly declared 40000 tonnes soviet union ceased exist funding dried scientists salaries several months arrears staff morale slumped facilities left fend little government control oversight according 1995 report published henry l stimson center washington security thinktank based accounts industry insiders physical security facilities deficient said railroad entrances facilities padlocked unguarded sites chemical weapons stored buildings wooden doors tiled roofs intruder could get little difficulty chemical weapons stored silos without tamperproof seals making difficult detect small quantities siphoned slideshow 2 images second report stimson center four years later highlighted risk soviet chemical weapons scientists earned pittance paid recruited criminals terrorists rogue states ingredients successful black marketeering present chemical biological complexes unemployed scientists managers valuable commodities farflung locations poor security report said satellite states cases early 1990s highly toxic chemical agents wound outside russian territory exsoviet facilities newlyindependent states ukraine kazakhstan uzbekistan according mirzayanov former soviet chemical weapons scientist novichok family nerve agents developed gosniiokht institute tested nukus uzbekistan interview reuters tuesday mirzayanov resident princeton new jersey said though believed kremlin behind skripal attack exsoviet republics outside russia suddenly found hosting exsoviet chemical weapons facilities even less equipped moscow secure us troops arrived uzbekistan 2001 establish air base city khanabad came across stockpiles old munitions accounted turned contain chlorine chemical compounds said someone present time spoke condition anonymity people chemical weapons field said security since 1990s improved drastically helped western aid transfer weapons stockpiles neighbouring states russia stronger russian state russias trade industry ministry oversaw disposal chemical weapons stockpiles said statement sent reuters russia destroyed 100 percent stocks strict compliance international commitments faster united states ministry address questions chemical weapons smuggling aftermath soviet collapse ukraines state security service tracks weapons proliferation said immediate comment uzbek foreign ministry respond request comment stateowned kazakh nuclear company operates pavlodar chemical plant former chemical weapons facility energy ministry nuclear company reports reply questions graphic nerve agent work tmsnrtrs2fja6eq additional reporting olzhas auyezov almaty pavel polityuk kiev joseph ax new york editing cassell bryanlow standards thomson reuters trust principles london reuters britain kick 23 russian diplomats biggest expulsion since cold war chemical attack former russian double agent england prime minister theresa may blamed moscow assessment backed united states may pointed finger firmly russian president vladimir putin wednesday outlined retaliatory measures parliament russia denies involvement attack exspy sergei skripal daughter yulia critical hospital since found unconscious march 4 bench city salisbury may announced potential freezing russian state assets pose security threat new laws counter hostile state activity downgrading britains attendance soccer world cup russia summer given moscow midnight tuesday explain sovietmade novichok nerve agent came deployed streets salisbury saying either russian state responsible lost control stock substance response demonstrated complete disdain gravity events may said statement parliament treated use militarygrade nerve agent europe sarcasm contempt defiance possible conclusion russian state behind attempted murder skripals harm befell nick bailey police officer serious condition exposed nerve agent may said represents unlawful use force russian state united kingdom said russian foreign ministry said moscow would swiftly retaliate british measures undertaken shortsighted political ends british government made choice favor confrontation russia said russias ambassador united nations vassily nebenzia repeated moscows denial anything poisoning called proof involvement may denounces putin two governments blamed crisis many us looked postsoviet russia hope wanted better relationship tragic president putin chosen act way said may britain received statements support united states european union nato said would seek coordinate international response attack white house issued statement saying shared britains assessment russia responsible supported mays decision expel diplomats response white houses unequivocal statement date blaming russia poisoning united nations us ambassador nikki haley blamed russia attack urged security council take immediate concrete measures address britains prime minister theresa may addresses house commons governments reaction poisoning former russian intelligence officer sergei skripal daughter yulia salisbury london march 14 2018 parliament tv handout via reuters phone call may us president donald trump tuesday two leaders agreed russia must provide unambiguous answers russiandeveloped chemical agent came used attack german chancellor angela merkel said took british findings seriously would common european stance although must still talk responsibly russia despite differences opinion french government spokesman said paris awaiting proof deciding would act solidarity london skripal betrayed dozens russian agents britain arrested moscow later jailed 2006 freed spy swap deal 2010 took refuge britain attack likened britain killing exkgb agent alexander litvinenko critic putin died london 2006 drinking green tea laced radioactive polonium 210 russia refused extradite two russians identified britain killers slideshow 15 images britains response litvinenko affair included expulsion four russian diplomats criticized domestically weak many british politics media called much tougher response skripal attack russia experts cast doubt whether mays actions met test certainly strong response britain mild response said mathieu boulegue russia expert chatham house thinktank london deter russia britain showing little steel may said 23 diplomats identified undeclared intelligence officers one week leave russian intelligence capabilities britain would damaged years may also said britain would revoke invitation russian foreign minister sergei lavrov visit suspend planned high level bilateral contacts london moscow foreign ministry moscow said lavrov accepted invitation visit britain anyway soccer world cup russia hosting june july may said ministers members british royal family would attend related coverage us ambassador haley tells un russia responsible chemical attack factbox britain freeze russian state assets expel 23 diplomats nerve attack france coordinate response uk spy attack highest level corrupt elites unlike united states european union imposed sanctions russia response annexation crimea may name russian people companies would specifically targeted sanctions said checks private flights customs freight would stepped better track traveling britain could represent security threat london venue choice many rich russian buy property inflow russian money led capital nicknamed londongrad russian gas giant gazprom cut hundreds jobs overseas trading export offices including britain largest office far move st petersburg part drive putin repatriate capital reduce exposure sanctions according two sources familiar plan separate development british media regulator ofcom said could strip russia today kremlinfunded tv channel uk licence russia said british media would expelled retaliation happen reporting costas pitas estelle shirbon guy faulconbridge michael holden alistair smout elizabeth piper william james london christian lowe moscow writing estelle shirbon editing grant mccool alistair bell standards thomson reuters trust principles
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<p>HONOLULU (AP) — Tom Hoge was too caught up watching college basketball in his hotel room to be bothered with a push alert — a false alarm, as it turned out — that a ballistic missile was headed toward Hawaii.</p>
<p>He showed a steady hand on the golf course, too, even as the leaderboard at the Sony Open became increasingly crowded.</p>
<p>Hoge finished off a 6-under 64 by holing a 40-foot <a href="https://twitter.com/PGATOUR/status/952380238016561152" type="external">birdie putt</a> at the par-3 17th, and then hitting a 40-yard bunker shot to within 3 feet for a birdie on the par-5 closing hole at Waialae Country Club for a one-shot lead.</p>
<p>Hoge was at 16-under 194, one shot ahead of Brian Harman (68) and Patton Kizzire, who recovered from a double bogey on his opening hole and shot 64. Another shot behind was Kyle Stanley (65).</p>
<p>Seven players were separated by four shots, a big difference from a year ago when Justin Thomas led by seven going into the final round of his wire-to-wire victory.</p>
<p>Hoge has never led going to the final round on the PGA Tour in his 75 previous starts. He has never won.</p>
<p>“A new position,” Hoge said. “It’s a good one, obviously. I’ve been close to the lead a few times in the fall, so a little bit to draw on there. Haven’t quite pulled it off yet. Just getting a little more belief in myself and hopefully, tomorrow will be a better day for me.”</p>
<p>It should be a day where everyone can breathe a little easier compared with how Saturday began.</p>
<p>Hawaii was buzzing — literally — when the push alert came through on mobile phones across the island shortly after 8 a.m. alerting of a missile. It said to seek shelter and that it was not a drill.</p>
<p>There was panic across the island. <a href="https://twitter.com/JJSpaun/status/952245602636636160" type="external">J.J. Spaun</a> tweeted that he was in the basement of his hotel. <a href="https://twitter.com/JohnPetersonFW/status/952245991012409344" type="external">John Peterson</a> tweeted that he was in a bathtub with his family covered by mattresses.</p>
<p>Hoge?</p>
<p>“I was watching the TCU basketball game at the time, so I was a little frustrated with that,” he said of his alma mater ultimately losing to Oklahoma. “The missile was kind of off my radar on that one. I don’t even know what you do for a missile. So I wasn’t really freaking out or anything. Some other people were around us. If it’s going to be your last day, it’s going to be your last day, right?</p>
<p>“To be here in Hawaii and see the beach and everything, I guess it would be a good spot to go.”</p>
<p>Hoge once shared the 36-hole lead with Tiger Woods at the Wyndham Championship, the last tournament Woods played before two back surgeries in the fall of 2015. This time he starts out the final round as the leader.</p>
<p>With so many players right in the mix, no one is sure what to expect in the final round.</p>
<p>“There’s a lot of birdies out there,” Kizzire said. “You just have to make the most.”</p>
<p>Thomas had a wild start — bogey on No. 1, holing out from 175 yards for eagle on No. 2, another bogey on No. 3. He settled down for a 66 and was six shots back, with other eight players ahead of him.</p>
<p>“You can go shoot 8 or 9 under in a heartbeat out here,” Thomas said. “It’s hard if you’re five back and you’re in 15th or 20th as opposed to five back and you’re in sixth or seventh. We’ll just wait and see.”</p>
<p>Hoge figured out how to handle Waialae on another warm, sunny and missile-free day. He was bogey-free, picking up birdies with good tee shots on some of the shorter holes, knocking in the long putt on the 17th and finishing with a birdie.</p>
<p>Five players had at least a share of the lead at some point, and Harman was never too far from the mix. It was a steady performance, just not as low as the players chasing him, and he failed to hit his bunker shot close on the 18th, two-putting from 25 feet for par.</p>
<p>Even so, he’ll be in the last group in Hawaii for the second straight week, and Kapalua winner Dustin Johnson already is on his way to Abu Dhabi.</p>
<p>Jordan Spieth never got much going again and headed to the putting green after his round for more work. He only made four birdies in his bogey-free round of 66, but that left him nine shots behind.</p>
<p>For most players, the talk of the day was the push alert that turned out to be a mistake.</p>
<p>“It was pretty scary at the hotel when they came over the loud speaker and said, ‘Everyone take shelter, this isn’t a drill,’” Spieth said.</p>
<p>HONOLULU (AP) — Tom Hoge was too caught up watching college basketball in his hotel room to be bothered with a push alert — a false alarm, as it turned out — that a ballistic missile was headed toward Hawaii.</p>
<p>He showed a steady hand on the golf course, too, even as the leaderboard at the Sony Open became increasingly crowded.</p>
<p>Hoge finished off a 6-under 64 by holing a 40-foot <a href="https://twitter.com/PGATOUR/status/952380238016561152" type="external">birdie putt</a> at the par-3 17th, and then hitting a 40-yard bunker shot to within 3 feet for a birdie on the par-5 closing hole at Waialae Country Club for a one-shot lead.</p>
<p>Hoge was at 16-under 194, one shot ahead of Brian Harman (68) and Patton Kizzire, who recovered from a double bogey on his opening hole and shot 64. Another shot behind was Kyle Stanley (65).</p>
<p>Seven players were separated by four shots, a big difference from a year ago when Justin Thomas led by seven going into the final round of his wire-to-wire victory.</p>
<p>Hoge has never led going to the final round on the PGA Tour in his 75 previous starts. He has never won.</p>
<p>“A new position,” Hoge said. “It’s a good one, obviously. I’ve been close to the lead a few times in the fall, so a little bit to draw on there. Haven’t quite pulled it off yet. Just getting a little more belief in myself and hopefully, tomorrow will be a better day for me.”</p>
<p>It should be a day where everyone can breathe a little easier compared with how Saturday began.</p>
<p>Hawaii was buzzing — literally — when the push alert came through on mobile phones across the island shortly after 8 a.m. alerting of a missile. It said to seek shelter and that it was not a drill.</p>
<p>There was panic across the island. <a href="https://twitter.com/JJSpaun/status/952245602636636160" type="external">J.J. Spaun</a> tweeted that he was in the basement of his hotel. <a href="https://twitter.com/JohnPetersonFW/status/952245991012409344" type="external">John Peterson</a> tweeted that he was in a bathtub with his family covered by mattresses.</p>
<p>Hoge?</p>
<p>“I was watching the TCU basketball game at the time, so I was a little frustrated with that,” he said of his alma mater ultimately losing to Oklahoma. “The missile was kind of off my radar on that one. I don’t even know what you do for a missile. So I wasn’t really freaking out or anything. Some other people were around us. If it’s going to be your last day, it’s going to be your last day, right?</p>
<p>“To be here in Hawaii and see the beach and everything, I guess it would be a good spot to go.”</p>
<p>Hoge once shared the 36-hole lead with Tiger Woods at the Wyndham Championship, the last tournament Woods played before two back surgeries in the fall of 2015. This time he starts out the final round as the leader.</p>
<p>With so many players right in the mix, no one is sure what to expect in the final round.</p>
<p>“There’s a lot of birdies out there,” Kizzire said. “You just have to make the most.”</p>
<p>Thomas had a wild start — bogey on No. 1, holing out from 175 yards for eagle on No. 2, another bogey on No. 3. He settled down for a 66 and was six shots back, with other eight players ahead of him.</p>
<p>“You can go shoot 8 or 9 under in a heartbeat out here,” Thomas said. “It’s hard if you’re five back and you’re in 15th or 20th as opposed to five back and you’re in sixth or seventh. We’ll just wait and see.”</p>
<p>Hoge figured out how to handle Waialae on another warm, sunny and missile-free day. He was bogey-free, picking up birdies with good tee shots on some of the shorter holes, knocking in the long putt on the 17th and finishing with a birdie.</p>
<p>Five players had at least a share of the lead at some point, and Harman was never too far from the mix. It was a steady performance, just not as low as the players chasing him, and he failed to hit his bunker shot close on the 18th, two-putting from 25 feet for par.</p>
<p>Even so, he’ll be in the last group in Hawaii for the second straight week, and Kapalua winner Dustin Johnson already is on his way to Abu Dhabi.</p>
<p>Jordan Spieth never got much going again and headed to the putting green after his round for more work. He only made four birdies in his bogey-free round of 66, but that left him nine shots behind.</p>
<p>For most players, the talk of the day was the push alert that turned out to be a mistake.</p>
<p>“It was pretty scary at the hotel when they came over the loud speaker and said, ‘Everyone take shelter, this isn’t a drill,’” Spieth said.</p>
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honolulu ap tom hoge caught watching college basketball hotel room bothered push alert false alarm turned ballistic missile headed toward hawaii showed steady hand golf course even leaderboard sony open became increasingly crowded hoge finished 6under 64 holing 40foot birdie putt par3 17th hitting 40yard bunker shot within 3 feet birdie par5 closing hole waialae country club oneshot lead hoge 16under 194 one shot ahead brian harman 68 patton kizzire recovered double bogey opening hole shot 64 another shot behind kyle stanley 65 seven players separated four shots big difference year ago justin thomas led seven going final round wiretowire victory hoge never led going final round pga tour 75 previous starts never new position hoge said good one obviously ive close lead times fall little bit draw havent quite pulled yet getting little belief hopefully tomorrow better day day everyone breathe little easier compared saturday began hawaii buzzing literally push alert came mobile phones across island shortly 8 alerting missile said seek shelter drill panic across island jj spaun tweeted basement hotel john peterson tweeted bathtub family covered mattresses hoge watching tcu basketball game time little frustrated said alma mater ultimately losing oklahoma missile kind radar one dont even know missile wasnt really freaking anything people around us going last day going last day right hawaii see beach everything guess would good spot go hoge shared 36hole lead tiger woods wyndham championship last tournament woods played two back surgeries fall 2015 time starts final round leader many players right mix one sure expect final round theres lot birdies kizzire said make thomas wild start bogey 1 holing 175 yards eagle 2 another bogey 3 settled 66 six shots back eight players ahead go shoot 8 9 heartbeat thomas said hard youre five back youre 15th 20th opposed five back youre sixth seventh well wait see hoge figured handle waialae another warm sunny missilefree day bogeyfree picking birdies good tee shots shorter holes knocking long putt 17th finishing birdie five players least share lead point harman never far mix steady performance low players chasing failed hit bunker shot close 18th twoputting 25 feet par even hell last group hawaii second straight week kapalua winner dustin johnson already way abu dhabi jordan spieth never got much going headed putting green round work made four birdies bogeyfree round 66 left nine shots behind players talk day push alert turned mistake pretty scary hotel came loud speaker said everyone take shelter isnt drill spieth said honolulu ap tom hoge caught watching college basketball hotel room bothered push alert false alarm turned ballistic missile headed toward hawaii showed steady hand golf course even leaderboard sony open became increasingly crowded hoge finished 6under 64 holing 40foot birdie putt par3 17th hitting 40yard bunker shot within 3 feet birdie par5 closing hole waialae country club oneshot lead hoge 16under 194 one shot ahead brian harman 68 patton kizzire recovered double bogey opening hole shot 64 another shot behind kyle stanley 65 seven players separated four shots big difference year ago justin thomas led seven going final round wiretowire victory hoge never led going final round pga tour 75 previous starts never new position hoge said good one obviously ive close lead times fall little bit draw havent quite pulled yet getting little belief hopefully tomorrow better day day everyone breathe little easier compared saturday began hawaii buzzing literally push alert came mobile phones across island shortly 8 alerting missile said seek shelter drill panic across island jj spaun tweeted basement hotel john peterson tweeted bathtub family covered mattresses hoge watching tcu basketball game time little frustrated said alma mater ultimately losing oklahoma missile kind radar one dont even know missile wasnt really freaking anything people around us going last day going last day right hawaii see beach everything guess would good spot go hoge shared 36hole lead tiger woods wyndham championship last tournament woods played two back surgeries fall 2015 time starts final round leader many players right mix one sure expect final round theres lot birdies kizzire said make thomas wild start bogey 1 holing 175 yards eagle 2 another bogey 3 settled 66 six shots back eight players ahead go shoot 8 9 heartbeat thomas said hard youre five back youre 15th 20th opposed five back youre sixth seventh well wait see hoge figured handle waialae another warm sunny missilefree day bogeyfree picking birdies good tee shots shorter holes knocking long putt 17th finishing birdie five players least share lead point harman never far mix steady performance low players chasing failed hit bunker shot close 18th twoputting 25 feet par even hell last group hawaii second straight week kapalua winner dustin johnson already way abu dhabi jordan spieth never got much going headed putting green round work made four birdies bogeyfree round 66 left nine shots behind players talk day push alert turned mistake pretty scary hotel came loud speaker said everyone take shelter isnt drill spieth said
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<p>SHENYANG, China — Family members of Liu Xiaobo scattered the Nobel Peace Prize laureate’s ashes into the sea on Saturday in funeral proceedings closely orchestrated by the Chinese government following his death from cancer while in custody.</p>
<p>Liu’s supporters said the move was intended by the authoritarian government to permanently erase any traces of China’s best-known political prisoner, who died Thursday at the age of 61.</p>
<p>The sea burial took place Saturday at noon, just hours after his cremation, a spokesman for the northeastern city of Shenyang, where Liu died, told reporters.</p>
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<p>Liu’s elder brother, also addressing reporters at the briefing, thanked the ruling Communist Party and the government for its handling of his brother’s funeral. The brother, Liu Xiaoguang, is regarded by Liu’s friends as having long been unsupportive of Liu’s political advocacy.</p>
<p>Liu died from multiple organ failure following a battle with liver cancer while serving an 11-year sentence for incitement to subvert state power. In the run-up to his death, Beijing faced mounting international criticism for not letting him and his wife travel for treatment abroad as he had wished.</p>
<p>The government held two briefings Saturday and provided photos of the funeral and the sea burial, the latest moves in a propaganda campaign seemingly aimed at countering criticism that Beijing has failed to handle Liu’s deterioration and dying wishes in a humanitarian way. A video about Liu’s hospital treatment released on the website of Shenyang’s judicial bureau Friday appeared aimed at the same objective.</p>
<p>Activists and friends of the family said the sea burial appeared to be Beijing’s way of removing every last physical trace of Liu. It also removes the need for a land-based grave at which his supporters would have been able to pay their respects.</p>
<p>“The government’s thinking is that in this way, they can destroy the body and remove all traces of him,” dissident and family friend Hu Jia said by phone.</p>
<p>“After all, he’s a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and he died after being suppressed by the authorities,” Hu said. “The authorities are very worried that a grave would be the focal point of the public’s actions to memorialize him, which could easily turn into protests.”</p>
<p>Activist filmmaker and friend Zeng Jinyan said the sea burial would not deter supporters from commemorating Liu’s life.</p>
<p>“Now, Liu Xiaobo is everywhere,” Zeng said. “Two-thirds of the earth’s surface is covered by the sea and I can foresee that in the future, activists and ordinary people will go to the sea and memorialize Liu Xiaobo.”</p>
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<p>In Hong Kong, thousands of Liu’s supporters and activists attended a candlelight vigil Saturday to mourn his death.</p>
<p>Supporters paid their respects by observing a minute of silence and marching through the streets of Hong Kong holding lit candles.</p>
<p>Liu’s wife and other family members have been closely guarded by authorities and remain largely out of contact with the outside world even after his death. Governments around the world have urged China to free his wife, Liu Xia, from the strict house arrest she has lived under for years even though she has not been convicted of any crime.</p>
<p>The government handout photos showed Liu Xia, who wore dark sunglasses, being comforted by her brother in a funeral parlor as they stood in a row with Liu’s older and younger siblings and their wives. Liu’s body lay in an open casket in the center of the room, surrounded by an arrangement of potted white flowers.</p>
<p>A black banner strung on the wall read “Mr. Liu Xiaobo’s funeral” in white Chinese characters. It was positioned above a framed picture of Liu. A press release issued by the government said that the ceremony was held at 6:30 a.m. to the music of Mozart’s Requiem, and that the body was cremated shortly afterward.</p>
<p>The government also said some of Liu’s friends attended the ceremony, a claim that was disputed by people who have long been close to Liu. In the handout images, none among a group of people standing by the casket were identifiable as any of Liu’s friends, Zeng said.</p>
<p>Zeng said she was among the Liu family’s friends who had traveled to Shenyang only to be prevented by the authorities from seeing Liu in his final moments.</p>
<p>“I just want to be closer to him and to see him, touch him even, if it’s possible, and to give Liu Xia a hug, that’s all,” she said in English.</p>
<p>Zeng said it was “shameful” that the government said Liu’s friends had attended the funeral. “How disgusting,” she said.</p>
<p>Another of Liu’s friends, dissident writer Mo Zhixu, said he thought the well-built young men with buzz cuts in the handout photos resembled security agents who kept track of Liu’s wife. “This is just a big performance,” he said.</p>
<p>“This regime has long been acting without humanity — that’s why they denied him even a minute of freedom even until his death,” Mo said.</p>
<p>At the briefing in Shenyang, a spokesman for the city’s information office said the authorities were looking out for Liu Xia’s interests and insisted that she is free.</p>
<p>“As far as I know, Liu Xia has freedom. But she just lost her relative and is in deep sorrow,” spokesman Zhang Qingyang said. “After Liu Xiaobo’s death, let Liu Xia tend to his affairs and try to keep her away from external interference.”</p>
<p>Liu was only the second Nobel Peace Prize winner to die in police custody, a fact pointed to by human rights groups as an indication of the Chinese Communist Party’s increasingly hard line against its critics. The first, Carl von Ossietzky, died from tuberculosis in Germany in 1938 while serving a sentence for opposing Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime.</p>
<p>Liu rose to prominence during the 1989 pro-democracy protests centered in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. He was sentenced to 11 years in prison in 2009 for co-authoring “Charter 08,” a document that called for an end to one-party rule in China.</p>
<p>He was in prison when he was awarded the Nobel in 2010, which Beijing condemned as an affront to its political and legal systems.</p>
<p>There is little mention of Liu in China’s heavily censored state media and social networking platforms. One notable exception is a newspaper published by the Communist Party that said in an editorial that the West was “deifying” Liu, a man the paper described as a criminal who was “paranoid, naive and arrogant.”</p>
<p>“Liu’s memorial tablet cannot find a place in China’s cultural temple,” the Global Times said in the editorial Saturday. “Deification of Liu by the West will be eventually overshadowed by China’s denial of him.”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Wong reported from Beijing. AP video journalist Johnson Lai contributed to this report from Hong Kong.</p>
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shenyang china family members liu xiaobo scattered nobel peace prize laureates ashes sea saturday funeral proceedings closely orchestrated chinese government following death cancer custody lius supporters said move intended authoritarian government permanently erase traces chinas bestknown political prisoner died thursday age 61 sea burial took place saturday noon hours cremation spokesman northeastern city shenyang liu died told reporters advertisement lius elder brother also addressing reporters briefing thanked ruling communist party government handling brothers funeral brother liu xiaoguang regarded lius friends long unsupportive lius political advocacy liu died multiple organ failure following battle liver cancer serving 11year sentence incitement subvert state power runup death beijing faced mounting international criticism letting wife travel treatment abroad wished government held two briefings saturday provided photos funeral sea burial latest moves propaganda campaign seemingly aimed countering criticism beijing failed handle lius deterioration dying wishes humanitarian way video lius hospital treatment released website shenyangs judicial bureau friday appeared aimed objective activists friends family said sea burial appeared beijings way removing every last physical trace liu also removes need landbased grave supporters would able pay respects governments thinking way destroy body remove traces dissident family friend hu jia said phone hes nobel peace prize laureate died suppressed authorities hu said authorities worried grave would focal point publics actions memorialize could easily turn protests activist filmmaker friend zeng jinyan said sea burial would deter supporters commemorating lius life liu xiaobo everywhere zeng said twothirds earths surface covered sea foresee future activists ordinary people go sea memorialize liu xiaobo advertisement hong kong thousands lius supporters activists attended candlelight vigil saturday mourn death supporters paid respects observing minute silence marching streets hong kong holding lit candles lius wife family members closely guarded authorities remain largely contact outside world even death governments around world urged china free wife liu xia strict house arrest lived years even though convicted crime government handout photos showed liu xia wore dark sunglasses comforted brother funeral parlor stood row lius older younger siblings wives lius body lay open casket center room surrounded arrangement potted white flowers black banner strung wall read mr liu xiaobos funeral white chinese characters positioned framed picture liu press release issued government said ceremony held 630 music mozarts requiem body cremated shortly afterward government also said lius friends attended ceremony claim disputed people long close liu handout images none among group people standing casket identifiable lius friends zeng said zeng said among liu familys friends traveled shenyang prevented authorities seeing liu final moments want closer see touch even possible give liu xia hug thats said english zeng said shameful government said lius friends attended funeral disgusting said another lius friends dissident writer mo zhixu said thought wellbuilt young men buzz cuts handout photos resembled security agents kept track lius wife big performance said regime long acting without humanity thats denied even minute freedom even death mo said briefing shenyang spokesman citys information office said authorities looking liu xias interests insisted free far know liu xia freedom lost relative deep sorrow spokesman zhang qingyang said liu xiaobos death let liu xia tend affairs try keep away external interference liu second nobel peace prize winner die police custody fact pointed human rights groups indication chinese communist partys increasingly hard line critics first carl von ossietzky died tuberculosis germany 1938 serving sentence opposing adolf hitlers nazi regime liu rose prominence 1989 prodemocracy protests centered beijings tiananmen square sentenced 11 years prison 2009 coauthoring charter 08 document called end oneparty rule china prison awarded nobel 2010 beijing condemned affront political legal systems little mention liu chinas heavily censored state media social networking platforms one notable exception newspaper published communist party said editorial west deifying liu man paper described criminal paranoid naive arrogant lius memorial tablet find place chinas cultural temple global times said editorial saturday deification liu west eventually overshadowed chinas denial ___ wong reported beijing ap video journalist johnson lai contributed report hong kong
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<p>LIGHTNING DOES STRIKE TWICE: The decision by Albuquerque Public Schools to cancel two games on Thursday night brings up some interesting points.</p>
<p>The game at Milne Stadium between La Cueva and Valley and the one at Wilson Stadium between Manzano and Cibola both had about a minute to go before halftime.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" />Lightning in the area necessitated a delay – the second of the night, as both started late because of inclement weather – around 9:15 p.m.</p>
<p>At roughly 9:30, APS officials sent everyone home, and both games were canceled without a winner.</p>
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<p>There is blame to go around here. APS, from my chair, was dead wrong in not waiting out this second delay.</p>
<p>These games were both so close to being official – by making it to halftime – that APS really should have showed some patience and given it a few more minutes before pulling the plug. They owed it to the teams, especially the two that were ahead – Manzano and La Cueva.</p>
<p>If APS officials had simply waited until 9:45, even 10 p.m., when the weather had cleared out, they could have gotten in the final minute of the half and made sure that these games counted.</p>
<p>If it had demonstrated more patience, then APS could have said, without argument from anyone, that it made every good-faith effort to complete two quarters. (By the way, it wouldn’t have made a lick of difference if these games ended at 10 p.m., or even a few minutes after. Even on a school night. That’s close to when everyone leaves the stadium on a normal weather night, anyway.)</p>
<p>Having said that, both leading schools were somewhat complicit, as well. Manzano and La Cueva had comfortable leads. And even when the weather was clearly dicey, both teams continued to throw the ball late in the half when they didn’t have to. This led to some incomplete passes and unnecessary clock stoppages. The lightning caught up to them and burned them, so to speak, leaving both teams unhappy and unfulfilled.</p>
<p>Had both simply just kept the ball on the ground, the clock would have reached halftime and both would have been official.</p>
<p>It should be noted that it is extremely rare for lightning to impact games in Albuquerque this late into September.</p>
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<p>Both La Cueva and Eldorado had road games impacted in recent years. The Bears trailed Clovis 8-7 after three quarters in 2008 at Leon Williams Stadium, but officials called that game after a second lightning delay and the fourth quarter was never played.</p>
<p>In 2012, 45 minutes into a game at the Field of Dreams with Las Cruces, Eldorado and the Bulldawgs were canceled early in the second quarter and that game was never made up.</p>
<p>As for this case, there is another issue: will the loss of a game harm Manzano or La Cueva down the road? Conceivably, but unlikely.</p>
<p>If either one of these teams wins out, it has a strong chance at earning a first-week bye in the playoffs as the District 2-6A champion. That is far from a guarantee; there are a few schools in that mix for a top-four seed, like Rio Rancho and Cleveland, Mayfield and Las Cruces, and of course Eldorado.</p>
<p>Manzano missing out on a certain win over Cibola would only harm the Monarchs if the Cougars surged in the second half and finished either first or second in their district. Same with La Cueva against Valley. If the Vikings win their district, that could hurt the Bears since a head-to-head win over a district champion – or district runner-up, for that matter – are part of the selection criteria for the playoffs.</p>
<p>If neither Cibola nor Valley make much noise in the second half of the season, then the Monarchs and Bears shouldn’t feel any residual pain, because those wins won’t have been integral in applying playoff seeds, anyway.</p>
<p>FIREWORKS SHOW: Probably, I’ve covered close to 1,000 high school football games in my career, but never have I witnessed a quarterback destroy a defense the way Eldorado’s Zach Gentry did Friday.</p>
<p>Gentry combined, by my count, for 547 yards – 286 rushing, 261 through the air – in a 50-49 double-OT win over Mayfield.</p>
<p>Gentry had 98 combined yards at halftime.</p>
<p>Incidentally, this game featured 1,002 yards of total offense. Eldorado gained nearly 500 yards in the second half alone.</p>
<p>MAYFIELD-ELDORADO, PART II: One of the most bizarre, and yet crucial plays, of Friday’s game, occurred when Trojans’ QB Kavika Johnson inexplicably ran backwards to incur a 15-yard sack in the end zone. That fourth-quarter safety was enormous for Eldorado in its comeback.</p>
<p>Johnson was simply trying to make a play, but it backfired in spectacular fashion.</p>
<p>WINNING IN STYLE: Take it from someone who knows – you learn far more about yourself in times of adversity than you do in times of prosperity.</p>
<p>About 49 months after last winning a game, Albuquerque High beat Highland on Friday, 47-8, to end that nasty 43-game losing streak. It was a great night for that program, and everyone in the prep football community feels joy for the Bulldogs. They’ve earned this celebration, and this praise.</p>
<p>The players at AHS who have been a part of this streak should understand that those tough times can, and will, make them stronger when they grow into men.</p>
<p>RECORD BREAKER: The Las Cruces Sun-News reported that Las Cruces High receiver Aeneas Reynolds caught 16 passes Friday in a 49-47 loss to Centennial. If so, that is a state record. The previous single-game record, as it appears on <a href="http://nmact.org" type="external">nmact.org</a>, is 14 by Taos’ Max Suazo in 2011.</p>
<p>The Sun-News amended Reynolds’ number Saturday to 18 catches.</p>
<p>As I have noted many times, the state record list reflects the marks that have been submitted. Countless top performances in various categories have likely gone unreported through the years.</p>
<p>BITS AND PIECES: It has been almost three years, since the end of the 2011 season, since Las Cruces last dropped consecutive games, but the injury-ravaged Bulldawgs are reeling a bit after setbacks to Rio Rancho and then Friday. … Rio Rancho QB Easton Bruere had another stellar night, with three more touchdown passes on Friday at Clovis. That gives him 20 TDs through five games, and still without an interception. <a href="" type="internal" /></p>
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lightning strike twice decision albuquerque public schools cancel two games thursday night brings interesting points game milne stadium la cueva valley one wilson stadium manzano cibola minute go halftime lightning area necessitated delay second night started late inclement weather around 915 pm roughly 930 aps officials sent everyone home games canceled without winner advertisement blame go around aps chair dead wrong waiting second delay games close official making halftime aps really showed patience given minutes pulling plug owed teams especially two ahead manzano la cueva aps officials simply waited 945 even 10 pm weather cleared could gotten final minute half made sure games counted demonstrated patience aps could said without argument anyone made every goodfaith effort complete two quarters way wouldnt made lick difference games ended 10 pm even minutes even school night thats close everyone leaves stadium normal weather night anyway said leading schools somewhat complicit well manzano la cueva comfortable leads even weather clearly dicey teams continued throw ball late half didnt led incomplete passes unnecessary clock stoppages lightning caught burned speak leaving teams unhappy unfulfilled simply kept ball ground clock would reached halftime would official noted extremely rare lightning impact games albuquerque late september advertisement la cueva eldorado road games impacted recent years bears trailed clovis 87 three quarters 2008 leon williams stadium officials called game second lightning delay fourth quarter never played 2012 45 minutes game field dreams las cruces eldorado bulldawgs canceled early second quarter game never made case another issue loss game harm manzano la cueva road conceivably unlikely either one teams wins strong chance earning firstweek bye playoffs district 26a champion far guarantee schools mix topfour seed like rio rancho cleveland mayfield las cruces course eldorado manzano missing certain win cibola would harm monarchs cougars surged second half finished either first second district la cueva valley vikings win district could hurt bears since headtohead win district champion district runnerup matter part selection criteria playoffs neither cibola valley make much noise second half season monarchs bears shouldnt feel residual pain wins wont integral applying playoff seeds anyway fireworks show probably ive covered close 1000 high school football games career never witnessed quarterback destroy defense way eldorados zach gentry friday gentry combined count 547 yards 286 rushing 261 air 5049 doubleot win mayfield gentry 98 combined yards halftime incidentally game featured 1002 yards total offense eldorado gained nearly 500 yards second half alone mayfieldeldorado part ii one bizarre yet crucial plays fridays game occurred trojans qb kavika johnson inexplicably ran backwards incur 15yard sack end zone fourthquarter safety enormous eldorado comeback johnson simply trying make play backfired spectacular fashion winning style take someone knows learn far times adversity times prosperity 49 months last winning game albuquerque high beat highland friday 478 end nasty 43game losing streak great night program everyone prep football community feels joy bulldogs theyve earned celebration praise players ahs part streak understand tough times make stronger grow men record breaker las cruces sunnews reported las cruces high receiver aeneas reynolds caught 16 passes friday 4947 loss centennial state record previous singlegame record appears nmactorg 14 taos max suazo 2011 sunnews amended reynolds number saturday 18 catches noted many times state record list reflects marks submitted countless top performances various categories likely gone unreported years bits pieces almost three years since end 2011 season since las cruces last dropped consecutive games injuryravaged bulldawgs reeling bit setbacks rio rancho friday rio rancho qb easton bruere another stellar night three touchdown passes friday clovis gives 20 tds five games still without interception
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<p>SEATTLE — A yearlong Associated Press analysis found more than a dozen firearms sold by law enforcement agencies in Washington state since 2010 later became evidence in new criminal investigations.</p>
<p>Identifying guns sold by law enforcement and matching them to new crimes required extensive research and dozens of public records requests to individual agencies.</p>
<p>Using those records, the AP created a database of almost 6,000 firearms sold by law enforcement since 2010. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives declined to release tracking information on guns associated with crimes, so the AP collected that information from individual agencies and compared it with its own database to find firearms with matching make, model, caliber and serial numbers.</p>
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<p>Below are details about guns sold by law enforcement that were later picked up at crime scenes:</p>
<p>BABY SHOT IN CAR SEAT</p>
<p>The Washington State Patrol traded a batch of crime guns with a firearms dealer in June 2010. The batch included a Lorcin L380 semi-automatic pistol. In April 2015, a gang member shot at a car carrying a couple and their year-old daughter. One of the bullets hit the child in the head and killed her. While searching a home frequented by the suspected shooter and many other gang members, the Kent Police Department found a Lorcin L380 semi-automatic pistol — the gun sold by the State Patrol.</p>
<p>TEXT THREATS</p>
<p>The Pierce County Sheriff’s Office in April 2014 sold a list of guns at auction that included a Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun. In October 2016, Jaylen Bolar sent text messages to his mother, threatening to kill her and others. Angela Almo contacted a behavioral health center instead of the police because she knew her son had firearms, including a Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun and she feared he’d be killed in a standoff with authorities.</p>
<p>When the Tacoma police became involved, he denied it, but his aunt confirmed that she, too, had received threats. Robin Olson showed an officer her phone, which contained a message from Bolar asking his uncle to kill him because he was tired of living.</p>
<p>Bolar also threatened to kill a woman who used to be his boss. He was taken into custody, and a search of his home found two firearms in his bedroom. One was the Mossberg shotgun sold by the sheriff’s office.</p>
<p>JUVENILES IN STOLEN CAR</p>
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<p>The Aberdeen Police Department sold a Lorcin Model L380 pistol in February 2011. In May 2016, the Kent Police Department located a stolen vehicle parked at the Benson Village Apartments and found a gun under the seat — the Lorcin Model L380 pistol sold by Aberdeen police. The three juveniles who stole the car were convicted felons.</p>
<p>DRUNKEN FELON</p>
<p>The Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office sold a Hi Point 9mm pistol in March 2014. In October 2015, the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office responded to a 911 call from a woman who said she heard what she thought was a gunshot and went outside to find her daughter’s intoxicated boyfriend passed out on the front porch. When deputies arrived, they found a handgun, the Hi Point 9 mm pistol, on the ground next to the man. It was the gun sold by the Kitsap sheriff’s office. A search found that the man was a convicted felon who wasn’t permitted to have a gun. The deputy put the man in handcuffs and called for medical help.</p>
<p>PROHIBITED FROM HAVING GUN</p>
<p>The Washington State Patrol traded a Lorcin L380 semi-automatic pistol with a firearms dealer in June 2010. In May 2015, the Kent Police Department was investigating a 911 call and encountered four people outside the house. One of the men was prohibited from having a gun, but they found he was carrying a handgun, the Lorcin L380 semi-automatic pistol sold by the State Patrol. The gun had been reported stolen, and he was arrested.</p>
<p>DRUG HOUSE ASSAULT</p>
<p>The Aberdeen Police Department traded a JC Higgins .22-caliber rifle with a firearms dealer in February 2011. In April 2015, the Yakima Police Department responded to a domestic violence assault involving a JC Higgins .22-caliber rifle with the same serial number. The dispute involved an elderly man who had handled his wife roughly and threatened her sister. The man was charged, and police took his firearm. In October 2015, Kent police searched a suspected drug house and arrested several people wanted on felony warrants. They found a .22 caliber rifle — the JC Higgins rifle sold by the Aberdeen police.</p>
<p>FACEBOOK POSTS ABOUT KILLING</p>
<p>The Thurston County Narcotics Task Force sold a Smith &amp; Wesson pistol in August 2012. In October 2013, the Tacoma Police went to the University of Washington, Tacoma to investigate a report of a student who was posting photos of a gun on Facebook and said he had “vivid, colorful dreams of shooting and killing lots of people last night.” Police found in his backpack a Smith and Wesson pistol, the one sold by the narcotics task force.</p>
<p>COCAINE PARTY FAVORS</p>
<p>The Bonney Lake Police Department in March 2011 traded a Davis Industries .380-caliber handgun with a firearms dealer who sold it to the public. In February 2012, Kent police stopped a man for an expired registration and discovered baggies of cocaine in his car. He said they were party favors. They also found his concealed handgun, the firearm sold by the police.</p>
<p>THREATS TO KILL</p>
<p>Longview Police Department sold a Davis Industries.22 caliber pistol in August 2016. The Thurston County Sheriff’s Office responded to a 911 call in April 2017 from a man who said his father headed to a house with a gun and planned to threaten the occupants. Jesse Brown threatened to kill the men who lived there and was arrested. Officers confiscated his Davis Industries .22 caliber pistol — the one sold by Longview police — and 15 other firearms.</p>
<p>DRUNKEN FATHER</p>
<p>The Thurston County Sheriff’s Office sold a Mossberg, Model 590, 12-gauge shotgun in December 2014. In March 2016, the Tacoma police responded to a call by a 12-year-old girl who said she and her sister fled their home because their father was drunk and was threatening to shoot his girlfriend and threatening to beat up one of the girls because he couldn’t find his gun. The police later found a Mossberg, Model 590, 12-gauge shotgun — the gun sold by the Sheriff’s Office — in the bathtub.</p>
<p>MAN’S SUICIDE</p>
<p>The Washington State Patrol traded a batch of guns to a firearms vendor in June 2010 that included a Smith and Wesson .9mm handgun. In September 2014, the Yakima Police Department responded to a report of a suicidal man with a gun. They arrived to find 24-year-old Kyle Juhl with a gunshot wound to the head. He used a Smith and Wesson .9mm handgun, the one sold by the State Patrol.</p>
<p>MENTAL HEALTH EMERGENCY</p>
<p>The Thurston County Narcotics Task Force sold a Springfield Armory .40-caliber pistol in December 2013. In February 2014, the Seattle Police Department helped take firearms from a man who was having a mental health emergency and was at the Involuntary Treatment Act court. One of the guns was the Springfield Armory .40-caliber pistol sold by the task force.</p>
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seattle yearlong associated press analysis found dozen firearms sold law enforcement agencies washington state since 2010 later became evidence new criminal investigations identifying guns sold law enforcement matching new crimes required extensive research dozens public records requests individual agencies using records ap created database almost 6000 firearms sold law enforcement since 2010 bureau alcohol tobacco firearms explosives declined release tracking information guns associated crimes ap collected information individual agencies compared database find firearms matching make model caliber serial numbers advertisement details guns sold law enforcement later picked crime scenes baby shot car seat washington state patrol traded batch crime guns firearms dealer june 2010 batch included lorcin l380 semiautomatic pistol april 2015 gang member shot car carrying couple yearold daughter one bullets hit child head killed searching home frequented suspected shooter many gang members kent police department found lorcin l380 semiautomatic pistol gun sold state patrol text threats pierce county sheriffs office april 2014 sold list guns auction included mossberg 12gauge shotgun october 2016 jaylen bolar sent text messages mother threatening kill others angela almo contacted behavioral health center instead police knew son firearms including mossberg 12gauge shotgun feared hed killed standoff authorities tacoma police became involved denied aunt confirmed received threats robin olson showed officer phone contained message bolar asking uncle kill tired living bolar also threatened kill woman used boss taken custody search home found two firearms bedroom one mossberg shotgun sold sheriffs office juveniles stolen car advertisement aberdeen police department sold lorcin model l380 pistol february 2011 may 2016 kent police department located stolen vehicle parked benson village apartments found gun seat lorcin model l380 pistol sold aberdeen police three juveniles stole car convicted felons drunken felon kitsap county sheriffs office sold hi point 9mm pistol march 2014 october 2015 snohomish county sheriffs office responded 911 call woman said heard thought gunshot went outside find daughters intoxicated boyfriend passed front porch deputies arrived found handgun hi point 9 mm pistol ground next man gun sold kitsap sheriffs office search found man convicted felon wasnt permitted gun deputy put man handcuffs called medical help prohibited gun washington state patrol traded lorcin l380 semiautomatic pistol firearms dealer june 2010 may 2015 kent police department investigating 911 call encountered four people outside house one men prohibited gun found carrying handgun lorcin l380 semiautomatic pistol sold state patrol gun reported stolen arrested drug house assault aberdeen police department traded jc higgins 22caliber rifle firearms dealer february 2011 april 2015 yakima police department responded domestic violence assault involving jc higgins 22caliber rifle serial number dispute involved elderly man handled wife roughly threatened sister man charged police took firearm october 2015 kent police searched suspected drug house arrested several people wanted felony warrants found 22 caliber rifle jc higgins rifle sold aberdeen police facebook posts killing thurston county narcotics task force sold smith amp wesson pistol august 2012 october 2013 tacoma police went university washington tacoma investigate report student posting photos gun facebook said vivid colorful dreams shooting killing lots people last night police found backpack smith wesson pistol one sold narcotics task force cocaine party favors bonney lake police department march 2011 traded davis industries 380caliber handgun firearms dealer sold public february 2012 kent police stopped man expired registration discovered baggies cocaine car said party favors also found concealed handgun firearm sold police threats kill longview police department sold davis industries22 caliber pistol august 2016 thurston county sheriffs office responded 911 call april 2017 man said father headed house gun planned threaten occupants jesse brown threatened kill men lived arrested officers confiscated davis industries 22 caliber pistol one sold longview police 15 firearms drunken father thurston county sheriffs office sold mossberg model 590 12gauge shotgun december 2014 march 2016 tacoma police responded call 12yearold girl said sister fled home father drunk threatening shoot girlfriend threatening beat one girls couldnt find gun police later found mossberg model 590 12gauge shotgun gun sold sheriffs office bathtub mans suicide washington state patrol traded batch guns firearms vendor june 2010 included smith wesson 9mm handgun september 2014 yakima police department responded report suicidal man gun arrived find 24yearold kyle juhl gunshot wound head used smith wesson 9mm handgun one sold state patrol mental health emergency thurston county narcotics task force sold springfield armory 40caliber pistol december 2013 february 2014 seattle police department helped take firearms man mental health emergency involuntary treatment act court one guns springfield armory 40caliber pistol sold task force
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<p>Local and national security companies say they are shoring up their ranks to meet increasing demand from businesses and residents in Albuquerque.</p>
<p>“There is absolutely no doubt that the increase is due to the (rise in) crime,” said David Meurer, CEO of Armed Response Team. “In a nutshell, I can tell you that all (security companies in Albuquerque) are busy. People ask me how business is doing, and I say, ‘It’s good, but for all the wrong reasons.'”</p>
<p>According to an FBI report released in September, Albuquerque had 38,528 reported property crimes in 2016, an increase of 13.3 percent over the previous year. Violent crime spiked by a much larger amount, up 41.8 percent.</p>
<p>David Meurer is CEO of Armed Response Team. He says local and national security companies are facing increased demand from residents and businesses, largely due to the rise in Albuquerque’s crime rate. (Greg Sorber/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>In the meantime, the Albuquerque Police Department has a staffing shortage, employing 800 officers. According to Mayor Richard Berry, the department should staff at least 1,000.</p>
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<p>Meanwhile, the number of security guard licenses active in New Mexico has risen more than four-fold since 2012-13, according to the New Mexico Regulations and Licensing Department. The department estimates more than 50 security companies operate in the state.</p>
<p>Local and national companies operating here such as AKAL, Securitas, International Protective Services and Probus Security say they are expanding in Albuquerque, and new companies like Eagle Force Security have entered the market in the past year.</p>
<p>Aaron Jones, president and founder of International Protective Services, is a retired homicide detective who has worked for a number of celebrities. (Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>According to Aaron Jones, president and founder of International Protective Services, every sector – industrial, retail, office, event and residential – are demanding more security services.</p>
<p>The clients</p>
<p>The bottom line is that businesses around Albuquerque are trying to cope with a very tangible crime problem.</p>
<p>“We feel it’s necessary, almost mandatory, because the crew needs to feel safe at work,” said Larry Rainosek, owner of the Frontier restaurant on Central Avenue. “Back in the old days, we felt we could just call the police and they were our security. But they are overwhelmed now.”</p>
<p>The Frontier employs International Protective Services guards, who are armed. Rainosek said he feels Level Three officers – those licensed to carry firearms in their work – are better equipped to handle situations and that their superior training lowers the risk of liability. He said Level Three security costs more, but in order to do the same job, he might have to hire two Level One guards.</p>
<p>International Protective Services provides security for a variety of sectors. A few of the company’s crew are, from left, Jordan Moenaert, Roman Jimenez, Daniel Magetteri, Aaron Jones and Ruben Barela. (Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>According to John Salazar, president of Probus Security, Level Three guards need to be paid at least $15 an hour and sometimes as much as $19 an hour. By comparison, a Level One guard costs Salazar roughly $10 an hour, depending on experience.</p>
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<p>Frontier has employed security personnel in some form for the last 20 years, but the company hired International Protective Services roughly six years ago when it stopped being a 24-hour-a-day establishment and moved to a 5 a.m.-to-1 a.m. schedule. The hour change was a direct result of crime, Rainosek said.</p>
<p>The Frontier has a drive-by security service during the day and a guard present at all times from 6 p.m. to closing.</p>
<p>Developers and property management companies are also turning to security guards to help revitalize struggling properties.</p>
<p>Daskalos Development, which began revitalizing Four Hills Village Center at Central and Tramway roughly three years ago, quickly realized it would need to hire security personnel if it was going to bring the development back to life.</p>
<p>“When we first purchased (Four Hills Village) three years ago, security was not something that was on our mind,” said managing partner Peggy Daskalos. “But as we started doing construction, we realized we were in need of security.”</p>
<p>She said hiring security was not a reaction to any one incident, but a preventative step and a way of handling concern over the homeless population, which Daskalos said had taken over the center prior to the company’s purchase. The development company brought in two anchor tenants, Sprouts and Icon Cinema, which have separate security services.</p>
<p>Daskalos said the need for security has risen over the last two years. Her company uses security guards at other properties, and in one case, it has installed cameras that are monitored by a security company.</p>
<p>The licensing</p>
<p>In New Mexico, all security guards are required to be licensed.</p>
<p>Those licenses, which fall under the private investigators license, are broken down into three levels: Level One, unarmed guards who are tasked with observing and reporting crime; Level Two, permitted to carry nonlethal devices such as chemical spray and batons; and Level Three, permitted to carry firearms.</p>
<p>According to Regulation and Licensing, overall active license numbers for security guards has increased from 475 in 2013-14 to 2,288 in 2016-17. Level One licenses, which are the easiest to obtain, increased the most, from 273 in 2013-14 to 1,600 in 2016-17.</p>
<p>There is some disagreement among the security providers in Albuquerque about which level of license is most appropriate.</p>
<p>John Salazar, president and CEO of Probus Security, a locally born security service now operating in six states, prefers to use Level One guards. Salazar is a longtime Albuquerque resident who has been in the security guard business since the mid-1980s.</p>
<p>He said he has “definitely increased” his hiring numbers over the last couple of years, but he still hires the same level of guards.</p>
<p>Salazar is cautious with his guards and tells clients to be proactive rather than reactive in preparing their security. He wants his guards to help keep clients safe, but at the same time, he says, he doesn’t want his employees to be in a situation that can be a potential disaster.</p>
<p>Safety isn’t Salazar’s only concern. Liability is also a major issue. In a situation in which shots are fired, said Salazar, any number of things can go wrong.</p>
<p>“You want an armed guard, you better know what you are playing with. And do you really need an armed guard? … You can end up with a real disaster. You got a problem, call APD. There isn’t a thing that APD can’t handle,” Salazar said.</p>
<p>Another local company, International Protective Services, is on the other end of the spectrum. The company hires almost exclusively Level Three armed guards.</p>
<p>Jones believes that in order to help protect clients, they need someone who can handle any problem.</p>
<p>Jones’ goal is to help the police do their job by supplementing local law enforcement. For Jones, a retired homicide detective who looks every bit the hardened lawman, security is about preparedness, not just presence.</p>
<p>“I use mostly Level Three (guards) because what’s the point of having a guard if he can’t do anything about a situation except watch it happen? We want to assist the APD and the sheriffs as much as we can,” said Jones.</p>
<p>Helping APD</p>
<p>Other companies have an array license levels.</p>
<p>Securitas, which operates in 53 countries as one of the largest security providers in the world, employs mostly Level One guards but has the personnel available to meet a variety of needs in almost any situation. According to a Securitas spokesperson, the company has seen a large “new user uptick over the last few years. There are some population changes, but it all comes back to a rise in crime.”</p>
<p>According to Securitas, the company has grown its presence in Albuquerque by one-third over the last several years.</p>
<p>The company said it wants to help supplement the police department by responding to nonviolent situations such as break-ins and believes that a private security force can make a big difference where police staff shortages are concerned.</p>
<p>Armed Response Team also views supplementing the police department as the company’s main function. Like many of the companies using Level Three guards, it hires retired police officers and ex-military personnel almost exclusively.</p>
<p>Armed Response Team provides clients with alarm systems and responds to calls and alarm signals. The idea, according to Meurer, is to relieve the APD of the need to respond to alarm calls that are most often false. However, Meurer said the company has seen a sharp rise in the percentage of alarms in Albuquerque that turn out to be legitimate.</p>
<p>“The percentages have really flipped in the last couple of years. And it’s not because we are (ten times) the size. We are encountering more and more actual intrusions,” he said.</p>
<p />
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local national security companies say shoring ranks meet increasing demand businesses residents albuquerque absolutely doubt increase due rise crime said david meurer ceo armed response team nutshell tell security companies albuquerque busy people ask business say good wrong reasons according fbi report released september albuquerque 38528 reported property crimes 2016 increase 133 percent previous year violent crime spiked much larger amount 418 percent david meurer ceo armed response team says local national security companies facing increased demand residents businesses largely due rise albuquerques crime rate greg sorberalbuquerque journal meantime albuquerque police department staffing shortage employing 800 officers according mayor richard berry department staff least 1000 advertisement meanwhile number security guard licenses active new mexico risen fourfold since 201213 according new mexico regulations licensing department department estimates 50 security companies operate state local national companies operating akal securitas international protective services probus security say expanding albuquerque new companies like eagle force security entered market past year aaron jones president founder international protective services retired homicide detective worked number celebrities roberto e rosalesalbuquerque journal according aaron jones president founder international protective services every sector industrial retail office event residential demanding security services clients bottom line businesses around albuquerque trying cope tangible crime problem feel necessary almost mandatory crew needs feel safe work said larry rainosek owner frontier restaurant central avenue back old days felt could call police security overwhelmed frontier employs international protective services guards armed rainosek said feels level three officers licensed carry firearms work better equipped handle situations superior training lowers risk liability said level three security costs order job might hire two level one guards international protective services provides security variety sectors companys crew left jordan moenaert roman jimenez daniel magetteri aaron jones ruben barela roberto e rosalesalbuquerque journal according john salazar president probus security level three guards need paid least 15 hour sometimes much 19 hour comparison level one guard costs salazar roughly 10 hour depending experience advertisement frontier employed security personnel form last 20 years company hired international protective services roughly six years ago stopped 24houraday establishment moved 5 amto1 schedule hour change direct result crime rainosek said frontier driveby security service day guard present times 6 pm closing developers property management companies also turning security guards help revitalize struggling properties daskalos development began revitalizing four hills village center central tramway roughly three years ago quickly realized would need hire security personnel going bring development back life first purchased four hills village three years ago security something mind said managing partner peggy daskalos started construction realized need security said hiring security reaction one incident preventative step way handling concern homeless population daskalos said taken center prior companys purchase development company brought two anchor tenants sprouts icon cinema separate security services daskalos said need security risen last two years company uses security guards properties one case installed cameras monitored security company licensing new mexico security guards required licensed licenses fall private investigators license broken three levels level one unarmed guards tasked observing reporting crime level two permitted carry nonlethal devices chemical spray batons level three permitted carry firearms according regulation licensing overall active license numbers security guards increased 475 201314 2288 201617 level one licenses easiest obtain increased 273 201314 1600 201617 disagreement among security providers albuquerque level license appropriate john salazar president ceo probus security locally born security service operating six states prefers use level one guards salazar longtime albuquerque resident security guard business since mid1980s said definitely increased hiring numbers last couple years still hires level guards salazar cautious guards tells clients proactive rather reactive preparing security wants guards help keep clients safe time says doesnt want employees situation potential disaster safety isnt salazars concern liability also major issue situation shots fired said salazar number things go wrong want armed guard better know playing really need armed guard end real disaster got problem call apd isnt thing apd cant handle salazar said another local company international protective services end spectrum company hires almost exclusively level three armed guards jones believes order help protect clients need someone handle problem jones goal help police job supplementing local law enforcement jones retired homicide detective looks every bit hardened lawman security preparedness presence use mostly level three guards whats point guard cant anything situation except watch happen want assist apd sheriffs much said jones helping apd companies array license levels securitas operates 53 countries one largest security providers world employs mostly level one guards personnel available meet variety needs almost situation according securitas spokesperson company seen large new user uptick last years population changes comes back rise crime according securitas company grown presence albuquerque onethird last several years company said wants help supplement police department responding nonviolent situations breakins believes private security force make big difference police staff shortages concerned armed response team also views supplementing police department companys main function like many companies using level three guards hires retired police officers exmilitary personnel almost exclusively armed response team provides clients alarm systems responds calls alarm signals idea according meurer relieve apd need respond alarm calls often false however meurer said company seen sharp rise percentage alarms albuquerque turn legitimate percentages really flipped last couple years ten times size encountering actual intrusions said
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<p>VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — Lithuania's Defense Ministry says an investigation was launched Friday after hackers posted a bogus story on the website of a television news station.</p>
<p>Television station TV3 said it was hacked late Thursday and shortly after that a bogus story appeared on the channel's website accusing Defense Minister Raimundas Karoblis of sexually harassing a male radio journalist.</p>
<p>Tensions have been running high between Russia and Lithuania, which like other Baltic nations was long subject to Moscow's rule. Cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns have become more frequent in the last few years.</p>
<p>Defense Vice Minister Edvinas Kerza told reporters the national cybersecurity center is investigating the case and the internet protocol address (IP) of the hacker had been traced to St. Petersburg in Russia.</p>
<p>Attributing hacks is often difficult and the AP could not immediately corroborate the claim.</p>
<p>Russian officials didn't immediately comment on the reports of possible hacking in Lithuania but the government routinely denies ordering hackers to strike at Kremlin opponents.</p>
<p>The editor of the website also blamed Russian hackers.</p>
<p>"It is not the first Russian hacker attack on our website. They began when Russian government institutions demanded we delete two articles about Vladimir Putin. I refused and soon after we received an email from Russian institutions, informing us our site was blocked in that country. Cyberattacks followed shortly after that," editor Arturas Anuzis told The Associated Press.</p>
<p>Most of the letters were sent from the Russian Ministry of Communications and Mass Media, Anuzis said.</p>
<p>In a separate disinformation campaign this week, the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry was forced to deny false but widely published reports that Lithuania had imposed economic sanctions on Mongolia.</p>
<p>"We face a pretty huge and long-lasting disinformation campaign against our society. The power of propaganda is much harder to quantify than tanks or planes, but it was clearly aimed at a very huge variety of targets," said Tomas Ceponis, an analyst for the Lithuanian military.</p>
<p>TV3 and its website have been repeatedly targeted by hackers who have compromised the group's networks half dozen times. Government, parliament and other institutions' websites in Lithuania have seen several major cyberattacks every year.</p>
<p>Defense Minister Karoblis Facebook account was hacked and erased last year, but investigators were not able to prove a direct link to Russian hackers.</p>
<p>Lithuania regularly imposes three-month bans on Russia's TV channels for "incitement to war, discord and hatred."</p>
<p>Lithuanian citizens are actively fighting back, working to shut down people disseminating bogus news stories by reporting them to social media sites such as Facebook. Thousands of these activists saw their personal details exposed on a Russian website recently and some were openly threatened, according to Ricardas Savykynas, who leads a civic group.</p>
<p>VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — Lithuania's Defense Ministry says an investigation was launched Friday after hackers posted a bogus story on the website of a television news station.</p>
<p>Television station TV3 said it was hacked late Thursday and shortly after that a bogus story appeared on the channel's website accusing Defense Minister Raimundas Karoblis of sexually harassing a male radio journalist.</p>
<p>Tensions have been running high between Russia and Lithuania, which like other Baltic nations was long subject to Moscow's rule. Cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns have become more frequent in the last few years.</p>
<p>Defense Vice Minister Edvinas Kerza told reporters the national cybersecurity center is investigating the case and the internet protocol address (IP) of the hacker had been traced to St. Petersburg in Russia.</p>
<p>Attributing hacks is often difficult and the AP could not immediately corroborate the claim.</p>
<p>Russian officials didn't immediately comment on the reports of possible hacking in Lithuania but the government routinely denies ordering hackers to strike at Kremlin opponents.</p>
<p>The editor of the website also blamed Russian hackers.</p>
<p>"It is not the first Russian hacker attack on our website. They began when Russian government institutions demanded we delete two articles about Vladimir Putin. I refused and soon after we received an email from Russian institutions, informing us our site was blocked in that country. Cyberattacks followed shortly after that," editor Arturas Anuzis told The Associated Press.</p>
<p>Most of the letters were sent from the Russian Ministry of Communications and Mass Media, Anuzis said.</p>
<p>In a separate disinformation campaign this week, the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry was forced to deny false but widely published reports that Lithuania had imposed economic sanctions on Mongolia.</p>
<p>"We face a pretty huge and long-lasting disinformation campaign against our society. The power of propaganda is much harder to quantify than tanks or planes, but it was clearly aimed at a very huge variety of targets," said Tomas Ceponis, an analyst for the Lithuanian military.</p>
<p>TV3 and its website have been repeatedly targeted by hackers who have compromised the group's networks half dozen times. Government, parliament and other institutions' websites in Lithuania have seen several major cyberattacks every year.</p>
<p>Defense Minister Karoblis Facebook account was hacked and erased last year, but investigators were not able to prove a direct link to Russian hackers.</p>
<p>Lithuania regularly imposes three-month bans on Russia's TV channels for "incitement to war, discord and hatred."</p>
<p>Lithuanian citizens are actively fighting back, working to shut down people disseminating bogus news stories by reporting them to social media sites such as Facebook. Thousands of these activists saw their personal details exposed on a Russian website recently and some were openly threatened, according to Ricardas Savykynas, who leads a civic group.</p>
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vilnius lithuania ap lithuanias defense ministry says investigation launched friday hackers posted bogus story website television news station television station tv3 said hacked late thursday shortly bogus story appeared channels website accusing defense minister raimundas karoblis sexually harassing male radio journalist tensions running high russia lithuania like baltic nations long subject moscows rule cyberattacks disinformation campaigns become frequent last years defense vice minister edvinas kerza told reporters national cybersecurity center investigating case internet protocol address ip hacker traced st petersburg russia attributing hacks often difficult ap could immediately corroborate claim russian officials didnt immediately comment reports possible hacking lithuania government routinely denies ordering hackers strike kremlin opponents editor website also blamed russian hackers first russian hacker attack website began russian government institutions demanded delete two articles vladimir putin refused soon received email russian institutions informing us site blocked country cyberattacks followed shortly editor arturas anuzis told associated press letters sent russian ministry communications mass media anuzis said separate disinformation campaign week lithuanian foreign ministry forced deny false widely published reports lithuania imposed economic sanctions mongolia face pretty huge longlasting disinformation campaign society power propaganda much harder quantify tanks planes clearly aimed huge variety targets said tomas ceponis analyst lithuanian military tv3 website repeatedly targeted hackers compromised groups networks half dozen times government parliament institutions websites lithuania seen several major cyberattacks every year defense minister karoblis facebook account hacked erased last year investigators able prove direct link russian hackers lithuania regularly imposes threemonth bans russias tv channels incitement war discord hatred lithuanian citizens actively fighting back working shut people disseminating bogus news stories reporting social media sites facebook thousands activists saw personal details exposed russian website recently openly threatened according ricardas savykynas leads civic group vilnius lithuania ap lithuanias defense ministry says investigation launched friday hackers posted bogus story website television news station television station tv3 said hacked late thursday shortly bogus story appeared channels website accusing defense minister raimundas karoblis sexually harassing male radio journalist tensions running high russia lithuania like baltic nations long subject moscows rule cyberattacks disinformation campaigns become frequent last years defense vice minister edvinas kerza told reporters national cybersecurity center investigating case internet protocol address ip hacker traced st petersburg russia attributing hacks often difficult ap could immediately corroborate claim russian officials didnt immediately comment reports possible hacking lithuania government routinely denies ordering hackers strike kremlin opponents editor website also blamed russian hackers first russian hacker attack website began russian government institutions demanded delete two articles vladimir putin refused soon received email russian institutions informing us site blocked country cyberattacks followed shortly editor arturas anuzis told associated press letters sent russian ministry communications mass media anuzis said separate disinformation campaign week lithuanian foreign ministry forced deny false widely published reports lithuania imposed economic sanctions mongolia face pretty huge longlasting disinformation campaign society power propaganda much harder quantify tanks planes clearly aimed huge variety targets said tomas ceponis analyst lithuanian military tv3 website repeatedly targeted hackers compromised groups networks half dozen times government parliament institutions websites lithuania seen several major cyberattacks every year defense minister karoblis facebook account hacked erased last year investigators able prove direct link russian hackers lithuania regularly imposes threemonth bans russias tv channels incitement war discord hatred lithuanian citizens actively fighting back working shut people disseminating bogus news stories reporting social media sites facebook thousands activists saw personal details exposed russian website recently openly threatened according ricardas savykynas leads civic group
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<p />
<p>The Obama administration has moved to restrict access to offshore oil drilling leases in the Atlantic, as well as off Alaska. Commercial oil production has never happened off the East Coast — and environmentalists consider that a major victory during Obama’s tenure.</p>
<p>But President-elect Trump has said that he intends to use all available fuel reserves for energy self-sufficiency — and that it’s time to be opening up offshore drilling.</p>
<p>While supporters say that expanded oil exploration is poised to become one of Trump’s signature accomplishments, environmentalists and other opponents see oil drilling policy as a looming conflict. Jacqueline Savitz, vice president of the ocean conservationist group Oceana, said she fears a return to the hard-fought struggles environmentalists faced with the previous Republican administration.</p>
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<p>“We’re hoping we’re not about to fall back into the ‘drill, baby, drill’ way of thinking,” she said. “Offshore drilling in the Atlantic is not a good investment.”</p>
<p>The American Petroleum Institute, a key voice of the oil and gas industries, has long said more aggressive drilling is needed for the U.S. to remain a world leader in energy production. The group accused Obama in May of lacking a long-term “vision” for fossil fuels extraction; its leaders say that Trump’s presidency represents a new dawn and that they intend to hold him to his word about fossil fuels.</p>
<p>“As a candidate, President-elect Trump pledged to pursue an energy approach that would include opening federal lands for oil and gas production including offshore areas,” said institute spokesman Michael Tadeo.</p>
<p>Early signs suggest Trump will make good on his plans for more aggressive drilling.</p>
<p>One of his favorites to lead the Environmental Protection Agency is Myron Ebell, director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and a prominent rejecter of the scientific consensus on climate change. He is a longtime ally of the petroleum industry and a critic of the agency he would lead.</p>
<p>Trump’s favorites for energy secretary include Oklahoma oil billionaire Harold Hamm and drilling proponent Rep. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota.</p>
<p>The Trump transition team did not respond to requests for comment. Trump has said that it’s “incredible that we’re going slow on drilling,” and that he supports coastal drilling when it “can be done responsibly.”</p>
<p>Trump’s stance threatens to put a political promise ahead of science, said Cascade Sorte, a professor of biology with a focus on marine systems at the University of California, Irvine.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“I’m concerned there might not be the data that we need about what we’re destroying before we destroy it,” she said.</p>
<p>The Gulf of Mexico is the main offshore area that the U.S. plumbs for oil and gas. But in March 2010, Obama’s administration released a report that said the Gulf alone can’t be expected to meet increasing energy demands. The report included the possibility of opening up offshore Virginia for oil and gas exploration, and the administration signaled leases in the middle and southern East Coast were possible.</p>
<p>The plan got immediate pushback from environmental groups, who feared it would damage ecosystems. A month later, the Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico put a hold on plans for expanding drilling.</p>
<p>Environmentalists say any attempt to reverse Obama’s restrictions on Atlantic and Alaskan drilling would galvanize resistance, as happened after the Gulf spill — and before that, following the 1969 Santa Barbara, California, oil spill and the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil tanker disaster in Alaska.</p>
<p>“If President-elect Trump tries to undo any of those measures, he will be rejecting both science and the people and he will meet opposition,” said Greenpeace spokesman Perry Wheeler.</p>
<p>Democratic senators on both coasts have called for Obama to block any possibility of Pacific or Atlantic drilling before Trump takes office.</p>
<p>Many Alaska officials strongly back opening the Beaufort and Chukchi seas in the U.S. portion of the Arctic Ocean to drilling. But Obama’s administration last week announced a five-year offshore drilling plan that blocks the sale of new oil and gas drilling rights there.</p>
<p>The administration also has announced the Atlantic would not be included in the next round of offshore oil leases, available from 2017 to 2022. Connie Gillette, who oversees leases for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, said that for now, the soonest any leases could be offered is 2023 to 2028.</p>
<p>Among those opposed to Atlantic drilling is Rep. Mark Sanford, a South Carolina Republican, who says his opposition dovetails with the conservative value of local control, including of natural resources. He said he is waiting for Trump to settle in before engaging him on the issue.</p>
<p>Many coastal business owners and residents have taken stands against Atlantic drilling, saying it would endanger key industries, such as commercial fishing and tourism. Frank Knapp, a South Carolina businessman who is the co-founder of the 12,000-member Business Alliance for Protecting the Atlantic Coast, said they’ll fight any attempts to drill once Trump takes over.</p>
<p>“I don’t know what his personal convictions are, but I do know … a Republican Congress wants to drill every place they can, including off the Atlantic Coast, and we’re very concerned that they will push Trump to accomplish that,” he said.</p>
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obama administration moved restrict access offshore oil drilling leases atlantic well alaska commercial oil production never happened east coast environmentalists consider major victory obamas tenure presidentelect trump said intends use available fuel reserves energy selfsufficiency time opening offshore drilling supporters say expanded oil exploration poised become one trumps signature accomplishments environmentalists opponents see oil drilling policy looming conflict jacqueline savitz vice president ocean conservationist group oceana said fears return hardfought struggles environmentalists faced previous republican administration advertisement hoping fall back drill baby drill way thinking said offshore drilling atlantic good investment american petroleum institute key voice oil gas industries long said aggressive drilling needed us remain world leader energy production group accused obama may lacking longterm vision fossil fuels extraction leaders say trumps presidency represents new dawn intend hold word fossil fuels candidate presidentelect trump pledged pursue energy approach would include opening federal lands oil gas production including offshore areas said institute spokesman michael tadeo early signs suggest trump make good plans aggressive drilling one favorites lead environmental protection agency myron ebell director center energy environment competitive enterprise institute prominent rejecter scientific consensus climate change longtime ally petroleum industry critic agency would lead trumps favorites energy secretary include oklahoma oil billionaire harold hamm drilling proponent rep kevin cramer north dakota trump transition team respond requests comment trump said incredible going slow drilling supports coastal drilling done responsibly trumps stance threatens put political promise ahead science said cascade sorte professor biology focus marine systems university california irvine advertisement im concerned might data need destroying destroy said gulf mexico main offshore area us plumbs oil gas march 2010 obamas administration released report said gulf alone cant expected meet increasing energy demands report included possibility opening offshore virginia oil gas exploration administration signaled leases middle southern east coast possible plan got immediate pushback environmental groups feared would damage ecosystems month later deepwater horizon explosion gulf mexico put hold plans expanding drilling environmentalists say attempt reverse obamas restrictions atlantic alaskan drilling would galvanize resistance happened gulf spill following 1969 santa barbara california oil spill 1989 exxon valdez oil tanker disaster alaska presidentelect trump tries undo measures rejecting science people meet opposition said greenpeace spokesman perry wheeler democratic senators coasts called obama block possibility pacific atlantic drilling trump takes office many alaska officials strongly back opening beaufort chukchi seas us portion arctic ocean drilling obamas administration last week announced fiveyear offshore drilling plan blocks sale new oil gas drilling rights administration also announced atlantic would included next round offshore oil leases available 2017 2022 connie gillette oversees leases bureau ocean energy management said soonest leases could offered 2023 2028 among opposed atlantic drilling rep mark sanford south carolina republican says opposition dovetails conservative value local control including natural resources said waiting trump settle engaging issue many coastal business owners residents taken stands atlantic drilling saying would endanger key industries commercial fishing tourism frank knapp south carolina businessman cofounder 12000member business alliance protecting atlantic coast said theyll fight attempts drill trump takes dont know personal convictions know republican congress wants drill every place including atlantic coast concerned push trump accomplish said
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<p>Jan 19 (Reuters) - Kier Group Plc:</p>
<p>* ‍ON HS2, KIER AND EIFFAGE ARE NOW 50/50 JOINT VENTURE PARTNERS DELIVERING TWO OF SEVEN CIVIL ENGINEERING PACKAGES, LOTS C2 AND C3​</p>
<p>* ‍ON HIGHWAYS ENGLAND SMART MOTORWAYS PROGRAMME, KIER HAS ASSUMED FULL RESPONSIBILITY FOR PROGRAMME​</p>
<p>* ‍ALL EMPLOYEES CURRENTLY WORKING ON HIGHWAYS ENGLAND SMART MOTORWAYS PROGRAMME ​HAVE BEEN OFFERED OPPORTUNITY TO JOIN KIER</p>
<p>* ‍CARILLION EMPLOYEES, INCLUDING APPRENTICES, WORKING ON CEK HS2 JV HAVE BEEN OFFERED TO JOIN KIER/EIFFAGE WITH CONTINUOUS SERVICE BEING MAINTAINED​</p>
<p>* ‍IN TOTAL ABOUT 150 EMPLOYEES WILL BE MAKING TRANSITION TO KIER IN NEXT WEEK INCLUDING SEVEN APPRENTICES​ Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage: ([email protected])</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Thursday directed U.S. trade officials to identify tariffs on $100 billion more Chinese imports, upping the ante in an already high-stakes trade confrontation between the world’s two largest economies.</p> FILE PHOTO: Containers are seen at the Yangshan Deep Water Port, part of the Shanghai Free Trade Zone, in Shanghai, China March 14, 2018. REUTERS/Aly Song
<p>The further tariffs were being considered “in light of China’s unfair retaliation” against earlier U.S. trade actions, which included a proposed $50 billion of tariffs on Chinese goods, Trump said in a White House statement.</p>
<p>“This is what a trade war looks like, and what we have warned against from the start,” said National Retail Federation President and CEO Matthew Shay.</p>
<p>“We are on a dangerous downward spiral and American families will be on the losing end,” Shay added in a statement, urging Trump “to stop playing a game of chicken with the U.S. economy.”</p>
<p>Financial markets, roiled for days by the trade fight and Trump’s management of it, whipsawed again on the new threat. After a bullish regular trading day, U.S. equity futures sold off sharply in after-market-hours trading.</p> Related Coverage
<a href="/article/us-usa-trade-china-state-media/chinese-state-media-slams-latest-u-s-tariff-call-as-ridiculous-attempt-at-intimidation-idUSKCN1HD0BV" type="external">Chinese state media slams latest U.S. tariff call as 'ridiculous' attempt at intimidation</a>
<a href="/article/us-usa-trade-china-timeline/key-events-in-rapid-escalation-of-u-s-china-trade-dispute-idUSKCN1HD071" type="external">Key events in rapid escalation of U.S.-China trade dispute</a>
<a href="/article/us-usa-trade-china-usda/usda-looking-for-ways-to-protect-farmers-in-china-trade-dispute-usda-official-idUSKCN1HD09J" type="external">USDA looking for ways to protect farmers in China trade dispute: USDA official</a>
<p>U.S. stock futures ESc1 slid 1 percent and the dollar dipped against other major currencies .DXY, while Asian shares flitted in and out of positive territory. Chinese markets were closed for a holiday.</p>
<p>Doug Kass, who runs hedge fund Seabreeze Partners Management Inc, added: “Our president is going to make market volatility and economic uncertainty great again.”</p>
<p>In his statement, Trump said the U.S. Trade Representative had determined that China “has repeatedly engaged in practices to unfairly obtain America’s intellectual property.”</p>
<p>The tit-for-tat escalation of tariff announcements, which have stirred fears that trade unfolded surprisingly rapidly . They have stirred fears that the two countries will spiral into a trade war that will crush global growth.</p>
<p>Chinese state media slammed Trump’s threat of more trade action against China as “ridiculous”.</p>
<p>“This latest intimidation reflects the deep arrogance of some American elites in their attitude towards China,” the state-run Global Times said in an editorial.</p>
<p>On Tuesday, USTR proposed 25 percent tariffs on more than 1,300 Chinese industrial and other products from flat-panel televisions to electronic components. China shot back 11 hours later with a list of proposed duties on $50 billion of American imports, including soybeans, aircraft, cars, beef and chemicals.</p>
<p>“Rather than remedy its misconduct, China has chosen to harm our farmers and manufacturers,” the Republican president said.</p> FILE PHOTO: Members of border security forces stand in front of a docking cargo ship at Qingdao port in Shandong province, China March 8, 2018. China Daily via REUTERS
<p>Republican lawmakers from Western and Midwestern states have voiced worries about a big hit to U.S. farming exporters.</p> ‘THIS IS NUTS’
<p>On the new tariff threat, Republican Senator Ben Sasse said in a statement: “Hopefully the president is just blowing off steam again but, if he’s even half-serious, this is nuts.</p>
<p>“Let’s absolutely take on Chinese bad behavior, but with a plan that punishes them instead of us. This is the dumbest possible way to do this,” said the lawmaker from the farm-belt state of Nebraska.</p>
<p>The U.S. Department of Agriculture is looking for ways to assist farmers affected by China’s tariffs, USDA undersecretary Bill Northey told Reuters, but did not offer specifics.</p>
<p>White House officials have suggested throughout the week that talks with the Chinese could help resolve trade issues between the two countries. China ran a $375 billion goods trade surplus with the United States in 2017. Trump has demanded that China cut the trade gap by $100 billion.</p>
<p>A senior U.S. official who requested anonymity told Reuters no formal negotiating sessions had yet been set, but that the United States was willing to negotiate with China.</p>
<p>The U.S. tariffs are aimed at forcing changes to Chinese government policies designed to transfer U.S. intellectual property to Chinese companies and allow them to seize leadership in key high-technology industries of the future.</p>
<p>The USTR’s “Section 301” investigation authorizing the tariffs alleges China has systematically sought to misappropriate U.S. intellectual property through joint venture requirements that often cannot be negotiated without technology transfers, something China denies.</p> U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters aboard Air Force One after visiting White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, U.S., April 5, 2018. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque TARIFF TARGETS NOT YET CHOSEN
<p>A USTR spokeswoman said that the $100 billion second-round of potential tariffs had not been determined yet and would be selected by USTR career staff - not political appointees - along with economists and trade experts.</p>
<p>The new list will be proposed in the same manner as the first round and will go through a similar public comment period before any of them are activated, the spokeswoman said.</p>
<p>A further $100 billion in tariffs on Chinese goods would likely expand the scope of Trump’s attack to more consumer goods. The first round of $50 billion in tariffs mostly targeted industrial goods and electronic components.</p>
<p>The two biggest categories of U.S. imports from China last year were communications and computer equipment, totaling $137 billion according to U.S. Census data. Cellphones and computers, key portions of these categories, were spared from the initial tariffs list.</p>
<p>Apparel and footwear, both labor-intensive industries in China, made up a combined $39 billion in U.S. imports.</p>
<p>Dean Garfield, chief executive of the Information Technology Industry Council, a tech industry lobbying group in Washington, said the additional tariffs were “irresponsible and destabilizing.”</p>
<p>“We need the U.S and China to come to the table and identify solutions to these serious problems,” he added.</p>
<p>Reporting by Steve Holland and David Lawder; Additional reporting by Eric Beech, Ginger Gibson and Caren Bohan in Washington and Jennifer Ablan, Caroline Valetkevitch, Trevor Hunnicutt and Daniel Bases in New York; Writing by Chris Sanders; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh, Peter Cooney &amp; Shri Navaratnam</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese state media on Friday slammed Donald Trump’s threat of more trade action against China as “ridiculous” after the U.S President called for an additional $100 billion of tariffs, escalating an already high-stakes trade dispute between the two nations.</p> FILE PHOTO: Container boxes are seen at the Yangshan Deep Water Port, part of the Shanghai Free Trade Zone, in Shanghai, China September 24, 2016. Picture taken September 24, 2016. REUTERS/Aly Song/File Photo - S1BEUGQTZKAA/File Photo
<p>“This latest intimidation reflects the deep arrogance of some American elites in their attitude towards China,” the state-run Global Times said in an editorial.</p>
<p>Trump said on Thursday he had instructed U.S. trade officials to consider $100 billion in additional tariffs against China, upping the ante in an already high-stakes trade confrontation between the world’s two biggest economies.</p>
<p>In making the call for extra tariffs, Trump wanted to vent his anger with a “bomb-like” statement, the newspaper said, adding that whether the tariffs are actually put into effect and what the consequences will be “are secondary to him.”</p>
<p>Washington on Tuesday proposed $50 billion in duties on Chinese goods aimed at forcing Beijing to address what the United States says is deeply entrenched theft of U.S. intellectual property and forced technology transfer from U.S. companies.</p>
<p>China hit back within hours with its own threatened tariffs on U.S. imports including soybeans, planes, cars, whiskey and chemicals.</p>
<p>The widely read Global Times is run by the ruling Communist Party’s official People’s Daily, although its stance does not necessarily reflect Chinese government policy.</p>
<p>Financial markets have been unnerved for days by the trade fight and Trump’s management of it, with the president’s latest salvo sending U.S. stock futures tumbling and pushing up the safe-have yen.</p>
<p>Earlier on Friday, the People’s Daily described the U.S. trade action against China as akin to “climbing a tree to catch fish.”</p>
<p>Washington’s attempts at reducing its trade deficit by engaging in a trade war were compounding its mistakes, it added.</p>
<p>“History and reality have repeatedly proved that economic globalization has provided a strong impetus for the development of international trade and economics,” the newspaper said, adding that the United States was “one of the biggest beneficiaries” of this.</p>
<p>Instead of asking China to reduce its exports to address the trade imbalance, the United States should increase its own exports, the editorial said, adding that Washington was already restricting its exports to China, especially of high-tech products.</p>
<p>In Moscow on Thursday, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi also accused the United States of picking the “wrong target” with its tariffs against China.</p>
<p>“The United States thought that it would be cheaper to engage in protectionism and it was a miscalculation,” he said, according to comments posted on the Chinese foreign ministry’s website.</p>
<p>“China and the United States are both big countries in the world and should respect each other and treat each other as equals,” he added.</p>
<p>Reporting by Tom Daly and Min Zhang; Editing by Shri Navaratnam</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>OVERLAND PARK, Kansas (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is looking to find ways to shield farmers from the growing trade conflict between the United States and China, a department official said Thursday evening, without providing details of options under review.</p>
<p>“There’s a lot of different options out there” to protect farmers, said USDA Farm Production And Conservation Under Secretary Bill Northey, speaking to Reuters after a commodity conference in Kansas.</p>
<p>Northey was speaking after President Donald Trump ordered officials to come up with an additional round of tariffs directed at China.</p>
<p>China responded to an initial U.S. salvo by targeting numerous goods, including agricultural staples like soybeans, the most valuable U.S. agricultural export to China.</p>
<p>Northey says the USDA needs to “see the reaction of what tariffs will be and what the reaction of markets are”.</p>
<p>In terms of how the Trump Administration could shield farmers, Northey said there were no specific proposals yet, but “there certainly are discussions”.</p>
<p>Reporting by Tom Polansek; writing by David Gaffen; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Washington and Beijing are slapping each other with tit-for-tat tariff threats, with U.S. President Donald Trump proposing another escalation of the dispute late on Thursday.</p>
<p>Here is a timeline of events.</p>
<p>March 8</p>
<p>Trump announces import tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent for aluminum, but exempts Canada and Mexico and offers the possibility of excluding other allies.</p>
<p>March 18</p>
<p>Forty-five U.S. trade associations representing some of the largest companies in the country urge Trump not to impose tariffs on China, warning it would be “particularly harmful” to the U.S. economy and consumers. The group includes the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Retail Federation and the Information Technology Industry Council.</p>
<p>April 1</p>
<p>China increases tariffs by up to 25 percent on 128 U.S. products, from frozen pork and wine to certain fruits and nuts, escalating the dispute in response to U.S. duties on imports of aluminum and steel. The tariffs were slated to take effect on April 2.</p>
<p>April 3</p>
<p>Trump raises the stakes, proposing 25 percent tariffs on some 1,300 industrial technology, transport and medical products to try to force changes in Beijing’s intellectual property practices. The products represent about $50 billion of estimated 2018 imports.</p>
<p>April 4</p>
<p>China announces it will impose additional tariffs of 25 percent on 106 U.S. goods including soybeans, autos, chemicals, some types of aircraft and corn products and other agricultural goods. The products targeted by the tariffs were worth $50 billion in 2017, according to a separate statement from the commerce ministry.</p>
<p>In Washington, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders notes the tariffs did not go into effect immediately and says she hopes China will change its “unfair trade practices” in a way that will avoid the need for the Trump administration to move forward with announced import tariffs.</p>
<p>April 5</p>
<p>The World Trade Organization says China sought consultations with the United States, the first step in a WTO dispute, over Washington’s announced tariffs on the $50 billion worth of Chinese imports.</p>
<p>The notification to the Geneva-based watchdog triggers a 60-day deadline for the two sides to settle the complaint or face litigation at the WTO by a neutral panel of arbitrators.</p>
<p>Trump says he has instructed U.S. trade officials to consider $100 billion in additional tariffs on China. In a statement, he announces the U.S. Trade Representative has determined that China “has repeatedly engaged in practices to unfairly obtain America’s intellectual property.”</p>
<p>Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Peter Cooney</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
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jan 19 reuters kier group plc hs2 kier eiffage 5050 joint venture partners delivering two seven civil engineering packages lots c2 c3 highways england smart motorways programme kier assumed full responsibility programme employees currently working highways england smart motorways programme offered opportunity join kier carillion employees including apprentices working cek hs2 jv offered join kiereiffage continuous service maintained total 150 employees making transition kier next week including seven apprentices source text eikon company coverage bangalorenewsroomthomsonreuterscom standards thomson reuters trust principles washington reuters president donald trump thursday directed us trade officials identify tariffs 100 billion chinese imports upping ante already highstakes trade confrontation worlds two largest economies file photo containers seen yangshan deep water port part shanghai free trade zone shanghai china march 14 2018 reutersaly song tariffs considered light chinas unfair retaliation earlier us trade actions included proposed 50 billion tariffs chinese goods trump said white house statement trade war looks like warned start said national retail federation president ceo matthew shay dangerous downward spiral american families losing end shay added statement urging trump stop playing game chicken us economy financial markets roiled days trade fight trumps management whipsawed new threat bullish regular trading day us equity futures sold sharply aftermarkethours trading related coverage chinese state media slams latest us tariff call ridiculous attempt intimidation key events rapid escalation uschina trade dispute usda looking ways protect farmers china trade dispute usda official us stock futures esc1 slid 1 percent dollar dipped major currencies dxy asian shares flitted positive territory chinese markets closed holiday doug kass runs hedge fund seabreeze partners management inc added president going make market volatility economic uncertainty great statement trump said us trade representative determined china repeatedly engaged practices unfairly obtain americas intellectual property titfortat escalation tariff announcements stirred fears trade unfolded surprisingly rapidly stirred fears two countries spiral trade war crush global growth chinese state media slammed trumps threat trade action china ridiculous latest intimidation reflects deep arrogance american elites attitude towards china staterun global times said editorial tuesday ustr proposed 25 percent tariffs 1300 chinese industrial products flatpanel televisions electronic components china shot back 11 hours later list proposed duties 50 billion american imports including soybeans aircraft cars beef chemicals rather remedy misconduct china chosen harm farmers manufacturers republican president said file photo members border security forces stand front docking cargo ship qingdao port shandong province china march 8 2018 china daily via reuters republican lawmakers western midwestern states voiced worries big hit us farming exporters nuts new tariff threat republican senator ben sasse said statement hopefully president blowing steam hes even halfserious nuts lets absolutely take chinese bad behavior plan punishes instead us dumbest possible way said lawmaker farmbelt state nebraska us department agriculture looking ways assist farmers affected chinas tariffs usda undersecretary bill northey told reuters offer specifics white house officials suggested throughout week talks chinese could help resolve trade issues two countries china ran 375 billion goods trade surplus united states 2017 trump demanded china cut trade gap 100 billion senior us official requested anonymity told reuters formal negotiating sessions yet set united states willing negotiate china us tariffs aimed forcing changes chinese government policies designed transfer us intellectual property chinese companies allow seize leadership key hightechnology industries future ustrs section 301 investigation authorizing tariffs alleges china systematically sought misappropriate us intellectual property joint venture requirements often negotiated without technology transfers something china denies us president donald trump speaks reporters aboard air force one visiting white sulphur springs west virginia us april 5 2018 reuterskevin lamarque tariff targets yet chosen ustr spokeswoman said 100 billion secondround potential tariffs determined yet would selected ustr career staff political appointees along economists trade experts new list proposed manner first round go similar public comment period activated spokeswoman said 100 billion tariffs chinese goods would likely expand scope trumps attack consumer goods first round 50 billion tariffs mostly targeted industrial goods electronic components two biggest categories us imports china last year communications computer equipment totaling 137 billion according us census data cellphones computers key portions categories spared initial tariffs list apparel footwear laborintensive industries china made combined 39 billion us imports dean garfield chief executive information technology industry council tech industry lobbying group washington said additional tariffs irresponsible destabilizing need us china come table identify solutions serious problems added reporting steve holland david lawder additional reporting eric beech ginger gibson caren bohan washington jennifer ablan caroline valetkevitch trevor hunnicutt daniel bases new york writing chris sanders editing kevin drawbaugh peter cooney amp shri navaratnam standards thomson reuters trust principles beijing reuters chinese state media friday slammed donald trumps threat trade action china ridiculous us president called additional 100 billion tariffs escalating already highstakes trade dispute two nations file photo container boxes seen yangshan deep water port part shanghai free trade zone shanghai china september 24 2016 picture taken september 24 2016 reutersaly songfile photo s1beugqtzkaafile photo latest intimidation reflects deep arrogance american elites attitude towards china staterun global times said editorial trump said thursday instructed us trade officials consider 100 billion additional tariffs china upping ante already highstakes trade confrontation worlds two biggest economies making call extra tariffs trump wanted vent anger bomblike statement newspaper said adding whether tariffs actually put effect consequences secondary washington tuesday proposed 50 billion duties chinese goods aimed forcing beijing address united states says deeply entrenched theft us intellectual property forced technology transfer us companies china hit back within hours threatened tariffs us imports including soybeans planes cars whiskey chemicals widely read global times run ruling communist partys official peoples daily although stance necessarily reflect chinese government policy financial markets unnerved days trade fight trumps management presidents latest salvo sending us stock futures tumbling pushing safehave yen earlier friday peoples daily described us trade action china akin climbing tree catch fish washingtons attempts reducing trade deficit engaging trade war compounding mistakes added history reality repeatedly proved economic globalization provided strong impetus development international trade economics newspaper said adding united states one biggest beneficiaries instead asking china reduce exports address trade imbalance united states increase exports editorial said adding washington already restricting exports china especially hightech products moscow thursday chinese foreign minister wang yi also accused united states picking wrong target tariffs china united states thought would cheaper engage protectionism miscalculation said according comments posted chinese foreign ministrys website china united states big countries world respect treat equals added reporting tom daly min zhang editing shri navaratnam standards thomson reuters trust principles overland park kansas reuters us department agriculture usda looking find ways shield farmers growing trade conflict united states china department official said thursday evening without providing details options review theres lot different options protect farmers said usda farm production conservation secretary bill northey speaking reuters commodity conference kansas northey speaking president donald trump ordered officials come additional round tariffs directed china china responded initial us salvo targeting numerous goods including agricultural staples like soybeans valuable us agricultural export china northey says usda needs see reaction tariffs reaction markets terms trump administration could shield farmers northey said specific proposals yet certainly discussions reporting tom polansek writing david gaffen editing kenneth maxwell standards thomson reuters trust principles washington reuters washington beijing slapping titfortat tariff threats us president donald trump proposing another escalation dispute late thursday timeline events march 8 trump announces import tariffs 25 percent steel 10 percent aluminum exempts canada mexico offers possibility excluding allies march 18 fortyfive us trade associations representing largest companies country urge trump impose tariffs china warning would particularly harmful us economy consumers group includes us chamber commerce national retail federation information technology industry council april 1 china increases tariffs 25 percent 128 us products frozen pork wine certain fruits nuts escalating dispute response us duties imports aluminum steel tariffs slated take effect april 2 april 3 trump raises stakes proposing 25 percent tariffs 1300 industrial technology transport medical products try force changes beijings intellectual property practices products represent 50 billion estimated 2018 imports april 4 china announces impose additional tariffs 25 percent 106 us goods including soybeans autos chemicals types aircraft corn products agricultural goods products targeted tariffs worth 50 billion 2017 according separate statement commerce ministry washington white house spokeswoman sarah sanders notes tariffs go effect immediately says hopes china change unfair trade practices way avoid need trump administration move forward announced import tariffs april 5 world trade organization says china sought consultations united states first step wto dispute washingtons announced tariffs 50 billion worth chinese imports notification genevabased watchdog triggers 60day deadline two sides settle complaint face litigation wto neutral panel arbitrators trump says instructed us trade officials consider 100 billion additional tariffs china statement announces us trade representative determined china repeatedly engaged practices unfairly obtain americas intellectual property reporting diane bartz editing kevin drawbaugh peter cooney standards thomson reuters trust principles
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<p>MANILA (Reuters) - Opposition members of the Philippine Congress raised concern on Wednesday that China Telecom Corp Ltd, which may enter the Philippine industry, could be a “Trojan horse” aimed at giving China access to state secrets.</p>
<p>The Southeast Asian country aims to name a third telecom operator within the first quarter that will break the duopoly of PLDT Inc and Globe Telecom Inc. State-run China Telecom has been named as a possible investor in that third entity.</p>
<p>President Rodrigo Duterte, who has warned both PLDT and Globe to shape up or face competition, has welcomed Chinese entities specifically to become the third telecoms operator.</p>
<p>Beijing has selected China Telecom to invest in the Philippines, according to Philippine officials, but it would need to partner with a local company as it cannot operate alone under the law.</p>
<p>China Telecom’s presence in the Philippines, however, does not sit well with some lawmakers, given China’s telecommunications expertise and sophisticated technology.</p>
<p>Despite Duterte’s warm relations with China, the Philippines has a long history of mistrust of it, due largely to its maritime assertiveness and its challenges to Philippine claims of sovereignty over various islands, reefs and waters.</p>
<p>“While we agree that telecommunications and connectivity are serious problems in our country, it behooves us to scrutinize the China deal,” the House minority bloc said in a statement.</p>
<p>“Is China Telecom a Trojan horse?”</p>
<p>The lawmakers sought a congressional inquiry and cautioned the government against rushing into any deal.</p>
<p>“Giving China access to the country’s communications infrastructure is a serious threat to national security,” they said, adding that even the United States was aware of such risk.</p>
<p>Two U.S. lawmakers introduced a bill this week that bars the U.S. government from using or contracting with Chinese telecom firms Huawei or ZTE Corp.</p>
<p>In Beijing, foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang told reporters on Thursday that the Philippines’ decision to allow Chinese telecoms firms to operate in the country showed the deepening trust between the two nations.</p>
<p>China has always asked its companies to respect the laws of the countries they work in, and also asks these countries to provide them the “necessary, friendly conditions and environment” in which to operate, he added.</p>
<p>The Philippine Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) sought to allay the lawmakers’ concern on Wednesday.</p>
<p>A National Cybersecurity Plan is in place to provide measures and controls against security risks, DICT Assistant Secretary Allan Cabanlong told Reuters.</p>
<p>“Rest assured that there is no problem. What is important is that we are focused on the development of the country,” he said.</p>
<p>Additional reporting by Neil Jerome Morales in MANILA and Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; Editing by Martin Petty, Robert Birsel</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Partner Communications, Israel’s second-largest mobile phone operator, said on Sunday it signed a collaboration agreement with Amazon Prime Video for its TV service.</p>
<p>Partner TV customers now have access to the Amazon Prime Video service on Partner TV set top boxes.</p>
<p>Partner said it is the only television service in Israel to offer the Amazon Prime Video application on a set top box and the first Over the Top service in the world to support this application on an Android TV set top box.</p>
<p>Financial details were not disclosed.</p>
<p>Reporting by Tova Cohen</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Concern about Facebook Inc’s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FB.O" type="external">FB.O</a>) respect for data privacy is widening to include the information it collects about non-users, after Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said the world’s largest social network tracks people whether they have accounts or not.</p>
<p>Privacy concerns have swamped Facebook since it acknowledged last month that information about millions of users wrongly ended up in the hands of political consultancy Cambridge Analytica, a firm that has counted U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2016 electoral campaign among its clients.</p>
<p>Zuckerberg said on Wednesday under questioning by U.S. Representative Ben Luján that, for security reasons, Facebook also collects “data of people who have not signed up for Facebook.”</p>
<p>Lawmakers and privacy advocates immediately protested the practice, with many saying Facebook needed to develop a way for non-users to find out what the company knows about them.</p>
<p>“We’ve got to fix that,” Representative Luján, a Democrat, told Zuckerberg, calling for such disclosure, a move that would have unclear effects on the company’s ability to target ads. Zuckerberg did not respond. On Friday Facebook said it had no plans to build such a tool.</p>
<p>Critics said that Zuckerberg has not said enough about the extent and use of the data. “It’s not clear what Facebook is doing with that information,” said Chris Calabrese, vice president for policy at the Center for Democracy &amp; Technology, a Washington advocacy group.</p> COOKIES EVERYWHERE
<p>Facebook gets some data on non-users from people on its network, such as when a user uploads email addresses of friends. Other information comes from “cookies,” small files stored via a browser and used by Facebook and others to track people on the internet, sometimes to target them with ads.</p>
<p>“This kind of data collection is fundamental to how the internet works,” Facebook said in a statement to Reuters.</p>
<p>Asked if people could opt out, Facebook added, “There are basic things you can do to limit the use of this information for advertising, like using browser or device settings to delete cookies. This would apply to other services beyond Facebook because, as mentioned, it is standard to how the internet works.”</p>
<p>Facebook often installs cookies on non-users’ browsers if they visit sites with Facebook “like” and “share” buttons, whether or not a person pushes a button. Facebook said it uses browsing data to create analytics reports, including about traffic to a site.</p>
<p>The company said it does not use the data to target ads, except those inviting people to join Facebook.</p> TARGETING FACEBOOK
<p>Advocates and lawmakers say they are singling out Facebook because of its size, rivaled outside China only by Alphabet Inc’s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GOOGL.O" type="external">GOOGL.O</a>) Google, and because they allege Zuckerberg was not forthcoming about the extent and reasons for the tracking.</p>
<p>“He’s either deliberately misunderstanding some of the questions, or he’s not clear about what’s actually happening inside Facebook’s operation,” said Daniel Kahn Gillmor, a senior staff technologist at the American Civil Liberties Union.</p>
<p>Zuckerberg, for instance, said the collection was done for security purposes, without explaining further or saying whether it was also used for measurement or analytics, Gillmor said, adding that Facebook had a business incentive to use the non-user data to target ads.</p> Slideshow (2 Images)
<p>Facebook declined to comment on why Zuckerberg referred to security only.</p>
<p>Gillmor said Facebook could build databases on non-users by combining web browsing history with uploaded contacts. Facebook said on Friday that it does not do so.</p>
<p>The ACLU is pushing U.S. lawmakers to enact broad privacy legislation including a requirement for consent prior to data collection.</p>
<p>The first regulatory challenge to Facebook’s practices for non-users may come next month when a new European Union law, known as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), takes effect and requires notice and consent prior to data collection.</p>
<p>At a minimum, “Facebook is going to have to think about ways to structure their technology to give that proper notice,” said Woodrow Hartzog, a Northeastern University professor of law and computer science.</p>
<p>Facebook said in its statement on Friday, “Our products and services comply with applicable law and will comply with GDPR.”</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FB.O" type="external">Facebook Inc</a> 164.52 FB.O Nasdaq +0.65 (+0.40%) FB.O GOOGL.O
<p>The social network would be wise to recognize at least a right to know, said Michael Froomkin, a University of Miami law professor.</p>
<p>“If I’m not a Facebook user, I ought to have a right to know what data Facebook has about me,” Froomkin said.</p>
<p>Reporting by David Ingram; Editing by Peter Henderson and Richard Chang</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>MOSCOW/DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin warned on Sunday that further Western attacks on Syria would bring chaos to world affairs, as Washington prepared to increase pressure on Russia with new economic sanctions.</p>
<p>In a telephone conversation with his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani, Putin and Rouhani agreed that the Western strikes had damaged the chances of achieving a political resolution in the seven-year Syria conflict, according to a Kremlin statement.</p>
<p>“Vladimir Putin, in particular, stressed that if such actions committed in violation of the U.N. Charter continue, then it will inevitably lead to chaos in international relations,” the Kremlin statement said.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, told CBS’ “Face the Nation” program that the United States would announce new economic sanctions on Monday aimed at companies “that were dealing with equipment” related to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s alleged chemical weapons use.</p>
<p>On Saturday, the United States, France and Britain launched 105 missiles targeting what the Pentagon said were three chemical weapons facilities in Syria in retaliation for a suspected poison gas attack in Douma on April 7.</p>
<p>The Western countries blame Assad for the Douma attack that killed dozens of people. The Syrian government and its ally Russia have denied involvement in any such attack.</p> Related Coverage
<a href="/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-sanctions/u-s-preparing-new-sanctions-on-russia-over-syria-haley-says-idUSKBN1HM0OQ" type="external">U.S. preparing new sanctions on Russia over Syria, Haley says</a>
<a href="/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-trump/trump-defends-use-of-mission-accomplished-phrase-for-syria-strike-idUSKBN1HM0GZ" type="external">Trump defends use of 'mission accomplished' phrase for Syria strike</a>
<a href="/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-britain/no-new-attacks-planned-against-syria-for-now-says-britain-idUSKBN1HM0FU" type="external">No new attacks planned against Syria for now, says Britain</a>
<p>The bombings marked the biggest intervention by Western countries against Assad and ally Russia but the United States, France and Britain have said the missile strikes were limited to Syria’s chemical weapons capabilities and not aimed at toppling Assad or intervening in the civil war.</p>
<p>Some of Trump’s fellow Republicans in the U.S. Congress, meanwhile, warned that he needed to show some restraint.</p>
<p>Senator Joni Ernst, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said she is “uncomfortable going forward if he (Trump) wishes to commit ground troops in the area ... But certainly if he wishes to go any further he does need to work with Congress.” She made her remarks during an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press.”</p>
<p>Speaking to the BBC, Britain’s Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said that Western powers had no plans for further missile strikes, though they would assess their options if Damascus used chemical weapons again.</p>
<p>“This is not about regime change ... This is not about trying to turn the tide of the conflict in Syria,” he told the BBC, adding that Russia was the only country able to pressure Assad to negotiate an end to the conflict.</p>
<p>In Damascus, Syria’s deputy foreign minister, Faisal Mekdad, met inspectors from the global chemical weapons watchdog OPCW for about three hours in the presence of Russian officers and a senior Syrian security official.</p>
<p>The inspectors were due to attempt to visit the Douma site. Moscow condemned the Western states for refusing to wait for OPCW’s findings before attacking.</p>
<p>Mekdad declined to comment to reporters waiting outside the hotel where the meeting took place.</p> ‘RESILIENCE’
<p>Assad told a group of visiting Russian lawmakers that the Western missile strikes were an act of aggression, Russian news agencies reported.</p>
<p>Syria released video of the wreckage of a bombed-out research lab, but also of Assad arriving at work as usual, with the caption “morning of resilience” and there were no immediate reports of casualties.</p>
<p>Russian agencies quoted the lawmakers as saying that Assad was in a “good mood”, had praised the Soviet-era air defense systems Syria used to repel the Western attacks and had accepted an invitation to visit Russia at an unspecified time.</p>
<p>Trump had said “mission accomplished” on Twitter after the strikes, though U.S. Lieutenant General Kenneth McKenzie at the Pentagon acknowledged elements of the program remain and he could not guarantee that Syria would be unable to conduct a chemical attack in the future.</p>
<p>Russian and Iranian military help over the past three years has allowed Assad to crush the rebel threat to topple him.</p>
<p>Though Israel has at times urged stronger U.S. involvement against Assad and his Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah reinforcements in Syria, it voiced backing for Saturday’s air strikes by Western powers.</p>
<p>“Israel fully supports President Trump’s decision to act against the use of chemical weapons in Syria,” Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his cabinet in broadcast remarks on Sunday, adding that he had commended his British counterpart, Theresa May, in a phone call.</p> Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during a ceremony to receive credentials from foreign ambassadors at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia April 11, 2018. Sergei Ilnitsky/Pool via REUTERS
<p>The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah said on Sunday that Western strikes on Syria had failed to achieve anything, including terrorizing the army, helping insurgents or serving the interests of Israel.</p>
<p>Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said the U.S. military had kept its strikes limited because it knew a wider attack would spark retaliation from Damascus and its allies and inflame the region.</p>
<p>“The American (military) knows well that going towards a wide confrontation and a big operation against the regime and the army and the allied forces in Syria could not end, and any such confrontation would inflame the entire region,” Nasrallah said.</p>
<p>The heavily armed, Iranian-backed Shi’ite Hezbollah movement, which fights alongside the Syrian army and is represented in the Beirut government, has been a vital ally of Damascus in Syria’s seven-year war.</p> DRAFT UN RESOLUTION
<p>France, the United States and Britain circulated a draft resolution to U.N. Security Council late on Saturday that aims to establish a new independent inquiry into who is to responsible for chemical weapons attacks in Syria. The mechanism would look at cases where the OPCW fact-finding mission has established chemical weapons were used or likely used.</p> Slideshow (10 Images)
<p>Diplomats said negotiations on the draft resolution would begin on Monday and it was not immediately clear when the United States, France and Britain wanted to put it to a vote.</p>
<p>Most Gulf stock markets rose on Sunday, supported by firm oil prices and relief that the weekend’s military attack on Syria was relatively limited in scope and there was no immediate retaliation.</p>
<p>Internationally, gold and oil are expected to extend gains on Monday, albeit modestly, when the markets open for the first time since the missile attack. Equities and bonds are unlikely to suffer big losses unless the West strikes again or Russia retaliates.</p>
<p>Gold has benefited in recent days as a safe-haven asset amid a U.S.-China trade dispute and the escalating conflict in Syria, which also pushed oil above $70 a barrel on concerns over a spike in Middle Eastern tensions.</p>
<p>Reporting by Elizabeth Piper and Tom Perry; Additional Susan Cornwell and Joel Schectman in Washington; Michelle Nichols in New York; Samia Nakhoul, Tom Perry, Laila Bassam, Ellen Francis and Angus McDowall in Beirut; Kinda Makieh in Barzeh; Michael Holden and Guy Faulconbridge in London; and Jean-Baptiste Vey, Geert de Clercq and Matthias Blamont in Paris; Andrey Ostroukh and Jack Stubbs in Moscow; Alison Bevege in Sydney; Writing by Richard Cowan; Editing by Caren Bohan and Nick Zieminski</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>PARIS (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday said he had convinced U.S. President Donald Trump to maintain troops in Syria, as he defended France’s participation in joint air strikes.</p> French President Emmanuel Macron poses on the TV set before an interview with RMC-BFM and Mediapart French journalists at the Theatre National de Chaillot in Paris, France, April 15, 2018. Francois Guillot/Pool via Reuters
<p>In telephone calls before the Saturday airstrikes, Macron said he had persuaded Trump not to pull out of Syria. “We convinced him it was necessary to remain there,” he said.</p>
<p>“We have complete international legitimacy to act in this framework,” Macron said in an interview broadcast by BFM TV, RMC radio and Mediapart online news. “We have three members of the (United Nations) Security Council who have intervened.”</p>
<p>Reporting by Laurence Frost and Michel Rose; Editing by Ingrid Melander</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
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manila reuters opposition members philippine congress raised concern wednesday china telecom corp ltd may enter philippine industry could trojan horse aimed giving china access state secrets southeast asian country aims name third telecom operator within first quarter break duopoly pldt inc globe telecom inc staterun china telecom named possible investor third entity president rodrigo duterte warned pldt globe shape face competition welcomed chinese entities specifically become third telecoms operator beijing selected china telecom invest philippines according philippine officials would need partner local company operate alone law china telecoms presence philippines however sit well lawmakers given chinas telecommunications expertise sophisticated technology despite dutertes warm relations china philippines long history mistrust due largely maritime assertiveness challenges philippine claims sovereignty various islands reefs waters agree telecommunications connectivity serious problems country behooves us scrutinize china deal house minority bloc said statement china telecom trojan horse lawmakers sought congressional inquiry cautioned government rushing deal giving china access countrys communications infrastructure serious threat national security said adding even united states aware risk two us lawmakers introduced bill week bars us government using contracting chinese telecom firms huawei zte corp beijing foreign ministry spokesman lu kang told reporters thursday philippines decision allow chinese telecoms firms operate country showed deepening trust two nations china always asked companies respect laws countries work also asks countries provide necessary friendly conditions environment operate added philippine department information communications technology dict sought allay lawmakers concern wednesday national cybersecurity plan place provide measures controls security risks dict assistant secretary allan cabanlong told reuters rest assured problem important focused development country said additional reporting neil jerome morales manila ben blanchard beijing editing martin petty robert birsel standards thomson reuters trust principles tel aviv reuters partner communications israels secondlargest mobile phone operator said sunday signed collaboration agreement amazon prime video tv service partner tv customers access amazon prime video service partner tv set top boxes partner said television service israel offer amazon prime video application set top box first top service world support application android tv set top box financial details disclosed reporting tova cohen standards thomson reuters trust principles san francisco reuters concern facebook incs fbo respect data privacy widening include information collects nonusers chief executive mark zuckerberg said worlds largest social network tracks people whether accounts privacy concerns swamped facebook since acknowledged last month information millions users wrongly ended hands political consultancy cambridge analytica firm counted us president donald trumps 2016 electoral campaign among clients zuckerberg said wednesday questioning us representative ben luján security reasons facebook also collects data people signed facebook lawmakers privacy advocates immediately protested practice many saying facebook needed develop way nonusers find company knows weve got fix representative luján democrat told zuckerberg calling disclosure move would unclear effects companys ability target ads zuckerberg respond friday facebook said plans build tool critics said zuckerberg said enough extent use data clear facebook information said chris calabrese vice president policy center democracy amp technology washington advocacy group cookies everywhere facebook gets data nonusers people network user uploads email addresses friends information comes cookies small files stored via browser used facebook others track people internet sometimes target ads kind data collection fundamental internet works facebook said statement reuters asked people could opt facebook added basic things limit use information advertising like using browser device settings delete cookies would apply services beyond facebook mentioned standard internet works facebook often installs cookies nonusers browsers visit sites facebook like share buttons whether person pushes button facebook said uses browsing data create analytics reports including traffic site company said use data target ads except inviting people join facebook targeting facebook advocates lawmakers say singling facebook size rivaled outside china alphabet incs googlo google allege zuckerberg forthcoming extent reasons tracking hes either deliberately misunderstanding questions hes clear whats actually happening inside facebooks operation said daniel kahn gillmor senior staff technologist american civil liberties union zuckerberg instance said collection done security purposes without explaining saying whether also used measurement analytics gillmor said adding facebook business incentive use nonuser data target ads slideshow 2 images facebook declined comment zuckerberg referred security gillmor said facebook could build databases nonusers combining web browsing history uploaded contacts facebook said friday aclu pushing us lawmakers enact broad privacy legislation including requirement consent prior data collection first regulatory challenge facebooks practices nonusers may come next month new european union law known general data protection regulation gdpr takes effect requires notice consent prior data collection minimum facebook going think ways structure technology give proper notice said woodrow hartzog northeastern university professor law computer science facebook said statement friday products services comply applicable law comply gdpr facebook inc 16452 fbo nasdaq 065 040 fbo googlo social network would wise recognize least right know said michael froomkin university miami law professor im facebook user ought right know data facebook froomkin said reporting david ingram editing peter henderson richard chang standards thomson reuters trust principles moscowdamascus reuters russian president vladimir putin warned sunday western attacks syria would bring chaos world affairs washington prepared increase pressure russia new economic sanctions telephone conversation iranian counterpart hassan rouhani putin rouhani agreed western strikes damaged chances achieving political resolution sevenyear syria conflict according kremlin statement vladimir putin particular stressed actions committed violation un charter continue inevitably lead chaos international relations kremlin statement said meanwhile us ambassador united nations nikki haley told cbs face nation program united states would announce new economic sanctions monday aimed companies dealing equipment related syrian president bashar alassads alleged chemical weapons use saturday united states france britain launched 105 missiles targeting pentagon said three chemical weapons facilities syria retaliation suspected poison gas attack douma april 7 western countries blame assad douma attack killed dozens people syrian government ally russia denied involvement attack related coverage us preparing new sanctions russia syria haley says trump defends use mission accomplished phrase syria strike new attacks planned syria says britain bombings marked biggest intervention western countries assad ally russia united states france britain said missile strikes limited syrias chemical weapons capabilities aimed toppling assad intervening civil war trumps fellow republicans us congress meanwhile warned needed show restraint senator joni ernst member senate armed services committee said uncomfortable going forward trump wishes commit ground troops area certainly wishes go need work congress made remarks interview nbcs meet press speaking bbc britains foreign secretary boris johnson said western powers plans missile strikes though would assess options damascus used chemical weapons regime change trying turn tide conflict syria told bbc adding russia country able pressure assad negotiate end conflict damascus syrias deputy foreign minister faisal mekdad met inspectors global chemical weapons watchdog opcw three hours presence russian officers senior syrian security official inspectors due attempt visit douma site moscow condemned western states refusing wait opcws findings attacking mekdad declined comment reporters waiting outside hotel meeting took place resilience assad told group visiting russian lawmakers western missile strikes act aggression russian news agencies reported syria released video wreckage bombedout research lab also assad arriving work usual caption morning resilience immediate reports casualties russian agencies quoted lawmakers saying assad good mood praised sovietera air defense systems syria used repel western attacks accepted invitation visit russia unspecified time trump said mission accomplished twitter strikes though us lieutenant general kenneth mckenzie pentagon acknowledged elements program remain could guarantee syria would unable conduct chemical attack future russian iranian military help past three years allowed assad crush rebel threat topple though israel times urged stronger us involvement assad iranian lebanese hezbollah reinforcements syria voiced backing saturdays air strikes western powers israel fully supports president trumps decision act use chemical weapons syria israels prime minister benjamin netanyahu told cabinet broadcast remarks sunday adding commended british counterpart theresa may phone call russian president vladimir putin speaks ceremony receive credentials foreign ambassadors kremlin moscow russia april 11 2018 sergei ilnitskypool via reuters leader lebanons hezbollah said sunday western strikes syria failed achieve anything including terrorizing army helping insurgents serving interests israel sayyed hassan nasrallah said us military kept strikes limited knew wider attack would spark retaliation damascus allies inflame region american military knows well going towards wide confrontation big operation regime army allied forces syria could end confrontation would inflame entire region nasrallah said heavily armed iranianbacked shiite hezbollah movement fights alongside syrian army represented beirut government vital ally damascus syrias sevenyear war draft un resolution france united states britain circulated draft resolution un security council late saturday aims establish new independent inquiry responsible chemical weapons attacks syria mechanism would look cases opcw factfinding mission established chemical weapons used likely used slideshow 10 images diplomats said negotiations draft resolution would begin monday immediately clear united states france britain wanted put vote gulf stock markets rose sunday supported firm oil prices relief weekends military attack syria relatively limited scope immediate retaliation internationally gold oil expected extend gains monday albeit modestly markets open first time since missile attack equities bonds unlikely suffer big losses unless west strikes russia retaliates gold benefited recent days safehaven asset amid uschina trade dispute escalating conflict syria also pushed oil 70 barrel concerns spike middle eastern tensions reporting elizabeth piper tom perry additional susan cornwell joel schectman washington michelle nichols new york samia nakhoul tom perry laila bassam ellen francis angus mcdowall beirut kinda makieh barzeh michael holden guy faulconbridge london jeanbaptiste vey geert de clercq matthias blamont paris andrey ostroukh jack stubbs moscow alison bevege sydney writing richard cowan editing caren bohan nick zieminski standards thomson reuters trust principles paris reuters french president emmanuel macron sunday said convinced us president donald trump maintain troops syria defended frances participation joint air strikes french president emmanuel macron poses tv set interview rmcbfm mediapart french journalists theatre national de chaillot paris france april 15 2018 francois guillotpool via reuters telephone calls saturday airstrikes macron said persuaded trump pull syria convinced necessary remain said complete international legitimacy act framework macron said interview broadcast bfm tv rmc radio mediapart online news three members united nations security council intervened reporting laurence frost michel rose editing ingrid melander standards thomson reuters trust principles
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<p>QUEBEC CITY – Canadian authorities on Monday charged a 27-year-old university student known for his far-right sympathies with six counts of first-degree murder in a mass shooting the day before at a local mosque.</p>
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<p>Alexandre Bissonnette, described by neighbors and acquaintances as a socially awkward introvert who had recently adopted virulent political views, was also charged late Monday afternoon with five counts of attempted murder with a restricted firearm. The five surviving victims were still in the hospital, with two of them in critical condition, although hospital officials said their injuries were not life-threatening.</p>
<p>Handcuffed, his feet manacled and wearing a white prison jumpsuit, Bissonnette reportedly looked at the floor throughout the court hearing, aside from casting a brief glance at his lawyer. The prosecutor, Thomas Jacques, indicated that terrorist charges could be added later to the murder and attempted murder charges.</p>
<p>The attack, which took place just as about 50 worshipers at the small mosque in the suburb of Sainte-Foy near Laval University had completed evening prayer, sent shock waves through Canada. Accustomed to seeing violence as a phenomenon taking place in the United States, Europe and the Middle East, Canadians found themselves in the headlines for all the wrong reasons.</p>
<p>Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was clear that his government considered the shooting a terrorist act. “This was a group of innocents targeted for practicing their faith,” Trudeau told the House of Commons. “Make no mistake. This was a terrorist attack.”</p>
<p>“These were people of faith and of community,” he said. “And in the blink of an eye, they were robbed of their lives in an act of brutal violence.”</p>
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<p>Bissonnette was described in media reports as an ardent nationalist and a strong supporter of the French far-right politician Marine Le Pen. He was known to activists in Quebec for taking positions against feminism and refugees, François Deschamps of the pro-refugee group Bienvenue aux Réfugiés said on his Facebook page.</p>
<p>The suspect was captured by police about 15 miles from the scene of the attack after he called 911 and offered to surrender. The police initially said they had also arrested a 29-year-old engineering student at the mosque. By Monday afternoon, they had released him and called him a witness to the event.</p>
<p>It turned out the witness, Mohamed Belkhadir, had left the mosque at the end of prayers and was near the building when he heard shots. Returning inside, he called 911 and began helping a friend who had been shot. When he saw armed police arrive, he panicked and ran off and was quickly stopped. He said the police had treated him well.</p>
<p>On Rue du Tracel, a quiet crescent of modest houses in suburban Cap-Rouge about a 15-minute drive from the mosque, Rejean Bussieres knew something was up when several police cars descended on his street Monday morning. Having heard of the shooting, he said, he immediately thought it could be Bissonnette.</p>
<p>“He used to like to break things as a kid,” said Bussieres, who has been a neighbor of the family for 30 years. “He was turbulent.”</p>
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<p>Bussieres, a retired municipal blue-collar worker, said that Bissonnette and his twin brother, Mathieu, were always introverted.</p>
<p>Bussieres’s 23-year-old daughter, Rosalie, said the twins had reputations as “nerds” who were obsessed with violent computer games and were bullied at school. “They were always just with each other. It’s sad. They were always home alone,” she said.</p>
<p>According to Toronto’s Globe and Mail website, Vincent Boissoneault, a friend of the suspect’s who also studied at Laval University, said that Bissonnette had been uninterested in politics until Le Pen visited Quebec City last year. Soon Boissoneault was clashing with his friend over his support for Le Pen and Trump.</p>
<p>“I wrote him off as a xenophobe,” Boissoneault told the newspaper. “I didn’t even think of him as totally racist, but he was enthralled by a borderline racist nationalist movement.”</p>
<p>But the Globe and Mail also quoted friends from Bissonnette’s days in junior college as saying he was apolitical and more interested in chess than right-wing politics.</p>
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<p>While mosques in Canada and the United States have been the targets of vandalism and other hate crimes in recent years, the Quebec City attack appears to be one of the first mass shootings at an Islamic house of worship in North America.</p>
<p>Jack Jedwab, president of the Association for Canadian Studies, whose research is focused on Canadian attitudes toward immigrants and religious minorities, said that the far right is a marginal movement in Quebec but that it does not stop “unstable people” from being attracted to its propaganda.</p>
<p>He told The Washington Post that Bissonnette was “clearly a person with problems” who was drawn to far-right ideology.</p>
<p>But Jedwab noted that there were no prominent elected politicians in Quebec who backed far-right positions, and he praised Trudeau and other leading Canadian politicians for reaffirming the government’s position of openness and support for the acceptance of Syrian refugees.</p>
<p>Jedwab said he did not link the attack to Trump’s election win or his ban on refugees and visitors from several Muslim-majority countries last week. “I don’t think this was planned in 24 hours. This was planned over a period of time,” he said, noting that Canadian firearm laws make it difficult to procure weapons in short order.</p>
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<p>The attack is a particular shock for Quebec City, a prosperous city of 800,000 that prefers to be known for its winter carnival and charming Latin Quarter. Unlike the multicultural centers of Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal, Quebec City remains overwhelmingly white, Catholic and French Canadian.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the city has seen recent growth in its Muslim population, particularly immigrants from French-speaking North and sub-Saharan Africa. The mosque located a short distance from the university was a microcosm of that growing community.</p>
<p>Among the victims identified by the Quebec coroner late Monday was Azzediene Soufiane, a 57-year butcher, whose halal meat market and grocery story was shut on Monday afternoon, a few forlorn bouquets left at the front door.</p>
<p>“He was nice, social and well-liked by his customers,” Amine Noui, a longtime friend of Soufiane, told Radio-Canada, the French service of the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. Noui said it was Moroccan-born Soufiane who was one of the first people to lend him a helping hand when he moved to the community a decade ago.</p>
<p>Khaled Belkacemi, another victim, was an Algerian-born professor at Laval whose work focused on “green” chemistry and functional foods. Calling it “horrible news,” university rector Denis Briere said Belkacemi was a colleague who would be greatly missed.</p>
<p>Two of the remaining victims were from Guinea. Both were married and leave a total of six children. The other victims were born in Tunisia and also had young families.</p>
<p>—</p>
<p>Bever and Hawkins reported from Washington. Marissa Miller in Quebec City contributed to this report.</p>
| false | 2 |
quebec city canadian authorities monday charged 27yearold university student known farright sympathies six counts firstdegree murder mass shooting day local mosque advertisement alexandre bissonnette described neighbors acquaintances socially awkward introvert recently adopted virulent political views also charged late monday afternoon five counts attempted murder restricted firearm five surviving victims still hospital two critical condition although hospital officials said injuries lifethreatening handcuffed feet manacled wearing white prison jumpsuit bissonnette reportedly looked floor throughout court hearing aside casting brief glance lawyer prosecutor thomas jacques indicated terrorist charges could added later murder attempted murder charges attack took place 50 worshipers small mosque suburb saintefoy near laval university completed evening prayer sent shock waves canada accustomed seeing violence phenomenon taking place united states europe middle east canadians found headlines wrong reasons prime minister justin trudeau clear government considered shooting terrorist act group innocents targeted practicing faith trudeau told house commons make mistake terrorist attack people faith community said blink eye robbed lives act brutal violence advertisement bissonnette described media reports ardent nationalist strong supporter french farright politician marine le pen known activists quebec taking positions feminism refugees françois deschamps prorefugee group bienvenue aux réfugiés said facebook page suspect captured police 15 miles scene attack called 911 offered surrender police initially said also arrested 29yearold engineering student mosque monday afternoon released called witness event turned witness mohamed belkhadir left mosque end prayers near building heard shots returning inside called 911 began helping friend shot saw armed police arrive panicked ran quickly stopped said police treated well rue du tracel quiet crescent modest houses suburban caprouge 15minute drive mosque rejean bussieres knew something several police cars descended street monday morning heard shooting said immediately thought could bissonnette used like break things kid said bussieres neighbor family 30 years turbulent advertisement bussieres retired municipal bluecollar worker said bissonnette twin brother mathieu always introverted bussieress 23yearold daughter rosalie said twins reputations nerds obsessed violent computer games bullied school always sad always home alone said according torontos globe mail website vincent boissoneault friend suspects also studied laval university said bissonnette uninterested politics le pen visited quebec city last year soon boissoneault clashing friend support le pen trump wrote xenophobe boissoneault told newspaper didnt even think totally racist enthralled borderline racist nationalist movement globe mail also quoted friends bissonnettes days junior college saying apolitical interested chess rightwing politics advertisement mosques canada united states targets vandalism hate crimes recent years quebec city attack appears one first mass shootings islamic house worship north america jack jedwab president association canadian studies whose research focused canadian attitudes toward immigrants religious minorities said far right marginal movement quebec stop unstable people attracted propaganda told washington post bissonnette clearly person problems drawn farright ideology jedwab noted prominent elected politicians quebec backed farright positions praised trudeau leading canadian politicians reaffirming governments position openness support acceptance syrian refugees jedwab said link attack trumps election win ban refugees visitors several muslimmajority countries last week dont think planned 24 hours planned period time said noting canadian firearm laws make difficult procure weapons short order advertisement attack particular shock quebec city prosperous city 800000 prefers known winter carnival charming latin quarter unlike multicultural centers vancouver toronto montreal quebec city remains overwhelmingly white catholic french canadian nevertheless city seen recent growth muslim population particularly immigrants frenchspeaking north subsaharan africa mosque located short distance university microcosm growing community among victims identified quebec coroner late monday azzediene soufiane 57year butcher whose halal meat market grocery story shut monday afternoon forlorn bouquets left front door nice social wellliked customers amine noui longtime friend soufiane told radiocanada french service canadian broadcasting corp noui said moroccanborn soufiane one first people lend helping hand moved community decade ago khaled belkacemi another victim algerianborn professor laval whose work focused green chemistry functional foods calling horrible news university rector denis briere said belkacemi colleague would greatly missed two remaining victims guinea married leave total six children victims born tunisia also young families bever hawkins reported washington marissa miller quebec city contributed report
| 662 |
<p>Jan 22 (Reuters) - Guangdong Land Holdings Ltd:</p>
<p>* G‍EXPECTED THAT GROUP WILL RECORD A PROFIT ATTRIBUTABLE TO OWNERS OF COMPANY OF NOT LESS THAN HK$46 MILLION FOR FY​</p>
<p>* EXPECTED RESULT DUE TO DECREASE IN REVENUE AND GROSS PROFIT GENERATED FROM SALE OF RESIDENTIAL UNITS UNDER RUYINGJU PROJECT Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian police have launched a preliminary investigation into the husband of ICICI Bank’s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=ICBK.NS" type="external">ICBK.NS</a>) chief executive, as well as officials at the lender and at Videocon Group ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=VEDI.NS" type="external">VEDI.NS</a>), two sources said on Saturday, to assess whether there was any wrongdoing in lending practices.</p> Videocon Group Chairman Venugopal Dhoot poses for a picture at the company corporate office in Mumbai January 7, 2015. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui
<p>Reports in many Indian media outlets in the past week have alleged that Videocon Group chairman Venugopal Dhoot invested 640 million rupees ($9.83 million) in Nu Power Renewables, a firm owned by Deepak Kochhar, the husband of ICICI Bank CEO Chanda Kochhar, after Videocon secured a loan from a consortium of banks, including ICICI.</p>
<p>ICICI, India’s third-largest lender, has backed its CEO and said its board had “come to the conclusion that there is no question of any quid pro quo/nepotism/conflict of interest as is being alleged in various rumors”.</p>
<p>India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) launched a preliminary inquiry about two months ago to assess whether “nepotism” or “criminality” were involved, the two sources told Reuters, declining to be named. The investigation was ongoing, one source said.</p> ICICI Bank's Chief Executive Officer Chanda Kochhar speaks during a news conference at the bank's headquarters in Mumbai February 10, 2015. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui
<p>ICICI Bank did not immediately respond to a request for comment, while Deepak Kochhar and Dhoot declined to comment.</p>
<p>In 2012, a consortium of more than 20 banks and other financial institutions approved loans of 400 billion rupees ($6.14 billion) to Videocon for debt consolidation, and an oil and gas capital expenditure program.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=ICBK.NS" type="external">ICICI Bank Ltd</a> 278.35 ICBK.NS National Stock Exchange of India -5.55 (-1.95%) ICBK.NS VEDI.NS PNBK.NS
<p>Of this, ICICI Bank provided 32.5 billion rupees after its own credit panel approved the loan, ICICI Bank said in a statement earlier this week, that it was “important to note that Ms. Chanda Kochhar was not the chairperson of this committee”.</p>
<p>India’s banking sector has been on edge in recent weeks after state-run Punjab National Bank ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=PNBK.NS" type="external">PNBK.NS</a>) said that it had discovered that bank officials had issued nearly $2 billion of fraudulent loan guarantees. The case has stunned financial markets and led to heightened levels of investor concern around any wrongdoing at Indian banks.</p>
<p>It also comes at a time when Indian banks are struggling to tackle problems of record levels of bad loans on their books.</p>
<p>Reporting by Krishna N. Das and Aditya Kalra; Writing by Sankalp Phartiyal; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Alison Williams</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>(Reuters) - Snap Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SNAP.N" type="external">SNAP.N</a>) on Friday said it cut 7 percent of its global workforce in March, as disclosed by it in a regulatory filing <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1564408/000156459018007282/0001564590-18-007282-index.htm" type="external">here</a>.</p> A woman stands in front of the logo of Snap Inc. on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) while waiting for Snap Inc. to post their IPO, in New York City, NY, U.S. March 2, 2017. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
<p>The social media company said it would incur about $10 million of cash expenditure due to severance costs to be reflected in the current quarter ending March 31.</p>
<p>As a result of the layoffs, primarily in its engineering and sales teams, the company said it sees savings of about $25 million in 2018.</p>
<p>The company had said it had 3,069 employees as of Dec. 31, 2017, according to its annual filing <a href="https://bit.ly/2pScNbz" type="external">bit.ly/2pScNbz</a>.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SNAP.N" type="external">Snap Inc</a> 15.87 SNAP.N New York Stock Exchange -0.08 (-0.50%) SNAP.N
<p>The Snapchat parent has been under pressure from investors to reduce costs after revenue fell short of analyst expectations during Snap’s first year as a publicly traded company.</p>
<p>Earlier this month, a company memo had shown that the company would cut just over 120 engineers and reorganize its engineering team, Reuters reported.</p>
<p>The Southern California-based company said the workforce reduction “is to align resources around our top strategic priorities and to reflect structural changes in our business.”</p>
<p>Reporting by Nivedita Balu in Bengaluru; Editing by Sandra Maler</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>BEIJING (Reuters) - Growth in China’s services industry picked up in March, an official survey showed on Saturday, reinforcing views that the world’s second-largest economy got off to a surprisingly strong start to the year.</p>
<p>The official non-manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) rose to 54.6 from 54.4 in February, which was a four-month low.</p>
<p>The services sector accounts for over half of China’s economy, with rising wages giving Chinese consumers more spending power.</p>
<p>The composite PMI covering both manufacturing and services activity rose to 54.0 in March, from February’s 52.9, well above the 50-mark that separates expansion from contraction.</p>
<p>Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Kim Coghill</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian Oil Corp plans to invest 1.43 trillion rupees ($22 billion) in next five years as the country’s top refiner seeks to raise its annual capacity to about 3.2 million barrels per day by 2030, its head of refineries said on Saturday.</p> FILE PHOTO: A logo of Indian Oil is seen on the shirt of an employee at a fuel station in New Delhi, India August 29, 2016. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi/File Photo
<p>Refiners in India, the world’s third-biggest oil consumer and importer, have sketched out plans to raise their capacity by 77 percent to about 8.8 million bpd by 2030 to meet the country’s rising fuel demand.</p>
<p>India is emerging as one of the global drivers for refined fuels consumption as its economic expansion and rising industrial activity yields infrastructure improvements and increased energy access for commercial and retail consumers.</p>
<p>“There is a need for us to enhance our capacity to meet the future demand and enhance our capacity ... We have already made our plans for investment of 1.06 trillion rupees,” B. V. Rama Gopal told a news conference.</p>
<p>He said board approval was yet to be obtained for 365 billion investment aimed at raising capacity of its Guwahati and Bongaigaon refineries in the northeast and Paradip plant in eastern Odisha state.</p>
<p>“We are going to enhance capacity in terms of crude processing and fuel specification,” Rama Gopal said, as India plans a nationwide roll out of Euro-VI compliant fuels in the country from April 2020.</p>
<p>IOC’s current capacity stands at about 1.62 million bpd including 230,00 bpd controlled by its subsidiary Chennai Petroleum Corp.</p>
<p>IOC processed a record 1.38 million bpd crude at its directly owned plants in 2017/18 mainly due to higher runs at its refineries in Paradip, which was commissioned in 2015, and at Bongaigaon, Guwahati and Digboi in the northeast.</p>
<p>Plants in land-locked northeastern India, with a combined capacity of about 80,000 bpd, for the first time operated at full capacity as the company began supplying low sulfur crude imported at Paradip through pipelines and by road.</p>
<p>Traditionally the northeastern refineries were using local crude, supplies of which have declined.</p>
<p>IOC is gradually building its portfolio of alternative fuels such as solar and production of ethanol, as well as boosting its petrochemical production.</p>
<p>“We don’t want to remain a refining company alone ... in addition to refining we will be venturing out in different areas like petrochemicals and alternate fuels,” he said.</p>
<p>Reporting by Nidhi Verma; Editing by Alison Williams</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
| false | 2 |
jan 22 reuters guangdong land holdings ltd gexpected group record profit attributable owners company less hk46 million fy expected result due decrease revenue gross profit generated sale residential units ruyingju project source text eikon company coverage standards thomson reuters trust principles new delhi reuters indian police launched preliminary investigation husband icici banks icbkns chief executive well officials lender videocon group vedins two sources said saturday assess whether wrongdoing lending practices videocon group chairman venugopal dhoot poses picture company corporate office mumbai january 7 2015 reutersdanish siddiqui reports many indian media outlets past week alleged videocon group chairman venugopal dhoot invested 640 million rupees 983 million nu power renewables firm owned deepak kochhar husband icici bank ceo chanda kochhar videocon secured loan consortium banks including icici icici indias thirdlargest lender backed ceo said board come conclusion question quid pro quonepotismconflict interest alleged various rumors indias central bureau investigation cbi launched preliminary inquiry two months ago assess whether nepotism criminality involved two sources told reuters declining named investigation ongoing one source said icici banks chief executive officer chanda kochhar speaks news conference banks headquarters mumbai february 10 2015 reutersdanish siddiqui icici bank immediately respond request comment deepak kochhar dhoot declined comment 2012 consortium 20 banks financial institutions approved loans 400 billion rupees 614 billion videocon debt consolidation oil gas capital expenditure program icici bank ltd 27835 icbkns national stock exchange india 555 195 icbkns vedins pnbkns icici bank provided 325 billion rupees credit panel approved loan icici bank said statement earlier week important note ms chanda kochhar chairperson committee indias banking sector edge recent weeks staterun punjab national bank pnbkns said discovered bank officials issued nearly 2 billion fraudulent loan guarantees case stunned financial markets led heightened levels investor concern around wrongdoing indian banks also comes time indian banks struggling tackle problems record levels bad loans books reporting krishna n das aditya kalra writing sankalp phartiyal editing raju gopalakrishnan alison williams standards thomson reuters trust principles reuters snap inc snapn friday said cut 7 percent global workforce march disclosed regulatory filing woman stands front logo snap inc floor new york stock exchange nyse waiting snap inc post ipo new york city ny us march 2 2017 reuterslucas jackson social media company said would incur 10 million cash expenditure due severance costs reflected current quarter ending march 31 result layoffs primarily engineering sales teams company said sees savings 25 million 2018 company said 3069 employees dec 31 2017 according annual filing bitly2pscnbz snap inc 1587 snapn new york stock exchange 008 050 snapn snapchat parent pressure investors reduce costs revenue fell short analyst expectations snaps first year publicly traded company earlier month company memo shown company would cut 120 engineers reorganize engineering team reuters reported southern californiabased company said workforce reduction align resources around top strategic priorities reflect structural changes business reporting nivedita balu bengaluru editing sandra maler standards thomson reuters trust principles beijing reuters growth chinas services industry picked march official survey showed saturday reinforcing views worlds secondlargest economy got surprisingly strong start year official nonmanufacturing purchasing managers index pmi rose 546 544 february fourmonth low services sector accounts half chinas economy rising wages giving chinese consumers spending power composite pmi covering manufacturing services activity rose 540 march februarys 529 well 50mark separates expansion contraction reporting ben blanchard editing kim coghill standards thomson reuters trust principles new delhi reuters indian oil corp plans invest 143 trillion rupees 22 billion next five years countrys top refiner seeks raise annual capacity 32 million barrels per day 2030 head refineries said saturday file photo logo indian oil seen shirt employee fuel station new delhi india august 29 2016 reutersadnan abidifile photo refiners india worlds thirdbiggest oil consumer importer sketched plans raise capacity 77 percent 88 million bpd 2030 meet countrys rising fuel demand india emerging one global drivers refined fuels consumption economic expansion rising industrial activity yields infrastructure improvements increased energy access commercial retail consumers need us enhance capacity meet future demand enhance capacity already made plans investment 106 trillion rupees b v rama gopal told news conference said board approval yet obtained 365 billion investment aimed raising capacity guwahati bongaigaon refineries northeast paradip plant eastern odisha state going enhance capacity terms crude processing fuel specification rama gopal said india plans nationwide roll eurovi compliant fuels country april 2020 iocs current capacity stands 162 million bpd including 23000 bpd controlled subsidiary chennai petroleum corp ioc processed record 138 million bpd crude directly owned plants 201718 mainly due higher runs refineries paradip commissioned 2015 bongaigaon guwahati digboi northeast plants landlocked northeastern india combined capacity 80000 bpd first time operated full capacity company began supplying low sulfur crude imported paradip pipelines road traditionally northeastern refineries using local crude supplies declined ioc gradually building portfolio alternative fuels solar production ethanol well boosting petrochemical production dont want remain refining company alone addition refining venturing different areas like petrochemicals alternate fuels said reporting nidhi verma editing alison williams standards thomson reuters trust principles
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