When Barack Obama was elected president, reproductive rights advocates hoped that we had found a champion. We looked forward to working with an administration that had promised a solid commitment to women’s rights, including a dedication to improved access to contraception and abortion services. This promise helped get Obama elected — surely, we believed, he’d make good on it.
Two years later, we are deeply
Emily Giffin wrote the novel upon which the new movie Something Borrowed is based. Giffin writes books that explore flawed characters but somehow through her writing skills she makes readers accept the flaws and still enjoy the story. The movie was not successful in translating the story and all we got was a trio of flawed characters who were unlikable. This in turn made the movie less than enjoyable.
Kate Hudson plays Darcy, a completely egotistical woman who uses her friends for her advantage and never considers their
For those who worry that the age of American exceptionalism is over, while the Greatest Generation sits laughing at us from the bar at their local American Legion post, the past week has certainly given reason to stand up and be proud. But, although good reason, it’s not the daring raid of SEAL Team 6 that finally got Osama that I’m referring to (which in its execution was very cinematic, even down to the helicopter failure — why does that always happen in reel and real life?). Rather, it is the reaffirmation that we make and export something that no other country can, and while our fathers and grandfathers in WWII may have saved the world from tyranny, we are conquering it with our product. And it’s not our fighter jets, predator drones or advanced weapons
It was considered the greatest architectural puzzle of its age. Many said it couldn’t be done. Nothing even close to its size had been built since antiquity. It would have a diameter of 143 feet and would exceed the span of the Pantheon in Rome which had reigned as the world’s largest dome for over 1000
New York States most effective and affordable crime prevention measure is being held up by the New York State Assembly and Senate mental health committees. That’s unfortunate for people who care about the mentally ill, public safety, and New York’s massive deficit.
New York State Assemblywoman Aileen Gunther (D), a former nurse with experience working on a psychiatric unit and State Senator Catherine Young (R), a fiscal conservative who cares about people with mental illness introduced the Kendra’s Law Improvement Act (A6987/S4881) with 35 co-sponsors from both parties. The New York State Assembly and Senate should quickly pass it. Governor Cuomo should sign
Something strange has happened to our financial system over the past years. We have always prided ourselves on having well-supervised financial markets and sophisticated financial institutions. Yet despite the preeminent role of the U.S. financial and capital markets, we have in recent years seen a significant and worrisome increase in conflicts of interests in the world of financial intermediaries and advisers, when their own economic interests and benefits increasingly clash with those of their clients, whose interests the intermediaries and advisers are paid handsomely to
One need only look at the yearly list of Oscar nominees for acting to see that the Academy doesn’t consider comedy to be real acting, ignoring the fact that comedy is insanely difficult to pull off. If you need proof beyond the quote “Dying is easy, comedy is hard,” try getting on-stage at a stand-up open mic. Humility and a newfound respect for people who get laughs will come swiftly with crushing, mortifying force.
Will Ferrell is arguably the world’s most successful comedic actor. Yet despite an enviable box office record indicating his talents in a notoriously difficult genre, Ferrell won’t be considered much more than a profitable clown until he starts landing the kind of dramatic roles that would put him in the company of people like Tom Hanks, Jim Carrey and Robin
US hedge fund billionaire Raj Rajaratnam has been found guilty of making tens of millions of dollars from insider trading.
The verdict brings to an end a nine-week trial which is part of what prosecuters call the largest hedge fund insider trading case in history.
Central to the prosecution's evidence were tapped phone calls between Rajaratnam and corporate insiders.
Rajaratnam has yet to be sentenced but faces up to 25 years in jail.
He was found guilty on all of the 14 charges he faced, including conspiracy, insider trading and securities fraud.
The jury decision had to be postponed for several days after one juror fell ill during their deliberations and had to be replaced.
Aggressive trading
Prosecutors argued Rajaratnam made as much as $63.8m (£39m) in illegal profits from 2003 to March 2009 by trading on tips from a network of highly-placed corporate
A US man has been arrested after trying to open an emergency exit door during a Florida to Boston flight, police say.
Robert Hersey, 43, of Arlington, Massachusetts, pulled the handle on the door, triggering an alarm, officials said. Witnesses described him as
Rising petrol prices in the US are expected to be one of the key issues in the 2012 presidential election. But Americans still pay half of what Europeans fork out on the forecourt. So why is it such a big deal?
Whatever bounce President Barack Obama has received from Osama Bin Laden's demise, there is a widespread belief that his fortunes at the ballot box in 18 months will be decided by two things.
Gas and jobs.
While the latest employment situation appears to be mixed – figures last week suggested both jobs and jobless rose in number – the president will be closely monitoring feelings on the forecourts of petrol stations across the US.
A survey published on Sunday by Lundberg said the price of a gallon of petrol (a US liquid gallon, not imperial), had hit a nationwide average of $4 (£2.40), just 11 cents short of the record high in 2008 at the height of the financial crisis.
There has been some respite since the weekend with prices of gas, as it is known in the US, reportedly falling by five cents in some places, but the anger felt by drivers shows no sign of abating.
At Tyson's Corner Center, a huge shopping mall in northern Virginia, motorist after motorist said it was hurting them in everything they did – the commute, the weekly shop or the school run.
And worryingly for the faltering economic recovery – and the president – they said they were being forced to cut back on other spending to pay for gas.
What US motorists say…
"I notice the gas prices increase a lot because I spend about $200 a month on it. I've been driving for 10 years and this is the worse I've known it," says Orgil Ganbold, 29, pictured in his Jaguar.
"I earn the minimum wage and half my pay cheque goes on gas," says Aimen Idris, 20, who works in a shopping mall. "So I'm not eating out and not going out as much."
"It doesn't affect me so much because I live near where I work. But my friends talk about it a lot and my daughter hasn't visited since spring break because she can't afford the gas," says Gloria Burtrago, 50.
"Of course it's hurting, it's $1.25 more than a year
By entering the presidential race on Wednesday, Newt Gingrich assumes the role of the most serious joke in the Republican Party.
If you look at the historical precedents for reaching the presidency, Gingrich is simply not positioned to be a serious candidate. He resigned from the last elected office he held, in the House, 13 years ago. He has never won statewide office, held a cabinet position, or served in the military.
By contrast, every president elected in the 20th Century had previously served in the military, or held national or statewide
The initial set of documents from the Skyhook trial (which I analyzed here last week) gave a quick flash of Google’s gamesmanship. But examining the larger set of documents from the initial phase of the Skyhook trial against Google is opening a window into Google executives’ views on how they sought to reinforce Google’s monopoly and collect personal information from its users.
These other batches of documents (see these PDFs here and here from the trial) highlight how Google both recognizes the monopoly nature of location-based services on smartphones and how it can keep extracting private information from users while maintaining a figleaf of “consent.”
As the New York Times noted in a story over the weekend, the emails flying back-and-forth give an almost minute-by-minute window into the workings of high-tech negotiations– at least until some legal-aware top managers abruptly killed email exchanges with messages like “Thread-kill and talk to me off-line with any questions.” But in the meantime, we get some quite damning admissions by Google execs on their internal practices.
Fighting to Monopolize Location-Based Services: When Motorola and Samsung announced they were going to use Google-rival Skyhook for their location-based services on their Android smartphones, Google on one hand responded in these internal emails by noting the superiority of Google location information precisely because they were maintaining constant surveillance on customers and local wi-fi spots to update their location maps. “We are constantlyre-mapping through our users, which keeps the data re-refreshed,” said one email (see p. 44) or, from another manager, the advantage of “the large volume of device distribution that helps the data
For decades, countries in the Middle East and North Africa have relied heavily on food and fuel price subsidies as a form of social protection. And, understandably, governments have recently raised subsidies in response to hikes in global commodity prices and regional political developments.
Like many things, there may be a time and a place for using subsidies. But they need to be better targeted. And, often, there will be better
Emotional eating is misunderstood and often unnecessarily demonized. However, emotional eating — that is, eating to feel good, often termed “compulsive eating” — isn’t the problem. It’s emotional overeating and mindless emotional eating that can be both psychologically and physically unhealthy. Emotional eating works as a coping strategy and stress reliever if approached with mindfulness and
Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda he led are both so last century. The current al Qaeda, and whoever becomes bin Laden’s successor, will have a hard time adapting to the twenty-first century. Today’s al Qaeda has different capabilities and constraints and also faces different strategic challenges from the organization bin Laden founded in 1988.
Of course, the spectacular attacks of 2001 and the recent killing of Osama occurred in this century, but the ideas and the circumstances that shaped him and his organization were formed in the twentieth century. In the decade since 9/11, much has changed in the world and within al Qaeda: the structure of the group and its leaders, the source of its members and funding, the main theaters of operations, the tactics, and even its enemies and rivals.
The original al Qaeda was an operational organization and all its cells were subject to a significant degree of
The other day I was laying around thinking about pirates and poets. It started with I saw an ad for Disney in People magazine that features Patti Smith as a pirate! I had to rip it out and hang it on my closet-of-inspiration door. As some of you may remember, I had been really affected by her book Just Kids. And I thought it seemed perfect that she was posing as a pirate…even if it was for Disney.
So I was lying there thinking…hmmm…pirates and poets (because Patti is a poet)–I want to be one! But where have I heard that before?! DUH! Kenny Chesney’s Poets and Pirates tour! Which I did see and enjoyed
Yesterday, President Obama called for the public to rally behind the idea of comprehensive immigration reform. I am very supportive, and I know many of my colleagues are as well. We have been waiting for this moment and stand ready to work with the President on this legislation. The President should help guide Members by laying out a legislative model of what he envisions in the reform process.
Until we achieve comprehensive immigration reform, we will continue to have two
BERLIN 1961: KENNEDY, KRUSCHEV AND THE MOST DANGEROUS PLACE ON EARTH ($29.95; GP Putnam’s Sons) *** 1/2 out of ****
BY FREDERICK KEMPE
In 1961, the United States and the Soviet Union — allies together during World War II — faced off militarily for the first time over the fate of Berlin. The young John F. Kennedy (reeling from the Bay of Pigs) and the peasant turned politician Nikita Kruschev (who kept one eye on opponents in the Politburo and another on China) knew that Berlin was crucial.
If the US couldn’t hold fast here, the countries that depended on it for protection from the ever-growing communist empire would lose
The 64th Cannes Film Festival gets under way later with a gala screening of Midnight in Paris, aromantic comedy from US director Woody Allen.
Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams and Marion Cotillard appear in the film, alongside France's first lady Carla Bruni.
Bruni announced on Tuesday she would not be attending the festival because of "personal reasons".
British hopes this year rest on We Need to Speak about Kevin, one of 20 films up for the prestigious Palme d'Or.
Directed by Scotland's Lynne Ramsay, the adaptation of Lionel Shriver's novel is the only British film in contention for the festival's main
Andy Warhol's Sixteen Jackies has just exceeded its $20m (£12.2m) target pricetag at an auction of contemporary art at Sotheby's in New York.
The 1964 print of former US first lady Jackie Kennedy sold for $20.24m (£12.4m), while Jeff Koons' sculpture of a pink panther hugging a topless woman went for $16.8m (£10.3m).
Total sales reached $128m (£78m) just above the $121m (£73.8m) low
In a 1950s conversation with her dear friend Ernest Hemingway, Marlene Dietrich asked his advice about a problem. She had been invited to perform at a Miami nightclub but was not sure she wanted to accept it. It was a lucrative offer, she explained, but her heart was simply not in it. When she thought of turning it down, though, she wondered if she was just “pampering”
I recently heard from a transgender woman who, prior to transitioning, enjoyed a 20-year career in the auto financing industry. She left her last post — as a senior vice president managing an $8 million portfolio — to transition. She’s spent the last two years since leaving her job trying to find a new position in her industry. But she can’t, thanks to pervasive discrimination against transgender people and widespread misunderstanding of what it means to be
Carlos was accustomed to dealing with stress and deadlines. As a systems engineer he lived a life of details and constant interruptions, but this new project seemed to be pushing him to the edge of his patience. The headaches started a few weeks earlier and were affecting his ability to concentrate on his work. At times he felt that the pressure behind his eyes would push them out of their
I like to think that we are making great progress in the fight against the stigma of mental illness — a fight that is necessary to ensure that people of any age with psychiatric or learning disorders feel comfortable getting the care they need. Once-taboo issues like depression, bipolar disorder, PTSD and dyslexia are now out in the open, and everyone from pop stars and movie stars, to soldiers and professional athletes, are comfortable admitting their problems and seeking help. We’ve come a long way.
But we still have a long way to go. Even those who are kind, caring and non-judgmental when it comes to most psychiatric disorders, from selective mutism to schizophrenia, may change their tune when talk turns to drug abuse and
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