All Global News on One Page

I am not a banker, a politician, a diplomat or an economist. I grew up in a complex country with plenty of development challenges and a healthy supply of obstacles to thwart progress. As a researcher at the interface of global health, engineering and development, I have learned to appreciate that organizations tasked to improve the human condition and the quality of life not only need to respond to the challenges of today but also need to create tools to combat the problems of tomorrow and the day after. The solutions not only have to be sensitive and specific, but have to be innovative and transformative, not just

Duncan Keith. Five games. So what?
I get that this looks like a big deal by NHL standards because this is Keith’s first suspension for headhunting a superstar, but I’d be more inclined to take it seriously if it included the stipulation that in the event the Canucks meet the Hawks in the playoffs (for their fourth annual death match) and Daniel Sedin can’t dress because of an “upper body injury” Keith has to watch the series beside him in the press box.
Last week I wrote about Sidney Crosby’s concussion and how the more the NHL claims they’re taking head shots seriously, the harder it is to believe they’re taking head shots seriously. This week the hockey Gods felt I hadn’t made a strong enough case so they smote the best player on the team I cheer for.
With Crosby sidelined last year there was a vacancy in the spot for top scorer and Daniel Sedin stepped up and filled

There’s an inherent lack of balance when you’re in a mixed-status relationship.
My unauthorized immigration status permeates all aspects of life, and when it comes to romantic relationships, it further skews an already unpredictable situation. Things tend to fall into extremes of joy or sorrow, with moments of tranquility few and far in-between, but that’s just my experience. And although everyone experiences love — and what is now referred to as ‘undocumented love’ — differently, it is never an easy road to

“Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture,” which originated at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in October 2010, opened at the Tacoma Art Museum on March 17, the final appearance (and only West Coast appearance) for an exhibition that was also shown at the Brooklyn Museum during the winter of 2011 to 2012. The story of how “Hide/Seek” came to Tacoma is an unusual and interesting one, one that says something about the importance of the exhibition and its place in contemporary cultural, and museum, politics.
As a historian at the National Portrait Gallery, I became involved in the exhibition that would become “Hide/Seek” in 2006, when I mounted an exhibition about Walt Whitman. In that show I included a small photograph of Whitman and his partner Peter Doyle taken during the Civil War. The picture is, in effect, a wedding portrait, and in the label I identified Doyle as Whitman’s lover, going on to quote from the very affectionate correspondence between the two

The New York Jets acquired always-controversial quarterback Tim Tebow last week in a move that has some NFL fans perplexed. “The only reason Woody decided to bring the circus to town is to make money and distract the Jets fans from their misery,” wrote one fan. One thing’s for sure: Tebow is bringing the Jets some attention, and he’s probably good to rely on for merchandise sales, too.
read full news from www.huffingtonpost.com

I do not know Sybrina Fulton. Nor can I claim to understand the depth of her pain. Yet, we share a deep connection. A commonality experienced by those women who face the challenge of raising a Black male child in a nation that far too often views Black male bodies through a prism of

Source:Associated Press
__________________________________________________________________________
CHICAGO — Lucky? Maybe. Luol Deng’s timing was awful good, too. He grabbed a shot that had been blocked and put it in the basket just before the buzzer sounded Saturday night, rescuing the Chicago Bulls and giving them their NBA-leading 40th victory.Teammate C.J. Watson drove for the basket but his shot was partially blocked by Toronto’s James Johnson and Deng was there for the winner. After officials reviewed the play to make sure Deng’s shot beat the buzzer, the Bulls had a 102-101 overtime victory on a night in which they were often outplayed by the 16-win Raptors.”We’re lucky we had enough time to get the rebound,” Deng said. “When it left my hand it felt good because I saw the light after it left my hand. But then again, you never really know. We waited until they made the decision.”
More On The Bulls
Can’t get enough NBA news and notes? ESPNChicago.com has all the latest on the Chicago Bulls. Blog
Johnson, a former Bull, had 20 points, eight rebounds and four blocked shots, part of another determined effort by the Raptors, who gave Chicago a scare three nights ago before losing.”That’s what happens sometimes,” Johnson said.”The ball happened to fall short after I blocked it and Luol Deng made a great play. We deserved to win tonight, but they made the game-winning play.”Carlos Boozer had 24 points and 10 rebounds for the Bulls, Deng added 23 points and 10 rebounds, and Watson had 23 points.Jose Calderon also had 20 points and 10 assists, and Gary Forbes had 12 points and 13 rebounds for the Raptors, but missed two free throws with 6.4 seconds left in overtime.The Bulls are 40-10, but coach Tom Thibodeau was anything but pleased after the victory. The Bulls had beaten the Raptors 94-82 on Wednesday night in Toronto after trailing by 12 in the second half.”We hung in but the disappointing thing is that it’s two games in a row,” Thibodeau said. “We found a way to win. … Very fortunate. We were lucky to get that game. They outplayed us from the start. They dominated us. They outrebounded us by 14.”The Raptors had a 58-44 rebounding edge, were aided by Chicago’s horrendous 3-point shooting — 3-for-23 — but were hurt by 20 turnovers.”You block the shot, there was a scramble. They had nothing going, they get the loose ball and put it in. That’s the microcosm of the season,” Toronto coach Dwane Casey said.The Bulls were already without star guard Derrick Rose, who sat out his sixth straight game with a groin injury. And then they lost center Joakim Noah, when he was ejected with 1:28 left in the opening half after picking up two technical fouls.After he was called for a personal foul under the basket, Noah apparently got one technical for complaining and then a second after throwing the ball in the direction of an official.”We are short-handed already. We can’t have that,” Thibodeau said.The Raptors also were thin and used only eight players after beating the Knicks on Friday night. DeMar DeRozan missed the game with an ankle injury and Jerryd Bayless was out with a hip pointer.Calderon hit a go-ahead jumper for Toronto in the extra period before Boozer hit two free throws with 1:19 left for another tie at 100.Johnson, was fouled with 15.2 seconds to go and hit the second of two free throws to give the Raptors a 101-100 lead.With the game tied at 94, the Raptors got off three shots in the closing seconds of regulation and after a wild scramble, the ball was knocked out of bounds and Toronto maintained possession with 3.9 seconds left following a video review.Andrea Bargnani then had a good look at a 3-pointer, but the ball went in and went out, forcing overtime.Watson had a jumper, two free throws and a 3-pointer as the Bulls rallied from seven down in the fourth to tie it at 86 with just under 3 minutes left.Watson, who had 13 points in the fourth quarter, hit a 3 from the right side to give Chicago a 93-92 lead with 52.6 seconds to go. But Amir Johnson took a lob pass from Calderon and dunked to give the lead right back to Toronto. Watson then hit 1 of 2 from the line to make it 94-all with 32.2 seconds left.Game notes DeRozan fell one start short of tying the franchise record. DeRozan, averaging 16.5 points, had started 130 straight games but was injured in the fourth quarter of Friday night’s victory over the Knicks when he scored 30 points. The Raptors’ record for consecutive starts is 131 set by Alvin Williams. Forbes started for DeRozan … Richard Hamilton, who has played only 16 games this season, sat out a 10th straight game with a shoulder injury. … A moment of silence was observed for Lacy J. Banks, the long-time Chicago Sun-Times sports journalist who covered the Bulls during their championship years and also was a minister. Banks died this week.
Copyright by STATS LLC and The

Links:Full news story
Source:espn.go.com

Despite his big victory in Illinois on Tuesday, this was not a banner week for Mitt Romney. Indeed, he experienced a PR disaster when his longtime adviser Eric Fehrnstrom likened him to an Etch A Sketch: “You can kind of shake it up and we start all over again.” Santorum and Gingrich quickly began brandishing the toys at campaign events.
read full news from www.huffingtonpost.com

After fourth-seeded Louisville was upset by Morehead State in the first round of last year’s NCAA tournament, coach Rick Pitino joined CBS as a broadcaster and told the head of officiating that his crews were doing an excellent job. Somewhere, somehow, you have to think he was already campaigning for the future, certain that he would need the benefit of a few good whistles down the line.
“Down the line” just didn’t happen to be today.
With under 11 minutes remaining, lead official Karl Hess whistled Peyton Siva for his fourth foul of the game, sending Pitino into a belligerent and irate rage, only to get a technical foul that would push the Florida lead into double digits.
Always a master of basketball philosophy, however, Pitino did make one stellar move in Saturday’s 72-68 win over

Please join the HuffPost community in “A Lenten Journey” for reflections throughout Lent, and join our online Lenten community here.
“Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.” (Walt Whitman)
I’m the fourth definition of a fool used as a noun, as in — “He’s a dancing fool.” Substitute “skiing” for “dancing.” In winter, I indulge in my enthusiasm for skiing.
I imagined a life as the second definition of fool, when after college, I considered Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Clown College, albeit briefly. This idea ended when I mentioned it aloud to my parents. Instead it was off to divinity school for three years of rigorous rational

Often when we think about “God’s will” we think of trying to figure it all out. What is God’s will? What am I supposed to do? How can I discover God’s will?
Seeking answers, we pore over Scripture. We talk to trusted spiritual advisers. And we look within, too: one of the themes of Christian spirituality is the idea of “discernment,” in which your desires help to reveal God’s desires for

This past Easter I attended the President’s Easter Prayer Breakfast at the White House along with a couple hundred religious leaders from across the country. Before breakfast, a 76-year-old African-American preacher who served alongside Martin Luther King Jr. in the civil rights movement offered a prayer. I was expecting a perfunctory pre-meal prayer, but it was anything

The best way to understand a religion is through its prayer book. It is the prayer book that contains the written yearnings, desires, dreams and hopes of generations of adherents to that particular faith. One can explore the intimate and the public expressions and articulations of the theology through a careful analysis of the prayers presented therein. The Jewish prayer book, the siddur, is no exception to this

By contributing writer Gautama Mehta, originally published at KidSpirit Online
Growing up in a Hindu family in New York, I’ve always been taught that I should try my best, but understand that after I’ve done what I personally can, I should leave the rest to God.
Well, not specifically God, but whatever factors there are beyond my control. There is, in my religion, the concept of dharma, or duty: each person has his or her own righteous path to follow, and at different times in your life, your dharma could be being a good student, or parent, or hard worker, and so on.
Hindus are taught to have humility. Ancient Hindu artists were never supposed to sign their names on their work, and temple artists, when creating statues of gods, are always supposed to leave a deliberate imperfection to show that they cannot really represent God.
It’s a religion that decries affectation. It doesn’t presume to be the one and only “true” faith: there is no conversion

Facebook is more than a social network. It’s also a platform that allows independent developers to create applications, or “apps” that greatly expand what the service can offer. Games, including social games like Words with Friends, are very popular, but there are also education apps, photo sharing apps, apps to share interesting reading material, music apps and much more.
To operate properly, many of these apps need information from your profile and some need (or at least want) the ability to post on your behalf. That’s not necessarily a bad thing because, by accessing or sharing information, these apps can enhance your social

I cringed when I saw the promos for last night’s 20/20 and their “exclusive” first interview with former Rutgers University student Dharun Ravi, just found guilty on 15 counts — including invasion of privacy and bias intimidation — last week for spying with a webcam while his roommate, Tyler Clementi, was on a date with another man in their dorm room. My gut was right, for the most part, as I watched last night.
I was horrified at not only the sensationalism, but the near complete lack of depth to this very complex case that has been the subject of so much media coverage. This piece was a horrible way to give voice to Ravi, who, I think, came off as smug and without any real sense of the consequences and cruelty) of his actions in a manner that was offensive to anyone who has been subjected to bullying of any

Source:Associated Press
__________________________________________________________________________
LOS ANGELES — There’s nothing like a dominating win to take people’s minds off the coach’s job security. Blake Griffin, Chris Paul and the rest of the Los Angeles Clippers shrugged off all the negative vibes swirling around Vinny Del Negro and concentrated on their business.Griffin had 20 points and 10 rebounds, Paul added 19 points and 13 assists, and the Clippers ended their first three-game losing streak of the season with a 101-85 victory over the Memphis Grizzlies on Saturday.”Somebody kind of told me what was being said about him, but we’re all behind him and we’ve got to keep it that way,” Griffin said. “I don’t know how much we’ve taken from his personality, but he’s an energetic coach and obviously we want to play that way. Sometimes we haven’t, but we just need to keep buying in, and everybody needs to believe in each other.”
Arnovitz: Del Negro Sits More Comfortably
The Clippers’ resounding performance on Saturday should cool the temperature beneath Vinny Del Negro’s seat, Kevin Arnovitz writes. TrueHoop
• Lob City Ledger | Clippers Report
Del Negro, reported to be in hot water during and immediately after the Clippers’ 0-3 trip, met with general manager Neil Olshey after the team returned home — but would not share details of the conversation.The only member of Del Negro’s staff with any previous head-coaching experience is Marc Iavaroni, who was 33-90 with Memphis and was replaced midway through the 2008-09 season by current Grizzlies coach Lionel Hollins.”All the speculation, all the sources, all that stuff, I don’t spend a lot of time on that. I don’t have time for that,” Del Negro said. “It’s aggravating, but that’s part of the job. That’s part of the deal. We haven’t been playing well, and I’m the head coach. So that responsibility goes everywhere.”We need to play better. We lost some games we should have won, and maybe won some games we shouldn’t have. Managing expectations is the hardest thing in this business. And just because you get certain players or you get off to a good start, it doesn’t work like that. You have to put in the time and you have to stay together as a team. If you get everybody pulling in the right direction, it gives you a better chance.”Randy Foye added 18 points for the Clippers, who are three games behind the Lakers for the Pacific Division lead. They began a stretch of five home games in eight days.”It was very important to get a win. You almost forget what it feels like after you lose like we’ve been losing,” Paul said. “Our defense had been horrendous for a few games, just giving up everything — 3s, layups, free throws — but today we put it altogether. Everybody was really together when we came out there. We have a five-game homestand now, and we need every win we can possibly get right now.”Zach Randolph had 14 points and eight rebounds for the Grizzlies, who have lost six of eight after an 11-2 stretch. Point guard Mike Conley had nine points and nine assists during a foul-plagued 22 minutes.”The Clippers needed a win just as bad as we did. They played with a sense of urgency and they scrapped for everything,” Conley said. “They wanted it more than we did, and there’s no excuses for that.”Rudy Gay helped Memphis rally in the third quarter, making a 3-pointer to trim the Clippers’ lead to 10 at 61-51. But that was as close as the Grizzlies got. The Clippers responded with a 16-4 run, highlighted by Foye’s pair of 3-pointers 43 seconds apart, increasing the margin to 22 at 77-55 with 3:13 left in the quarter.”This win was big for us,” center DeAndre Jordan said. “Our season’s up and down with so many games and bodies are drained. We try, but some nights you’re not going to have it and you’re not going to click offensively or defensively. But today we came out with that defensive intensity, and it kind of had an effect on them the whole game.”Former Southern California star O.J. Mayo was called for a flagrant 1 foul on Griffin as he drove the lane to get a bounce pass from Paul with 48.3 seconds left in the third and the Clippers leading 79-60. Griffin missed both free throws, but it hardly mattered at that point, and Del Negro rested him and Paul during the final 8 minutes.”It’s always fun when you win, especially in that manner,” Griffin said. “There are some things we need to keep working on and improving on, but that was a lot better game. Our team defense was better. Guys were rotating in the low post, we got max-side help, we got steals, loose balls and deflections. Those are the kind of things we have to have.”Griffin, Paul and Caron Butler all scored in double figures in the first half to help Los Angeles build a 56-42 lead. Bobby Simmons, who was re-signed by the Clippers on Saturday — six days after his second 10-day contract with the club expired — beat the first-quarter buzzer with a 3-pointer that capped a 12-0 run and made it 33-17.”It’s very disturbing because we don’t have a rhythm,” Hollins said. “We can’t come out and score 17 points in the first quarter. We have to do a better job with our bench play and with our starters. Everybody needs to do a better job of guarding their own man.”Game notes Clippers reserve point guard Mo Williams missed the game because of a sprained big toe on his left foot. … Griffin, who was 8 for 12 on free throws, is still shooting a measly 60.9 percent from the line in 130 NBA games. … After this homestand, the Clippers will play nine of their final 14 regular-season games on the road. … The Clippers have beaten Memphis four straight times. … Paul has at least one steal in 52 consecutive games, the league’s longest active streak.
Copyright by STATS LLC and The

Links:Full news story
Source:espn.go.com

Sometimes an event occurs that speaks so simply, clearly, powerfully and eloquently of what it means to be a human being living in a democratic society. So it is with Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla. There are other instances, like Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia when he set himself on fire out of frustration and anguish to protest his treatment by Tunisian authorities after his repeated efforts to simply get a job.
The death of Mohammed Bouazizi triggered the Arab Spring. The killing of Trayvon Martin ignited nationwide outrage that in 2012, in America, a young man could be killed for apparently being black and wearing a hoodie, while walking peacefully at night on a public street near a gated community.
The Sanford,

Small businesses have always had a simple but nonetheless nagging problem: answering their phones with a consistent, professional presence.
Does the fearless leader hire an effervescent receptionist and pay the base salary plus all those excruciating payroll taxes, healthcare and other costs? Or, do they get one of those bleak, soul-less automated, ‘interactive voice response’ (IVR) systems that put us all through a soul-destroying telephonic chase?
RingCentral wants to be the third option in that management decision.
“We started out with two guys named ‘Vlad’ just to make it interesting,” said Vlad Shmunis, RingCentral co-founder and CEO. The other Vlad is RingCentral CTO and co-founder Vlad Vendrow who Shmunis says “is the original architect of the system and the smarter of the two.”
Vlad Shmunis
RingCentral, which was founded in 2003, has a very interesting evolutionary path. Schmunis started a company called RingZero Systems in the 1990s which, according to Shmunis, provided “a fee-based PBX system for SMBs (small and medium sized businesses) which ran on Windows.”
The company’s distribution was solely through OEM and bundling partners which Shmunis would later change in RingCentral. In spite of what he now looks back on as a failed business model, Shmunis had IBM as a major partner and eventually sold the business to Motorola.
Later, as it became apparent Motorola had no idea how to integrate RingZero into their org chart, Shmunis bought his assets back from Motorola to build what is now RingCentral.
“I learned not to do it on a PC system; it wasn’t the right platform for an answering system,” Shumnis

Ever since the 2008 election, Republicans have been trying to convince American voters that Barack Obama is destined to become “another” Jimmy Carter: a weak, moralizing leader lacking in the wisdom and strength to lead a great nation at a time of peril, and therefore undeserving of a second presidential term.
And now, with gas prices at their highest level in four years, and Islamic Iran, America’s long-time nemesis, suddenly looming large as a possible nuclear war threat, Republicans in search of a compelling election-year message may be finally getting their chance.
Remember those long, sweltering lines at the gas pumps — including ugly riots in Levittown, PA — during the summer of 1979? And the anger and humiliation provoked by the seizure of American hostages at the US Embassy in Tehran that November?
Most Americans under age 50 probably don’t, in fact. And whether there’s anything linking those distant events — other than”gas prices” and “Iran” — to America’s current strategic or domestic dilemmas, or to Obama’s statecraft, is debatable. But Republicans, led by “Revisionist-in-Chief” Newt Gingrich — aren’t looking for intelligent debate. What they desperately want is what they got — largely courtesy of Carter himself — in 1980: a compelling “doom and gloom” narrative they can recycle endlessly in the mainstream media until it takes hold with a large swath of the electorate.
It’s not hard to figure out why,

It is now over, perhaps someone will tell Rick and Calista.
This week, Jeb Bush quietly endorsed Mitt Romney — silencing the quiet yearning of Republicans who for months have hoped that Bush might yet emerge through a brokered convention — and Tea Party leader Jim DeMint urged Republicans to embrace him. For all the sturm und drang, the Republican party’s imitation of a Democrat nominating fight seems to finally be over.
Further evidence of this emerging political reality could be seen in Santorum’s increasingly shrill rhetoric. First, standing in the ashes of his Illinois primary defeat, Santorum sought to raise the stakes — and the hyperbole — when he suggested that this presidential race was “the most important election since the election of 1860.”
Santorum seemed to lack any sense of irony in his comments. The notion that we are at a sesquicentennial moment — that our liberty and freedom, our status as a unitary nation, are at a moment of transcendent risk — might make one wonder why Santorum is the best his party could offer in such a

VIEQUES, PR — Getting just one dollar of public funding makes a news organization “fair game” for attacks and NPR should be weaned off public funding eventually says Vivian Schiller the former CEO of NPR whose tenure was ended over a political controversy.
Another flash point for NPR is the money raised by member stations during pledge drives which empowers many contributors which she likens to members of a “co-op” she tells interviewer Jason Pontin, editor in chief of MIT’s Technology Review, on stage at the Beet.TV Executive Retreat last weekend.
Schiller is Chief Digital Officer of NBC News.
NPR, Going Regional
Among its newest digital efforts, NPR Is creating regional digital hubs, as Andrew Phelps reports on the Nieman Journalism Lab.
read full news from www.huffingtonpost.com

Mitt Romney’s cautious and feeble answer to a question about Rush Limbaugh’s misogynous tirade against Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke earlier this month might have an unintended positive effect: it is already serving as a case study for educators who teach the “bystander” approach to sexual and domestic violence prevention.
If you weren’t paying attention to what has become one of the biggest stories of the Republican primary season, here is a synopsis. Beginning in late February, the bombastic right-wing talk radio host Rush Limbaugh went on a three-day tirade against Fluke, who had testified in favor of insurance plans being required to include coverage for contraception. Limbaugh repeatedly called the 30-year-old woman a “slut” and a “prostitute,” and suggested that if the taxpayers were going to pay for her contraception, “And thus pay for you to have sex, we want you to post the videos online, so we can all watch.”
Romney — the frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination — initially ducked questions about Limbaugh’s rant. When he finally responded he managed to force out the meekest of possible rebukes: “It’s not the language I would have used.” Democrats and progressive pundits have had a field day with Romney’s weak

About a month ago, Jonathan Chait published an important article in New York Magazine arguing that demographic changes in the United States will before too long spell doom to the political influence and hegemony of conservatives, and that conservatives, well aware of these changes, regard the 2012 elections as their last, best chance to reverse the course America is on. “Conservative America,” Chait writes, “will soon come to be dominated, in a semi-permanent fashion, by an ascendant Democratic coalition hostile to its outlook and interests.” The Republican Party, Chait explains, had over decades found itself increasingly confined to white voters, “especially those lacking a college degree and especially rural whites.” Meanwhile, Democrats have increased their standing among whites with graduate degrees, secular whites and racial minorities. And he highlighted swing states like Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, Virginia and North Carolina where this demographic shift was increasingly evident. In 2008, Chait says, Obama carried out that blueprint, and the trend is continuing.
Chait’s argument is not