America is alone among rich countries in not providing some form of health care for all its people https://t.co/sdGN8Kmwul
— The Economist (@TheEconomist) October 8, 2017
Showing posts with label 2017 at 08:42AM. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2017 at 08:42AM. Show all posts
Saturday, October 7, 2017
Sunday, October 1, 2017
Tuesday, August 29, 2017
Monday, August 28, 2017
Two Dead, Four Hospitalized In New Mexico Library Shooting
Two people were killed and four hospitalized Monday after a shooting at a library in the small city of Clovis, New Mexico, the city’s fire chief said.
One person was arrested in the incident, Fire Chief Michael Nolen said.
Library patron Vanessa Aguirre said she was in the Clovis-Carter Public Library with her son when a man came in and “started to shoot” into the air, The Eastern New Mexico News reported. “It all happened so fast,” she told the newspaper. “We took off fast. My purse is still in there.”
Officials at the library could not be reached to comment.
Clovis, which has a population of about 40,000, is around 190 miles (306 km) east of Albuquerque near the Texas border and is home to Cannon Air Force Base.
The newspaper reported that air ambulances had been dispatched and at least one victim was taken to Clovis Municipal Airport for transport to Lubbock, Texas.
Source: Two Dead, Four Hospitalized In New Mexico Library Shooting | HuffPost
Wednesday, August 9, 2017
Trump Evangelical Adviser: God Is Totally Cool With Nuking North Korea: Another Idiot Jerk
A right-wing pastor who serves on Donald Trump’s evangelical advisory board claims God has given the president “full power” to launch an attack on North Korea.
Robert Jeffress, head of the First Baptist Dallas megachurch, told CBN on Tuesday that a biblical passage in Romans allows rulers to use “whatever means necessary ― including war ― to stop evil.”
He said:
“In the case of North Korea, God has given Trump authority to take out Kim Jong Un. I’m heartened to see that our president ― contrary to what we’ve seen with past administrations who have taken, at best, a sheepish stance toward dictators and oppressors ― will not tolerate any threat against the American people.”
Source: Trump Evangelical Adviser: God Is Totally Cool With Nuking North Korea
Sunday, August 6, 2017
Meghan Markle is ‘ethnically ambiguous’ as she holidays with Prince Harry
In an interview with Pride Magazine in the UK, Ms Markle has told her fans that her life hasn’t always been easy.
The Suits actress says she grew up “ethnically ambiguous” with a black parent — referring to her mother Doria.
She told of how they were confronted by racist jokes from people who had no idea her mother was African-American.
Ms Markle, who also said her mother was dubbed the N-word, said she felt an ‘obligation’ to speak about being half-black…
Source: Meghan Markle is ‘ethnically ambiguous’ as she holidays with Prince Harry
Tuesday, August 1, 2017
Australia terror probe: Man released without charge
Police have been gathering evidence since conducting raids at the weekend in what PM Malcolm Turnbull called a “major counter-terrorism operation”.
Investigators allege the plot involved an improvised explosive device.
A 50-year-old man was released by police on Tuesday, but three men remain in custody. No charges have been laid.
The men can be held for seven days without charge after a magistrate on Sunday granted police special powers.
“This investigation remains ongoing, and further information will be provided at an appropriate time,” the Australian Federal Police (AFP) said in a statement on Wednesday.
On Sunday, AFP Commissioner Andrew Colvin said authorities had intervened early without having “all the pieces of the puzzle” because it was a counter-terrorism investigation.
Source: Australia terror probe: Man released without charge – BBC News
Wednesday, July 12, 2017
Canada fisherman killed by whale moments after rescuing it from net
Joe Howlett, from Campobello Island, New Brunswick, boarded a vessel off the province’s eastern coast on Monday to help rescue a north Atlantic right whale that had become heavily tangled in rope.
The rescue was steeped in urgency: in the past month, seven north Atlantic right whales have been found floating lifelessly in the Gulf of St Lawrence, off Canada. With a global population believed to be around 525, the string of deaths suggests that more than 1% of the population has died in recent weeks.
Howlett helped free the whale – only to be struck by the mammal moments later, said Mackie Green of the Campobello Whale Rescue Team. “They got the whale totally disentangled and then some kind of freak thing happened and the whale made a big flip,” Green, who was not onboard the vessel, told the Canadian Press.
Howlett had previously saved some two dozen whales over the past 15 years, making use of his deep knowledge of knots and ropes to set the huge mammals free.
Just a few days before his death, Howlett had helped liberate another north Atlantic right whale in the region, cutting away a fishing line caught in its mouth
Source: Canada fisherman killed by whale moments after rescuing it from net | World news | The Guardian
Sunday, June 25, 2017
Saturday, June 24, 2017
Woman trapped under Essendon house for 4 days rescued after scratching was heard under the floorboards
A male relative of the homeowner searched under the house, where he found the woman, before calling emergency services to the Miller Street home just before 7pm on Saturday.
It is believed the woman crawled under the house and became trapped.
A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Fire Brigade said the woman, aged in her 30s, was rescued after firefighters cut a hole in the kitchen floor before 9pm.
An Ambulance Victoria spokesman said another neighbour heard the woman calling out and alerted authorities.
The rescued woman reportedly told emergency service workers she was under the house for four days.
She had suffered some exposure to the cold and was taken to the Royal Melbourne Hospital in a non-life threatening condition.
Police say they don’t know why she was under the floor and they are now investigating.
Source: Scratching heard under floorboards before woman rescued under Essendon house
Monday, June 19, 2017
NASA’s Kepler mission finds 219 exoplanets, 10 Earth-size
The NASA Kepler mission has discovered 219 more exoplanets, including 10 Earth-size planets, program scientist Mario Perez said Monday at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California.
Ten of the planets are potentially rocky, close to the size of Earth and within the habitable zone of the stars they orbit — meaning they could support liquid water on their surface, Perez explained.
“The Kepler data set is unique, as it is the only one containing a population of these near-Earth analogs: planets with roughly the same size and orbit as Earth,” he said.
With the addition of this latest release, Kepler has now identified 4,034 planet candidates, and 2,335 of them have been confirmed as exoplanets. The mission has also found 50 candidates similar in size to Earth, with more than 30 of them confirmed.
Of the 10 newly discovered Earth-size planets, one is the closest to Earth in size and the distance to its host star. But researchers don’t know much more than that.
In comparison, our solar system looks like it has three planets in the habitable zone of the sun: Mars, Venus and Earth. “I would only want to live on one of those,” said Susan Thompson, a Kepler research scientist…
Source: NASA’s Kepler mission finds 219 exoplanets, 10 Earth-size – CNN.com
Tuesday, June 13, 2017
Jeff Sessions repeatedly refused to answer questions before the Senate Intelligence Committee
“I am protecting the right of the president to assert it if he chooses,” Sessions told the committee.
The attorney general, a longtime Trump ally, said he himself could not invoke executive privilege to refrain from discussing certain matters related to the executive branch and the president. He said that Trump could do so, if he chose, but that the president had not done so.
Still, Sessions repeatedly declined to talk about his past conversations with Trump and other top officials, even while claiming he wasn’t invoking executive privilege.
Similar exchanges happened over and over again, as senators pressed Sessions on the firing of former FBI Director James Comey, an investigation into Russian meddling in the U.S. election and the attorney general’s recusal from that investigation.
Democrats grew frustrated with Sessions’ failure to answer their questions…
Source: Jeff Sessions Insists He’s Not ‘Stonewalling’ By Not Answering Questions
Friday, June 9, 2017
Comey testimony watched by 19.5 million viewers at 10am weekday!
An estimated 19.5 million viewers watched James Comey’s widely televised U.S. Senate testimony.
Nielsen figures released Friday tallied the audience for the fired FBI director’s appearance across ad-supported networks and cable channels.
The major outlets divided Thursday’s audience up fairly evenly, with leader ABC’s 3.295 million viewers followed closely by CBS with 3.286 million. Fox News had 3.104 million and CNN had 3.059 million. MSNBC attracted 2.737 million and NBC drew 2.723 million.
Smaller audiences tuned in to the hearing on Univision, Fox Business Network and HLN.
Total viewership for the highly anticipated event fell short of the 30.6 million who watched President Donald Trump’s inauguration Jan. 20…
Source: Comey testimony watched by an estimated 19.5 million viewers
Thursday, May 4, 2017
Trump less than thrilled as he meets Malcolm Turnbull – ‘Fake News’ he describes their first tense phone call
Malcolm Turnbull and President Donald Trump have shaken hands and sat down together for the first time – and the Prime Minister appeared to be very excited at the much-awaited meeting.
This was the first time the pair had met since a tetchy phone call rattled ties after Trump took office, when he ‘objected’ to the deal that the US would take in refugees from Australia’s Pacific island detention centres.
Mr Trump addressed the phone call on Thursday on board a decommissioned aircraft carrier in New York, saying it ‘was a little bit of fake news’ and that they ‘weren’t babies’.
Trump reportedly exploded and cut short the call when he was told about a deal to move some refugees from Australia to America.
Thursday’s meeting was delayed by almost three hours with the President running late after remaining in Washington to pass a bill on Obamacare.
‘We get along great. Always do,’ Mr Trump, with Mr Turnbull sitting next to him on the USS Intrepid, told reporters.
Photos show the pair exchanging hand shakes, smiles and at one point Mr Turnbull appeared to clench his fists in excitement while chatting with the leader.
Mr Trump described Australia as one of the most beautiful places in the world and said he wants to visit.
The meeting was supposed to take place at a Manhattan Hotel, but the pair instead sat down on the decommissioned aircraft carrier on the Hudson River for 30 minutes.
Before the meeting, numerous immigrant and other groups, including Rise and Resist, were protesting Manhattan streets, aiming to disrupt Mr Trump’s homecoming.
It is the president’s first trip back to his home city since departing for Washington DC on January 19 for his inauguration.
Rally organisers are encouraging participants to bring pots and pans to bang in the hope Mr Trump will hear…
MORE: Donald Trump and Malcolm Turnbull meet in New York | Daily Mail Online
Saturday, April 29, 2017
Le Pen, Putin, Trump: a disturbing axis, or just a mutual admiration society?
The week after Donald Trump won the US presidential election last November, Marine Le Pen was inaugurating the headquarters of her own election campaign in Paris, less than a mile from the Elysée Palace she hopes to move into soon.
The far-right, anti-immigration Front National leader had been the only French political leader to back Trump in his bid for the White House. She has also made no secret of her admiration for Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin.
Unveiling her campaign symbol, a blue rose, she said that her election as France’s president would form a trio of world leaders that “will be good for world peace”, leading “a worldwide movement that rejects unchecked globalisation, destructive ultra-liberalism, the elimination of nation states, the disappearance of borders”.
Last month, Le Pen was in Moscow for a personal audience with Putin. “A new world has emerged in these past years,” she said. “It’s the world of Vladimir Putin, it’s the world of Donald Trump in the US. I share with these great nations a vision of cooperation, not of submission.”
Clearly, there is ideological common ground between the three leaders: variations on a theme of nation-first politics, support for economic protectionism and immigration controls, mistrust of international alliances and institutions such as Nato or the EU, and a rejection of globalism and the liberal consensus.
But Le Pen’s actual ties with the two leaders differ significantly. With Russia, at least, they go beyond the ideological to the personal and the practical. Her meeting with Putin in March was reported to be their first; but according to French investigative journalists, it is possibly their third.
Wednesday, April 26, 2017
Perth Property prices plummet by 20 to 40% ‘a lesson’ for east coast
Sydney and Melbourne’s skyrocketing house prices show no signs of pulling back any time soon, but over in Perth it’s a different story.
Home owners in the West Australian capital are battling to pay their over inflated mortgages with house prices in free fall.
Property was in high demand in Perth in 2007 and again in 2012 thanks to the mining boom, leading to strong price growth.
But now prices have dropped by double-digit percentages in some suburbs, with warnings Sydney and Melbourne could experience a similar fate in the next few years.
‘There’s probably a lesson for Sydney and Melbourne today of perhaps what’s coming after the market turns,’ Perth property valuer Gavin Hegney told the ABC’s 7.30 program.
He said West Australia was once ‘infallible’ and ‘really booming’ but times have dramatically changed.
In Mandurah, south Perth, some people have seen the price of their properties fall by a staggering 40 per cent in a decade.
Daniel Johnston, 35, purchased an investment property in the suburb for $580,000 in 2007 but now it is only worth $350,000.
‘We thought it might slow, the property price, but never expected the drop that Mandurah has had. It’s nearly halved,’ Mr Johnston told 7.30.
He is fearful he will lose his family home because he is struggling to pay back the $500,000 mortgage on the investment.
West Australian Lifeline financial counsellor Jenny Cecil said there has been a surge in the number of people reaching out for help.
”They’ve been unemployed possibly eight to 12 months, so when they do come to see us it’s sometimes difficult to offer options or arrangements to repay debt,’ she said.
In the past 12 months, Sydney house prices have risen by 13.1 per cent and in Melbourne they have jumped by 15.2 per cent in the same period.
The median Sydney house price now stands at $1.15 million, while in Melbourne it is $843,674.
Read more:
Source: Perth’s property slump post ‘a lesson’ for east coast | Daily Mail Online
Sunday, April 23, 2017
Friday, April 21, 2017
Wednesday, April 12, 2017
French election shaken by surge in support for far-left candidate
A dramatic seven-point surge by the wildcard leftwing veteran Jean-Luc Mélenchon appears to be holding, unexpectedly turning France’s roller-coaster presidential race into a possible four-way contest.
Barely 10 days from the first round of voting on 23 April, the independent centrist Emmanuel Macron and far-right leader Marine Le Pen, both with 23-24% of the vote, are still favourites to go through to the run-off round.
But Mélenchon, an acid-tongued political showman with a radical tax-and-spend platform, is now just five or six points behind. Some recent polls have placed him third, ahead of the scandal-hit centre-right candidate, François Fillon.
Mélenchon’s rise means that with up to a third of voters undecided, no two opinion polls entirely alike and margins of error to account for, it is impossible to say with certainty who of the front four will go head-to-head in the second round…
Source: French election shaken by surge in support for far-left candidate | World news | The Guardian
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