WASHINGTON, Feb. 25— High-ranking Administration policymakers are weighing the elimination of the Council on Environmental Quality, the Cabinet-level body that advises the President on environmental issues, White House officials said today.

A recommendation on the council's fate is expected to be given to President Reagan next week and may call for the withholding of financing for the agency in the budget for fiscal year 1982 and a total elimination of the council as part of a reorganization plan for the President's executive office, an official said.

In testimony before the House subcommittee on fisheries, wildlife conservation and the environment today, Malcolm Baldwin, acting chairman of the three-member council, said that he had heard rumors about the agency's possible elimination and had tried to prevent them from having ''a chilling effect'' on the council's morale.

Meanwhile, Interior Secretary James G. Watt, at his first news conference, said that the Administration intended to accelerate the leasing of offshore and onshore public lands for oil exploration, to give more authority to the Western states for the development of water resources, to open public lands not suitable as wilderness areas for ''multiple-use'' development of natural resources and perhaps to seek an easing of the Clean Air Act to facilitate energy development.

''I see myself as one who will continue to be a sagebrush rebel,'' said Mr. Watt after a meeting with 12 Western governors, referring to the so-called Sagebrush Rebellion, a movement whereby Western states and business interests are seeking increased access to the minerals, timber, grasslands and other resources on public lands.

Environmentalists said that today's reports indicated that their worst fears about the new Administration were apparently being realized.

William Turnage, executive director of the Wilderness Society, a conservation group, said: ''It is becoming overwhelmingly apparent that the Reagan Administration is not only insensitive to the environment but to that it is actively anti-environment.''

According to a Presidential aide, the White House is considering the elimination of the Council on Environmental Quality because ''it serves no function that could not be performed in another agency.'' The official said the Interior Department and the Environmental Protection Agency would be able to take over the council's duties. Annual Budget of $4 Million

The council was established under the National Environmental Protection Act of 1969. When President Nixon signed the legislation, he said it was part of ''a now or never'' fight against pollution.

The council was originally intended to be a watchdog agency that would focus the Government's attention on environmental problems and coordinate environmental issues among various agencies. It has a budget of $4 million a year, of which $3 million is authorized by the National Water Quality Act of 1970.

President Carter considered eliminating the council as part of an executive branch reorganization early in his Administration but dropped the idea after protests from environmentalists.

President Reagan, under his existing authority to reorganize his executive office by April 6, could eliminate the council. Such an action would stand unless either the House or Senate vetoed it within 60 days. However, an act of Congress would be required to extend his authority to reorganize past that date. Ex-Chairman Sees Usefulness

Russell W. Peterson, the president of the National Audubon Society who was chairman of the council in the Nixon and Ford Administrations, said today that it would be a mistake to do away with the agency.

''The C.E.Q. is the environmental conscience of the executive branch,'' said Mr. Peterson, a Republican who is a former Governor of Delaware. ''With this Administration's obvious lack of knowledge and understanding of protecting our life support systems, our country desperately needs a strong and effective C.E.Q.''

Oliver A. Houck, vice president of the National Wildlife Federation, said that the environmental council performed a function no other agency could handle by acting as a ''messenger'' to alert the Government to environmental problems. ''If the messenger is killed, the problems will still be there,'' he said.

At his news conference, Mr. Watt indicated that he intended to live up to his pledge to push for the rapid development of resources on public lands and to be more responsive to the desires of the Western states where most of the the national lands are located.

He said that he intended to make drastic changes in the management of the Office of Surface Mining, which regulates strip mining. He reaffirmed the elimination of the Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service. He also said he would seek recission of all money for new national park lands but would ask for $105 million to rehabilitate deteriorating national parks.


In 1956, Thompson Publishing bought a sickly trade publication called Research and Engineering. Prospects were bleak, and Thompson soon thought it would probably close the magazine.

The publication was entrusted to an editor who decided to toss in some articles about computers. Gladdened by the coverage, computer companies began to send in ads. Suddenly things looked merrier, and rather than send Research and Engineering to the magazine graveyard, Thompson decided to breathe new life into it as a computer publication.

Thus was Datamation born in October 1957. With a circulation of 145,000, Datamation now ranks as the oldest publication in a hyperactive field that has grown so congested that new entries seem to arrive - and old ones disappear - almost as quickly as a home computer calculates your income tax.

''It's like hamburger franchises,'' quipped one publisher. Technical Publishing, a Dun & Bradstreet subsidiary that now owns Datamation, recently started a new computer magazine, Software News, at roughly the same time that it pulled the plug on another, Output.

As an industry, the data processing field is reckoned to be sinking in the vicinity of $80 million this year into computer publications, and the pot of gold grows bigger as steadily as computers get smaller. But big as it is, the field has become so congested and fragmented that many of the publications are still having trouble making money.

Some 30 to 40 newspapers and magazines exclusively cover various facets of the computer industry - Computerworld, Computer Decisions, Byte, Computer Business News, Interface Age, Mini-Micro Systems, Computer Dealer, Computer Product News, Creative Computing, Data Management, to name a few - all jockeying for the eyes of computer lovers and the ads of computers marketers. 'A Crazy Market'

''People started these things in their basements,'' said Jack Edmonston, vice president of research at CW Communications, of some of the magazines now in the field. CW publishes Computerworld. ''Some of them were almost tongue-in-cheek journals. Then they sold them to established companies. They were a little early, but they were right.''

The many publications range all over the computer universe. ''This is a crazy market,'' observed Jim Morris, group publisher of Technical Publishing. ''There are horizontals and there are verticals. There are OEM publications and there are user publications.'' Change of Emphasis

At first, there were mainly horizontals. These poke into all corners of the computer world, and include the likes of Datamation and the weekly newspaper Computerworld. However, as the computer field has grown more specialized, so, too, have the publications that write about it. Most of the recent start-ups have been verticals, which zero in on a particular sliver of the computer business, such as software, graphics or personal computers.

Those that strike a responsive chord can quickly realize big growth. Gerry Leeds, a former industrial engineer who got his publishing feet wet trying some electronics publications, started Computer Systems News in late 1978, aimed at the original equipment manufacturers, or OEM, the people who purchase computer components, assemble them into systems and then resell them. In 1979, he introduced Information Systems News, directed at the top 3,000 computer users in the country.

Last year, ad revenues for Computer Systems News totaled about $2.8 million. Mr. Leeds expects them to top $4 million this year. He expects the revenues of Information Systems News to swell by 100 percent, to $3 million this year. It is that kind of market. Failure by Litton

It is also the kind of market where a magazine can easily selfdestruct. For instance, Litton Industries could not make a go of Computer Careers News. The monthly publication found it difficult to lure classified ads, no doubt in part because it was a monthly, and, according to those in the field, it is unlikely that people would regularly buy a careers journal.

''The state of the field is confused,'' Mr. Leeds said. ''The problem is that everyone looks at it and says, 'That's a wonderful fast-growing field.' Well, the thing is, it's not that fast-growing anymore. It's maturing. You have to identify a special need. The question here is really a battle for share of market.'' Mr. Leeds estimates that more than half of the computer publications are losing money, and a number of them are losing ''lots of money.''

Many of the publications, however, are still in their infancy, and it takes many magazines several years to turn a profit. And, Gene Simpson, executive vice president of the McGraw-Hill Publications Company, said he thought that the industry still had ''a long way to go'' before it matured. 'Weeding Out' Competition

''I think it's a matter of weeding things out,'' he said. ''It's a question of who's going to win and who's going to lose. I think it's important to get out ahead.''

Flexibility can sometimes insure survival. Modern Data was born in 1968 as a general computer publication. It almost went under in the early 1970's, then in 1976 changed its name to Mini-Micro Systems and homed in exclusively on the mushrooming small computer field. Things have looked up ever since.


05/22/2015 AT 05:05 PM EDT

Gun safety is no joke – unless, of course, you're a late-night comedian.

After Capitol Police officers accidentally left their guns in public restrooms in the building

times this year, the force has to undergo special training "on what to do when you have to go to the bathroom," says Capitol Police Chief Kim C. Dine, according to the

put it on his May 21 show, potty training.

Imagine Kimmel's delight when he heard this. To help with the learning process, the late-night talk show host came up with the above video, which offers hilarious tips on things like how to use the bathroom without confusing your genitalia for your gun.

Summary: Jimmy Kimmel made a "potty training" video for Capitol Police officers


Art historians have their hearts in their mouth. Again.

Advancing across Iraq and Syria, Islamic State militants are pulverising millennia-old cultural treasures and posting films of the destruction online. With their black flag newly raised over Palmyra, northeast of Damascus, it is feared IS will soon lay waste to this ancient oasis city in the Syrian desert.

What they don’t destroy may end up on the black market and purchased by collectors — some knowing about the illegitimate origins, but a few perhaps unaware or misled by fraudulent documentation.

“We’ve seen reports of ISIS destroying objects for propaganda value but in reality they know that the objects have real value and they will move them on into the marketplace,” said Chris Marinello, chief executive officer of Art Recovery International in London, which identifies and oversees the recovery of stolen, missing and disputed cultural property. “We saw this with the Nazis. Rather than destroy degenerate art taken from Jewish families, the Nazis sold it.”

The spectacular colonnaded ruins, known as the “Venice of the Sands”, have been designated a World Heritage Site by United Nations cultural agency UNESCO. In the 17th and 18 centuries, glowing reports from European travellers of the desert city’s unique blend of Graeco-Roman and Persian styles helped inspire the neo-classical revival in the West, so that Palmyra’s influence resonates around the globe, from Paris to Washington DC to Buenos Aires.

When objects looted by IS start to surface there likely will be everything from coins to clay tablets, small bronzes and figurative objects, and also larger architectural objects such as mosaic tile floors or wall pieces, said Laura Doyle, national fine art specialist at Chubb Insurance in New York.

Antiquities stolen from the Iraqi National Museum during the US intervention in Iraq in 2003. (Credit: Ahmad al-Rubaye/AFP/Getty Images)

Antiquities stolen from the Iraqi National Museum during the US intervention in Iraq in 2003. (Credit: Ahmad al-Rubaye/AFP/Getty Images)

“The FBI estimates that there is about $6b of art and artefacts that are stolen annually and only about 10% of that is recovered,” Doyle said.

So, with aerial photography revealing ongoing plundering, how can collectors guard against buying illicit valuables from Palmyra and elsewhere?

First, begin by establishing without a doubt where an item originated. Fortunately, there are tools to help everyone from the high-end gallery owner to the eBay buyer.

“People like to say ‘Does it have dirt on it? Does it look like it came from Syria?’ but the big question is ‘What’s the provenance?’,” Marinello said.

The provenance, or history of ownership, establishes when an item was removed from a country, exactly where it came from and who owned it previously, explained Doyle. “Dealers might be able to provide some background, but particularly when you are dealing with war-torn countries that have had a lot of documented looting it’s really critical that you understand the history of the piece,” she said.

Ancient Iraqi clay reliefs that were smuggled out of Iraq into the US. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Ancient Iraqi clay reliefs that were smuggled out of Iraq into the US. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Establishing provenance protects buyers both when they purchase — and when they later wish to sell an item.

Lists of stolen and looted works are kept by law enforcement agencies such as the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and Interpol and by privately run databases such as Art Claim, compiled by Art Recovery International, and The Art Loss Register. Much of Interpol’s database can be consulted free online, as can the International Council of Museums’ Emergency Red List of Syrian Cultural Objects at Risk.

Auction records are often listed online, too, so that you can work backwards to trace ownership, said Doyle. However in cases of uncertainty, she added, the best option is to consult an independent third party, such as Art Recovery International, The Art Loss Register and ArtBanc.

As part of their checking service, Art Recovery International has inspected images of works taken during the Iraq war and Egypt’s Arab Spring conflict, said Marinello. When their research uncovers illegality a certificate of clearance is refused and the appropriate authorities informed, he said.

If you already own an object you suspect may be looted, experts suggest you contact a lawyer or local law enforcement for guidance. Alternatively, you can contact a private organisation like Art Recovery Group who will liaise with law enforcement on your behalf while maintaining confidentiality.

Columns in the ancient city of Palmyra. (Credit: Niek Bokkers/Getty Images)

Columns in the ancient city of Palmyra. (Credit: Niek Bokkers/Getty Images)

Artefacts taken from the Middle East are typically dug up by poverty-stricken local people familiar with the ancient sites, said Marinello. They receive a pittance from middle men who use time-honoured smuggling routes from Syria and Egypt into the Lebanon and through Turkey to reach collectors in the US, UK, Germany, France, Switzerland and Italy, he added.

On the black market, objects known to be looted change hands at a significant discount of their true value, he said.

In the past, unwitting buyers might have been hoodwinked. But the proliferation of information available on the internet now means it is scarcely credible for collectors to plead ignorance of suspect origins.

“Anybody who would be buying these objects is obviously buying with the knowledge that there is a problem, and with total disregard,” said Marinello. “They can fully expect they will lose their investment, if not have their object seized and possibly face criminal penalties down the line,

The legitimate trade is not touching this stuff. This is radioactive material.”

To comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Capital, please head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter.

Summary: The special steps collectors must take to make sure they're not buying art plundered by militants.


PARIS — Uber, the US ride-hailing company, agreed to suspend its lowest-cost service in France starting Friday evening, bowing to violent strikes last week by taxi drivers that were largely unimpeded by the government.

In a statement released Friday, the company said that the service, UberPop, would be suspended at 8 p.m. and would remain inactive until the resolution of a case pending before the French Constitutional Court.

The service, which allows drivers who do not have a professional chauffeur’s license to pick up passengers via an Uber smartphone application, has been blasted by the country’s taxi associations as unfair competition.

“In the light of last week’s violence, we have today decided to suspend UberPop, our ride-sharing service,” until September’s court decision, said Gareth Mead, an Uber spokesman for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

Uber’s other services, which rely on drivers with professional licenses, will continue to operate, he said.

The government has said UberPop is illegal, but the company, based in San Francisco, has challenged the law that the government argues prohibits the service; the court is expected to rule in the next three months. In a separate case, two Uber executives are expected to stand trial in September over the company’s practices in France.

In a distinct change to its usually combative style, Uber adopted a conciliatory tone in its latest statement, probably in recognition of the government’s support for the taxi drivers.

“We believe there is a way forward that provides new opportunities for all drivers, including taxi drivers, as well as passengers who love the convenience of services like Uber, Heetch, and Djump,” said Mead, referring to some of the French ride-sharing services that are similar to UberPop.

The accessibility and low prices of all of Uber’s services, but especially of UberPop, have buffeted the heavily protected taxi industry here, precipitating outrage that last week tipped into violence. Taxi drivers nationwide went on strike, and a number of them took to the streets, blocking major urban access routes, causing traffic jams, and at times burning tires and occasionally assaulting Uber drivers and their customers.

While the government called for calm, it made only a limited effort to control the violence, and it then acquiesced to the taxi unions’ demand for a crackdown on Uber. The Interior Ministry deployed additional police officers to intercept Uber drivers, and senior French officials went to great lengths to denounce Uber, whose services are available in 57 countries.

That drum beat continued Friday, with the French prime minister, Manuel Valls, saying that the government’s “firmness” in its dealings with Uber had paid off. However, his comments, made on the sidelines of a meeting in the city of Besançon, suggested that he was also aware that there might be problems with the current regulatory regime in France.

“We are not against Uber; we are not against the VTC,” he said referring to non-taxi companies that offer rides on demand using drivers who are licensed as professional chauffeurs. “We are elsewhere ready to examine the rules in this domain and consider all necessary changes, but UberPop must be forbidden.”

Taxi drivers responded warily to Uber’s decision; some sounded as if they viewed it as a trick. Didier Hogrel, the president of the National Taxi Federation, when asked if he was pleased, said: “Not at all.”

“Uber is a specialist in communication and media hype,” he said. “We have to see if this declaration will be followed by results.’’

Jean-Michel Rebours, president of the Parisian Taxi Defense Union, sounded slightly more optimistic.

“Is there a reason for satisfaction? Yes, but with lots of questions,” Rebours said. “This is just a suspension, and what will it result in? I am nevertheless happy that the heads of UberPop in particular have taken this decision. It allows everyone to calm down a little during this period.”

Taxi drivers in France must acquire a license — costing as much as $270,000 in Paris — and have felt betrayed that unlicensed UberPop drivers are allowed to operate freely without having to bear a similar burden.

Uber has countered that there are too few taxis to satisfy demand in France and that with the country’s high unemployment rate of 10 percent, riders need low-cost alternatives. UberPop has 400,000 customers in France and about 10,000 drivers.

Uber said that it would work to help as many of its drivers as possible gain licenses as professional chauffeurs but that there were many “obstacles.” About 12,000 drivers who work with Uber have applied for licenses, but only 215 have been granted in the past eight or nine months, the company said.

Uber said users of UberPop would see a notice Friday evening on the smartphone app saying the service was suspended.

Summary: Uber, the U.S. ride-hailing company, agreed to suspend its lowest-cost service in France starting Friday, bowing to violent strikes last week by taxi drivers that were largely unimpeded by the government.


It drives Turley Muller crazy when analysts downgrade Apple AAPL because the iPod, once the company’s primary engine of growth — generating roughly 58% of revenue growth in fiscal years 2005 and 2006 — seems to have saturated the market and may now be sputtering toward the end of its product life cycle.

So on Monday Muller — one of the leading blogger-analysts covering Apple — conducted a thought experiment on his blog Financial Alchemist.

What if Apple, he asked, accounted for the iPhone as if it were an iPod — which in a way it is. (Steve Jobs calls it “the best iPod Apple we’ve ever made.”) And what if Apple reported iPhone sales revenue in the quarter in which it was earned, rather than spreading it out over 24 months?

The results are summarized in Muller’s tables below.

Bottom line: rather than dwindling into single digits over the past eight quarters, iPod revenue growth explodes into triple digits. For example, sales revenue for iPods alone grew 3% year-to-year last quarter. When combined with actual iPhone revenue, it grew 184%.

“With the iPhone’s $199 price tag and Apple’s plans to be in over 70 countries by the end of the year,” writes Muller, “we should expect to see growth figures like the 184% (4Q08) going forward. See the tables below.” (link)

Summary: It drives Turley Muller crazy when analysts downgrade Apple because the iPod, once the company's primary engine of growth -- generating roughly 58% of revenue growth in fiscal years 2005 and 2006 -- seems to have saturated the market and may now be sputtering toward the end of its product life cycle. So on Monday…


Angelina Jolie and Domhnall Gleeson

Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty; Gustavo Caballero/Getty

06/04/2015 AT 01:30 PM EDT

be a role in a future

The award-winning actress, who just

, led a chat with one of her

magazine, in which the pair talked family, fame and Jolie's not-so-secret fandom for the sci-fi franchise.

"So I know I can't ask about

, but I'm going to," the actress-director said. "How did you react to [the casting]?"

Gleeson, 32, who has remained mum about his character in

, went on to tell Jolie that snagging a part in the J.J. Abrams-directed film gave him a bit of a panic attack.

"I really get on well with my agents. And I called them up and I was like, 'What have I done? I like my privacy ...' "

Jolie understood the fear of drawing a lot of attention to one's self through a big role, explaining to Gleeson that she, too, is a private, work- and family-focused person.

But when it comes down to it, she would likely still be game for a part in the

world. And especially one in connection with a certain fan-favorite from the movies.

fan," she told the actor, to which he responded, "Well, you make a phone call and I'm pretty sure, Angie, that they'll have you in, in a second."

"Can Boba Fett have a missus?" she wondered. "Well, put in a good word for me, then."

"Could you imagine?" Gleeson continued. "'Hey, I'm calling to put in a good word for Angie.' "

All jokes aside, Jolie told the

actor he will appreciate the role the most when he has kids who look up to him.

"The funny thing for you now having done this movie is it will mean so much more to you when one day your little boy is watching it and looks at you in that different way," she told Gleeson.

"You still won't be cool to your children no matter what you do," she said, "But the

movies always have these beautiful messages and they are quite profound. And you will have this thing where, wherever you go in the world, you will be an artist and familiar to them."

Summary: The actress joked about being cast in the franchise with her Unbroken star, Domhnall Gleeson


07/28/2015 AT 06:05 PM EDT

might be his lucky replacement – but the comedian actually wasn't interested in the job.

"I was not interested in going to a network. I was never interested in taking somebody else's job. That's not an interesting job for me. I [had already done] something very similar," the former

host told reporters at a Television Critics Association panel on Tuesday. "It was never a very serious conversation."

last August, Handler has partnered with Netflix and is in the planning stages of putting together

that will run "at least two" days a week.

More immediately, Handler is producing

, a Netflix original film series consisting of four documentary-style projects starring Handler.

"It's been a really transitional year for me. A lot of changes have happened and to have this come together in a way that I'm so proud of – I don't know that I've ever been able to say that about something that I've done before," Handler said. "I've always thought, 'Oh, that's funny.' But I've never been like, 'Wow, that's amazing.' "

Summary: "That's not an interesting job for me," Chelsea Handler told reporters of hosting the Late Show


07/30/2015 AT 12:45 PM EDT

Let the cravings begin: Mindy Lahiri has a Castellano bun in the oven.

creator, star and all around renaissance woman

is back to work on the comedy now that Hulu has

, and her character's pregnancy is on full display.

Kaling, 36, posted an Instagram on Thursday of the cast and crew preparing to shoot a scene on the New York subway, and her maternity fashion is as chic as expected. The actress wears a vibrant orange tweed topper and matching pumps styled by costume designer Salvador Perez.

"What is the opposite of 'barefoot and pregnant'? That is what my costume designer @salvadorperezcostumes has custom made for Mindy Lahiri. And while Jane Birkin may be mad at Hermes, Mindy Lahiri is not," she captioned

, adding in another post, "This is called a marking rehearsal, by the way. Where we stand in place and our hard working camera crew do a test run of the shot. Notice they made my tape mark match my @salvadorperezcostumes outfit! What a bunch of pros."

On the show, Mindy is expecting a child with her fellow doctor Danny Castellano (Chris Messina).

– but vastly underrated – series in May, but before fans could utter a "How dare you?!" Hulu agreed to stream 26 new episodes.

Summary: The comedy is moving to Hulu for its fourth season


Lieutenant General John Wissler speaks about the chopper crash.

Eight people - six US Marines and two Nepalese soldiers - have died after their helicopter crashed in a mountainous region of earthquake-devastated Nepal.

The UH-1Y Huey had been delivering aid when it disappeared on Tuesday, with the wreckage only found on Friday after a search mission involving helicopters and hundreds of American and Nepalese troops.

"Today our hearts are heavy with grief for the US Marines who perished when their helicopter went down in the mountains of Nepal earlier this week while providing aid to earthquake victims there," US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter said in a statement.

"We also join our Nepalese partners in mourning the loss of their service members who were on board the helicopter at the time."

The US defence chief added: "Our mission continues in Nepal, and we remain dedicated to answering the call when disaster strikes, both in the Asia-Pacific and around the world."

John Wissler, the commander of the joint task force investigating the helicopter's disappearance earlier confirmed the wreckage of the helicopter had been found, describing the incident as a "severe crash".

He said he could not yet "positively identify the cause of the mishap", adding that recovery operations would resume on Saturday after being called off due to heavy thunderstorms.

The aircraft was spotted in a remote forest around 70 kilometres northeast of Kathmandu, according to Nepalese army official Major General Binoj Basnet.

Basnet said troops had reached the crash site on foot and two choppers, including a US military helicopter, had managed to land in the mountainous region after strong winds had kept them circling the wreckage.

Army helicopters and hundreds of US and Nepalese ground troops had been deployed to scour the mountainous terrain where the US chopper disappeared on the same day that a second major earthquake hit the country.

Before it went missing, there was "some chatter about a fuel problem" on the radio from the helicopter crew, Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steven Warren said on Tuesday.

Relief teams from around the world have been working for weeks to provide water, food, shelter and medical assistance to Nepal after the first, 7.8-magnitude quake hit on April 25.

Nearly 8500 people have now been confirmed dead in the disaster, which destroyed more than half a million homes and left huge numbers of people without shelter with just weeks to go until the monsoon rains.

Do you have any news photos or videos?

Summary: The US military says no one is believed to have survived a helicopter crash in earthquake-devastated Nepal.


Brigham and Women’s Hospital is co- developing a women’s health center in Shanghai, a deal that matches parent Partners HealthCare’s drive into new markets with growing demand for better medical care.

The tie-up extends a relationship with Jiahui International Hospital, a 500-bed facility under construction in Shanghai for which Partners is working as a long-term consultant.

Another Partners hospital, Massachusetts General, is co-developing Jiahui’s cancer center.

Under the agreement, Brigham staff will advise Jiahui on how to develop and structure women’s health programs. Brigham staff will also travel to Shanghai to train the doctors and nurses who will work at Jiahui. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.

“This is part of our strategic decision to expand the footprint and the influence of the Brigham outside New England,” said Steven Thompson, chief business development officer. “To achieve its mission, it needs that larger footprint.”

China’s health care industry was long dominated by public hospitals. Jiahui is among a new generation of private for-profit hospitals in the rapidly growing country.

As the population grows, demand for health care services is also growing. Researchers at Deloitte expect health care spending in China to grow almost 12 percent annually over the next several years.

Jiahui executives said that their goal is to create a high-quality alternative to the government-run hospitals with which most Chinese residents are familiar.

“We aim to redefine and redesign health care for women in China, offering a full range of care that tailors to their needs at different stages of life,” said Feng Ge, chief executive of Jiahui, said in a statement.

Dr. Gilbert H. Mudge, chief executive of Partners’ international division, said women’s health services — even routine cancer screenings — often go ignored in China, partly because the sheer volume of patients overwhelms health care facilities.

The Jiahui hospital “is trying to develop a totally new approach to medical care in China, a patient-centered approach,” Mudge said. “We think it’s going to represent a state-of-the-art facility in Shanghai.”

Jiahui International Hospital is to be completed in 2017.

Partners’ hospitals are affiliated with Harvard Medical School, a name that holds prestige even in China. Partners executives expect the Jiahui hospital will appeal to middle class consumers who value the Harvard name and want a more personalized approach to their health care. They said they will price the hospital so it’s affordable to “the vast majority of Shanghai patients.”

South of Shanghai, Mass. General is in talks to jointly manage a hospital a Chinese development company plans on an island near Macau.

Partners has done several international projects over the past decade in China, India, the Middle East, and other markets. Under pressure to control costs and limit growth at home, Partners increasingly is looking for business opportunities abroad, in countries with big and growing populations demanding better medical care.

The projects so far have brought Partners $10 million to $20 million a year, a small portion of its $11 billion in annual revenue.

Other US health systems, including Johns Hopkins Medicine and Cleveland Clinic, also have projects abroad.

Summary: Brigham and Women’s Hospital is co-developing a women’s health center in Shanghai, a deal that matches parent Partners HealthCare’s drive into new markets with growing demand for better medical care.


The program launched in April 2009, and the plan was to keep borrowers at a low rate for five years, let them and the broader economy recover, and then start bringing them back to current market rates. As the program was slow to ramp up, the first modifications were not logged until September 2009, but come this fall, about 30,000 borrowers will see their rates bump up 1 full percentage point. Their rates will then rise each year until they reach the current market rate, which now stands at 4.5 percent but is expected to rise over the next few years as hundreds of thousands more loans start to reset.

"If we see this leading to much more hardship than we expect right now for homeowners, we're going to be dynamic in our policy response. We're not going to get behind the curve on this," said Tim Bowler, assistant Treasury secretary for financial stability.

(Read more: Beyond 'frozenomics': What's hurting the housing market)

Among those homeowners who are scheduled to have mortgage interest rate and payment increases (88 percent of those now in the program), the median interest rate on their loan was 6.4 percent before modification and their median monthly payment was $1,421, the special inspector general reported in January. With the modification, the average monthly payment fell to $773. Those payments will begin to go up about $100 a year for the next three years for the average borrower, but some borrowers could see far higher rate resets.

"This is something that is going to blindside a lot of people," said Bankrate.com's Greg McBride, who initially argued that Treasury was just kicking the can down the road on the housing crisis. "This was 'extend and pretend,' no question about it. This was never designed to be something that solves the problems."

But Treasury officials argue this program not only lowered monthly payments for borrowers, it allowed them to pay a substantial amount into the principal. That, in addition to the recovery in home prices, has brought many of them up from underwater on their mortgages.

(Read more: Foreclosures could rise if Congress doesn't help)

While the average borrower nationwide will see just over a $200 increase in the monthly payment after three years of resets, some borrowers in higher-cost locations will see dramatic jumps because they had larger mortgages to begin with. California will arguably be hardest hit, as it saw by far the most modifications under the program. More than 230,000 Californians are in active permanent modifications, more than twice as many as in Florida, which had the next largest pool. The average monthly payment increase in California will be $297, according to the inspector general, but could be as high as $1,724.

The first 30,000 borrowers will not see their rates reset until September, the fifth anniversary of when the clock started for the first modifications under the program. In 2015, however, approximately 300,000 loans will begin to reset—when mortgage rates are expected to be higher due to the Federal's Reserve's tapering of its bond-buying.

Mortgage delinquency rates have been coming down dramatically in just the last year, dropping below 4 percent at the end of 2013 for the first time since 2008, according to TransUnion. Treasury officials say they will be watching that rate very closely as the modifications begin to reset, but they have no plans to make any changes to the program.

"We don't necessarily want to implement a policy change in the first quarter of 2014 that could cost a substantial amount of money or be ineffective without having a better picture of the facts," said Bowler.

(Read more: If investors bail on housing, what then?)

Summary: The rate increases will soon affect thousands of people who participated in the federal Home Affordable Modification Program.


"Companies involved in exploration and production—known as 'upstream operations'—are vulnerable simply because they've earmarked too much capital for production. While fracking has helped increase capacity, the cost of developing production capabilities isn't likely to be fully recovered," Rudolph-Shabinsky said.

Read MoreOil price fall starts to weigh on banks

"The lower the price of oil goes, the more likely it is that companies will struggle to recover their costs," he said.

Following the OPEC's production policy decision, Russian oil tycoon Leonid Fedun, vice president and board member at the country's second-largest oil company OAO Lukoil, warned of a similar risk.

"In 2016, when OPEC completes this objective of cleaning up the American marginal market, the oil price will start growing again," Fedun said, as quoted by Bloomberg. "The shale boom is on a par with the dot-com boom. The strong players will remain, the weak ones will vanish," he said.

Read MoreRussian oil oligarch: '$60 and below is possible'

John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital, a commodity investment firm that sees prices diving into the low-$50 area early next year, agreed highly leveraged shale producing companies are a risk to watch for.

However, he doesn't subscribe to the doomsday theory floating around that a wave of debt defaults by U.S. oil producing companies could cause another financial crisis a la 2008.

"I don't subscribe to that, but it is worth noting, and I am on the lookout for signs of real trouble."

Summary: OPEC's contentious decision to keep its production target could trigger a wave of debt defaults by U.S. shale oil producers, warn analysts.


WHEN: TODAY, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19TH

WHERE: CNBC'S BUSINESS DAY PROGRAMMING

In a CNBC EXCLUSIVE interview, CNBC's David Faber sat down with Liberty Media Chairman John Malone today, Wednesday, November 19th. Excerpts of the interview will run during CNBC's Business Day programming.

All references must be sourced to CNBC.

MALONE: IT IS A BIT OF A RACE CONDITION. IT WOULD BE UNFORTUNATE IF THE GOVERNMENT INTERVENED TOO HEAVILY BECAUSE REALLY LETTING THIS CAPITAL MARKETPLACE PLAY OUT WILL SEE MULTIPLE TERRESTRIAL PROVIDERS AT LEAST TWO SINCE THE TELEPHONE INDUSTRY IS PRETTY MUCH COMMITTED TO BUILD OUT AND UPGRADE THEIR NETWORK.

MALONE ON MEDIA'S CHANGING LANDSCAPE:

MALONE: I SUSPECT THAT WHEELER REALLY DOESN'T WANT TO GO THERE. HE WANTS TO GO TO SOME KIND OF NEGOTIATED SOLUTION THAT WILL SUFFICE UNTIL THERE IS COMPETITION. MORE COMPETITION. AND EFFECTIVELY ALLOW THE COMCAST DEAL TO GO FORWARD ON SOME NEGOTIATED CONNECTIVITY BASIS WHICH THEN COULD BE SUPERCEDED IF IN FACT TITLE TWO OR SOMETHING LIKE TITLE TWO IS PERSUED THAT WILL BE A BIG COURT CHALLENGE AND WE WON'T KNOW THE ANSWER TO THAT FOR PROBABLY A COUPLE OF YEARS.

FABER: DO THE ECONOMICS OF A COMCAST ACQUISITION OF TIME WARNER CHANGE DRAMATICALLY IF WE WERE IN A TITLE TWO ENVIRONMENT?

MALONE: WELL IT DEPENDS ON WHAT TYPE OF REGULATORY INTERVENTION. IT COULD BE VERY LIGHT IT COULD REALLY JUST BE A NONDISCRIMINATORY. I MEAN THE BOTTOM LINE OF THIS IS THAT AS SPEEDS ON THE INTERNET AND THE AMOUNT OF DATA ON THE INTERNET THE CONSUMERS USE OF THE INTERNET CONTINUES TO EXPLODE SOMEBODY HAS TO PAY FOR THE CAPACITY THAT IT TAKE TO DO THIS CONNECTIVITY. AND IT IS EITHER GOING TO BE THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE A RELATIONSHIP WITH THE CONSUMER INDIRECTLY THROUGH THE TRANSPORT OF THE INTERNET OR IT IS GOING TO BE THE INTERNET COMPANIES THEMSELVES. THE COMCAST CHARGING FOR VOLUME USAGE AT THE CONSUMER END. BUT THE ECONOMICS HAS TO WORK BECAUSE THIS CAPACITY IS NOT CHEAP.

FABER: DO YOU THINK COMCAST TIME WARNER CABLE IS GOING TO HAPPEN?

MALONE: YES I GIVE IT AN 80%.

FABER: IS THAT LOWER THAN YOU STARTED OUT WITH?

MALONE: YEAH I PROBABLY WOULD HAVE SAID 90% WHEN IT WAS ANNOUNCED. I THINK THIS NEW THEORY THAT HIGH SPEED CONNECTIVITY IS A MARKET UNTO ITSELF IT BOTHERS ME A LOT THAT THAT THEORY IS BEING PROPOSED.

FABER: WHY DOES THAT BOTHER YOU?

MALONE: WELL THAT IS LIKE SAYING THAT CADILLAC HAS A MONOPOLY OVER THE SALE OF CADILLACS. RIGHT.

FABER: OF CARS YOU MEAN?

MALONE: IT IS PARSING. THERE'S NO BARRIER TO ENTRY IN HIGH SPEED. OK IT IS A QUESTION OF SPENDING CAPITAL AND THE CABLE GUYS WHO HAVE GONE FORTH AND UPGRADED THEIR NETWORK HAVE A TIME LEAD, AN EDGE OVER SOME OTHER PURVEYORS WHO HAVEN'T YET SPENT THE MONEY. BUT THERE IS NO BARRIER TO ENTRY. AND SO WHEN THOSE KIND OF SITUATIONS THE FACT THAT ONE INDUSTRY THREW ITS INVESTMENT HAS GOT AN EDGE FOR A PERIOD OF TIME OVE ANOTHER THAT'S CAPITALISM TO ME THAT'S NOT ANTITRUST. IT BECOMES ANTITRUST IF THERE'S BARRIERS TO ENTRY AND THERE NEVER IS OR COULDN'T BE A NUMBER TWO.

FABER: SOME WOULD SAY A BARRIER TO ENTRY IS SIMPLY THE ENORMOUS AMOUNT OF CAPITAL THAT I AM GOING TO HAVE TO SPEND TO WIRE UP THE STREETS ALTHOUGH VERIZON HAS DONE IT.

MALONE: YEAH LOOK THESE PHONE COMPANIES ARE NOT TINY. NOR IS GOOGLE. THEY HAVE MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF CAPITAL AND REALLY IF IT IS DAVID AND GOLIATH IN THIS SITUATION THE CABLE INDUSTRY IS DEFINITELY DAVID.

FABER: CHARTER ALSO IS IN A POSITION IT WOULD SEEM PERHAPS MORE THAN ANY OTHER COMPANY TO ACTUALLY CREATE MORE SCALE OVER THE NEXT FEW YEARS DO YOU AGREE?

MALONE: YES CHARTER BECAUSE OF ITS STRUCTURE ITS HISTORY AND ITS MANAGEMENT TEAM IS PROBABLY IN THE BEST POSITION TO CONSOLIDATE SMALLER OPERATORS EFFICITENTLY. AND ALSO DO THE KIND OF RESTRUCTURING OF OWNERSHIP THAT'S NECESSARY IN ORDER TO MAKE THE WHOLE INDUSTRY MORE EFFICIENT IN THE U.S. NO QUESTION.

FABER: DO YOU THINK THAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN? OBVIOUSLY IT STARTS WITH THE SWAPS AND THEN THE SUBS THAT ARE TAKEN ON IF AND WHEN THE COMCAST TIME WARNER DEAL CLOSES BUT THERE'S BRIGHTHOUSE THERE'S SUDDENLINK, THERE'S CABLEVISION.

MALONE: I THINK IT IS HIGHLY LIKELY THAT CHARTER WILL BE THE GRAVITATIONAL CENTER OF CONSOLIDATION BECAUSE COMCAST IF THIS DEAL IS APPROVED IS PRETTY MUCH MAXED OUT. OKAY IN TERMS OF THE U.S. AND SO CONSOLIDATION SCALE EFFICIENT CONSOLIDATION WILL PROBABLY MOVE TO CHARTER IS MY GUESS. MY ARGUMENT IS THAT THIS NOW NEEDS TO GO FROM DOMESTIC TO GLOBAL.

FABER: IT IS FUNNY WHEN I HEAR YOU SAYING CONTINUING TO TALK ABOUT GLOBAL AND OF COURSE COMCAST BEING TAPPED OUT, OUR PARENT COMPANY IF AND WHEN THE TIME WARNER DEAL GOES THROUGH MAKES ME WONDER ARE YOU ONE DAY GOING TO SELL LIBERTY GLOBAL TO BRIAN?

MALONE: OR MAYBE LIBERTY GLOBAL WILL BUY BRIAN.

FABER: WOULD LIBERTY GLOBAL BE LARGE ENOUGH TO BUY COMCAST?

MALONE: YOU NEVER KNOW. DO YOU?

FABER: NO YOU DON'T. I MEAN THAT WOULD IMPLY A LONG-TERM VIEW HERE WHICH I KNOW YOU HAVE BUT THAT WOULD BE AWHILE I WOULD THINK DOWN THE ROAD THAT LIBERTY GLOBAL WOULD BE LARGER THAN COMCAST UNLESS I AM MISSING SOMETHING?

MALONE: WELL IN TERMS OF FOOTPRINT LIBERTY GLOBAL IS BIGGER THAN COMCAST. IN TERMS OF VERTICAL INTEGRATION LIBERTY GLOBAL HAS NEVER VERTICALLY INTEGRATED YET. SO IF LIBERTY GLOBAL WERE TO START VERTICALLY INTEGRATING FOR INSTANCE WHICH IS POSSIBLE THE TWO WOULD LOOK VERY SIMILAR IN MIX AND IN SIZE. SO A LOT OF PEOPLE THOUGHT WHEN LIBERTY GLOBAL TOOK A STEAK IN ITV FOR INSTANCE THEY MIGHT BE GOING IN THAT DIRECTION.

FABER: RIGHT WELL YOU SEEM TO BE IMPLYING THAT IT'S A REAL POSSIBILITY.

MALONE: EVERYTHING IS A POSSIBILITY DAVID I MEAN YOU KNOW YOU'D HAVE TO FOLLOW YOUR NOSE BASICALLY ON OPPORTUNITY. IN THE CASE OF LIBERTY GLOBAL THEY STILL HAVE A PRETTY GOOD RUNWAY AHEAD. THE U.S. MARKET IS MORE MATURE IN VIDEO, DIGITAL, SO ON. THE EUROPEAN MARKET STILL HAS A LOT OF GROWTH OPPORTUNITY EMBEDDED IN IT SO I THINK FOR THE MOMENT LIBERTY GLOBAL IS GOING TO STICK TO THEIR KNITTING FOR THE MOST PART AND VERTICAL INTEGRATION IS MORE THEORETICAL THAN REAL IN THE SHORT RUN.

FABER: WELL I MEAN COMCAST OBVIOUSLY IS THE ONLY DISTRIBUTED SO TO SPEAK THAT HAS CHOSEN TO GO BACK, I MEAN WE USED TO HAVE A LOT OF THEM.

MALONE: YEAH TIME WARNER CHOSE TO GO THE OTHER WAY

FABER: RIGHT. DO YOU THINK IT HAS WORKED OUT FOR COMCAST. DO YOU THINK IT HAS BEEN A SMART MOVE?

MALONE: OH I THINK PARDON THE EXPRESSION I THINK BRIAN TOOK THE PANTS OFF GE WHEN HE BOUGHT NBCUNIVERSAL. IT WAS A BRILLIANT MOVE FOR BRIAN. IT WAS WELL TIMED AND IT IS A GREAT ASSET AND IT GIVES BRIAN ENORMOUS FLEXIBILITY IN DEVELOPING U.S. BUSINESS SO YEAH I THINK IT WAS A BRILLIANT MOVE.

FABER: BUT WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT LIBERTY GLOBAL WHICH YOU CONTROL YOU DON'T NECESSARILY THINK ABOUT IT THE SAME WAY.

MALONE: WELL THERE ARE NO BIG VERTICAL ASSETS THAT ARE IN THE KIND OF DISTRESS. I MEAN BRIAN TOOK ADVANTAGE OF DISTRESS IN GE

FABER: HE DID AND OF THE CYCLE AND A LOT OF OTHER THINGS

MALONE: AND THE CYCLE AND THEN THE STRUCTURE THAT HE PUT TOGETHER WAS BRILLIANT. YOU KNOW OBVIOUSLY TIME WARNER DIVESTED THEIR CABLE BUSINESS AND SEPARATED IT INTO TWO YOU KNOW PERSONALLY HAVING A HISTORY IN THE BUSINESSI NEVER WOULD HAVE DONE THAT.

FABER: I'VE GOT AN IDEA FOR LIBERTY GLOBAL WHY NOT TIME WARNER ITS GLOBAL ITS CONTENT? YOU JUST BUY THAT ONE

MALONE: STRANGER THINGS HAVE HAPPENED.

FABER: WERE YOU SURPRISED WHEN MURDOCH SORT OF STOOD DOWN ON TIME WARNER AS QUICKLY AS HE CHOSE TO?

MALONE: A LITTLE BIT I MEAN I KNOW THOSE GUYS PRETTY WELL.

FABER: I KNOW YOU DO

MALONE: AND I WOULD HAVE IN FACT MY VIEW AT THE TIME AND I WAS TALKING TO BOTH SIDES WAS THAT IF RUPERT PERSISTED HE WOULD SUCCEED. BUT IT WAS GOING TO TAKE A WHILE AND WHEN JEFF DECIDED TO PLAY A SCORCHED EARTH RESISTANCE I THINK THAT RUPERT ON HIS OWN PROBABLY WOULD HAVE HUNG IN THERE CAUSE THAT'S RUPERT HE WOULD HAVE BEEN A BULLDOG ON IT.

FABER: THAT'S WHAT EVERYONE ASSUMED.

MALONE: BUT I THINK THAT THE PEOPLE AROUND RUPERT SAID YOU KNOW DO WE REALLY WANT TO TIE OUR COMPANY UP FOR A YEAR TO 18 MONTHS WITH THIS UNCERTAINTY. WITH NO GUARANTEE WE ARE GOING TO WIN SO I THINK ESSENTIALLY THE BALANCE OF JUDGEMENT IN IF I HAD TO GUESS WAS WE HAVE TOO MANY OTHER THINGS TO DO. YOU KNOW JAMES IS COMING INTO HIS OWN AS A MANAGER DOES HE REALLY WANT TO SPEND THE FIRST 18 MONTHS IN COURT IN DEPOSITIONS AND SO ON

FABER: IN BATTLES THEY ALSO SEEM TO WANT TO SHOW SOME PRICE DISCIPLINE PERHAPS WHICH MIGHT HAVE PERCLUDED THEIR ABILITY TO BID A 100 OR MORE

MALONE: I KNOW RUPERT BELIEVES HAD THEY GONE TO 100 JEFF WOULD NOT OF HAD A CHOICE. BUT THEN THAT WOULD HAVE SAID SOMETHING ABOUT AS YOU SAY PRICE DISCIPLINE. SO IN THE END I THINK THEY BACKED OFF FOR NOW.

JOHN MALONE: THE GLUE IN THE BUNDLE IS SPORTS. AND YOU KNOW, THE ROUGH ARITHYMATIC I THINK IS 30 OR 40 PERCENT OF HOUSEHOLDS WOULD ACTUALLY ELECT, IF THEY WERE GIVEN THE CHOICE, TO BUY THE SPORTS PROGRAMMING AT THE WHOLESALE PRICE. NO MARKUP. JUST AT THE WHOLESALE PRICE. SO YOU REALLY HAVE A WORLD WHERE 60 PERCENT OF HOUSEHOLDS THAT ARE PAYING FOR SOMETHING SO THAT THE OTHER 40 PERCENT HAVE ACCESS TO IT. AND THAT PHENOMENOM IS REALLY DRIVING THE BUNDLE AND THE COST OF THE BUNDLE. SO THERE HAVE BEEN EFFORTS AT CREATING ALL ALTERNATE TO THE BIG BUNDLE. MY GUESS IS, EVENTUALLY, THE CABLE WORLD, THE DISTRIBUTOR WORLD, LET'S NOT – SATELLITE AND CABLE – WILL TRY TO BUILD AN ALTERNATIVE BUNDLE AROUND BROADBAND. AND THE DIFFERENTIATOR WILL PROBABLY TURN OUT TO BE RANDOM ACCESS. SO YOU CAN HAVE YOUR LINEAR STUFF AND YOUR DVR, RIGHT, SO YOU CAN RECORD YOUR OWN AT HOME IN THE TRADITIONAL WAY. OR YOU CAN HAVE THIS ALTERNATIVE BUNDLE THAT IS CLOUD BASED INTERACTIVITY ALSO CONTRACTUALLY SET UP WITH THE CONTENT OWNERS, BUT MAY NOT INCLUDE THE SPORTS. AND SO, YOU KNOW, NETFLIX IS SORT OF THAT IF YOU THINK ABOUT IT. IT IS AN ENTERTAINMENT BUNDLE SUBSCRIPTION

FABER: THAT I CAN HAVE ACCESS TO WHEREVER I WANT.

MALONE: ACCESSED OFF THE INTERNET. SO I THINK WHAT YOU WILL SEE IS MORE NETFLIX, NETFLIX CLONES, AND THEN YOU WILL SEE SOME OF THOSE NETFLIX CLONES CLUSTER INTO BUNDLES. I DON'T THINK LES MOONVES HIMSELF BELIEVES THAT CBS ALONE IS GOING TO HAVE A BIG SUBSCRIPTION AUDIENCE. BUT IF IT IS PART OF YOU KNOW, FIVE OR SIX OTHERS, AND THOSE ARE AVAILABLE TO THE CONSUMER ON THE INTERNET ALTERNATIVELY AND IT IS DELIVERED WITH FULL RANDOM ACCESS, ALL PLATFORMS, ALL TECHNOLOGIES KIND OF THING, THEN THAT WILL PROBABLY START TO GROW AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE BIG BUNDLE.

FABER: HOW FAR ARE WE FROM THAT?

MALONE: WELL, I THINK A LOT OF IT HAS TO DO WITH THE PROGRAMMERS, THE NATURE OF THEIR EXISTING DISTRIBUTION CONTRACTS, SO THE FLEXIBILITY THAT THEY HAVE AND THE FLEXIBILITY THAT THE DISTRIBUTORS HAVE UNDER THEIR CONTRACTS WITH SUPPLIERS. AND I THINK THAT IS ONE OF THE ISSUES THAT THE FCC IS LOOKING INTO WHICH IS THEY AGREE TO WHICH CONTRACTUAL LIMITATIONS ARE INTERFERING WITH A MORE COMPETITIVE –

FABER: WITH THE EVOLUTION OF –

MALONE: THE EVOLUTION OF THIS ALTERNATIVE. BUT I THINK IT IS WRONG FOR PEOPLE TO THINK THAT THE DISTRIBUTORS WON'T BE IN THAT WORLD. IE THAT IT WILL BE A NETFLIX OVER THE TOP AND YOU CAN IGNORE THE DISTRIBUTION BECAUSE THE REALITY IS YOU KNOW, IF NETFLIX DIDN'T HAVE FREE TRANSPORT, THEY WOULDN'T EXIST. SO MY GUESS IS THAT THEY WON'T END UP AT THE END OF THE DAY WITH FREE TRANSPORT. SOMEBODY IS GOING TO PAY. IT IS EITHER GOING TO BE THE CONSUMER –

FABER: WE GET BACK TO OUR ORIGINAL CONVERSATION –

MALONE: WE GET BACK TO THE ORIGINAL CONVERSATION.

JOHN MALONE ON CHARLIE ERGEN:

DAVID FABER: YOUR neighbor there in Colorado, Charlie Ergen, has a lot OF people wondering what in God's name he's up to. These AWS auctions are going on right now. His stock has been going up, by the way, because the numbers seem to be pretty big. What do you think he does with that spectrum? You know, if you were in his shoes, because you're an iconoclast, like he is –

JOHN MALONE: Yeah. I mean, I think Charlie is very hard to understand or predict. I'm not entirely sure he knows what he wants to do. He knows they're valuable, right. He knows they're increasingly valuable. The question is and Charlie really doesn't want to cash out. He's having too much fun. So, the question is what combination can he come up with that essentially increases the value of the assets he's sitting on, but keeps him involved? I think that's what Charlie's looking for.

DAVID FABER: You don't think he's ready to sell it, then, per se? Maybe not Dish overall, but the spectrum?

JOHN MALONE: I know only if he had another place to put the proceeds that was fun and exciting for Charlie. You know, he's very creative. And he's a poker player. So, you know, I don't know what he's going to come up with. But I'm sure it'll be interesting when he does. You know, as you know, when we were controlling DirecTV, we had many meetings about putting the businesses together. And the synergies would have been huge. But we never believed the government would let us do it. And, you know, so –

DAVID FABER: That ship has sailed now, of course.

JOHN MALONE: That ship has sailed. And as you know, Charlie had an opportunity to sell his company into AT&T some years ago. And his comment to me was he doesn't want to sit around and spend all of his time getting hit up for donations by philanthropies. He wants to be actively doing things and he is still a young man.

With CNBC in the U.S., CNBC in Asia Pacific, CNBC in Europe, Middle East and Africa, CNBC World and CNBC HD , CNBC is the recognized world leader in business news and provides real-time financial market coverage and business information to approximately 371 million homes worldwide, including more than 100 million households in the United States and Canada. CNBC also provides daily business updates to 400 million households across China. The network's 15 live hours a day of business programming in North America (weekdays from 4:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m. ET) is produced at CNBC's global headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., and includes reports from CNBC News bureaus worldwide. CNBC at night features a mix of new reality programming, CNBC's highly successful series produced exclusively for CNBC and a number of distinctive in-house documentaries.

CNBC also has a vast portfolio of digital products which deliver real-time financial market news and information across a variety of platforms. These include CNBC.com, the online destination for global business; CNBC PRO, the premium, integrated desktop/mobile service that provides real-time global market data and live access to CNBC global programming; and a suite of CNBC Mobile products including the CNBC Real-Time iPhone and iPad Apps.

Members of the media can receive more information about CNBC and its programming on the NBC Universal Media Village Web site at http://www.nbcumv.com/programming/cnbc.

Summary: CNBC Exclusive: CNBC Excerpts: Liberty Media Chairman John Malone Speaks with CNBC's David Faber Today


COCOLI, Panama, March 26 (Reuters) - As it enters the final stretch of a massive expansion, the Panama Canal Authority is setting its sights on an even more ambitious project worth up to $17 billion that would allow it to handle the world's biggest ships. Workers are now installing giant, 22-story lock gates to accommodate larger "Post-Panamax" ships through the Canal, one of the world's busiest maritime routes. The project involves building a third set of locks on the Canal. It is being headed by Italy's Salini Impregilo and Spain's Sacyr, and should open on April 1, 2016. But Jorge Quijano, who leads the Panama Canal Authority, is already looking beyond this project to a fourth set of locks which would serve a new generation of even bigger ships that can carry 20,000 containers. "Looking at our geology and the experience we gained with this current expansion, we estimate it's a project that could cost between $16 billion and $17 billion," he told Reuters, adding it would allow Panama to compete head-to-head with Egypt's Suez Canal.

The Panama Canal Authority has long talked about building a fourth set of locks but Quijano said it is now for the first time seriously studying the project. He says container ship traffic through the Canal has risen around 3 to 4 percent in the last few months due to a backlog at U.S. West Coast ports, which were hit by a now-settled labor dispute disrupting trans-Pacific trade.. "It has had a positive impact for us, but the Suez Canal has been the big winner because they can handle the Post-Panamax ships," Quijano said. If the Canal goes ahead with the project, Quijano says it could be completed within 15 years and that financing options include issuing bonds and using the Canal's own revenues. China Harbour Engineering Company Ltd (CHEC), a subsidiary of state-owned China Communications Construction Co Ltd , has voiced interest in building and financing a fourth set of locks in Panama, and Quijano said company officials met with him this week. Further north in Nicaragua, a little-known Chinese businessman has vowed to build a $50 billion canal across the country to rival Panama's, although some industry experts are deeply skeptical, pointing to the high costs, environmental challenges and the firm's lack of experience in such projects.

The Panama Canal's current expansion plan was originally set at $5.25 billion but the costs rose and the administrator became locked in a dispute with building consortium Grupo Unidos Por el Canal (GUPC), which built the third set of locks. Quijano said GUPC has submitted claims totaling $2.3 billion to date. Giuseppe Quarta, GUPC's CEO, says he is unsure whether its members would be interested in bidding to build a fourth set of locks, saying the Canal Authority has repeatedly rejected its claims in the dispute. Quijano says the Canal has already lost around $400 million in revenue because of project delays caused by the spat. The giant new locks sit alongside those of the existing Panama Canal and include a complex reservoir system that will empty and fill the lock chambers using gravity rather than pumps. Sections of the 100-year-old waterway are being dredged to take ships with a greater draft. Any new project to build a fourth set of locks will live or die by trade flows, says Maersk Line, a unit of conglomerate A.P. Moller-Maersk. It is a major customer of the Panama Canal, crossing it 300 to 350 times a year. "The big question for any future expansion of the Panama Canal is will trade growth sustain that extra investment," said Robbert Jan van Trooijen, Maersk Line's CEO for Latin America and the Caribbean. "For me, to see any of those (mega) ships coming near Latin America, that's the very distant future."

Summary: COCOLI, Panama, March 26- As it enters the final stretch of a massive expansion, the Panama Canal Authority is setting its sights on an even more ambitious project worth up to $17 billion that would allow it to handle the world's biggest ships. It is being headed by Italy's Salini Impregilo and Spain's Sacyr, and should open on April 1, 2016.  "Looking at our geology and...


* FTSEurofirst 300 up 1.9 percent, extending gains

* ECB downgrades inflation view, says bond-buying adjustable

* EasyJet surges on positive profit outlook

LONDON, Sept 3 (Reuters) - European shares rose sharply on Thursday, extending earlier gains as the European Central Bank delivered a dovish message from its first meeting after weeks of market turmoil.

Shares rallied as the euro fell after ECB President Mario Draghi cut inflation forecasts and said the bank was willing to adjust or extend its bond-buying programme of quantitative easing if necessary.

"Today's ECB press conference was significantly more downbeat in terms of the outlook for euro zone growth and inflation," Alastair George, Chief Strategist at Edison Investment Research, said.

"Today's comments have generated the now-traditional QE effect of putting downward pressure on the currency and upward pressure on bonds and equities."

At 1334 GMT, the FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares was up 1.9 percent at 1,422.15 points.

The index remains down more than 10 percent since early August, due to China's stock market upheavals and the prospects of an imminent U.S. rate hike. However, the market has partially recovered on hopes that central banks will continue to be supportive.

With the focus squarely on the actions of central bankers, investors will keep a close eye on Friday's U.S. jobs data, which could provide clues about the timing of the Federal Reserve's likely move to raise interest rates.

Some traders said Friday's non-farm payrolls data could also come in below expectations after the ADP National Employment Report showed in the previous session that U.S. private employers added a smaller-than-expected 190,000 jobs in August.

The top riser in the FTSEurofirst 300 index was British low-cost airline easyJet, which jumped 5.9 percent after raising its full-year profit outlook.

However, Flughafen Zurich fell 6.5 percent after the airport operator reported in-line results, with a downgrade at a top-ranked broker cited as the reason for the decline.

EDF dropped 3.7 percent after the French state-controlled utility said the EPR nuclear reactor it is building in Normandy will again be delayed, to 2018. It raised the cost estimate to 10.5 billion euros ($11.9 billion) from an initial budget of 3 billion euros.

Europe bourses in 2015: http://link.reuters.com/pap87v

Asset performance in 2015: http://link.reuters.com/gap87v

Summary: *EasyJet surges on positive profit outlook. LONDON, Sept 3- European shares rose sharply on Thursday, extending earlier gains as the European Central Bank delivered a dovish message from its first meeting after weeks of market turmoil.  "Today's ECB press conference was significantly more downbeat in terms of the outlook for euro zone growth and inflation,"...


For the past couple of years, several competitors have been duking it out to become the standard for wireless device charging.

Consumers have mostly chosen to wait on the sidelines, grudgingly toting power cords or battery cases for those times when their phones won't make it through the day.

More from Re/code: Facebook at work? Not so fast Sarah Lacy on Uber Exec's plan to smear her The Mac's second act: From obscurity to ubiquity

Seeing both a need and an opportunity, Starbucks said earlier this year that it would begin a nationwide rollout of wireless charging spots in its coffee shops. The chain is opting for a city-by-city approach, starting Tuesday in the San Francisco Bay Area as the company lit up wireless charging in 1,500 spots within 200 stores.

"This is step one of us taking it national," Starbucks VP Matthew Guiste said in an interview at a wireless charging-equipped location near Levi's headquarters in San Francisco.

More cities in the U.S. and abroad are planned for next year, though Starbucks isn't saying which ones are coming next.

Read MoreCo-working spaces are transforming how we work

As for the technology, Starbucks went with an option provided by Powermat Technologies, backers of the Power Matters Alliance. Many of the early devices with wireless charging capabilities have supported the rival Qi format. However, Starbucks said it was attracted to Powermat because it allows for central management of its charging stations. That means Starbucks doesn't have to keep track of which outlets are working at what stores.

Instead, Powermat can remotely monitor which charging pods are getting the most use and other details of the charging network.

In choosing Powermat, Starbucks could well be serving as kingmaker in the standards battle, given the sway it holds over technology. After all, public Wi-Fi was something of a rarity before Starbucks began putting the Internet in all its stores back in 2001.

"We expect that with this partnership, [other] people will follow," said Powermat founder Ran Poliakine. (Poliakine turned over the CEO spot on Tuesday to former BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins.)

Summary: Starbucks will begin a nationwide rollout of wireless charging spots in its coffee shops, Re/code reports.


SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Aug. 31, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- FLX Bio, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of novel cancer immunotherapies, announced today that it has appointed Brian Wong, M.D., Ph.D., as Chief Executive Officer and William Ho, M.D., Ph.D., as Chief Medical Officer. Drs. Wong and Ho join an experienced management team led by veterans of Flexus Biosciences, Inc., FLX's predecessor company: Jordan Fridman, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer; Jay Powers, Ph.D., Vice President, Drug Discovery; and Steve Young, Ph.D., Vice President, Technology.

FLX Bio also announced today the initiation of a Phase 1 study in patients with relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML), under an Investigational New Drug (IND) application for FLX925 (previously known as AMG 925), a dual inhibitor of FLT3 and CDK4/6.

"We are delighted to welcome Drs. Brian Wong and Bill Ho to the management team at FLX Bio as the company advances its growing oncology pipeline into the clinic. The organization will benefit greatly from the experience of these accomplished executives in discovering and developing innovative therapies for cancer," said David V. Goeddel, Ph.D., of FLX Bio's Board of Directors.

Brian Wong, M.D., Ph.D. and William Ho, M.D., Ph.D. Bring Immuno-Oncology Expertise and Leadership to Advance FLX Bio's Programs

Dr. Wong most recently served as Senior Vice President, Research and Head of Immuno-Oncology at Five Prime Therapeutics, which he joined in 2009. There he led the discovery of novel immuno-oncology therapeutics, one of which has progressed to clinical trials in combination with Opdivo™. Prior to Five Prime, Dr. Wong served as Director of Research in the Inflammation Disease Biology Area at Roche Palo Alto from 2005 to 2009. He led the development of Roche's Rheumatology discovery portfolio, consisting of ~20 biologics and small molecule programs in phases from discovery to mid-stage clinical development. From 2000 to 2005, Dr. Wong held various leadership roles at Rigel Pharmaceuticals, where he identified and developed clinical candidates against multiple novel targets for allergic, autoimmune and respiratory disorders. Dr. Wong received an M.D. from the Weill Cornell Medical College and a Ph.D. in Immunology from The Rockefeller University under Dr. Yongwon Choi, Ph.D., a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, and in collaboration with Nobel laureate Dr. Ralph Steinman, M.D.

"I'm very excited to join the FLX Bio team," said Dr. Wong. "With a clinical-stage asset, a rich pipeline of immuno-oncology agents targeting regulatory T cells, an exceptional management team and scientific staff, and strong support from The Column Group, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Celgene, FLX Bio is positioned to become a key player in the immuno-oncology space."

Dr. Ho most recently served as Vice President of Clinical Development at Igenica Biotherapeutics, leading the clinical development of antibody-based therapeutics. Prior to Igenica, he was a Senior Medical Director in the Exploratory Clinical Development (BioOncology) group at Genentech, where he spent seven years leading the clinical development of multiple small molecule, antibody and antibody-drug conjugate programs at stages ranging from IND filing to Phase 3, including clinical development of Gazyva® (obinutuzumab). Dr. Ho received an A.B. in Molecular Biology from Princeton University and holds both an M.D. and a Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology from the Stanford University School of Medicine, where he studied cellular immunology in the laboratory of Mark Davis, Ph.D., a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. He continued his medical training at the University of California, San Francisco and at the University of Washington and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, where he studied adoptive immunotherapy methods to treat leukemia, including early work contributing to current CAR-T technology.

Initiation of Phase 1 Trial of FLX925, a Selective Inhibitor of FLT3 and CDK4/6 in Acute Myeloid Leukemia

FLX925 is a selective inhibitor of fms-like tyrosine kinase 3 (FLT3) and cyclin-dependent kinases 4 and 6 (CDK4/6) that was licensed from Amgen. The preclinical data for FLX925 are consistent with a potential best-in-class profile in the treatment of certain cancers that are driven by abnormal levels of FLT3 and/or CDK4/6 activity.

"Acute myeloid leukemia remains a disease with great unmet medical need," said Beth Seidenberg, M.D., of FLX Bio's Board of Directors and General Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. "We believe FLX925 has the potential to bring meaningful benefit not only to patients with AML, but also to patients with other malignancies driven by CDK4/6."

For more information about the clinical trial, including enrolling centers, please visit www.clinicaltrials.gov under trial identification number NCT02335814.

Founded in 2015 following the acquisition of its predecessor company, Flexus Biosciences, Inc., by Bristol-Myers Squibb, FLX Bio, Inc. is a privately-held biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of novel cancer immunotherapies. The company is leveraging unexploited insights in immunology to discover novel agents that combat cancer by reversing tumor immunosuppression. This disruptive approach to cancer therapy targets that which is common to all tumors: the host immune system.

Located in South San Francisco, Calif., and funded by leading investors, including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), The Column Group (TCG) and Celgene, FLX Bio has assembled a management and R&D leadership team with a proven track record of success and an advisory group and team of scientists with substantial knowledge and expertise in drug discovery and translational areas essential to execute on this approach. For more information, please visit www.flxbio.com.

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/flx-bio-announces-senior-management-hires-and-initiation-of-phase-1-trial-of-flx925-300134881.html

Summary: SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Aug. 31, 2015/ PRNewswire/-- FLX Bio, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of novel cancer immunotherapies, announced today that it has appointed Brian Wong, M.D., Ph.D., as Chief Executive Officer and William Ho, M.D., Ph.D., as Chief Medical Officer. Wong and Ho join an experienced management team led by...


Anthony van Dyck is famous as a painter of silk and lace, but his true originality is the way he saw flesh. However magnificent the shiny blue dresses, pink robes and black armour in which his subjects pose, it is their faces that hold your attention. They are British faces, with pale skin and bright eyes and long, almost caricatured chins and noses - at once arrogant and touchingly flawed - as they assert a fragile splendour about to be shattered by the civil war.

Van Dyck is not the cold flatterer a cliched glance might suggest, but a painter of feeling. His great picture Thomas Killigrew and another Gentleman (1638), lent like several of the finest works here from the Royal Collection, portrays a prematurely widowed courtier, paralysed by melancholy, resting his head on his hand, while he clutches a sketch for a monument to his lost wife, in front of a broken column as a friend tries to distract him with affairs. But it's Killigrew's face that gives this painting rare intimacy: long and ironic, with an immensely characterful gaze, it has a nose that's bumpy and shiny, a dimpled chin with skin sagging beneath dry and sandy hair.

Lucy Percy, Countess of Carlisle, turns towards us as she walks in her ethereal finery that half-convinces you heaven can be bought. Yet it is the singularity of an oval face, the unevenness of her complexion, the length of her nose that arrest you. You see peoples's faces more acutely after this show.

Even when he paints a mythological scene, Van Dyck brings it down to earth. In an unmistakably British landscape, Psyche sleeps under the darkling leaves. Cupid approaches, winged yet as ordinary as any shepherd. This painting is a masterpiece that stakes Van Dyck's claim to stand with Velazquez and Caravaggio as one of the great subversives who made the baroque real.

Summary: Tate Britain, London: Although famous as a painter of silk and lace, the artists true originality is the way he saw flesh, says Jonathan Jones


Mo'ne Davis of Pennsylvania pitches during the United States division game at the Little League World Series tournament at Lamade Stadium on August 20, 2014 in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

Last year, it was the Perth Metro Central Little League team that sparked a merchandise sellout after becoming the first Australian team to take the field at Howard J. Lamade and Volunteer Stadiums. This year, much of the buzz is around a team from Philadelphia, the Taney Dragons.

McClintock said that the organization this year decided to "freshen up the colors" of the athletes' uniforms. The Dragons are now decked out in maroon and powder blue, the same colors as Major League Baseball's Philadelphia Phillies.

Coupled with those spruced up uniforms is breakout star Mo'ne Davis, a young pitcher for the Dragons. She's one of only 18 girls to play in the 68-year history of the Little League World Series, and the first female pitcher to hurl a shutout.

Read MoreSpending big on kids' sports? You're not alone

The stadium sold out of approximately 1,500 Mid-Atlantic T-shirts in advance of Taney's game against Texas last Sunday.

McClintock said that when items run out, LLBWS staff "get on the ball, pun intended" and reorder as quickly as they can. The organization had new stock available for Wednesday, when the Dragons took on the Mountain Ridge Little League team from Las Vegas, Nevada. Admission to the event was free, but tickets had to be issued for stadium seating, as more than 34,000 people arrived to watch the game.

As early as Monday, unauthorized merchandise was seen selling online. Ebay accounts began offering baseballs, hats, and photos signed by Mo'Ne Davis. Most of the bidding remains below $200 but some merchandise is going for up to $450.

Summary: The Little League Baseball World Series, which holds its championship this weekend, has become a big-money sports event.


Matthew Miller, who has died aged 50 of a heart attack, was a quiet visionary who pioneered a different way of making art, outside the hype and bombast of the contemporary British scene. With Liz Whitehead and fellow members of the Red Herring collective, in 1996 he created the Fabrica gallery in Brighton, a space unlike any other in Britain – not only in the open way it is run, but in how it has opened a door on art from Europe, and on important and often spectacular work happening below the radar.

Miller revelled in the hidden, the lost, the passed over – and Fabrica too could be discreet to the point of media invisibility, leading it to be jokingly referred to as "the best gallery you've never heard of". But word got around. Anish Kapoor, Martin Parr, Bill Viola and Thomas Hirschhorn came to Miller's door. The converted church on the edge of the Lanes attracts audiences that national institutions would be proud of.

The Incommensurable Banner, Hirschhorn's almost unbearably painful meditation on the wars of the last decade, which Miller helped curate at Fabrica as part of the 2008 Brighton Photo Biennial, was key to the Swiss artist winning the 2011 Kurt Schwitters prize. The elegance and the sensitivity with which the work was shown owed much to Miller's slow-burn genius.

His own work – sculptures, installations and films – hummed with a half-life of unseen dread, of forgotten nuclear bunkers, secret tunnels, hidden domestic defences, stadiums built for slaughter as much as sport, all rendered in minute detail. The caravan became his sardonic hymn to freedom, or the impossibility of it, a permanent drizzle running plaintively down the windows of one perfectly recreated tourer.

His obsession with thwarted utopias, perhaps a hangover from his childhood in Harlow in Essex, found expression at Fabrica.

Miller was a great camper, with an uncanny ability to appear as if by magic when a sausage was perfectly cooked, and enough of a rocket scientist to send washing-up liquid bottles into near missile orbit. His legacy will long outlive him. The blog he had just started, That Last Landscape, gives a hint of what was still to come.

He is survived by his partner, the arts producer Claire Soper, his siblings, Tim and Gillian, and his parents, Brenda and Brian.

Summary: Other lives: Unorthodox artist and co-founder of the Fabrica gallery in Brighton


10/23/2015 AT 06:35 PM EDT

From Jan. 11, 1983, to May 17, 1994, the world knew a very specific kind of peace for one-half hour a week. That peace was weekly episodes of Bob Ross's The Joy of Painting. And now, thanks to the magic of YouTube, today's youth can relive the joy of having a serene, beatific man instruct them in just how easy it is to create beautiful landscapes and happy little trees. Ross's YouTube channel has been uploading full episodes of The Joy of Painting for some time, but they recently uploaded the first episode from the first season, titled "A Walk in the Woods." It's well worth your time. The beauty of Ross's series was how he could make everybody feel like they were just a few steps away from being a Renaissance master. "Anyone can paint" was his oft-repeated mantra, and while that attitude left plenty of quickly abandoned paint sets and half-finished landscapes clogging the attics and garages of America, you can't blame that on Ross. We could all learn a thing or two from his brand of can-do positivity and encouragement. And not just how to make our trees look happy.

Summary: The clip is from January 11, 1983


Photo: Ben Margot, Associated Press

Teammates have come to the defense of Colin Kaepernick, but he still has detractors in what has become a forgettable season.

Teammates have come to the defense of Colin Kaepernick, but he still has detractors in what has become a forgettable season.

After earlier rancor, struggling 49ers could face more

Two days after a loss to the Packers dropped the 49ers to 1-3, head coach Jim Tomsula and other coaches addressed the team in what he termed a “heated” meeting before they left the room and let the players talk.

Tomsula’s departing message to his angry team: It’s OK if lasagna is left littering the locker room.

“The biggest thing I said to them was, ‘Guys, it's like an Italian dining-room table,’” Tomsula said Tuesday on KNBR. “‘Everybody’s sitting around the table and sometimes it gets heated, dishes get broken and people leave. Everybody’s got to come back to the table to eat. And when it's all said and done, we're hugging and kissing, and we're eating good food again.’”

Tomsula put a positive spin on the family spat, which he termed “truthful” and “productive.” And it probably helped the locker-room vibe when the 49ers, who had lost their previous three games by 79 points at the time, followed by stringing together respectable performances: a 30-27 road loss to the Giants and a 25-20 win over the Ravens.

However, more dish-throwing dinners could be on the horizon.

On Thursday, the 49ers dropped to 2-5 with a 20-3 loss to the Seahawks that Tomsula and multiple players termed “unacceptable.” On Sunday, Fox Sports’ Jay Glazer reported that quarterback Colin Kaepernick was isolated from his teammates, although he wasn’t disliked: “He’s just alone, on an island in that locker room,” Glazer said. “There's not a lot of people he connects with.”

How will the 49ers respond? Safety Eric Reid hopes they do so calmly.

“I don’t want to overreact,” Reid said. “We’re 2-5, but we don’t have to reinvent the wheel. I don’t think anybody needs to start a yelling-fest, point fingers at anybody. That’s what we don’t need. We have to understand the mistakes we’ve been making and correct them.”

There hasn’t been a shortage of mistakes on a team that ranks 31st in total defense and 32nd in total offense. However, Kaepernick has endured much of the criticism. He ranks 24th in the NFL in passer rating (82.8) and completion percentage (61.4) and the worst two-game stretch of his 46-start career preceded the team meeting this month.

During the lively players-only portion of that meeting, a player called out Kaepernick, but another responded by defending the quarterback, CSN Bay Area reported Monday.

Of course, most NFL quarterbacks are expected to help unify the locker room, not be the source of friction. On Tuesday, running back Reggie Bush, 30, a 10-year veteran who signed with the 49ers in March, was asked about Kaepernick’s leadership traits.

“He’s a hard worker,” Bush said. “He works really hard. He’s one of the hardest workers I’ve been around, especially in the weight room. He works his butt off. He’s constantly on the field talking to guys and just trying to get better on the field. He’s young, and I think still has a long career left in this game. And, obviously, we’re all struggling. Nobody is playing well on offense. So we can all be better.”

Could Kaepernick communicate better? He has been curt with the media throughout his career, but he’s not standoffish with his teammates when reporters are in the locker room. He recently engaged in a lively table-tennis game with fullback Bruce Miller, a fellow member of the 2011 draft class. Bush insisted the dynamic is positive behind closed doors.

“I see him interact all the time,” Bush said. “I see him always talking to guys. On the football field, he’s always talking to guys and working with guys, and talking and communicating. As far as I’ve seen, he’s doing a great job.

“It’s easy to dig up stories and say things when your team is not playing well. I think the most important thing we can do is focus on us. Block out everything outside and try to go win this next football game.”

Eric Branch is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: ebranch@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Eric_Branch

Summary: Two days after a loss to the Packers dropped the 49ers to 1-3, head coach Jim Tomsula and other coaches addressed the team in what he termed a “heated” meeting before they left the room and let the players talk.  ‘Everybody’s sitting around the table and sometimes it gets heated, dishes get broken and people leave.  [...] it probably helped the locker-room vibe when the 49ers, who had lost their previous three games by 79 points at the time, followed by stringing together respectable performances: a 30-27 road loss to the Giants and a 25-20 win over the Ravens.  On Thursday, the 49ers dropped to 2-5 with a 20-3 loss to the Seahawks that Tomsula and multiple players termed “unacceptable.”  On Sunday, Fox Sports’ Jay Glazer reported that quarterback Colin Kaepernick was isolated from his teammates, although he wasn’t disliked: “He’s just alone, on an island in that locker room,” Glazer said.  There hasn’t been a shortage of mistakes on a team that ranks 31st in total defense and 32nd in total offense.  During the lively players-only portion of that meeting, a player called out Kaepernick, but another responded by defending the quarterback, CSN Bay Area reported Monday.  [...] most NFL quarterbacks are expected to help unify the locker room, not be the source of friction.  On Tuesday, running back Reggie Bush, 30, a 10-year veteran who signed with the 49ers in March, was asked about Kaepernick’s leadership traits.  Bush insisted the dynamic is positive behind closed doors.


Do you know Splunk? It’s a company — in the scaldingly hot realm of big data — whose name is derived from “spelunk,” which the company uses as a metaphor for locating something in a giant, dark cave. Splunk helps clients track usage to shore up weaknesses in electronic systems, while also extracting meaning from massive repositories of digital information. Its revenues have jumped 10- fold in four years, though the company has yet to record profits. Even as the Nasdaq surged 33% over the past year, Splunk’s stock has jumped 150%.

“Big data” is a bit like “the cloud” a few years ago: Simply having the moniker attached to a company means that not only is it in a growth area, but it’s also likely blessed with a stock market premium. For investors that means risk — in the form of high prices and nascent companies with uncertain futures — but also opportunity. Consolidation is afoot, and tech behemoths are snapping up big-data outfits. Smart investors can benefit.

How big is big data? Well, the average company in 15 of 17 U.S. sectors now has more data stored than the Library of Congress, according to McKinsey. Organizations from BlackRock to Facebook to the U.S. government (especially the government, if Obamacare is any indication) need top-of-the-line technology to sift through it. According to McKinsey, a retailer that understands its information can increase operating margins by 60%. Demand is soaring for Splunk and its ilk.

Result: Investors have pushed Splunk’s stock price to a dizzying 16 times projected 2014 sales, far higher than Internet companies like Facebook, making Splunk worth about $7 billion. Other stocks viewed as big-data plays have taken off as well. For example, security company FireEye trades at a price/sales ratio of 17, even higher than Splunk’s. (FireEye acts as an electronic border control, sniffing out potential bad guys every time information comes in or out of a portal. Whenever there’s a high-profile data breach, FireEye’s services are in high demand, and the company is growing even faster than Splunk.)

It’s hard for nontechies to assess these companies’ prospects and perilous to wager on them. But larger software players are diving in — they’re looking to find growth by bolstering their big-data offerings — and investors can ride their coattails. IBM, Cisco, and Dell have recently bought similar companies. Analysts say Juniper, Oracle, and Hewlett- Packard could be aggressive buyers as well. Other sophisticated acquirers are on the prowl.

One way to benefit: Buy shares of a diversified ETF, such as iShares North American Tech- Software. This ETF includes many of the big-data guppies, as well as the whales that may well swallow them. By spreading your bets, you probably won’t enjoy the bonanza that comes with putting all your chips on a lucky winner. On the other hand, you’re way less likely to put all your money on a loser, and you can profit from the growth of a rising segment.

This story is from the February 3, 2014 issue of Fortune.

Summary: Companies that crunch the exploding quantities of digital information are soaring. Despite the high prices, it's still possible to cash in.


World leaders have opened an historic summit in the French capital with "the hope of all of humanity" laid on their shoulders as they sought a deal to tame calamitous climate change.

The heads of more than 150 nations kicked off 12 days of talks on Monday in search of an elusive pact that would indirectly restructure the world economy, weaning it off fossil fuels that stoke global warming.

They met at a conference centre in Le Bourget on the northern outskirts of Paris under heavy security following terror attacks in the city which appeared to have galvanised commitment for a climate breakthrough.

It was the largest single-day gathering of heads of state or government in history, the United Nations said.

"Never have the stakes of an international meeting been so high because it concerns the future of the planet, the future of life," French President Francois Hollande said in an opening speech.

"The hope of all of humanity rests on all of your shoulders."

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, the event's host, voiced optimism that rivalries preventing similar efforts to strike a climate-rescue deal over the past two decades could be overcome.

"Success is not yet acquired but it is within our reach," Fabius told the delegates.

Scientists warn that, unless action to curb greenhouse gases is taken soon, mankind will endure ever-worsening droughts, floods, storms and rising seas, threatening millions with hunger, disease and migration and low-lying island nations with oblivion.

But world leaders also vowed to forge an ambitious deal in honour of the 130 people killed in the November 13 attacks in Paris, claimed by the Islamic State group.

The leaders began their talks with a minute of silence to remember the victims.

US President Barack Obama's first act after touching down in Paris early on Monday was to visit the scene of the worst carnage of the terror attacks at the Bataclan concert venue.

He then met with Chinese President Xi Jinping before the summit started, with his focus turned to deepening co-operation between the world's two biggest emitters of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming.

"As the two largest carbon emitters, we have both determined that it is our responsibility to take action," Obama said as he sat alongside Xi.

The United Nations has hosted annual conferences to tackle the vexed global warming issue since 1995, but all previous efforts have foundered, primarily due to deep divisions between rich and poor nations.

Many poor nations insist rich countries bear the most responsibility for tackling the problem because they have burnt the most fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution on their way to prosperity.

"Justice demands that, with what little carbon we can still safely burn, developing countries are allowed to grow," Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote in a column published in the Financial Times on Monday before the summit opened.

"The lifestyles of a few must not crowd out opportunities for the many still on the first steps of the development ladder."

But the United States and other developed nations insist more must be done by China, India and other emerging countries, which are voraciously burning coal - the most carbon-emitting of the main fossil energies - to power their fast-growing economies.

In a timely illustration of the immediate ramifications of rampant coal burning, dangerous smog enveloped Beijing and other parts of northern China on Monday.

Summary: Some 150 world leaders, including from China, India, Russia, Australia and the US, are converging in Paris for climate talks.


The slogan 'FOR THE PLANET' is projected on the Eiffel Tower as part of the COP21, United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris. (AAP)

A historic agreement seeking to slow global warming has been signed in Paris.

After almost two weeks of tough negotiations between bureaucrats and ministers from around the world, French and UN officials yesterday finished the line-by-line edit of the deal.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius presented the draft at 9.30pm AEDT, calling it "differentiated, fair, durable, dynamic, balanced and legally binding".

"It provides that every five years there will be a collective stocktaking. If adopted, this text will mark a historic turning point," he said.

Details of the agreement, which have been translated to the UN's six official languages, were released at the end of the meeting.

Key points of the agreement include a target to keep temperature rises "well below" 2C, a plan to commit to curb rises to 1.5C, $100b for developing countries by 2020 to be a "floor", and that it is a legally binding deal.

The tentative deal was reached almost 16 hours after the talks were originally scheduled to finish.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop meets with Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary General at the COP21 in Paris. (AAP)

The deal is considered the first truly global climate "treaty".

Many of the 195 nations which took part in the talks have billed the COP21 climate deal as the last chance to avoid catastrophic climate change effects such as severe droughts, floods and storms, as well as rising sea levels.

Sir Brian Hoskins, chairman of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College in London, told BBC News what is needed now is action.

"The test is really whether the countries do carry out these reductions in emissions that they're talking about," he said.

"And do we see global emissions of greenhouse gases peaking very soon - if not already - and then starting on the way down. So that's the crucial thing."

The agreement seeks to revolutionise the way energy is used around the world by cutting back or even eliminating coal and other fossil fuels, replacing them renewable sources such as wind or solar power.

Developing nations have insisted richer countries must take the lion's share of the responsibility and efforts, as they have emitted the most greenhouse gases since the Industrial Revolution.

The US and other rich nations counter this by saying emerging giants must also do more, arguing developing countries now account for most of today's emissions.

Summary: After almost two weeks of tough negotiations between bureaucrats and ministers from around the world, French and UN officials have finished a line-by-line edit of a historic agreement seeking to slow global warming and ease its impacts.


12/14/2015 AT 08:35 AM EST

alone – until he finishes his new album, at least.

on Saturday to deliver a special message.

"No offense to anyoneâ¦ I'm asking everyone DON'T ASK ME FOR ANYTHING TILL AFTER I'M FINISHED WITH MY ALBUM," the rapper

to his more than 16 million followers.

Just moments before, West posted another

announcing: "I'm finishing my album and my next collection."

Earlier this year, the 38-year-old announced that his seventh studio album would be titled

, and fans have been patiently waiting for new music from the star.

But Yeezy has a lot on his plate these days, as he and wife

no offense to anyoneâ¦ Iâm asking everyone DONâT ASK ME FOR ANYTHING TILL AFTER IâM FINISHED WITH MY ALBUM

Iâm finishing my album and my next collectionâ¦

The proud father was seen

last week during his first outing since Saint's birth.

that the couple have been "managing to get some sleep" since welcoming little Saint.

"Kanye was really supportive at the hospital," the source told PEOPLE. "And at home, as always, he treats [Kim] like a queen. She's his queen. Having Saint hasn't changed that."

Summary: Fans have been patiently waiting for new music from the rapper, and Kanye West seems to be hard at work


01/07/2016 AT 02:25 PM EST

During an undercover narcotics investigation staged Wednesday, officers claim they arrested a Long Island priest whose sister was beheaded in 2014.

According to a statement from police in Nassau County, New York, Rev. Robert Lubrano, 63, has been formally charged with drug possession after he allegedly bought crack cocaine from a 32-year-old suspected dealer.

The statement says police were focused on the movements of that alleged dealer – identified as Michael Oyola – and not Lubrano.

Detectives say they were observing Oyola, who was allegedly stopped in his car outside a hotel in Bethpage, Long Island.

The statement alleges Lubrano, a Roman Catholic priest who has been on leave for years, walked up to Oyola's car, and there was an exchange between the two.

Lubrano retreated to one of the hotel's rooms and Oyola drove off, police allege.

Detectives moved in to search the priest's room and found the crack and a used pipe, reads the statement.

Patricia Ward, Lubrano's sister, was a college professor who was beheaded in October 2014 by her college-aged son, who later committed suicide by jumping in front of a train.

Oyola was charged Wednesday with marijuana possession and released with an appearance ticket. Police state they pulled him over moments after the alleged transaction, and found a bag of pot in his car.

Lubrano was released on an unknown bail amount. Court records did not indicate whether he had yet entered a plea, but he is scheduled to return to court next week.

Details regarding the names of either defendants' attorneys was unavailable.

Summary: Detectives moved in to search the priest's room and allegedly found the crack and a used pipe


Philip Seymour Hoffman was an Oscar-winning actor who played everything from Truman Capote to a priest, but it appears he didn't do so well with his estate planning.

Hoffman, who died in early February of an apparent drug overdose, had a will that was a decade old. In addition, its structure has left it available for public viewing, something celebrities and others can easily avoid.

(Read more: Actor Philip Seymour Hoffman found dead in NYC)

The estate plan itself is also problematic, experts say—perhaps because the lawyer who drew it up appears to specialize in real estate rather than trusts and estates.

In any case, with the exception of a trust for the child he had at the time the will was signed, Hoffman appears to have left his estate to his longtime companion and mother of the child, Marianne O'Donnell. It is not clear if the two children the couple had later are mentioned.

Wills are statements of feelings as much as they are instruments of tax planning, and it is impossible for outsiders to know the actor's emotional goals. But from a tax efficiency perspective, experts say, the will's quality is clear.

"He made a mess," said David Mendels, director of planning at Creative Financial Concepts, a financial planning firm in New York.

Mendels points out that because Hoffman and O'Donnell were not married and New York state does not recognize common law unions, she will probably pay estate taxes on the portion of the estate left to her.

How big a tax bite is that? Hoffman is said to have amassed a $35 million estate, and if he left all of it to O'Donnell, the state and federal tax bill would be $11.9 million, according to Richard Shapiro, a trusts and estates lawyer with Blustein Shapiro Rich & Barone.

Christina Mason, a partner at Kelley Drye and a trusts and estates expert, said the tax bill could be higher, perhaps close to $15 million, if Hoffman in fact had an estate of $35 million.

"It's a big number," she said.

Hoffman could have done several things to make his will more tax-efficient. Giving monetary gifts small enough to avoid taxes during his lifetime would have been one approach, and he may have done some of that. He also could have established trusts that would have sheltered some of O'Donnell's inheritance from taxes, according to Mendels.

Shapiro said Hoffman's younger children are likely to be provided for even though they do not appear to be included in the document. A provision in New York law says that if children are born after a will is executed and an older child has been provided for in some way, the amount set aside for offspring in the document would be divided among all the children.

That provision may not apply in this case, Mason said, but as all three children are O'Donnell's, "the odds are they'll end up OK." Even so, she said, "the one rule in trusts and estates is you can disinherit your children. She could remarry and leave everything to a new husband, who then disinherits the kids."

That could have been avoided with properly structured trusts for each child, she added.

Hoffman is hardly the first star to leave a will that creates problems after his death. Michael Jackson's will has posed enormous challenges for his family.

(Read more: Michael Jackson: Death and taxes)

And James Gandolfini's will left his estate with a hefty tax bill, among other problems.

(Read more: James Gandolfini's will a case study in what not to do)

Summary: Philip Seymour Hoffman's will was 10 years old, and experts say that was just one of the problems.