Anaplan, one of several companies selling cloud software for corporate budgeting, is replacing its chief executive, Fred Laluyaux.

His abrupt resignation comes just two months after Anaplan increassed its private valuation to more than $1 billion through a $90 million Series E funding round led by India’s Premji Invest. So far, Anaplan has raised more than $240 million.

Anaplan’s blog post about the CEO departure doesn’t provide an explanation, but Anaplan CFO James Budge told The Wall Street Journal that the company needs a leader who has more experience running larger companies. Anaplan is often the subject of speculation about a future initial public offering.

“The board and Fred believe it’s the right time to bring in a new set of talent to take us to a much higher level and become a much bigger company,” Budge told the Journal.

Budge joined the Anaplan in January, after serving as the chief financial officer for contact center company Genesys. He’ll be running the company during the CEO search, along with Anaplan’s new chief revenue officer Paul Melchiorre, a former SAP executive; and Anaplan chairman Bob Calderoni, who has experience at SAP, Apple and IBM.

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At the time of its funding round in January, Laluyaux told Fortune that Anaplan had signed up 400 corporate customers for its software, which is used for planning, business modeling, and financial reporting. The company has contracts with big companies such as Kimberly-Clark, Procter & Gamble, and United Airlines.

“I’m proud to have led Anaplan’s growth story and the reinvention of enterprise planning and modeling,” Laluyaux said in a statement. “The company is in a great place to move to the next level with such a talented and passionate team.”

Anaplan cloud-centric competition includes companies like Adaptive Insights, Host Analytics, and Tidemark Systems. Workday’s share of the cloud financial management software category is also growing quickly after picking up more than 200 customers in the past two years, including logistics giant J.B. Hunt Transportation.

Summary: Move feeds into IPO speculation.


The Federal Trade Commission has warned the operators of several major Internet search engines to make it clearer to their users when companies have paid to be included in Web search results.

The commission responded last week to a complaint filed a year ago by Commercial Alert, an anti-commercialism group co-founded by Ralph Nader.

The F.T.C. said that an investigation had turned up some questionable practices and that it would send letters to the search engine companies "outlining the need for clear and conspicuous disclosures of paid placement, and in some instances paid inclusion, so that businesses may avoid possible future commission action."

The letters will go to AltaVista, AOL Time Warner , iWon.com, Looksmart, Microsoft , Terra Lycos and Direct Hit, now a part of Teoma.

Paid ads tied to search engine queries have been one of the few bright spots in an otherwise dismal online advertising market. Many search engines have joined forces with ad placement services like Overture Services Inc. or developed their own paid listings programs. The ads are often similar in appearance to regular search results and are sometimes labeled as "sponsored links" or, more vaguely, "featured listings." Even the standard search results on sites using information from companies like Inktomi may include paid listings, although this is often not disclosed.

"People don't understand the obfuscatory terms that are used to describe ads in search engine results," said Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert. "We hope that when search engines disclose when ads are ads, then search engine users will flee those engines that have no editorial integrity."

Mr. Ruskin said that among major search engines, only Google appeared to be meeting the standards outlined in the trade commission's response.

In a survey of Internet users conducted this spring by Consumers Union, 60 percent of those responding did not know that search engines accepted fees for prominent positioning in their results.

Some search engine companies said they were already doing a good job of indicating which results were sponsored.

"We believe that the paid listings that we display on our site are delineated from our search results, and that the disclosure is not misleading," said Fred Bullock, AltaVista's chief marketing officer. Mr. Bullock said the company had not yet received the F.T.C.'s letter but would "take it very seriously and review its recommendations carefully."

AltaVista's paid listings appear under a "Products and Services" heading above the standard search results. A small link reading "Info" takes users to a page explaining that the links "have been reviewed by editors for relevance to the search terms" and noting that they are advertisements purchased through AltaVista or Overture.

Andrew Weinstein, a spokesman for AOL, said the trade commission's letter was no longer relevant to the company because it had already changed the labels for paid listings on its Netscape site. Both Netscape and AOL's search results now label them "sponsored links."

he Federal Trade Commission has warned the operators of several major Internet search engines to make it clearer to their users when companies have paid to be included in Web search results.

The commission responded last week to a complaint filed a year ago by Commercial Alert, an anti-commercialism group co-founded by Ralph Nader.

The F.T.C. said that an investigation had turned up some questionable practices and that it would send letters to the search engine companies "outlining the need for clear and conspicuous disclosures of paid placement, and in some instances paid inclusion, so that businesses may avoid possible future commission action."

The letters will go to AltaVista, AOL Time Warner , iWon.com, Looksmart, Microsoft , Terra Lycos and Direct Hit, now a part of Teoma.

Paid ads tied to search engine queries have been one of the few bright spots in an otherwise dismal online advertising market. Many search engines have joined forces with ad placement services like Overture Services Inc. or developed their own paid listings programs. The ads are often similar in appearance to regular search results and are sometimes labeled as "sponsored links" or, more vaguely, "featured listings." Even the standard search results on sites using information from companies like Inktomi may include paid listings, although this is often not disclosed.

"People don't understand the obfuscatory terms that are used to describe ads in search engine results," said Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert. "We hope that when search engines disclose when ads are ads, then search engine users will flee those engines that have no editorial integrity."

Mr. Ruskin said that among major search engines, only Google appeared to be meeting the standards outlined in the trade commission's response.

In a survey of Internet users conducted this spring by Consumers Union, 60 percent of those responding did not know that search engines accepted fees for prominent positioning in their results.

Some search engine companies said they were already doing a good job of indicating which results were sponsored.

"We believe that the paid listings that we display on our site are delineated from our search results, and that the disclosure is not misleading," said Fred Bullock, AltaVista's chief marketing officer. Mr. Bullock said the company had not yet received the F.T.C.'s letter but would "take it very seriously and review its recommendations carefully."

AltaVista's paid listings appear under a "Products and Services" heading above the standard search results. A small link reading "Info" takes users to a page explaining that the links "have been reviewed by editors for relevance to the search terms" and noting that they are advertisements purchased through AltaVista or Overture.

Andrew Weinstein, a spokesman for AOL, said the trade commission's letter was no longer relevant to the company because it had already changed the labels for paid listings on its Netscape site. Both Netscape and AOL's search results now label them "sponsored links."

Summary: The Federal Trade Commission has warned several major Internet search engines to make it clearer to their users when companies have paid to be included in Web search results.


Long before he was a leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, Ben Carson was a folk hero to the black community.

It was a classic American story: He had risen from poverty to become one of the nation’s top pediatric neurosurgeons, successfully separating twins conjoined at the back of the head for the first time in a dramatic 22-hour surgery, among other achievements.

Carson’s fame was due in large part to his 1992 autobiography, which became required reading for many young African-Americans.

Dwight Watkins, an African-American author from Baltimore, first read Gifted Hands as an assigned book in high school in the late 1990s. Carson, who also ran a scholarship fund for inner-city students, later came to his school for a visit. Watkins, who grew up in Baltimore’s rugged east side, where drugs and violence are a reality, remembers feeling inspired by Carson at the time.

“It meant something to me—I felt like he was a guy who made it,” he said. “If he could do it, I could do it.”

Watkins did make it—though he stumbled for a while, including a stint as a drug dealer, which he now writes about in essays. But as Carson has moved up in the Republican primary polls in recent weeks, Watkins has come to revisit Gifted Hands as an adult. He now sees it much more differently, telling a local newspaper that he views it as fiction.

He’s not alone. In recent years, Carson has found new fame with a different audience, primarily evangelical Christians and conservative Republicans who are backing his campaign. But that has come at a cost, as many in the black community now view him unfavorably.

That’s in part because Carson has been outspoken in his opposition to President Obama, whom he has called a “psychopath,” an anti-Semite and the “divider-in-chief.” It’s also due to the conservative tenor of his political views, which include comparing Obamacare to slavery, a strict stance on abortion and recent comments about Muslims being eligible to run for president.

But the campaign has laid bare a tension that was present all along. When Carson was telling his life story in his book, and later in a movie of the same name, it was viewed as aspirational, something like a self-help book. But when he began telling those same anecdotes in the context of a campaign, many African-Americans viewed it as validating conservative views on poverty that they disagree with.

Read More: Inside Ben Carson’s Unlikely—and Uncommonly Spiritual—Campaign

Dr. Leah Wright Rigueur, author of The Loneliness of the Black Republican, a history of 20th century African-American conservatism, says that many in the black community view people like Carson differently depending on whether they are speaking within the community or to the broader public.

Although they may not have agreed with some of his more conservative beliefs, Wright Rigueur says they were willing to overlook them, like an uncle who says impolitic things at Thanksgiving. But once he began running for office that changed.

“His conservatism, that’s exhibited in his speeches, was safe, it was private, a conversation among people within the community,” says Wright Rigueur, a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. “He kind of hadn’t violated the unspoken rule of speaking out of turn.”

In the years after publishing Gifted Hands, Carson spread his message at speaking engagements and through charitable work like his Carson Scholars program. He told TIME that at various times “12 to 15 movie producers” approached him about turning the book into a film, but he wouldn’t agree because they wanted to take some “artistic license” with his story.

When producer Dan Angel came to Carson about making the film, he had to promise to go to battle for Carson and it took years to get TNT to agree to the project. Angel says he and his team at The Hatchery, a production outfit whose goal is to make uplifting content for families, were willing to put their careers on the line for the movie, which helped convince Carson.

Read More: Ben Carson Imagines His Debate Opponents as ‘Cute Little Babies’

“I really wanted something that would truly be inspirational,” Carson told TIME in a recent interview. “We went on the set and Cuba [Gooding Jr.] and everybody said you know, this is not a job for us. This is a mission.”

If the book had been a turning point with his relationship with the black community, the 2009 movie was the beginning of a shift in the other direction. It proved immensely popular with evangelical Christians, according to one of the film’s producers, and is now the No. 1 faith movie on Amazon.

“The movie has made it possible for people to share his story overnight,” said producer Margaret Losch. “Hollywood might not have wanted the movie, but there is a large faith community around the country.”

Although many of the themes in Carson’s speeches have remained the same over the years, the emphasis has shifted. In 1997, when he was invited to speak at the National Prayer Breakfast, he made self-deprecating jokes and talked about his life story.

When he returned to the event in 2013, the outline remained the same, but he went further, describing conservative ideas for health care and tax reform while standing just a few feet from President Obama.

The speech attracted a new audience to Carson, which was fed by other speeches and interviews in which he became even more political, often using harsh language, such as the time he referred to Obamacare as the worst thing since slavery.

Read More: Ben Carson Says Muslim Comments Were Taken Out of Context

The newfound attention was enough to land him as a runner-up on Gallup’s annual “most admired man” list in 2014, alongside the likes of Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates and Bill O’Reilly.

Since his presidential campaign launched in May, Carson has jumped to second place in the polls, after Donald Trump. But much of his support draws on white voters, who backed him by 57 percent in a head-to-head against Hillary Clinton in a hypothetical matchup in a recent Quinnipiac poll, compared to just 18 percent of black voters.

For black conservatives such as Rita Davenport, Carson is a gift. She has been “all in for Ben” since February 2014, when she discovered the Carson SuperPAC on Facebook. “Personally, I like what he says and it sounds like what I believe,” said Davenport, who has campaigned for Carson in Des Moines, Iowa. “He’s at the top, pinnacle of his field, and he’s listening to people telling him to run putting aside his own personal happiness to run.”

But for Watkins, Carson’s new success among conservatives contains an element of betrayal: “To a certain extent, it’s still a good story, I just disagree with his politics. It’s almost like I don’t believe it when I hear him talk.”

Read Next: Why Ben Carson Is Running for President

Correction: The original version of this story incorrectly described Ben Carson’s breakthrough surgery. He was the first to successfully separate twins conjoined at the back of the head.

Summary: From Gifted Hands to the campaign trail.


GO out in Brooklyn? On the weekend? For groovy New Yorkers, that was once an unbearably tepid proposition. Russian immigrants may drink vodka in Brighton Beach leisure palaces, and Trinidadians let loose to soca near Nostrand Avenue. But the students, artists and hipsters seeking the cultural edge started their evenings on the subway to the Village and beyond.

Now the Brooklyn-Manhattan power balance is changing. Exiled trendsetters eventually found themselves loving their neighborhoods and dressed them up with shops, restaurants and bars. Younger residents tried spots that no one else had yet declared chic. Hot spots multiplied, some as buzz-filled as Manhattan, others retaining an air of simplicity, messiness, home.

As a Brooklyn dweller, I knew Smith Street in Boerum Hill, where the bistros have sprung up as suddenly as Brooklyn's famous ailanthus trees. I had hung out at that strip's wonderful cafe, Halcyon. But I'm always working at night, when others are relaxing. To find Brooklyn's best hangouts, I needed expert assistance.

I enticed some Brooklyn savants into showing me their favorite pleasure dens. As we made our way, we discussed how the influence of time and money have affected Brooklyn's rim by day as surely as it has made things more fun after dark.

Toshi Reagon sat at the bar of the Rising Cafe in Park Slope, smoking a cigar. ''I picked up the habit on tour,'' she said. ''I don't do it often. But this is our night out.''

That's Ms. Reagon -- always one to make a simple meeting a party. The singer and songwriter knows the importance of cultivating merriment. She had obviously made an impression at the Rising. A co-owner, Christine Marinoni, greeted her with a big hug and joined us as we corralled a table.

''I should play here sometime!'' said Ms. Reagon. The Rising, which caters to a mostly young, mostly gay crowd, has many events, including readings, political meetings and music about once a week.

''But my band wouldn't fit,'' she added, gesturing to the tiny stage.

''Toshi, I'd build the stage out the door if you'd play!'' Ms. Marinoni said with a laugh.

As she turned to help a customer, Carl Hancock Rux and Chrystalin Wright entered. Ms. Reagon had enlisted these two old friends to take us farther than her favorite watering hole. Mr. Rux, a writer and musician who is one of Fort Greene's brightest talents, and Ms. Wright, a dancer and choreographer who was once a leader of the troupe Urban Bush Women, are self-described night crawlers, full of stories about their adventures in the borough's seedier spots.

This night, however, they had planned a more fabulous route along De Kalb Avenue, the center of Fort Greene's latest revival. As on Smith Street, restaurants and bars are rapidly multiplying here. Chez Oskar, the Buttercup, Sol and Lucien Blue around the corner have made this the place to be seen among the multiethnic elite.

Our first stop was a South African restaurant Mr. Rux had mentioned, where the congenial waitress mixed up a fresh batch of the ginger beer he loves. It was delicious, sharp and cool. Our hostess overheard Ms. Wright mention a recent trip to Johannesburg, and soon they were caught up in lively conversation. Brooklyn night crawlers love this friendliness.

Yet bigger and changing crowds are making such connections harder. When we entered Sol, a Pan-Latin restaurant that features live music in its long front bar, Mr. Rux declared it his hangout. But over crab cakes and chicken wings, he shared his mixed feelings about Fort Greene's recent transformation.

''This used to be the Claremont Lounge, one of the oldest bars in the neighborhood,'' Mr. Rux said. ''It was very ghetto. You'd see people coming in with their yellow suits and ties, and the women would have their long nails. It was great! I went there because I'm always out in my neighborhood.

''Then Sol opened about a year ago, and I remember sitting here being very mad because there was a middle-class white couple -- the kind of people who've bought property but you didn't see out at night. And the woman said: 'This is great. Finally somewhere to eat in the neighborhood.'

''I said to her: 'Wow. You couldn't find anywhere to eat? Because there are places all up and down here.' There was a little Dominican chicken and rice joint then, where Madiba is now. And I got my dinners there for $3, and I was really happy.''

Ms. Reagon added, ''These neighborhoods have gone round and round.'' She noted that Fort Greene had endured another arc of popularity and decline in the late 1980's. ''It's almost like nobody really owns anything; it's just the cycle. But it was really strange. One day there was an article in the paper that said Fort Greene's kind of cool. And then the next week, it seemed, there was this whole level of people coming in.''

There is what Mr. Rux calls ''a new socio-cultural-racial reality'' in Fort Greene. Yet my three companions know that they, too, are part of the change. Artists make the first inroads. Night life, as Mr. Rux put it, anticipates changes in day life.

At Alibi, where we headed for a nightcap, the artists were in full force. The crowd at this classic bohemian dive, with its tin ceilings and graffiti-covered back walls, was almost all white. But these were students at Pratt Institute, the Clinton Hill art college, not stockbrokers. One man in a cowboy hat greeted Mr. Rux, and they settled into a corner for a conversation.

''I'm a bar guy,'' Mr. Rux said. ''I love the community.'' He finds that fellowship among the painters at Alibi as well as the hip-hop poets at Sol or Lucien Blue. He knows it's fragile but he's glad it's blossoming.

I was hoping for a straight-ahead pub crawl from one end of Fifth Avenue in Park Slope to the other with Greg Zinman, who plays guitar in the band Sea Ray. He brought along his friend Robert Galligan of the newly defunct group Sunday Puncher; both have lived and imbibed in Brooklyn since their Yale days half a decade ago. When we ventured into the subzero weather, however, we quickly amended our plans to include only four spots on this growing watering-hole row.

We started at O'Connor's because it was closest. Another ''old man's bar'' like the Alibi, O'Connor's was the first this neighborhood's hipsters commandeered. Other classic rooms, like Montero's on Atlantic Avenue and the Brooklyn Inn at Bergen and Bond, have their loyalists. But O'Connor's was the one for the youth in the Slope.

''O'Connor's wasn't a scene when we first came here,'' Mr. Galligan said. ''The jukebox was just a boombox. There were more neighborhood people. The gentrifiers didn't outnumber them.''

Mr. Zinman said: ''Here's the hypocritical thing. We don't like it as much because more people like us come in.''

These two friends are quite aware of their place in their neighborhood's transformation. They are renters, and as musicians with day jobs they don't enhance its economic profile. But they explore the bars and drag other friends to the ones they like. In Brooklyn, they could pioneer a scene already set in stone in Manhattan.

After leaving O'Connor's, we ventured across Flatbush Avenue to Freddy's. With decaying fixtures, a friendly barkeep, good beer on tap and a generous back room with a pool table, it's an exceedingly comfortable joint. My guides immediately ran into friends, including Kid Millions of the band Oneida, who shared the exciting news of good reviews in the British press.

Some of Freddy's clientele publish a literary 'zine, Lurch, out of the bar, and it decorates the walls along with the notices of open-mike nights and a weekly screenwriters' workshop. The posted information is haphazard; the staff likes to keep things low-key and local. Freddy's is a little bit blessed, a place on the verge. In a few months, I thought, it will be different.

It will be more like the Gate, probably, where a quick car service ride took us next. ''This place is what it wants to be,'' Mr. Galligan said. Every bench in the rectangular room was taken; the barkeep skillfully kept up with orders from the lengthy beer list.

''It's got a publike atmosphere,'' Mr. Galligan said. ''The decor is homey; there are dogs in here. People just start talking to each other.''

Indeed, a host of apparent strangers were chatting at the bar. One couple danced to Sinatra on the sound system. Mr. Galligan called his roommate and musical partner, Howe Lin, who soon joined us. We had to pull ourselves away from our snug spot to keep the crawl going.

We dashed into Loki, a new place with Victorian-style couches in the rear, but that sweet rear room was inadequately heated, and we headed down the block to Great Lakes, a bar with a Midwestern theme that archly plays on Brooklyn's unpretentiousness. Mr. Galligan spent a long stretch at the jukebox, selecting underground hits by Bailter Space and Nick Drake.

''When you go out in Manhattan, it's eyeing people and vibing -- looking and being seen,'' Mr. Lin said when I asked him about the lure of Brooklyn night life. ''Here you can have a conversation because you're not distracted.''

Mr. Zinman said: ''As more time goes by, all I care about is being with my friends. I already have a girlfriend. I just want to be able to catch up at the end of the week and see how my friends are doing, and if I can't do that because I'm standing up, jostling with people, looking at people, it's just not worth it.''

Brooklyn is no longer jostle-free, though. The bars on Fifth Avenue can be uncomfortable, especially on the weekends.

''We want to go someplace new, that has something to inspire us, to make us talk to each other in different ways,'' said Mr. Galligan, back from the jukebox. ''It's this weird mix of hometown hanging out and new experiences. But where are the old dudes with their dogs and their dreams of writing the great American novel?''

Mr. Lin concluded: ''It can be kind of constructed, this sense of community. A lot of Manhattan refugees are trying to find it here. Sometimes it doesn't ring true.''

If anywhere in Brooklyn houses a constructed community, it is Williamsburg. People jokingly call Williamsburg's main strip, Bedford Avenue, Avenue E because so many bohemians have fled the East Village to live there. With spacious converted factories attracting visual artists and no brownstones for Wall Street types, Williamsburg has made it to a solid and prosperous phase of gentrification.

Nicholas Hill has lived here since 1987. The multitalented music entrepreneur once ran one of Williamsburg's many speak-easies, Quiet Life, in a funeral parlor. I paired him as a guide with Judy McGuire, a writer who moved to Williamsburg in 1995, because they were players in a classic Brooklyn story -- a real estate story. A while back, sorely needing a new place for his growing family to live, Mr. Hill found a deal at the final hour through a friend of a friend. That contact, whom he had never met before our night out, was Ms. McGuire.

That's Williamsburg: an elaborate web of people and establishments. Many here have been pioneering for years. Trust overshadows the inevitable worry that change brings.

We started at the charmingly garish Greenpoint Tavern, then quickly hit the Charleston, where a fledgling band was churning out painfully earnest Celtic rock. We walked through the glamorous and huge new restaurant Planet Thailand just to see the boat hanging from the ceiling. But we lingered at Sweetwater, a punk bar where, Ms. McGuire said, mohawks often bump in the back room.

''I come here on Sundays to play pool,'' she said. ''It's emptier. The bartender, George, shows movies on the television. He's getting his master's in poetry.''

In Williamsburg the nightmare of being squished by scene-makers comes true. Sweetwater was so packed that I couldn't hold my beer straight. Galapagos, closer to the river, teemed with beautiful people. It is a visual artists' showcase with a reflecting pool in the foyer and vast walls that act as a gallery. We wove through the scattered crowd to the back room, Ocularis, where art films are shown and performances held.

''The way Galapagos established itself, its owners lived in the neighborhood,'' Mr. Hill said. ''And they sought out a place that wasn't a problem for people living nearby. They opened slowly, over two years. They just got their hard liquor license last month.''

Not all Williamsburg establishments have made such peaceful transitions. Residents are protesting the opening of the new Brooklyn branch of the defunct St. Marks Place club Sine. The room could be New York's hottest showcase, Mr. Hill said, but may never serve its rightful purpose as a nightclub. Mr. Hill understands the residents' concerns about crowds and noise because he also lives close by.

We wandered toward the Stinger, a three-week-old bar that opened with a bang. Inside a band called Tinker had the crowd in a frenzy of punk-style Irish clogging. We lucked into seats at the bar and were immersed in a musicians' confab. The bassist Tony Maimone joined Ms. McGuire, while Mr. Hill bent the ear of the guitarist Phillip Marshall of Teenage Mustache. Soon, Joe McGinty, the maestro of the Loser's Lounge at the Fez in the East Village, ambled up.

What made the Stinger so successful, I wondered? ''It's owned by Cathrine Westergaard, who was a bartender at the Abbey,'' Mr. Hill said. Williamsburgers are loyal to their drink-pourers. Perhaps the club's location off the beaten Bedford Avenue path added to the attraction for this obviously local crowd.

The wrong kind of invasion can rankle. Leaving the Stinger with Mr. McGinty and Mr. Marshall in tow, we headed to Enid's in adjacent Greenpoint. The big tin-ceilinged room was lovely, and everyone says the crowd is local, but my guides were put off by the young people draped over the thrift store furniture. We headed to Pete's Candy Store.

Several musicians from the Stinger had stumbled over to tiny Pete's Candy Store. Again, family loyalty seemed to draw them; this bar is co-owned by Juliana Nash, the former singer of Talking to Animals. Plus there's the future promised by the bar's back room.

Simon Peach, a bartender there since Pete's Candy Store opened, ushered us into an unfinished space shaped like a train car. The dainty room will be a live music venue, a real neighborhood space where artists can try out their new material before friends.

The Candy Store's miniaturist aesthetic suits a neighborhood where the locals keep looking for new hideouts. Yet Mr. Hill said they ultimately tolerate newcomers, glad for the amenities they bring.

''Frankly, most of us are happy that there's a health food store and a yoga place,'' Mr. Hill added.

And what do the curious find when they take the L train to Williamsburg on a weekend? Something we all want, Mr. Marshall said.

''Have you ever been on vacation somewhere, and you know you're not part of it but you think, 'I could live here?' '' he said. ''That's what most people feel about Williamsburg.''

For my last night's frolic, I turned to a professional. Limor Tomer has worked at the Brooklyn Academy of Music for seven years. She now books the music at BAM Cafe, and has established it as an adventurous and congenial spot in its first year. ''When we opened we wanted to make this a showcase for Brooklyn musicians,'' said Ms. Tomer, who also books acts from all over the world. ''It wasn't hard. Ninety percent of the phone numbers on my list are in the 718 area code.''

Ms. Tomer herself currently has a good rental situation in 212. But she gets her inspiration from Brooklyn.

''I see the Upper West Side as my little home in lower Westchester,'' she said. ''But where I go out, where my friends live is Brooklyn.''

She certainly showed the command of the local as she steered us toward Frank's, a vintage blues bar adorned with balloons, Christmas lights and red plastic tablecloths, a few blocks from BAM Cafe. She greeted the owner as a favorite uncle and exchanged pleasantries with the regulars at the bar.

''I need to have good relationships with the locals,'' she explained. BAM's foray into night life might have been perceived as a conquest, but Ms. Tomer's good will and other proprietors' desire to expand their own possibilities through collaboration have helped keep the peace.

She insisted that we stop by the Brooklyn Moon Cafe, two blocks from Frank's, because, she said, ''it's totally essential to the story.'' It was one of the first spots to open in this latest night life wave. The owner was locking his gate as we walked up, so Ms. Tomer gave him a kiss and speeded us toward her next connection.

The Up Over sits above the Wing Wagon restaurant at Seventh Avenue and Flatbush, just across from the busy D train stop where hundreds of Slope dwellers pass every day. But how many know about this pristine room where classic jazz is played four nights a week? This small treasure represents the subtle side of Brooklyn night life -- not imported trends, but individual dreams played out close to the homes where they were devised.

Another kind of dreaming was happening at our next stop. The Atlantic Night Cafe is a place few hipsters may penetrate; the Middle Eastern men smoking hookahs at sidewalk tables intimidate the average Brooklyn lager-seeker. Ms. Tomer, of course, had crossed the threshold long ago. Entering the room, which resembles a deliriously decorated wedding reception hall, she greeted the staff and ordered a hookah for us.

''It's just tobacco, sweetened with apple,'' said Ms. Tomer, who is Israeli-born, with a laugh. ''In Jordan the men are puffing on hashish!''

We watched as men and a few women slowly freed themselves from the jovial groups seated at long tables to dance solo, swaying their hips and brandishing beads or sticks, in the center of the room. Ms. Tomer's attention was on the duo playing music.

''I should get that oud player into BAM Cafe,'' she said. ''I would hook him up with a real band. Lose the synth.''

In this setting, though, the synthesizer sounded great, and it was hard to abandon the tasty smoke and the serenely festive mood. We wanted to hit Dumbo, the newest point on the Brooklyn night life map.

''The bars there aren't having any music tonight, but let's check it out anyway,'' Ms. Tomer said. A few minutes later we were in Between the Bridges, where three female chefs operate the tiny bistro Superfine and sometimes have ''fire shows and cabarets.''

It was nearly 2 a.m., and Between the Bridges had reverted to its natural state as a great dive with a fine jukebox. Led Zeppelin blasted through the speakers, and tattooed night owls occupied the tables. A few trucker types hugged the bar. We took a rear table and talked about all we had seen.

Ms. Tomer sees the expansion as overwhelmingly positive and is convinced that even if it increases tenfold, Brooklyn will still remain Brooklyn, day and night.

''It's freer; it's more real; it's more mixed,'' she concluded, echoing all the guides I had enlisted. ''It's everything we moved to New York for that doesn't exist in Manhattan anymore because Manhattan has become a playground for the rich. All the creativity and the energy that we came here for is living and breathing here.''

Here are the Brooklyn bars and clubs mentioned in the accompanying article, with a schedule of performances this weekend. Unless noted, there are no cover or minimum charges.

ATLANTIC NIGHT CAFE, Atlantic Avenue between Smith and Bond Streets; no phone listed; cover charge varies.

HALCYON, 227 Smith Street, (718) 260-9299. Live jazz the third Sunday of every month; the next performance is on Feb. 20 from 2 to 5 p.m. There is also D.J. and electronic music nightly from 8 to midnight (until 1 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays). Closed Mondays.

SUPERFINE AT BETWEEN THE BRIDGES, 63 York Street, between Adams and Pearl Streets, (718) 243-9005.

ALIBI, 242 De Kalb Avenue, between Clermont Avenue and Vanderbilt Street, (718) 783-8519.

BAM CAFE, 30 Lafayette Avenue, at Ashland Place, (718) 636-4139. Tonight at 9, Sam Bardfeld's Cabal Fatale. Tomorrow night at 9, Syotos Orchestra. Cover charge, $10.

BROOKLYN MOON CAFE, 745 Fulton Street, between South Portland Avenue and South Elliott Place, (718) 243-0424. Tonight at 10, open mike poetry; cover charge, $5. Sunday night at 10, poetry reading by Omar, cover charge, $5.

CHEZ OSKAR, 211 De Kalb Avenue, at Adelphi Street, (718) 852-6250. Music every Sunday night from 8 to 11.

FRANK'S LOUNGE, 660 Fulton Street, at South Elliott Place; no phone listed.

SOL, 229 De Kalb Avenue, at Clermont Avenue, (718) 222-1510. Live music Wednesdays from 7 to 11 p.m.

ENID'S, 560 Manhattan Avenue, at Driggs Avenue, (718) 349-3859. Tonight at 10, D.J. James Spooner; Sunday night at 9, movie, ''Brewster McCloud.''

THE GATE, 321 Fifth Avenue, at Third Street, (718) 768-4329.

GREAT LAKES, 284 Fifth Avenue, at First Street, (718) 499-3710. Tonight at 9, D.J. Phat Man and Little Boy.

LOKI, 305 Fifth Aveune, at Second Street, (718) 965-9600. Tonight at 9, D.J. Javier; tomorrow night at 9, Andre.

O'CONNOR'S, 39 Fifth Avenue, between Bergen and Dean Streets, (718) 783-9721. Open daily, 9:30 a.m. to 4 a.m.

RISING CAFE, 186 Fifth Avenue, at Sackett Street, (718) 622-5072 or (718) 789-6340. Tomorrow night at 9:30, Triple Cream, Sit 'n' Spin, Moxie. Cover charge, $7.

FREDDY'S, Sixth Avenue at Dean Street; no phone listing.

UP OVER JAZZ CAFE, 351 Flatbush Avenue, near Seventh Avenue, (718) 398-5413.

GALAPAGOS, 70 North Sixth Street, between Kent and Wythe Avenues, (718) 782-5188.

GREENPOINT TAVERN, 188 Bedford Avenue, between North Sixth and North Seventh Streets, (718) 384-9539.

PETE'S CANDY STORE, 709 Lorimer Street, between Frost and Richardson Streets, (718) 302-3770.

THE STINGER, 241 Grand Street, between Driggs Avenue and Roebling Street, (718) 218-6662. Tonight at 10:30, Tinker; tomorrow night at 9, the Sharky Favorite Band; Sunday night at 7, the Hollowbodies, followed by Lizzie West at 9 and Reverend Vince and His Love Choir at 11.

SWEETWATER, 105 North Sixth Street, between Berry Street and Wythe Avenue, (718) 963-0608. Sunday night at 10, D.J. Mistha Ish.

Photos: Toshi Reagon, right, at the Rising Cafe; dancers at the Stinger, below; and the bar scene at Galapagos. (Photographs by Rahav Segev for The New York Times)(pg. E1); Toshi Reagon, above, at Sol, which has been ransformed with modern fixtures and live jazz, and Nicholas Hill, below, at Greenpoint Tavern, which serves beer in the big and small containers near his elbow. (Photographs by Rahav Segev for The New York Times)(pg. E28) Map of Brooklyn highlighting restaurants. (pg. E28)


Why would someone pay almost $20,000 for a Bruins jersey? Because it’s a No. 4 that was not worn by Bruins Hall of Famer Bobby Orr. The old-style wool jersey worn in 1957 by hard-hitting Bruins defenseman Bob Armstrong fetched $19,194.33, according to Lelands.com. Josh Evans, founder of the online auction house, says wool jerseys are hard to find these days, but the No. 4 on the back of the vintage Bruins sweater makes it especially valuable to collectors. Armstrong, a tough customer who dropped the gloves frequently during his playing days, skated for 11 seasons with the B’s. (There’s a spot of what appears to be blood on the jersey.) Three more Bruins players — Pat Stapleton, Bob McCord, and Albert Langlois — would wear No. 4 before Orr joined the team in 1967. The number was eventually retired.

Summary: Why would someone pay almost $20,000 for an old-style Bruins jersey?


By Andrea Park and Melody Chiu

06/25/2016 AT 10:15 AM EDT

shippers, your prayers for the pair's reunion may have finally been answered.

The same day a source told PEOPLE Tyga is "

," the rapper and reality star stepped out holding hands at

at the Forum in Inglewood, California, on Friday.

SAF / Splash News Online

"Kylie and Tyga are giving things another shot," a source tells PEOPLE. "They are taking things a lot slower this time around, though, and are using their former arguments and fights as a learning curve and as a reference point for a more healthy future.

"She can't resist him and he can't resist her," the source adds. "They are still so in love, so getting back together was relatively inevitable. They both knew that but needed their space to decompress and regroup and grow."

The pair dated for nearly two years before

when he posted – and subsequently deleted – a photo of Jenner with the caption, "They always come back..."

And on Friday afternoon, Jenner, 18, also shared a photo of herself from Thursday night, captioning it with a crown emoji and

Source: Kylie Jenner / Instagram

In light of these social media moves, a source revealed to PEOPLE that Jenner "likes Tyga's attention" and has been enjoying having "the upper hand" while Tyga is "working hard to get her back."

The newly ignited "on-again" rumors come just days after Jenner's rumored hookup, rapper PartyNextDoor, released a steamy music video for his song "

" in which he and Jenner make out in the rain.

Summary: The pair held hands throughout Kanye West's "Famous" video premiere Friday night


Disturbed by Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, U.S. activists have taken out online advertisements, circulated petitions, put up billboards, and even chipped in for an airplane banner to try to shame companies into dropping their sponsorships of the Republican National Convention in July.

The campaign, led by the political arm of California-based advocacy group Color of Change, seeks to weaken Trump’s White House bid by pressuring companies to skip the Cleveland convention where he is expected to formally become the nominee.

“The fact of the matter is that any employee of these Fortune 500 companies that are sponsoring the convention, if any of those employees went into their job and said the things Donald Trump is saying, they’d be fired,” said Rashad Robinson, spokesman for Color of Change PAC.

Minority groups and others have been outraged by Trump’s rhetoric and positions on immigration, including proposals to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the country, deport millions of immigrants who enter illegally and build a wall along the Mexican border.

The anti-Trump effort, which has yielded mixed results, has included letters to executives of more than 30 companies, including Coca-Cola ko and Apple aapl , though the latter is said to have dropped its sponsorship of the convention, and conversations with officials at Amazon amzn , Hewlett-Packard hpe , and others.

In the case of Coca-Cola, Color of Change circulated a petition accompanied by images showing a soda bottle labeled “Share a Coke with the KKK.” The Ku Klux Klan, or KKK, is a white supremacist group.

Companies sponsor conventions for a variety of reasons. Some are local and want to show support. Others hope to make an impression with elected officials or to display their brands on a nationally televised event.

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The most public aspect of the activist campaign focused on Google goog . In April, several groups partnered on a petition they delivered to the tech giant’s campus with half a million signatures urging Google to skip the gathering.

“Really big companies don’t have any motivation to pull their support in any way without some pressure from everyday people, from their customers,” said Mary Alice Crim of Free Press Action Fund, which joined the campaign.

Color of Change and three other groups added to the pressure by chipping in for an airplane banner while they were on Google’s campus urging it to “Dump” Trump.

In May, Color of Change used “geofenced” online ads, confined to smartphones in a specific area targeted to Google workers, showing Trump with an upturned nose and a crown on his head, according to an image provided to Reuters. Another group, CREDO Action, placed anti-Trump ads on Facebook aimed at people who listed Google as their employer.

Color of Change placed billboards in San Francisco showing Trump in a red baseball cap emblazoned with “Make America Hate Again,” a play on the candidate’s “Make America Great Again” slogan.

A separate group led by the United Food & Commercial Workers International Union sent retail giant Wal-Mart Stores a letter urging it to withdraw support for the Republican gathering. Color of Change signed onto the letter.

“As you must know, Mr. Trump has implied that Mexican immigrants are drug dealers and rapists,” said the letter from Making Change at Wal-Mart, which became public on Thursday.

“If you do choose to remain silent, we must ask: Are Mr. Trump’s values the same as Walmart’s values?”

The effort appears to have had little effect on overall fundraising for Cleveland. Emily Lauer, a spokeswoman, said the event is on track to raise the $64 million needed to meet its budget. Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks declined to comment.

Some companies that gave to the convention in 2012 have decided not to do so again, such as Hewlett-Packard, which gave computer equipment and a monetary donation in 2012. Others, like Wal-Mart, have scaled back their contributions.

None of these companies, when reached by Reuters, attributed the moves to Trump or outside pressure. Most said they would provide similar support to both parties’ conventions, though the full level of corporate support will not be clear until government filings become available afterward.

Wal-Mart spokesman Greg Hitt said the company gave $15,000 to both parties’ conventions, less than the $150,000 it gave the Republican gathering in 2012, according to government filings.

Others have not detailed all their plans. Google, for example, will offer live-streaming services in Cleveland, but a company spokeswoman would not tell Reuters whether Google will also contribute cash.

Robinson said companies have been more responsive behind the scenes. He said after exchanges with Coca-Cola, the company informed them it would not give more than the $75,000 it already had donated, less than it gave the 2012 Republican gathering. Coca-Cola told Reuters its support for the conventions does not represent an endorsement.

Heidi Hess of CREDO Action said the emphasis on corporate sponsorship would not end with the July 18-21 convention.

“I think there’s still some conversation to be had about, if corporations actually do sponsor the convention, then how do we hold them accountable afterward?” Hess said.

Summary: It's focused on Republican National Convention.


that it had reached an agreement with the Port Authority of

New York and New Jersey to

let the airline keep operating at

in return for higher payments. Lou Garcia, a spokesman for

had been worked out by Port

Authority officials and John A.

the carrier, which has been suffering from a cash shortage.

earlier warned Capitol that it

must pay $2 million in landing

and airport fees by Thursday or

its leases at the airport would

be terminated. Separately, Sam Mannino,

who has put together $1 million

from private investors to lend

to Capitol, said in an interview

yesterday, ''I have no feeling

on who stays in management.''

Earlier this week Mr. Mannino,

chief executive officer of Century Financial Services of

State College, Pa., had said he

team to run the airline.

Summary: that it had reached an agreement with the Port Authority of   New York and New Jersey to   let the airline keep operating at   Kennedy International Airport   in return for higher payments.  Lou Garcia, a spokesman for   Capitol, said the agreement   had been worked out by Port   Authority officials and John A.   Catsimatidis, vice chairman of   the carrier, which has been suffering from a cash shortage.


An Irishman, a Jew and a Mexican walk into a bar. It’s a classic set-up line for a classic American joke. But it’s also a means of coping with our diversity.

We need such jokes. Despite all our slogans to the contrary, diversity such as ours isn’t always easy to negotiate. Humor is just one of the ways Americans navigate, narrate, expose and otherwise unburden ourselves of the absurdities and pitfalls of living in such a complicated place.

Eight years ago, Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam released a now famous study concluding that diversity lowers social trust. Those of us living in ethnically diverse settings, the study found, “tend to withdraw from collective life, to distrust their neighbors, regardless of the color of their skin, to withdraw even from close friends, to expect the worst from their community and its leaders, to volunteer less, give less to charity” and to spend more time sitting in front of the television.

But Putnam didn’t explore the other side of that coin: how millions of us manage to overcome the social distrust that diversity can foster.

I have a devout Nicaraguan-born friend who lives in California’s Bay Area. She likes to say that practicing Catholicism would be so much easier had she stayed in the country of her birth. Here in the U.S., she’s a member of a diverse congregation made up of Filipinos, Mexicans, Mexican-Americans and a few older Anglos and African-Americans. Recently, the priest asked the congregation to vote on which devotional figure they should install in the church first. Most Nicaraguan Catholics maintain a special devotion to Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception. Mexicans are partial to the Virgin of Guadalupe, while Filipinos venerate the Holy Child of Atocha. My friend was obliged to sift through her feelings about her tradition and others, as well as to consider what she thought was fair and best for the common good. In the end, she voted for the Holy Child of Atocha, mostly because of how impressed she’s always been by the dedication of her congregation’s Filipinos, who show up even to services that compete with big sporting events.

In more homogenous parishes, towns, states and countries, residents don’t have to do this extra thinking. The way things are is so self-evident that they don’t require a second thought.

Diversity, however, requires second thoughts.

Because of our long history of immigration, this extra thinking has been commonplace in American life. The late historian Timothy L. Smith famously called migration to the U.S. a “theologizing experience” that forced newcomers into the existential dilemma of having to “determine how to act in these new circumstances by reference not simply to a dominant ‘host’ culture but to a dozen competing subcultures, all of which were in the process of adjustment.”

This burden—of having to find your place in a landscape both shifting and unfamiliar—has played a powerful role in forging both the American character and our institutions. I’m no linguist, but I suspect it explains the very direct manner of speech that Americans are known for around the world. Diversity and continuous migration—both foreign and domestic—make it difficult to forge a long-lived unspoken cultural consensus. In its absence, people must articulate their positions in as straightforward a way as possible to avoid misinterpretation.

Despite the fact that diversity is so central to the American condition, scholars who’ve studied the cognitive effects of diversity have long made the mistake of treating homogeneity as the norm. Only this year did a group of researchers from MIT, Columbia University and Northwestern University publish a paper questioning the conventional wisdom that homogeneity represents some kind of objective baseline for comparison or “neutral indicator of the ideal response in a group setting.”

To bolster their argument, the researchers cite a previous study that found that members of homogenous groups tasked with solving a mystery tend to be more confident in their problem-solving skills than their performance actually merits. By contrast, the confidence level of individuals in diverse groups corresponds better with how well their group actually performs. The authors concluded that homogenous groups “were actually further than diverse groups from an objective index of accuracy” and that people in diverse groups “are more likely to step outside their own perspective and less likely to instinctively impute their own knowledge onto others” than people in homogenous groups.

So it should follow that operating in a diverse environment makes you smarter. Not that that makes it any easier. Diversity doesn’t require us simply to learn how to celebrate our differences. It requires us to tax our brains by questioning our worldviews, our beliefs and our institutions. American ingenuity isn’t simply born of the fusion of peoples into your favorite metaphor for mixture. Whether we realize it or not, it’s the good-humored hard work of living with people different from us that has always been the source of America’s genius.

Gregory Rodriguez is the founder and publisher of Zócalo Public Square. This piece originally appeared at Zocalo Public Square.

Summary: Thinking about difference works our brains by questioning our worldviews, beliefs and institutions.


Britain’s pound slumped to a new 31-year low on Wednesday, dipping below $1.28 at one point in Asian trading, as investors shunned the currency in the fallout of the country’s vote to leave the European Union.

The pound, one of the main vehicles through which financial markets can express concern over the vote, fell to as low as $1.2798, its lowest since June 1985, before recovering to about $1.2990 in London trade as Britain’s blue-chip FTSE 100 stock index opened higher.

That still left the pound 13% below its levels before the June 23 referendum, and about 0.2% down on the day.

Against the euro, sterling hit a three-year trough, trading as weakly as at 86.29 pence per euro before climbing back to about 85.51 pence, still down 0.6% on the day.

Worries about financial stress in the aftermath of the vote for Brexit have grown in the past two days as three of Britain’s biggest property funds suspended trading, following increases in the number of investor redemptions since the referendum.

The latest of these was M&G, the fund management arm of insurer Prudential, which said it was suspending trading in its $5.7 billion UK property portfolio and feeder fund after the London market close on Tuesday.

“Clearly Asia came in and didn’t like what it saw in the news flow, with the suspension of trading in these property funds,” said UBS Wealth Management currency strategist Geoffrey Yu, adding that many international investors have large exposures to the UK property market.

In another weakening sign, the Bank of England on Tuesday expressed concern about a fall in investor demand for British assets—which could make it harder for the country to finance its large current account deficit—as well as trouble in commercial real estate making it harder for businesses to use their property as collateral to obtain loans.

Next week the BoE will make a decision on interest rates, which are already at record lows. Investors are pricing in a 25 basis point rate cut in August, but many reckon that could come next week.

A Reuters poll of more than 60 foreign exchange strategists forecast on Tuesday the pound at $1.27 by year end from Monday’s close of $1.30 on Tuesday.

“The next catalyst for a sterling sell-off could come from the Bank of England next week,” wrote BNP Paribas strategists in a research note.

“The market is still likely under-pricing BoE easing, with our economists forecasting a 25 basis point rate cut next week followed by a 25 basis point cut at the August meeting and 100 billion pounds’ worth of quantitative easing, including corporate bonds, to be announced by the November meeting.

Summary: It fell to as low as $1.2798, its weakest since June 1985.


Photo: Handout, Courtesy Palo Alto Police Department

Booking photo for Ronnie Farrell, a 46-year-old Palo Alto High School science teacher charged with sex crimes against a 15-year-old female student at the school.

Booking photo for Ronnie Farrell, a 46-year-old Palo Alto High School science teacher charged with sex crimes against a 15-year-old female student at the school.

Palo Alto science teacher charged in sex assault of student

A Palo Alto High School science teacher was arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old female student who volunteered to help clean up his classroom just five days after school ended for the year, police said Thursday.

Ronnie Farrell, 46, of Palo Alto was taken into custody Wednesday night after one of the girl’s parents reported that the teacher invited the daughter, who just completed her freshman year, into his classroom on one of the first days of summer break and touched her inappropriately, police said.

Palo Alto Police Department officials said Farrell asked the girl, who was in his ninth-grade biology class, to come to the school on the morning of June 7 to help with classroom chores — something officials said wasn’t out of the ordinary for the girl to do voluntarily.

When she arrived about 9 a.m., Farrell led the girl into his classroom, where they were alone. After making small talk, he placed his hands under her clothes, groped her breasts and put her hands on his groin, over his clothes, police said. Farrell then had the girl leave the room.

One of the girl’s parents reported the incident to police on Monday. Detectives quickly learned that Farrell had sent the girl private messages on social media and continued to do so after the classroom incident.

Farrell arranged a second meeting with the girl at the school on Wednesday evening, police said. But when he arrived at the school, detectives were waiting and arrested him without incident, officials said.

He was booked into the Santa Clara County Main Jail on four felony charges, including child molestation, sexual battery, communicating with a minor with the intent to commit a sex crime and arranging a meeting with a minor with the intent to commit a sex crime.

Farrell has taught full time at Palo Alto High School since 2012, said Jorge Quintana, a spokesman for the Palo Alto Unified School District. Following his arrest, he was placed on unpaid administrative leave, Quintana said.

Kevin Schultz is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kschultz@sfchronicle.com Twitter: KevinEdSchultz

Summary: Palo Alto science teacher charged in sex assault of student  A Palo Alto High School science teacher was arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old female student who volunteered to help clean up his classroom just five days after school ended for the year, police said Thursday.  Ronnie Farrell, 46, of Palo Alto was taken into custody Wednesday night after one of the girl’s parents reported that the teacher invited the daughter, who just completed her freshman year, into his classroom on one of the first days of summer break and touched her inappropriately, police said.  Palo Alto Police Department officials said Farrell asked the girl, who was in his ninth-grade biology class, to come to the school on the morning of June 7 to help with classroom chores — something officials said wasn’t out of the ordinary for the girl to do voluntarily.  Detectives quickly learned that Farrell had sent the girl private messages on social media and continued to do so after the classroom incident.


Bill O'Reilly, the Fox News Channel talk show host, agreed last night to settle a lawsuit brought against him by a long-time producer after enduring more than a week of embarrassing commentary about her charges of sexual harassment.

No details of the settlement or how much Mr. O'Reilly may have had to pay to end the suit were released last night. Andrea Mackris, his longtime producer, was seeking $60 million in her suit.

Mr. O'Reilly reacted by suing Ms. Mackris and her lawyer, Benedict Morelli, claiming extortion.

After that move Ms. Mackris went public with her charges, which included graphic accounts of Mr. O'Reilly calling her and initiating phone sex.

On his program last night, Mr. O'Reilly, whose talk show is the most highly-rated in cable television, said that all litigation had ceased and that both sides had agreed to say that there had been "no wrongdoing in this case whatsoever by anyone."

He blamed other media outlets for turning him into "an object of scorn from coast to coast."

He urged his viewers, "Please do not believe everything you have heard and read." He did not specifically deny any of Ms. Mackris's charges.

He concluded by saying, "This brutal ordeal is now officially over and I will never speak of it again." Mr. O'Reilly did not say whether he had paid Ms. Mackis to settle the case.

Earlier, Mr. O'Reilly's lawyer, Ronald Green, issued a statement saying: "The parties regret that this matter has caused tremendous pain, and they have agreed to settle. All cases and claims have been withdrawn and all parties have agreed that there was no wrongdoing whatsoever by Mr. O'Reilly, Ms. Mackris, or Ms. Mackris' counsel, Benedict P. Morelli & Associates."

Mr. O'Reilly's team also formally withdrew its charge of extortion.

Summary: Bill O'Reilly, Fox News Channel talk show host, agrees to settle lawsuit brought against him by his long-time producer Andrea Mackris after enduring more than week of embarrassing commentary about her charges of sexual harassment (M)


Practically Speaking is a weekly column that addresses your most pressing business dilemmas. The advice is the opinion of long-time business owner Gene Marks. Send your questions to PracticallySpeaking@fortune.com.

Consultants and financial advisors love to tell their clients that they should have business plans. But this column is called Practically Speaking so let’s get practical.

A formal business plan is really only important if you’re looking for money. A bank loan. An outside investor. A partnership. A joint venture. When those situations arise, it’s almost always necessary to have a plan in writing. The plan should be pretty detailed too, depending on who the reader will be. It should look out over five years and include goals, risk factors, use of proceeds, prior and projected financial statements with management’s discussion and analysis underlying previous results and assumptions made about the future. A great guide to writing a business plan is to look at the Form S-1 that a company must file when going public or use a service like LivePlans. Your document basically lays out all the information a potential investor needs to know before buying shares of a new company. Bankers and private investors will want to know the same information.

But if you’re not looking for money, a formal business plan is a waste of time. Most of my clients that run established companies don’t do it. But here’s something you should do: have an informal plan. Create a spreadsheet of quarterly objectives, both quantitative (sales and margin goals, cash flow expectations, number of orders shipped, number of quotes issued) and qualitative (a new safety program in place, a new hire completed, an upgrade to your website). Do this also on an annual basis. This way you can refer to your objectives, with your key people, and keep a good eye on whether or not you’re on track. Because no one outside of the company will be looking at this it doesn’t have to be pretty, so it’s not a formalized business “plan” that consultants like to see. But for your internal purposes, it will cut to the chase and be effective.

Related: What to Do With a Salesperson Who’s Just Okay

It’s not uncommon for a company to lend money to its employees. Just remember that what you do for one you’ll have to do for everyone. So if you decide to go down this road you’ll need to create a formal policy. The policy should include the maximum amount to be lent (usually no more than a paycheck), interest rate (always the market rate — no special considerations should be given or it may be considered taxable) and payment terms. Some companies only allow employees at a certain level to be able to borrow as a sort of employee benefit based on title or tenure. Loans should be paid back through paycheck deductions and if an employee leaves before a loan is paid off you’ll want to make sure whatever is still owed is deducted from her last paycheck.

Before doing this, you may want to see if the employee has the ability to borrow money from her 401(k) or retirement plan, assuming your company offers that. Many plans allow this so check with your benefits advisor. Also over the past few years, many online credit services have sprung up that offer loans for small amounts and few hoops to jump through. The downside is that these loans come with steep interest rates – sometimes up to 50% per year! But if it’s for a very short term problem it may be a decent answer for the employee without you having to go through a whole internal process to setup an employee loan system.

Summary: It may not be necessary.


MPs also suspect Oxfam of asking constituents to email their MPs on the matter. The letter - which arrived on Tuesday morning - refers to a report by Oxfam, the Trussell Trust - which runs food banks - and Church Action on Poverty, published on Monday.

It adds: "It is crucial that the Government starts to properly monitor the numbers of people using food banks and the reasons why they are being forced to resort to depending on food aid.

"As your constituent I would like to ask you to highlight the need for urgent action to address the rise in food poverty. In particular, I would be interested in what you think the government can do to reverse the increase in food poverty and the use of food banks."

Tory MPs in Westminster were appalled by what they said was an overtly political campaign for an aid charity in the UK.

Oxfam has several links to the Labour party, notably through David Pitt-Watson, the charity’s honorary treasurer, who was appointed general secretary of the Labour Party in 2008, but did not take up post.

Mr Pitt-Watson also advised senior figures in the party for over 20 years before that, and was the party’s finance director from 1997 to 1999.

Stephen Doughty, a former adviser to Labour’s shadow Cabinet minister Douglas Alexander, worked for Oxfam in 2006, and between 2010 and 2011, rising to be chief executive for Oxfam Wales. He was elected Labour MP for Cardiff South and Penarth in November 2012

Jo Cox, a former head of policy at Oxfam, is Labour’s candidate in the 2015 general election in Batley and Spen as well as chairman of the Labour women’s network. She is also a former adviser to Sarah Brown, the wife of former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Baroness Kinnock.

Conor Burns sent a message directly to Oxfam on Twitter saying: “This has lost you a lot of supporters. Very foolish.”

Mr Burns told The Telegraph that he had reported Oxfam to William Shawcross, the Charity Commission’s chairman, over the campaign in a letter this morning (reproduced below).

He said: “Many people who support Oxfam will be shocked and saddened by this highly political campaigning in domestic British politics.

“Most of us operated under the illusion that Oxfam's focus was on the relief of poverty and famine overseas. I cannot see how using funds donated to charity to campaign politically can be in accord with Oxfam’s charitable status.

“For that reason I have asked the Chairman of the Charity Commission to investigate Oxfam as a matter of urgency.”

Charlie Elphicke added: “Political campaigning by charities like Oxfam is a shameful abuse of taxpayers’ money. Oxfam is deliberately misleading people - after rising under Labour, child poverty and inequality have been falling under the Conservatives.”

Mr Elphicke said Oxfam should rein in its own boardroom pay bill before lecturing ministers on how to spend money, saying: “They are out of touch and wrong.”

Figures last year showed Dame Barbara Stocking, Oxfam’s charity’s former chief executive, was paid nearly £106,000 a year, down slightly on the year before.

Priti Patel, another Tory MP said she would be asking the Cabinet Office how much money the charity receives every year from the British taxpayer.

She said: "Oxfam are behaving disgracefully by misleading the public about Government policies and their political campaigning may be in breach of their charitable remit.

"With this Tweet they have shown their true colours and are now nothing more than a mouthpiece for left wing propaganda.

"Members of the public who donate to this charity expecting to see their money spent making a difference to people’s lives are being betrayed while the Government should now review the taxpayer grants given to this organisation.”

Rob Halfon added: "Too often Oxfam put politics before their excellent charity work. No ones denies that we have been having difficult times, but for a charity to appear to put all the blame on the current Government is unacceptable.

"Moreover, Oxfam seem to have developed a leftist anti-Israel agenda, and I hope very much that those involved will think again, and Oxfam will once again become a charity that people respect."

Ben Phillips, Oxfam campaigns and policy director, said: "Oxfam is a resolutely non-party political organisation - we have a duty to draw attention to the hardship suffered by poor people we work with in the UK.

"Fighting poverty should not be a party political issue - successive governments have presided over a tide of rising inequality and created a situation where food banks and other providers provided 20 million meals last year to people who could not afford to feed themselves.

"This is an unacceptable situation in one of the world's largest economies and politicians of all stripes have a responsibility to tackle it."

A Charity Commission spokesman said it had begun an assessment of the Oxfam tweet, which is the first stage which could lead to full investigation.

Copy of letter from Conor Burns MP to William Shawcross, chairman of the Charity Commission

My attention was drawn this morning to some advertising being undertaken by Oxfam.

This is overtly political and aimed at the policies of the current Government.

In writing I would formally like to request that the Charity Commission undertake an enquiry as to whether this work in in breach of Oxfam's charitable staus.

Member of Parliament for Bournemouth West

Labour: Appointed as general secretary of the Labour Party in 2008, but did not take up post. He advised senior figures in the party for over 20 years before that, and was the party’s finance director from 1997 to 1999

Oxfam: Former head of Oxfam Cymru

Labour: Elected Labour MP for Cardiff South and Penarth in November 2012. Former adviser to Labour shadow Cabinet minister Douglas Alexander

Oxfam: Former head of policy, Oxfam

Labour: Labour candidate in the 2015 general election in Batley and Spen; national chairman of the Labour women’s network; former adviser to Sarah Brown, the wife of former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Worked for Baroness Kinnock.

Summary: Oxfam tweets a faux film poster, showing dark storm clouds over a broiling   sea, under the words in red: “The Perfect Storm”


SINGAPORE—State-investment firm Temasek Holdings Pte. Ltd. has made an offer to buy shares it doesn’t already own in Singapore-listed SMRT Corp. that values the transport operator at 2.57 billion Singapore dollars (US$1.90 billion).

Temasek, which owns 54% of SMRT, plans to delist the transport company from the Singapore stock exchange by November. Temasek is offering to pay other shareholders of SMRT S$1.68 (US$1.24) a share—or...

Summary: State-investment firm Temasek Holdings has made an offer to buy shares it doesn’t already own in Singapore-listed SMRT, valuing the transport operator at $1.90 billion.


EARLIER this month, in the journal Annals of Neurology, four neuroscientists published an open letter to practitioners of do-it-yourself brain stimulation. These are people who stimulate their own brains with low levels of electricity, largely for purposes like improved memory or learning ability. The letter, which was signed by 39 other researchers, outlined what is known and unknown about the safety of such noninvasive brain stimulation, and asked users to give careful consideration to the risks.

For the last three years, I have been studying D.I.Y. brain stimulators. Their conflict with neuroscientists offers a fascinating case study of what happens when experimental tools normally kept behind the closed doors of academia — in this case, transcranial direct current stimulation — are appropriated for use outside them.

Neuroscientists began experimenting in earnest with transcranial direct current stimulation about 15 years ago. In such stimulation, electric current is administered at levels that are hundreds of times less than those used in electroconvulsive therapy. To date, more than 1,000 peer-reviewed studies of the technique have been published. Studies have suggested, among other things, that the stimulation may be beneficial for treating problems like depression and chronic pain as well as enhancing cognition and learning in healthy individuals.

The device scientists use for stimulation is essentially a nine-volt battery attached to two wires that are connected to electrodes placed at various spots on the head. A crude version can be constructed with just a bit of electrical know-how. Consequently, as reports of the effects of the technique began to appear in scientific journals and in newspapers, people began to build their own devices at home. By late 2011 and early 2012, diagrams, schematics and videos began to appear online.

Today, tinkering skills are no longer needed, as there are approximately a dozen direct-to-consumer devices available for purchase by the public. A majority of people who use the technique at home hope to improve their learning or memory, but a significant proportion are self-treating depression, anxiety or A.D.H.D.

When scientists learned there were lay users of the technique, they reacted with alarm. While stimulation is not known to have caused any serious injuries, it is unclear if long-term use may harm cognition. Some bioethicists predicted home use would become widespread, with parents routinely stimulating their children’s brains.

But such predictions have not come true. Home use remains a subculture, part of the contemporary movement to “hack” one’s body — using supplements, brain-training games and self-tracking devices — to optimize productivity.

And while D.I.Y. brain stimulators are often characterized as reckless and foolhardy, my research has led me to view them differently. I have conducted long interviews with dozens of D.I.Y. stimulators, both in person and via Skype; collected hundreds of questionnaire responses; and tracked online forums, websites, blogs and other platforms on which practitioners communicate. I’ve found that they are — for the most part — astute, inventive and resourceful.

Figuring out how to stimulate your own brain requires work. To determine where to place the electrodes and what level of current to use, these individuals rely heavily on scientific journal articles. Though they occasionally stimulate more often, and for longer periods of time, than do scientific researchers, I’ve found (as I reported last year in The Journal of Medical Ethics) that users adhere to many of the protocols used in scientific studies.

As neuroscientists continue to conduct brain stimulation experiments, publish results in journals and hold conferences, the D.I.Y. practitioners have remained quiet downstream listeners, blogging about scientists’ experiments, posting unrestricted versions of journal articles and linking to videos of conference talks. Some practitioners create their own manuals and guides based on published papers.

The growth of D.I.Y. brain stimulation stems in part from a larger frustration with the exclusionary institutions of modern medicine, such as the exorbitant price of pharmaceuticals and the glacial pace at which new therapies trickle down to patients. For people without an institutional affiliation, even reading a journal article can be prohibitively expensive.

The open letter this month is about safety. But it is also a recognition that these D.I.Y. practitioners are here to stay, at least for the time being. While the letter does not condone, neither does it condemn. It sticks to the facts and eschews paternalistic tones in favor of measured ones. The letter is the first instance I’m aware of in which scientists have directly addressed these D.I.Y. users. Though not quite an olive branch, it is a commendable step forward, one that demonstrates an awareness of a community of scientifically involved citizens.

Anna Wexler is a Ph.D. candidate in the program of history, anthropology, science, technology and society at M.I.T.

A version of this op-ed appears in print on July 24, 2016, on page SR9 of the New York edition with the headline: Zapping Their Brains at Home. Today's Paper|Subscribe

Summary: The surprisingly astute world of do-it-yourself neural stimulation.


Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham tried to reassure foreign leaders that Donald Trump is nothing to worry about during a trip to the Middle East last week.

“Everybody asked me about Trump in terms of policy changes. I said he is an outlier, don’t look at him,” Graham told reporters Thursday about his overseas trip.

The most serious concerns Graham said leaders from Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt expressed raised were regarding Trump’s proposal to temporarily ban most Muslims from entering the United States.

Morning Joe, 3/24/16, 7:43 AM ET

Former 2016 Republican candidate Lindsey Graham joins Morning Joe to discuss why he is now supporting Ted Cruz after coming out strongly against him on the campaign trail, why he thinks the GOP will likely lose in 2016 and why Kasich is the best nominee b

“We don’t want to ban all Muslims….I cannot tell you how that one statement is unnerving,” Graham said following the Congressional trip.

The South Carolina senator said the leaders were “dumbfounded that somebody running for president of the United States would suggest that the United States ban everybody in their faith.”

The officials also were uncomfortable about Trump’s suggestion that the United States should allow Russian President Vladimir Putin to play a bigger role in combating ISIS in Syria.

“When you’re working with Putin, you’re working with Iran,” Graham said.

Graham, who ran for president himself this cycle and then endorsed Jeb Bush and now reluctantly backing Ted Cruz, has been a fierce critic of Trump. He tried to defend his party – and the country as a whole – against the front-runner while overseas.

“I told them, just hang in there, this is the silly season and this will pass,” Graham recounted telling the foreign officials, adding that none of them he met has lost trust in America due to Trump’s controversial comments.

“But,” Graham noted, “they’re very much bewildered by the election process, like I am.”

This article originally appeared on NBCNews.com.


Plans are afoot, too, to build a second lift to the Klein Matterhorn by 2018/19, which could eliminate one of Zermatt's last bottlenecks. The lift will be a 28-seater gondola (with 25 cabins) that can operate in high winds thanks to a three-cable system.

Hundreds of British visitors get to know the mountain – and meet other skiers – by signing up for the Ski Club of Great Britain’s (skiclub.co.uk) comprehensive ski hosting service. Zermatt is one of the busiest resorts for the club, with two leaders taking groups out six days a week throughout much of the season.

At first glance the ski area is not ideal for beginners and small children, with nursery slopes spread far apart over various parts of the mountain, and only 16 per cent of runs classed as blue.

But there are pluses. The nursery slopes, being high, have reliable snow and great views; they are well separated from the main slopes and close to restaurants for meeting friends or family; they have moving carpets, bollards, tunnels and lots of fun obstacles; and the glacier runs are a good place to get some near-flat (though sometimes chilly) mileage. Best of all, children don't pay for a lift pass until they're nine.

For intermediates there is plenty of mileage on long, scenic, satisfying runs, plus lots of challenges and areas of easily accessible gentle off piste. Two thirds of runs are red; some, such as the red off the top of Hohtalli in the Gornergrat sector, are tough enough to be described as “dark red”.

All of Cervinia makes an intermediate paradise, with wide and usually deserted pistes, including the long run down to Valtournenche village which, when freshly pisted, makes you feel like a downhill racer. On the Swiss side, especially scenic are red 69 to Furgg, with a Matterhorn close up; red 15, round the back of the Rothorn, and Stafelalp (52), which loops beneath the Matterhorn.

The slopes offer plenty of mileage for adventurous intermediates (Photo: Michael Portmann)

About 20 per cent of Zermatt's runs are classified black, but for experts it's the off piste and yellow itineraries, runs which are avalanche controlled but not patrolled, that will satisfy experts. The usually deserted Stockhorn section comprises solely itineraries, is often mogulled and opens from February (it needs better snow cover than other areas). The forest itineraries on Schwarzsee, and two from the Rothorn, are similarly testing. Off-piste opportunities are extensive with a guide; more so if you’re willing to hike up on skins or fork out for heliskiing. Renowned British mountain guide Nigel Shepherd cites Zermatt among his top resorts for lift-accessed ski touring – not only because of the terrain but because it isn't overrun by freeriders.

Unless you land a two-for-one lift ticket deal with a tour operator, there’s no getting round the hefty lift pass price (CHF380/CHF434 for six days Zermatt/Zermatt and Cervinia).

However, under nines ski for free, under 16s pay half price (and ski free on Saturdays) and there’s a 15 per cent discount for under 20s. The senior discount is only six per cent, but as my father, a Zermatt regular, says: “The pass costs nearly double, but it’s worth five times as much.”

Competition has sent standards soaring since the days of the Swiss Ski School monopoly. There are now nine schools. Prices, timings and meeting points vary, but five days of group lessons for children, including lunch, starts at about CHF395, and three hours’ private lessons for two people starts at about CHF260. Several schools have a crèche.

Of the larger, mainstream schools, Stoked (stoked.ch), a dynamic Swiss-run outfit, is especially good value for private group lessons. Ski and Snowboard School Zermatt (skischulezermatt.ch), aka the “reds”, has 200 instructors and works out cheapest for five days of children’s classes. The British-run Summit (summitskischool.com) teaches all groups in English and is good for children and intermediates.

The smaller schools specialise mostly in private tuition. The well-established Swiss-run Prato Borni (pratoborni.ch) comes highly recommended, then there's Matterhorn Diamonds (matterhorn-diamonds.com), the British-run European Snowsport (europeansnowsport.com; a branch of the Verbier original), Adventure (adventure-zermatt.ch), Alpine Swiss Ski School (alpine-swiss-school.com) and My Skischool (myskischool.com). Some of these have an impressive array of nationalities among their instructors, speaking seemingly every language under the sun.

Ski hire shops are dotted around the resort, including next to all the lift stations, and prices vary. Matterhorn Sport (matterhornsport.ch) has three branches and works with the discount rental service Skiset (zermatt.skiset.co.uk), Bayard (bayardzermatt.ch) has two shops with top end equipment and clothing, and the friendly Glacier Sport (glacier-intersport.ch), on the main street, is the place to have your own skis serviced as well as providing gear to rent or buy.

Off piste, heliskiing and ski touring can be arranged via, among others, the Alpin Center (alpincenter-zermatt.ch), and some days it's possible to join a group outing.

Zermatt is a ski tourer's paradise. Beyond the lift system are mountain huts for overnight or hut-to-hut tours, such as the shiny modern Monte Rosa hut (viewable from the Gornergrat), and the traditional Schoenbiel, a few hours' hike up the valley from Stafelalp.

Two well regarded guides are Thomas Grichting (bookable through the Alpin Center), and Brian Farquhuarson (swissmountainguide.ch), a Zermatt-based British guide. The Ski Club of GB's Freshtracks programme (skiclub.co.uk) and Mountain Tracks (mountaintracks.co.uk) run group off-piste and/or ski touring weeks in and around Zermatt using qualified guides.

A winner for children and teenagers – as well as my father and other bold grown-ups – is the Gravity Park beneath the Furgsattel chair on Trockener Steg, which has a half-pipe, jumps and bumps. There’s also a natural half-pipe near the igloo village on the Gornergrat (enter it off the side of blue piste 36) and a jump with air bag landing at Blauherd.

The Freeride World Tour highlights Zermatt's strength as an off-piste destination (Photo: Jeremy Bernard)

The lift company, Matterhorn Zermatt Bergbahnen, organises several weekly or regular outings, details of which are available in English at matterhornparadise.ch. On Wednesdays and Fridays from late December till mid-April there are First Tracks mornings, when skiers and riders pay CHF42 (discounts for under 16s) to hit the slopes extra early (from 7.40am). Eight times a season there's a moonlit descent from the Rothorn or Blauherd, including a fondue in a mountain restaurant and a ski down the pistes at 10.30pm (CHF60 or 70.50; discounts for children). From January onwards, there's a 45-minute behind-the-scenes look at artificial snowmaking on request, with an on-skis visit to a reservoir on the Gornergrat (free).

There are 72km of winter walking paths criss-crossing Zermatt's ski area, including a circular trail and some lovely woodland trails away from the pistes. Many of the mountain restaurants are easily accessible on foot; the clusters at Findeln and Furi are especially popular with walkers. Walkers' passes, including travel on the Gornergrat railway, are available from the lift stations and tourist office. There's also snowshoeing (alpincenter-zermatt.ch or zermatt.ch).

There's a well prepared sledging run from Roten Boden to Riffelberg, two stops on the Gornergrat railway. Rent the sledges at Riffelberg station (CHF8 for half a day), take goggles even if it's fine and beware of letting children on without an adult; the sledges are heavy duty and move at quite a pace. There are further toboggan paths between Furi and Zermatt.

The glacier palace in the depths of the ice on the Klein Matterhorn, the highest peak in the ski area, is well worth a visit, with exquisite carvings, eerily luminous and ice-blue (CHF8). From Tuesdays to Thursdays over 15s can ride and drive a Pistenbully (4-8pm; CHF150; book through Zermatt Bergbahnen by calling 0041 27 966 0101).

Summary: An in-depth guide to Zermatt's ski area, the pistes, off piste, ski hire shops and lift passes


One of the most common questions in Democratic politics is obvious, though it’s not easy to answer: Once the primaries are over, how will Hillary Clinton unify progressive voters ahead of the general election? Much of the discussion involves speculation about Bernie Sanders’ strategy, the party’s convention, the party’s platform, Clinton’s eventual running mate, etc.

But there’s a piece to this puzzle that sometimes goes overlooked: Clinton will try to bring Democrats and progressive independents together, but it’s Donald Trump who’ll seal the deal.

Those idiots represent everything that is wrong not just with the Republican Party, but with modern politics in general. It’s hard to imagine a political compromise that wouldn’t be justified if its true aim would be to keep people like those jackasses out of power.

In context, none of this had anything to do with Bernie Sanders or the Democratic primary, but Taibbi’s point – there’s value in compromise if it means keeping “those jackasses out of power” – lingered in my mind because I suspect many of Sanders’ die-hard supporters will be making a similar calculation in the coming months.

And Donald Trump, whether he realizes it or not, is going to help.

This is sometimes forgotten, but for much of Bill Clinton’s presidency, he was popular with Democrats, but not that popular. The former president developed a reputation, which was well deserved, for adopting a “triangulation” posture and taking advice from the likes of Dick Morris. Among congressional Democrats at the time, they supported Clinton, but often through gritted teeth.

How did Bill Clinton eventually bring Democrats together, uniting them behind his presidency? He didn’t; Tom DeLay did. The more intense the congressional Republicans’ anti-Clinton crusade became – culminating, of course, in impeachment – the more congressional Democrats rallied around their ally in the White House. It wasn’t overly complicated: Dems may have been annoyed by the president triangulating, but they were far more disgusted with Republican extremism.

Nearly two decades later, consider how Donald Trump is shifting his focus to the 2016 general election: Trump is attacking Hillary Clinton over her gender; he’s blaming her for ’90s-era sex scandals; and in a line of attack that no sane person should consider normal, he’s suggesting that she might have had something to do with Vince Foster’s death. You’ve heard the cliche, campaigns are always about the future? The presumptive Republican nominee, who has no real policy agenda or specific goals of his own, has decided this campaign is entirely about the past.

There may be Republican voters who find all of this compelling, but let’s not discount the fact that these are the kind of attacks that also motivate Democratic and progressive voters in the opposite direction.

The number of liberal Sanders supporters watching the news this week, eager to hear more from Trump about Vince Foster conspiracy theories, is probably infinitesimally small. But the number of progressive voters watching all of this unfold, thinking about keeping “people like those jackasses out of power,” is probably quite high.

The question of how Clinton and Sanders will reconcile, keeping left-of-center voters together, obviously matters. But the question of how many of these same voters will gravitate to Clinton instinctively out of contempt for the Republican nominee may end up mattering just as much.

Summary: Hillary Clinton will try to bring Democrats and progressive independents together, but it's Donald Trump who'll seal the deal.


US President Barack Obama has praised the strength of America's alliances with Australia and other Asia-Pacific nations while slamming Donald Trump as being unfit for the White House.

Mr Obama, at a press conference in Washington DC on Tuesday with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, also vowed to make the Trans-Pacific Partnership mega trade deal a reality in the final weeks of his presidency.

The top presidential candidates, Republican nominee Mr Trump and the Democrats' Hillary Clinton, are both against the TPP, but Mr Obama is aiming to push the landmark deal through Congress in the "lame duck" period after the November 8 presidential election and before he leaves office in January.

"Hopefully, after the election is over and the dust settles there will be more attention to the actual facts behind the deal and it won't just be a political symbol or a political football," Mr Obama told reporters.

The 12-nation TPP involves the US, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Japan, Canada, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru and Vietnam.

If the US fails to pass the TPP, China will set the trade agenda in the Asia-Pacific, Mr Obama said.

"If we don't establish strong rules, norms for how trade and commerce are conducted in the Asia-Pacific region, then China will," Mr Obama said.

"China is already engaging all of the countries in the region around its own version of trade agreements and they are sure not worried about labour standards, environmental standards, human trafficking, anti-corruption measures."

Mr Obama said one of the major strategic shifts of his presidency, re-balancing America's focus away from Europe and the Middle-East to the rapidly-growing Asia-Pacific, had been a success.

It was a move championed by Ms Clinton during her role as secretary of state in the president's first term.

"Our alliances are stronger," Mr Obama said.

"Our security arrangements are deeper whether in Australia, or the Philippines, or Singapore."

Mr Obama used the press conference to unleash his strongest attack on Mr Trump, describing the real estate mogul and former reality TV star as "woefully unprepared" and "unfit to serve as president".

Mr Obama pointed to Mr Trump's repeated gaffes and attacks on the family of Muslim-American Army Captain Humayun Kahn, who was killed by suicide bombers while guarding the gates of a forward operating base in Iraq in 2004.

"The notion that he would attack a Gold Star family that has made such extraordinary sacrifices on behalf of our country, the fact that he doesn't appear to have basic knowledge around critical issues in Europe, in the Middle East, in Asia, means that he's woefully unprepared to do this job," Mr Obama said.

Mr Trump responded by attacking Mr Obama's "failed leadership".

"Obama-Clinton have single-handedly destabilised the Middle East, handed Iraq, Libya and Syria to ISIS, and allowed our personnel to be slaughtered at Benghazi," Mr Trump said in a statement.

Summary: Donald Trump has quickly hit back at Barack Obama's latest attack, firing off a statement describing the president as a failed leader.


The BBC now stands accused of covering up the allegations, which were detailed in The Oldie magazine, because senior executives did not want the corporation’s reputation to be tarnished.

A BBC News source said: “The extreme nature of the claims about Savile meant that the Newsnight report was going to seriously compromise the lavish BBC tributes scheduled to run later the same month.

“And second, the allegations directly involved the BBC, in that the woman who gave the interview said that she and others were abused by Savile on BBC premises.”

All of the women making the allegations were former pupils of Duncroft Approved School in Staines, Surrey, where Savile was a regular visitor.

Two claimed that Savile took them for drives in his car and rewarded them with gifts of cigarettes, records, money and places in the Clunk Click studio audience in return for “sexual favours”.

In 2007, Surrey Police received a complaint from a woman who said she was indecently assaulted by Savile at Duncroft in the 1970s. The allegation was investigated but no further action was taken.

Neither Surrey Police nor the Metropolitan Police have been contacted by the BBC regarding the fresh allegations.

A Newsnight spokesman refused to answer any questions about the report or to deny that Helen Boaden, the corporation’s news chief, was personally involved in the decision to kill it. “Any suggestion that a story was dropped for anything other than editorial reasons is completely untrue,” the spokesman said.

“The BBC gathers information on hundreds of stories and not all make it to air. In this case the angle we were pursuing could not be substantiated.”

Mark Thompson, the BBC director-general, knew that the Newsnight team were working on the story but is understood to have played no part in the decision to shelve it.

Sources said that he was made aware of the investigation shortly before it was dropped, “but it was mentioned in passing at a social function and he was in no way involved in the decision to drop it”.

Savile died in October, aged 84, after a career of broadcasting and charity campaigning. The flamboyant star was one of the BBC’s most recognisable faces. He hosted the first edition of Top of the Pops in 1964 and the last in 2006.

In the early 1970s, he promoted the use of seatbelts with a campaign that used the “Clunk click every trip” slogan. The BBC retained the name for Savile’s first solo television series, which ran from 1973-74 and was a forerunner to Jim’ll Fix It. The Saturday tea-time show featured a mix of music and celebrity chat.

At the time of Savile’s death, Mr Thompson said on behalf of the BBC: “From Top Of The Pops to Jim’ll Fix It, Jimmy’s unique style entertained generations of BBC audiences. Like millions of viewers and listeners we shall miss him greatly.”

Summary: The BBC shelved a Newsnight investigation into allegations that Sir Jimmy   Savile sexually abused a teenage girl in his dressing room at Television   Centre, it has emerged.


Leonardo DiCaprio’s doppelgängers are everywhere: bartending in Sweden, starring in commercials in Russia and now… winning medals in Rio.

American archer Brady Ellison is a three-time Olympian and, as of Saturday, a two-time silver medalist, taking home a second-place win in this year’s team event. But the 27-year-old champion might be getting more attention for something totally unrelated to his archery skills, as spectators have noticed his striking resemblance to everyone’s favorite Oscar winner.

Here’s Ellison, posing before the games in front of an American flag:

And here he is in competition:

Meanwhile, here’s DiCaprio biking recently in New York — he also favors a baseball cap, a bit of scruff and a patriotic red-white-and-blue color palette:

It’s definitely an apt comparison. Ellison will have a chance to nab another medal at the games on Tuesday, when he takes part in the individual event.

Summary: American Olympic archer Brady Ellison is the latest Leo DiCaprio lookalike