Last Updated Jun 21, 2011 10:06 AM EDT

With gas bills putting a crimp in your budget, you don't want to be wasting money on other car expenses. But many car owners do just that -- either spending more than needed on maintenance or putting off work that will cost more later.

To be smart about your car, you need to do the right amount of on-time maintenance -- while resisting mechanics' pitches for unnecessary work. "With advertising that emphasizes maintenance-free cars, people may have the idea they don't have to take care of them," says George Sadowski, education manager at the Norwood, Mass., campus of Universal Technical Institute, a leading provider of training courses for auto mechanics.

But while neglect doesn't work, neither does overspending. From Sadowski and Michael Calkins, manager of the AAA program that recommends repair shops, here are 10 ways you may be wasting money on your car.

A relic of a bygone era, this guideline is often promoted by dealers or repair shops eager for business. Instead, read your owner's manual and follow the manufacturer's recommendation for oil-change intervals -- it's often 5,000 to 7,500 miles.

Don't pay this higher cost unless your owner's manual says premium fuel is "required." High-performance engines like those in Corvettes and some luxury models do really require it. But if premium fuel is just "recommended," you can still buy regular. Michael Calkins of AAA takes this suggestion to heart. "I have a Nissan Murano that recommends premium," he says. "But it runs fine on regular." At recent national averages of $3.78 a gallon for regular and $4.04 for premium, that's a savings of about $4 every time you fill up a 15-gallon tank.

"If you have not changed your air filter by about 40,000 miles, it is probably clogged and hurting your gas mileage," says George Sadowski. That MPG penalty could be as much as 10% to 15%, he estimates. So if your mechanic recommends a fresh filter after about 25,000 miles, say yes.

. Most mechanics will raise this issue periodically, but you should suggest it if not. Getting timely pad replacement can help you avoid later (and much more expensive) repair to the brake drums or rotors, Sadowski advises. Replacing the pads should cost less than $150.

. On auto racing shows and other sports programs, ads are nearly constant for oil additives or devices -- like magnets on the fuel lines -- that will supposedly improve your car's mileage. "I've never seen any good scientific study proving that any of this works," says the AAA's Calkins. "They come out of the woodwork whenever gas prices go up."

Another relic of a bygone era, this is still a popular promotion to drum up business. "Modern engines are constantly being tuned by on-board computers," says

Calkins. "And as for air conditioning, if it is blowing cold air, it is fine. If it isn't, get it fixed."

. Mechanics or dealers will often say you need to have the engine coolant flushed out and replaced. That's only true if you have plenty of miles on it. Modern coolant -- you'll know it because it's usually brown or light red -- is engineered to last five years or 50,000 miles, says Calkins. That's about double the lifespan of the old-style green coolant.

This amber light on your dash, which in some cars says "service engine soon," indicates a problem with the fuel or emission system. A malfunctioning oxygen sensor, often the reason for the light, can hurt your gas mileage. (See

.) And an out-of-kilter fuel mix, if ignored too long, could harm the engine."You could wind up with a $1,000 repair job instead of what could have been a $150 job," cautions Calkins.

When it is time to replace your tires, the dealer rep or salesman at the tire shop may try to convince you that you need the super-grip performance tires that come with sports cars and other high-performance vehicles. But they can sometimes cost twice as much, Calkins notes, and because they are made of softer rubber, they often do not last as long. And let's get real: Are you driving an Indy track or circling the mall looking for parking?

If you are buying a new car, taking the factory navigation system can cost $2,000 or more. Calkins points out that most smart phones now have navigation options that work just as well and carry free updates of their maps, unlike the built-in systems.

You can't control the price of gas. But by paying attention to your maintenance schedule and doing just enough -- but not more than you really need -- you can keep from wasting money on your other automotive costs.

© 2011 CBS Interactive Inc.. All Rights Reserved.

Summary: Gas prices are putting a crimp in your budget. But don't waste money on other automotive costs by spending more than needed on maintenance or putting off work that will cost more later.


The Entrepreneur Insider network is an online community where the most thoughtful and influential people in America’s startup scene contribute answers to timely questions about entrepreneurship and careers. Today’s answer to the question “What’s something you wish you knew before starting your business?” is written by Michael Maven, founder of Carter & Kingsley.

Every day, my team and I come across new companies that allow revenue to leak away. We’re usually called in to diagnose and fix these basic errors, but how can startups overcome them when mature enterprises are still making them, too?

If your startup is trying to get up and running in a new market, you need to know whether or not there’s enough demand for your product. As entrepreneurs, ideas are a dime a dozen, and just because you (or a small group of people) think you have a good one doesn’t mean your idea will be popular.

It might be easy for your vision, passion, and belief in your idea to drive you forward until you’re ready to unleash your finished product, but this visionary passion often unwittingly kills companies since many founders end up building products people don’t want or need.

You need a proof of concept first. You need early adopters in the real world to tinker with it and give you feedback. This will then help you mold your product as you move forward. The idea here is that your end product tightly represents consumer demand. Don’t just listen to what early adopters say, but watch how they interact with your concept, too. Why? Sometimes people will say they would pay for a feature (in theory), but later on aren’t so keen. Observing behavior and even getting early commitment is key here.

When our company adds new services, for example, we start by running a few panels on a proposed product, past good prospects. At this point, zero lines of code have been written. Next, we accept payment from early adopters in return for preferred pricing during product development. We also add in a money-back guarantee if the early adopter is unhappy at any time.

This way, ideas are validated early and we often get part of our costs paid up front. The key is to build a relationship with the prospects and show them you understand their problem and have a proposed viable solution.

To take it a step further, direct marketers have long been using “dry testing” to see if a product will sell before it’s even created. They simply run an ad for the proposed product and include a line stating that the offer is dependant on a satisfactory number of orders being received. When you test your ads with different features and get a warm response, it’s a good sign people are interested (disclaimer: your local laws will vary and may not allow publicly advertising an uncreated product).

Your sole job as an entrepreneur is to focus on response-based (metric/data-driven) marketing in order to stimulate sales/signups. By marketing, I mean user acquisition, selling to customers, retention of both, and growing the number of people who use your product. This would ideally be done on automation, using proven systems to add a viral component.

These are all functions of advertising, marketing, and sales, as users are the lifeblood of every company. You can find other people to do your accounting or programming, but strategic, long-term marketing is the most important task you can be focused on.

One effective method of strategic marketing is to position your product as something new that will elevate a user’s social status. Apple AAPL , for example, markets its products with clean, stylish designs, and is generally more expensive. If you own Apple products, it raises your status.

Owning a Prius might appeal to those who want to show people they are more thoughtful than others and care about the environment.

Marketing means knowing how to purposely take an action, for which the reaction is to make people come to you and buy, join, or sign up. If you can do that on demand, then you can apply that knowledge to any business and be successful.

Michael Maven is the founder of Carter & Kingsley, the market leader in developing bespoke profit growth strategies for investor portfolios and existing businesses, and also the founder and developer of the ECARR System used to power CatchAndRetain.com, an automated ‘hands off’ system which measurably turns more website visitors into customers.

Summary: It's all about status.


Yes, you can make your entrepreneurial dream come true even if you only have $700 in the bank. That's what Andres Moreno did eight years ago in Venezuela when he and his friend Wilmer Sarmiento launched Open English, an online English school targeting Spanish speakers in Latin America, now worth a cool $350 million.

Prior to launching Open English, Moreno, who's 30 and a college dropout, had launched a traditional English language school in their hometown of Caracas. They would fly recent U.S. college grads down to teach executives of Fortune 500 companies based in Venezuela. But despite the school's success and big name client roster, Moreno and his team realized that the model was not scalable. So he ditched the brick and mortar model and switched to an all-online model, 21st century style.

Raising capital from Caracas was a hard task, however. So with $700 left in his bank, Moreno bet everything on their new idea and traveled to San Francisco and Los Angeles. There, angel investors handed him $10,000 and $20,000 checks that allowed them to build a beta site and proof of concept.

Fast forward eight years, Open English is now based in Miami, Florida, has 2,000 employees and has raised over $120 million.

In the process Moreno, also met his future Chief Product Officer and wife, Nicolette, who also doubles as "Jenny" in all their quirky, homemade, commercials.

And like other tech giants Zappos and Google, a friendly company culture ranks high among Open English's priorities. Case in point: they recently hired a Director of Happiness to ensure their employees have a sense of purpose and that they accomplish their aspirations.

We visited Moreno at his office in Coral Gables in the latest installment of our Tech Journey series. Watch the video above.

Summary: In 2007 Andres Moreno and Wilmer Sarmiento launched Open English from their native Venezuela with $700 . Now their online English school is worth a cool $350 million.


I’ve always been a closeted introvert. I see networking events as the “necessary evil” part of the freelance lifestyle. Walking around and having casual conversation with complete strangers sends chills down my spine. So when I found a free “mingling school” for introverts online, I knew I had to take it. How else could I get rid of the “oh my God, don’t come towards me, stranger!” feeling I had every time I saw a smiling face approaching? Here are six tips that I successfully implemented to help me improve my mingling techniques at networking events.

1. Check your language. I started the article with the confession that I am an introvert. That’s what I thought about myself my entire life. But what if that’s not actually the case? What if, by simply labeling myself as an introvert, I’m transforming this into a self-fulfilling prophecy? Some of the labels we assign to ourselves are holding us back. Because of them, we don’t see the “other path” when it presents itself. The reality is that I can be shy, and I can also become better at mingling. Being good at networking is a skill that can be trained. It is not who I am, but what I do that matters.

2. Let go of negative focus. Your brain is hardwired to take care of your well-being. If you consider mingling a stressful situation, your body will react as such. Your anxiety will kick in, your palms will start to sweat, your muscles will tense and your pulse will accelerate. Your brain is equipped for survival, so it naturally kicks into survival mode. But networking is rarely a life-threatening event, despite the feelings of fear we have towards it. Train your mind to stop focusing on a potential negative outcome by following tip no. 3.

3. Imagine the obstacles aren’t there. Most of the time, we tend to imagine the outcome as a worst case scenario. What if I say something stupid? What if I stutter? What if I won’t fit in? Take some time before the event and write down best case scenarios. What is the best thing that could happen if I dare to put myself out there? What connections could I make? What opportunities could I uncover? This is what you’ll miss out on if you decide not to attend.

4. Find the common ground. If you think you’re the only one at the event dreading the small talk, have I got news for you. You’re not. There are other people in the room who would rather be somewhere else too. And guess what. That’s only one of the things you have in common. The brain signals approval when we meet someone that we share some common ground with. So find the common ground with other attendees. It can be anything, from working in the same field, to having the same name, to liking the same restaurants. You can also research beforehand who is going to attend the event and figure out one or two things that you have in common. It’s not stalking. It’s preparation. Preparation often eases anxiety.

5. Use self-fulfilling prophecies to your advantage. We usually think of a self-fulfilling prophecy in negative terms. We’re afraid that something bad will happen, and it does. What if we could reverse that? Studies show that people who think they’ll be liked by others will behave in ways that will, indeed, make them more likeable. They appear less nervous and more warm, so they are more likely to elicit a positive response in a social situation. Start with the belief that the event will be a success and that you’ll manage to make good connections. If in doubt on how to do that, go back to the answers you wrote down for tip no. 3.

6. New behaviors are like new shoes. This metaphor is probably the best take-away from the Mingling School for Introverts course. When you first wear a new pair of shoes, it’s bound to feel uncomfortable. But the more you break them in, the better you feel wearing them. It’s the same with new behaviors. They’re difficult and uncomfortable at first, but if you persevere in them, they become second nature. They just fit. Mingling and networking are skills, therefore they can be trained. And the best training methods include training our behaviors. This takes time and practice, but it is possible.

For more lessons on overcoming shyness and mastering mingling skills, check out the free e-course Mingling School for Introverts by psychologist Jenny Rickardsson. You’ll find out useful tips and exercises on how to find an opening and a closing line, how to do the opposite of what you’re feeling inside, and how to turn the attention outward.

This article originally appeared on Avelist

Summary: Find common ground


The following script is from "Children Helping Children" which aired on Nov. 25, 2012. Scott Pelley is the correspondent. Nicole Young, producer.

The things that we're thankful for tend to come from people who devote their lives to something greater than themselves. Many folks come to that devotion late in life. But Craig Kielburger discovered it early. He was in seventh grade when the death of a boy changed his life. It was a change so profound that, through Kielburger, it has now saved and transformed lives around the globe. In that moment, 17 years ago, Craig Kielburger was struck by a profound truth -- something as important as changing the world can't be left to grown ups.

Craig Kielburger: Kids are looking to get involved. They're searching for it. And in an era where, you know adults often are looking for meaning and purpose in their lives, kids also want to assert who they are, not just by the videogames they play or the peer groups they belong to, but by the contribution they make. And that's part of a youth self-identity in the world. And not only is it good for the child, my God, our world needs it.

For information on Free The Children, click here

Craig Kielburger was a child when he noticed the needs of the world. As a 12-year-old in Canada he read about the murder of a boy his age in Pakistan. Iqbal Masih was a slave in a carpet factory. Masih escaped to lead a campaign against servitude. But within two years he was silenced. Kielburger put down the newspaper and rose to speak.

Craig Kielburger: We're talking about labor and the exploitation of children.

He made Iqbal Masih's fight, his own. He talked to classmates, to Congress, to Parliament. To call him "precocious" is an understatement as our own Ed Bradley found out in 1996.

Ed Bradley: But what made you think you could do something about it?

Craig Kielburger: Originally, I didn't think I could, really. But the only way we're going to ever find out is try. So after doing some research, I just walked to my classmates and said, "Listen, I read this article. Here's a problem. This is what I know" -- which at that point was not very much -- and asked, 'Who wants to help?'

Turned out 11 friends wanted to help. With no money to start with, no wealthy parents or early backers, they met in his living room and started a charity called Free The Children.

Craig Kielburger: Why not? If everyone in the world could say, "Why me?" -- then nothing ever would be accomplished. Why me? Because I've met those children. Because I've seen them. Because I read the story of Iqbal Masih. Why not me?]

In the 1990's, Kielburger wanted to free children from slavery. So he went to Asia recruiting activists and government authorities to bust child sweatshops and sex traffickers. There were early successes. But, when we went overseas with Kielburger, he told us freeing children was much more complicated than he had first imagined.

Scott Pelley: What are some of the things that didn't work out? What have you learned?

Craig Kielburger: You know, probably the lowest moment ever was the first time in Southeast Asia, when we met children who we had freed before who are back in slavery. To see that some of those same kids would end up back in the same grinding, backbreaking, desperate poverty, there is nothing that makes your heart fall more than that.

Kids he freed were being pulled back into servitude, years later, by centuries old culture and traditions shaped by poverty and illiteracy.

Scott Pelley: At the point that you saw that your original big idea wasn't working, why didn't you throw in the towel?

© 2012 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Summary: At age 12, Craig Kielburger set out the change the world. Now, 17 years later and with 2 million volunteers, he's still at it.


A few years ago, Bruce Springsteen came out with a song called “We Take Care of Our Own.” The chorus’s theme seemed upbeat and proud: We take care of the people closest to us. But like in a lot of Springsteen songs (including “Born in the U.S.A.”), the lyrics in the verses sit in tension with the lyrics in the chorus.

In the verses, it’s clear that taking care of our own also means not taking care of people who are not our own, like the victims of Katrina. Suddenly the phrase “We Take Care of Our Own” has an exclusivist, menacing and even racist tinge.

That phrase and the two different meanings it can have sit at the center of election 2016.

Donald Trump’s supporters stand for the first meaning. America’s first loyalty is to its own workers, its own culture, its own citizens.

This worldview is not just selfishness. For most of human history most people have prized coherent communities above all. They’ve built moral systems on loyalty and support for their own kin and fellow citizens. These bonds are not based on some abstract social contract. They are intimate bonds, born out of shared kinship, history, geography and common understandings of right and wrong.

People committed to coherent communities will fight to defend the norms that hold communities together. They accept immigrants who assimilate to existing culture, but they’ll be suspicious of those who they feel bring in incompatible customs and tear at the social fabric.

For eons, this was more or less the traditional moral system for most of the human race. But as the N.Y.U. social psychologist Jonathan Haidt points out in an outstanding essay in The American Interest, over the past several decades a different mind-set has emerged.

People with this mind-set value the emancipated individual above the cohesive community. They value, or at least try to value, self-expression, social freedom and diversity. Their morality is not based on loyalty to people close to them; it’s based on a universal equality for all humans everywhere.

People with this mind-set disdain the political or religious walls that divide people. In his essay, Haidt cites John Lennon’s song “Imagine” as an expression of this worldview:

Imagine there’s no countries; it isn’t hard to do Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too Imagine all the people living life in peace You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.

People with this mind-set bridle at the exclusivist implications of the line “We Take Care of Our Own.” It’s fine to value Americans, but we should also take in the immigrant and be multilateral in our foreign relations.

Haidt argues that the division between these two camps is a division between the nationalists and the globalists. It’s also between the moral particularists and the moral universalists, between those who believe that blood and historic ties take precedence and those who, like the philosopher Peter Singer, argue that you have the same moral obligation to a boy starving to death in South Sudan as to a boy drowning in the lake in front of you.

For decades the globalist/universalist mind-set — pro-immigration, pro-globalization — has been on the march. Now, with Trump, the particularists are striking back. Immigration is the subject that fuels their ire.

As Haidt writes, “By the summer of 2015 [when the Syrian refugee crisis hit] the nationalist side was already at the boiling point, shouting ‘enough is enough, close the tap,’ when the globalists proclaimed, ‘let us open the floodgates, it’s the compassionate thing to do, and if you oppose us you are a racist.’ Might that not provoke even fairly reasonable people to rage?”

The fact is that both mind-sets have their virtues. The particularists emphasize the intimate love and loyalty that is the stuff of real community. The universalists are moved by injustices anywhere, and morally repulsed by inaction and indifference in the face of that suffering.

The tragedy of this election is that America already solved this problem. Unlike France and China, we were founded as a universalist nation. You can be fiercely patriotic and relatively open because America was founded to take in people from around the globe and unite them around something new.

Unfortunately, the forces of multiculturalism destroyed that commitment to cultural union. That has led to Trump, who has upended universalistic American nationalism and replaced it with European blood and soil nationalism in a stars and stripes disguise.

The way out of this debate is not to go nationalist or globalist. It’s to return to American nationalism — espoused by people like Walt Whitman — which combines an inclusive definition of who is Our Own with a fervent commitment to assimilate and Take Care of them.

Summary: The phrase has two meanings, and that difference is at the center of election 2016.


Late February the Syrian government had the upper hand on the ground thanks to Russia's military intervention. Six months earlier President Bashar al Assad's hold on power was been threatened by rebels advance.

Tehran was believed to have requested Russian assistance. Moscow complied but its intention was never for Syria to become another Afghanistan.

The plan seemed to be to strengthen its ally and weaken its opponents enough to bring about a political deal that would ensure its influence in Syria.

The government did attend talks in Geneva but it did so without the intention of making any concession. Assad himself said he wanted to recapture the whole country - a statement criticised by Moscow.

Then he declared his intention to bring about a "final victory in Aleppo".

READ MORE: Hezbollah: Mustafa Badreddine killed in rebel shelling

Two weeks of intense bombardments and fighting on the ground did not just kill civilians, the peace talks and the cessation of hostilities all but collapsed. The battle lines did not change.

For the past few days, the government and its allies tried but failed to close the Castillo road - the only route in and out of the rebel controlled east. It has been trying to lay siege to the area but opposition groups have held their ground.

It lost strategic territory in Aleppo's southern countryside, which was described as one of the worse losses in a single battle for Assad and more so for his regional allies.

Some reports suggested that dozens of Iranian, Afghan and Lebanese fighters from Hezbollah were killed.

Iran confirmed losing men and for the first time acknowledged that some of its fighters were captured.

A military alliance of opposition groups led by al-Qaeda linked al-Nusra Front scored a battlefield victory by recapturing Khan Touman.

The town is along a supply route between opposition held territories in Idlib and Aleppo provinces. The rebels lost it late last year.

Now it is theirs again. Dozens of air strikes and government promises of counter-offensives failed to regain hard won territory back.

Then came the death of Mustafa Badreddine, Hezbollah's man in Syria. He was the group's biggest loss in the war to date.

READ MORE: Are Syria's warring sides serious on political process?

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) also took ground from the government - in the eastern countryside of Homs, cutting a main supply line to the city of Palmyra which Assad's forces with the backing of Russian air cover recaptured only recently.

ISIL also advanced against the government in the eastern city of Deir Ez Zour.

A series of losses just months after significant gains. Why has the government and its allies lost momentum?

Is it because Russia reduced its air strikes in Syria and is no longer providing close air cover like it did in previous battles?

Likely. But why the shift?

Russia is working with the US to push for a cessation of hostilities and a revival of the political track. US Secretary of State John Kerry may be right when he said Russia has an interest in not being bogged down in Syria forever.

And that would require getting Iran to agree to a compromise deal.

There have been reports of friction between Iran and Russia - a battle for influence, some call it. Tehran along with its allies have been suffering painful military setbacks.

Russia's reduced role on the battlefield may not just be a way to reduce Iran's influence but a message to make clear who is in charge.

Summary: Government air strikes and promises of counter-offensive fail to dislodge rebel forces as Russia reduces air support.


At first it seemed that the incident in the air over Spain in January of 1966 was tragic, but not catastrophic: an Air Force plane and a refueling jet tanker had crashed in midair. But while the airmen who managed to parachute away from the accident were easily found, the cargo proved more elusive. The plane had been carrying thermonuclear bombs—unarmed and protected, but nuclear weapons nonetheless—and only three of the four that fell could be located. Hundreds of American and Spanish workers combed the area over which the crash had occurred, but with no luck. The bomb was missing.

It was not until Mar. 17, 1966—exactly 50 years ago—that the missing hydrogen bomb was finally recovered, 2,500 ft. underwater off the coast near Palomares, by a submarine nicknamed Alvin, which was kitted out with underwater cameras and a claw capable of lifting objects from the seabed.

“The discovery was a fantastic mixture of technical skill and luck. It matched finding a needle in a haystack—or ‘perhaps in a hayfield,” as one official put it,” TIME noted the following week. “For all the tips from fishermen and experts’ calculations, the bomb could have landed just about anywhere over an area of scores of square miles, and the parachute could have acted as a sea anchor in the swift coastal cur rents, tugging the bomb into less accessible depths. Then, too, the sea floor’s shifting mud might have ultimately hidden the bomb from view.”

Within a few weeks, the Navy managed to haul up the bomb, which weighed over a ton. As TIME reported, the once-hush-hush operation was suddenly a media frenzy:

Not surprisingly, the U.S. was eager to show off the nuke, to prove at least that the Costa Bomba, as it was being called, was demonstrably safe for tourists—in addition to rebutting in advance any murkey [sic] insinuations from Moscow that the recovery operation was all a big hoax.

As it was, the H-bomb’s debut was about as razzmatazz as a church-sponsored striptease. Its size and megatonnage were not announced, and technicians carefully covered all revealing parts with masking tape. What Spanish officials and 80 newsmen got to see on the Petrel’s fantail—from 100 ft. away —was a slightly dented, porpoise-shaped, silver-colored tube about 10 ft. long. Just the way it looked in Thunderball.

But, though the missing explosive was a scary idea, the easily discovered bombs needed just as much worrying about.

Two of the three bombs that had been quickly retrieved had not actually made it through the crash unharmed, and radioactive material had made it out of their shell casings. The U.S. transported contaminated topsoil back to a nuclear-waste disposal site in the states. Officials rushed to assure potential tourists that the area was safe, but the taint on the coastal region remained. Three years later, TIME would report that neighboring villages would no longer buy produce from Palomares, and that half of the town’s already small population had decided to move away.

As it turned out, fears about the area’s latent radiation were justified. Later tests revealed that the earth around Palomares was still contaminated—and it was just last October that the U.S. and Spain finalized an agreement to clean it up once and for all.

Summary: The missing H-bomb was rediscovered 50 years ago, on Mar. 17, 1966


2. What was the name of Springsteen’s first band?

b. The Castilles – Springsteen joined this band as lead guitarist in June 1965. N.B. Though Springsteen has mentioned playing with another New Jersey shore area band, The Rogues, before The Castilles, but he was not considered an official member.

c. Dr Zoom and the Sonic Boom

3. What was the first rock song Springsteen taught himself to play?

a. Johnny B Good by Chuck Berry

b. You Really Got Me by The Kinks

c. Satisfaction by The Rolling Stones

d. Twist and Shout by The Beatles

Bruce Springsteen - Rocky Ground on MUZU.TV.

4. What was the name of Springsteen’s girlfriend who inspired the songs Thundercrack and Rosalita?

d. Diane Lozito – also known as ‘Crazy Diane’, who Springsteen dated from 1971-74. Springsteen married Patti Scialfa in 1991.

5. What year did the ‘big man’, saxophonist Clarence Clemons, join the E Street Band?

b. 1972 – Clemons was part of the original line up of the E Street Band, when it was founded in October 1972 (though it would not be formally named until 1974).

6. What was the name of Springsteen and his bandmates’ softball team which played against local New Jersey radio stations in the mid-1970s?

b. The E Street Kings – despite being from New Jersey, The Boss is known to be a huge New York Yankees fan.

Bruce Sprinsteen in the 1980s

7. What year did Springsteen win his first Grammy Award?

c. 1985 – for Best Rock Vocal Performance on ‘Dancing in the Dark’

8. Which one of Bruce Springsteen’s songs was named New Jersey’s named "unofficial youth rock anthem" by the New Jersey state legislature in 1979?

a. Born to Run – despite the song being predominantly about a desire to leave the area where Springsteen grew up.

c. Racing in the Street

9. What was Springsteen’s double album ‘The River’ initially intended to be called?

c. Wreck on the Highway

d. The Ties That Bind – the album was originally going to be an upbeat 10-track album, but Springsteen began adding darker material after writing the song The River.

10. In 1974 Jon Landau wrote a review of a Springsteen concert which included the words 'I saw rock and roll's future and its name is Bruce Springsteen'. In which publication did that review appear?

c. The Real Paper – following the publication of the article, Landau was hired by Springsteen, and is cited as co-producer on Springsteen studio records from 1975's Born to Run through 1992's Human Touch and Lucky Town.

11. Which album beat Springsteen’s Born in the USA to win the Grammy for Album of the Year in 1985?

a. Purple Rain by Prince

b. Can’t Slow Down by Lionel Ritchie – Ritchie's second solo album featured the singles 'All Night Long' and 'Hello'

c. Private Dancer by Tina Turner

d. She’s So Unusual by Cyndi Lauper

12. What is Bruce Springsteen’s signature electric guitar?

c. Fender Telecaster – usually with a wood/yellow finish, as seen here.

13. Who said he ran for president because he couldn't be Bruce Springsteen?

b. Barack Obama – Springsteen announced his endorsement for Obama's 2008 electino campaign in April 2008 and went on to appear at several Obama rallies, as well as performing several solo acoustic performances in support of his campaign.

Bruce Springsteen with Bill Clinton in 2012

14. Name Bruce Springsteen’s children.

a. Bruce Jr, Jessica and Ryan

b. Bruce Jr, Patti and Samuel

c. Evan, Patti and James

d. Evan, Jessica and Samuel – Evan James Springsteen, born 25 July 1990. Jessica Rae Springsteen, born December 30 1991. Samuel Ryan Springsteen, born January 5, 1994.

15. What song did Bruce Springsteen perform at the 2003 Grammys in tribute to Joe Strummer, alongside Dave Grohl and Elvis Costello?

c. London Calling – E Street Band member Steven Van Zandt and No Doubt bassist Tony Kanal were also part of the one-off supergroup.

d. Should I Stay or Should I Go

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Summary: Tried our Bruce Springsteen quiz? Find out some more background info on the   Boss here.


A stuntman was killed on the Bulgaria set of "

" yesterday ... during a big stunt involving an explosion in a rubber boat.

A second stuntman was also injured during the incident ... and is reportedly in stable condition.

It's unclear if any of the big stars in the film -- including

-- were on set during the accident.

The production company behind the flick released a statement saying, "It is with great regret that we confirm this unfortunate accident."

A rep added, "Our hearts go out to the families and those on the production affected by this tragedy. The filmmakers are working closely with the authorities in responding to and investigating this accident."

Summary: A stuntman was killed on the Bulgaria set of "Expendables 2" yesterday ... during a big stunt involving an explosion in a rubber boat. A second stuntman…


Working long hours, using coffee to keep going during the day and alcohol to wind down at night can leave us feeling exhausted yet unable to get the rest we need. And with lack of sleep being linked to depression and heart trouble, it’s no wonder “sleep anxiety” is the new zeitgeist.

But there is good news. Our sleep, stress and energy levels can be interlinked, and by taking small steps to tackle any of those areas you can positively affect the rest. Here are some ways to get out of the tired-but-wired cycle.

More than a quarter of us experience poor sleep regularly, a survey for the Sleep Council has found. Insufficient sleep can disrupt the hormones that regulate glucose metabolism and appetite such as leptin and ghrelin, affecting our ability to lose weight. US researchers in 2012 compared people allowed to sleep as much as they wanted with those who slept only two- thirds of their normal time and the latter ate 549 more calories in a day.

More than a quarter of us experience poor sleep regularly, a survey for the Sleep Council has found

Hearteningly, cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), a type of intervention that helps change negative thought patterns, has been shown to help mild insomnia. Professor Colin Espie, a sleep specialist at the University of Oxford has launched sleepio.com, which can be bought online from pharmacists. It hosts a clinically proven online course based on CBT that can help people establish a routine and overcome their sleep issues through tools such as sleep diaries and altering the thought patterns that lead to sleeplessness.

First stress, then grumpiness, then exhaustion. If this energy up-down loop is familiar, rhodiola may help. The herb supports the adrenal glands, which release stress hormones when we need energy.1 The glands get worn out by sugar, coffee and other “false high” stimulants. Studies have found that rhodiola – available from pharmacies – can help the body manage stress, and one published in Physiotherapy Research International found it could help with mild anxiety.2

Your body has its own 24-hour clock, what sleep experts call the “ultradian cycle”. You might think you can keep working, cooking or cleaning for hours, but for peak functioning, and for your energy stores to work at their best, you need to take a break every 90 minutes. What to do? Try a walk. Stanford University researchers found it could boost creative thinking.

After a good night’s sleep you wake up feeling energised and can cope with everyday stress better. This is because when you sleep, your body performs vital functions. Brain neural pathways are formed while existing pathways rest. Plus the immune system releases chemicals needed to fight infection. Sleep deprivation disrupts the brain’s restorative processes, affecting your cognitive abilities and mood. Your immune system may weaken, too, making you more susceptible to colds and flu, and even diabetes or heart disease.

You might think you can keep working, cooking or cleaning for hours, but for peak functioning, you need to take a break every 90 minutes

If tiredness is still a problem despite adequate sleep you may benefit from taking an iron supplement, needed to form haemoglobin, responsible for carrying the oxygen in our blood to cells to use as energy. National nutrition surveys show a quarter of UK women have low iron intakes, which can lead to chronic tiredness and fatigue.

Red meat such as lean beef or lamb are great sources, but there are plenty of others such as fish, eggs and fortified cereals. You could also take a daily supplement such as Spatone, an iron-rich mineral water or the supplement Pharmaton Active Life which contains herbs such as ginseng, both available from Boots.

With a third of the UK population experiencing insomnia at some point, most of us need around eight hours of quality sleep to function properly.

But if you’re experiencing problems dropping off or staying asleep, try to improve your bedtime environment. Keep your bedroom for sleeping: make it a no-go zone for all electronic gadgets. Don’t write to-do lists in bed: do them earlier in the evening.

Try heading to bed when you’re sleepy. Deep-breathing for at least 10 minutes can help your mind and body relax. And if you can’t sleep, don’t panic: accept being awake, relax and let sleep naturally come to you. If it doesn’t, go into another room and do something you enjoy.

If you’re really struggling, Boots pharmacists can can advise on what products may be suitable to help you, including herbal options.

Exercise is great for both body and mind. Fit and healthy people tend to sleep better and spend longer in deep sleep, but exercise in the four hours before bed can be counterproductive.

With adrenalin flowing and your heart rate up, it can affect your sleep.

Your diet can also play a big role in energy levels, mood and stress levels. Good nutrition is essential for both physical and mental health. Try to eat more fruit and veg, avoiding sugary foods and stay hydrated. Even mild dehydration can leave you feeling lethargic, so drink between six to eight glasses of fluid every day.

Vitamins and minerals, particularly B, and C, zinc and iron can support the normal immune system and help to maintain energy levels. Vitamin B- rich foods include bread, potatoes, cereals, milk, bananas, meat, eggs and green leafy vegetables. If you’re not getting enough, you may wish to try a supplement for a short time.

For more information, ask your local Boots pharmacist or visit boots.com

Summary: A good night’s sleep is essential. If you’re not getting enough rest, ask your local pharmacist to advise on coping strategies


This is the last article in a four-part series on the best ways to use tax-advantaged savings vehicles to jump-start—and turbocharge—your retirement. (Here are parts one, two, and three.)

Whichever tax-deferred account you use, the ability to delay paying taxes for years, or even decades, has a powerful economic impact.

That is, assuming you keep the 401(k) in a tax-deferred account even as you change jobs over the years. If you cash out your plan before you hit retirement age or borrow from it and fail to repay, you’ll have to pay not only income tax on the money but also a 10% penalty. The Boston College Center for Retirement Research released a study last year showing that a diligent 30-year-old saver would end up with a retirement account 34% larger at age 60 than that of a saver who borrowed from his account and cashed out his plan as often as people normally do when changing jobs. So keep deferring taxes on that tax-deferred money.

Choose which way you roll. Each time you change employers (and odds are you will), decide what to do with the money at the job you’re leaving. You can keep it there (most plans allow that), move it into your new plan (if the new plan permits it; not all do), or roll it over into an IRA. Take into account both investment selection and the convenience of consolidation. Financial firms will make it easy for you to roll your money over into their IRAs. While the government’s TSP permits rollovers from tax-sheltered accounts, not all 401(k)s and 403(b)s do; you’ll have to check your new plan’s rules.

When you move your money, do what’s called a trustee-to-trustee transfer, or direct rollover, in which your old plan’s custodian sends money directly to the new one. Having your old plan just write you a check can backfire: If you don’t move it into a new plan within 60 days, the IRS will charge you taxes and a penalty.

Sit on your hands. In certain cases you should leave your account alone, even if you don’t like your investments there. If you hold an annuity in a 403(b), you may have to pay a surrender charge (which decreases over time) if you transfer themoney out. You may want to wait for the surrender charge to fall before moving your money. And for the first two years after you open a Simple IRA, the only place you can move the money without penalty is to another Simple IRA. For more rules, see the retirement-plan rollover chart at IRS.gov.

Assess your progress. However much you have already saved, you may wonder whether you’re on pace for a secure retirement. Estimate your future income by entering your account balances and savings rate in the T. Rowe Price Retirement Income Calculator. For a less detailed—yet almost fun—quick check, adjust the sliders on Vanguard’s interactive retirement income calculator. The feedback you’ll get will help you map out the rest of your journey.

Part one: These Low-Cost Strategies Can Save Your Retirement Part two: Two Easy Ways to Get Just the Right Mix of Stocks and Bonds Part three: Totally Realistic Strategies for Boosting Your Retirement Accounts Chart: Your Retirement Plan Options at a Glance

Summary: When it comes to tax-deferred savings, the key is to keep it going.


Indian activist Irom Sharmila has ended her 16-year-long hunger strike against a controversial security law, in order to compete in local elections.

Her campaign, described as the world's longest hunger strike, had led to her being detained, and forced fed through a tube in her nose for over a decade.

She was held under a law that makes attempting suicide a crime.

The court in northeastern Manipur state granted her bail on Tuesday and asked her to reappear on 23 June.

Ms Sharmila has signed a personal bail bond and is expected to be released from her judicial custody in a local hospital after bail procedures are complete.

She tasted honey to symbolically break her fast in front of journalists in the hospital.

What next for world's longest hunger striker?

Ms Sharmila told the court in the state capital, Imphal, that she was a "prisoner of conscience" and she wanted to end her fast, be free and fight in local assembly elections.

"I have to change my strategy. Some people are seeing me as a strange woman because I want to join politics. They say politics is a dirty, but so is society. I want to stand in the elections against the government," she said.

She told reporters she had decided to "try a different [form of] agitation" because "I have been fasting for 16 years and I have not got anything from it yet".

Ms Sharmila had been protesting against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), which gives soldiers sweeping powers to arrest without warrants and even shoot to kill in certain situations.

AFSPA is in effect in several Indian states, including in Manipur and Indian-administered Kashmir.

A hunger strike in pictures

Photographer Ian Thomas Jansen-Lonnquist has closely followed MS Sharmila's journey over the past few years.

She started her fast 16 years ago after 10 civilians were killed by Indian soldiers in Manipur.

She has spent most of the last 16 years in judicial custody in a hospital in Manipur's capital, Imphal, where she was force-fed a cocktail of medicines and baby formula.

Ms Sharmila was released in August 2014 after the court rejected the charge that she was "attempting to commit suicide". But she was re-arrested two days later after she refused to end her protest.

Ms Sharmila appeared in the Manipur High Court every two weeks to reaffirm her protest.

Her protest has won her worldwide recognition, with Amnesty International describing her as a prisoner of conscience.

The activist received considerable attention from local and international media outlets in recent years.

Ms Sharmila has the support of women and civil rights groups in the state.

A memorial has been built at the site in Manipur where the 10 civilians were killed by Indian soldiers. The state has a population of about 2.5 million people and a huge force of army, paramilitary and state police are deployed there to fight insurgent groups.

Summary: Indian activist Irom Sharmila ends her 16-year-long hunger strike against a controversial security law in order to compete in elections.


Nvidia Corp. NVDA 5.59 % said its second-quarter profit surged as the chip maker exceeded its revenue guidance and saw strong demand for its new products.

Nvidia shares rose 2.5% to $61.29 in after-hours trading.

The company projects revenue of $1.68 billion, plus or minus 2%, for the third quarter. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters projected $1.45 billion.

Nvidia, based in Santa Clara, Calif., is a prominent name in graphics processing units used in gaming software. It has expanded in many new sectors ranging from virtual reality to self-driving cars.

“Strong demand for our new Pascal-generation GPUs and surging interest in deep learning drove record results,” Chief Executive Jen-Hsun Huang said in prepared remarks.

For the quarter ended July 31, net income was $253 million, or 40 cents a share, compared with $26 million, or 5 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding stock-based compensation and other items, earnings rose to 53 cents a share from 34 cents a share.

Revenue increased 24% to $1.43 billion, compared with Nvidia’s guidance of $1.35 billion, plus or minus 2%.

Gaming platform revenue was $781 million, up 18%, while professional visualization revenue from Quadro rose 22% to $214 million.

The company posted $119 million of automotive revenue from infotainment modules and product development contracts, a 68% increase.

Last month, Nvidia unveiled a new chip for well-heeled gaming enthusiasts that it hopes will also appeal to artificial-intelligence specialists. The new Titan X chip, the successor to a current model under the same name, is packaged on an add-in card for personal computers for $1,200. The chip packs 12 billion transistors on a piece of silicon, compared with around seven billion for a high-end microprocessor of the kind sold by Intel Corp. INTC -0.32 %

—Don Clark contributed to this article.

Write to Josh Beckerman at josh.beckerman@wsj.com

Summary: Nvidia Corp. said its second-quarter profit surged as the chip maker exceeded its revenue guidance and saw strong demand for its new products.


On Feb. 11, Kanye West will release his seventh studio album, the mysteriously titled The Life of Pablo (formerly known as Waves, Swish and So Help Me Good at different times throughout the past year). Judging by West’s initial borderline-illegible, hand-written tracklist—which has now turned into a yearbook-like piece of music history, with all his famous friends adding their signatures—the album could feature some high-profile guests besides the ones we already know about (including Sia, Kendrick Lamar and Ty Dolla $ign). Here’s a look back at some of his most memorable collaborations:

Picking a favorite verse on this bouncy ode to getting high and getting laid probably doubles as some kind of personality test, but the best guest spot might actually belong to Sumeke Rainey, an ex-girlfriend of West’s who provides the endlessly quotable “You mean Talib? Lyrics stick to your rib?” exchange. Amy Schumer knows all the words to it, and there’s no reason you shouldn’t either.

Rihanna is the only artist officially featured on this embodiment of the “everything but the kitchen sink” philosophy, but its credits read like the kind of genre- and generation-spanning lineup usually only the Grammys are crazy enough to conceive: Elton John, Drake, La Roux’s Elly Jackson, Alicia Keys, Fergie (whose part is sadly cut from the video version) and others all contributed vocals.

The rapper and the helmeted highnesses of dance music proved they weren’t such unlikely bedfellows when West sampled them on “Stronger,” but on 2013’s Yeezus they took their partnership into a distorted new dimension with “On Sight” and the sinister “Send It Up.” Think the TRON: Legacy soundtrack, hacked by cyberpunk supervillains.

Kanye West has called himself a deity, the next Steve Jobs and the greatest living rock star, so it was only a matter of time before he teamed up with one of popular music’s GOATs. The surprise was just how vulnerable the fruits of their labor would be: who knew a Beatle, a hip-hop titan and the princess of prolific club-bangers would make magic on songs that have zero drums? (Too bad Yeezy and Riri have both left them off their new albums.)

Two rappers performing a song that samples a Will Ferrell comedy a dozen times in a row in concert is indulgent to say the least—some might say it’s, well, cray—but this opulent bragfest doesn’t lose its luster during back-to-back listens. Carry on, gentlemen.

The third single off of West’s Graduation album had a more lasting impact on his career than any of the others that year. The light-hearted party track found him teaming up with Auto-Tune pioneer T-Pain, who would later inspire West to make his highly influential 808s & Heartbreak—an album that brought West tremendous acclaim while T-Pain more or less became the butt of jokes for his association with the trend.

The rappers’ verses function like the little angel and devil sitting on your shoulders: West plays the reformed workaholic “douchebag,” showing you how to own up to mistakes after an unfavorable period of media scrutiny; meanwhile, future G.O.O.D. Music president Pusha is happy for you and is gonna let you finish, but he sticks to his a-hole offensive after West pushed him to write crueler rhymes in the studio. Good call on Ye’s part: the song is all the better for that balance.

When West asked Jamie Foxx to dust off his Ray Charles impression, he was no stranger to getting around sampling-related red tape by hiring one vocalist to impersonate another. (See: Syleena Johnson covering Lauryn Hill on “All Falls Down.”) The more out-of-the-box idea? Recruiting film composer and Fiona Apple collaborator Jon Brion to add orchestral flourishes to this and other tracks from 2005’s Late Registration.

Closing out Yeezus was a jarringly tender tribute to what West would probably consider his greatest collaboration of all: his romance with then-girlfriend, now-wife Kim Kardashian. All that sweetness would have seemed out of place were it not for Charlie Wilson, who slices through West’s slurry cheer with a melancholy chorus so fragmented you can practically hear the punctuation marks.

Of course this song would be here: when in music history has a main attraction been so gloriously upstaged at its own event? (Besides this weekend’s Super Bowl halftime show.) Most songs are over by the 3 ½ minute mark, but that’s just where “Monster” just gets started thanks to a Nicki Minaj verse so iconic it makes the song’s weirdest attribute—a Bon Iver appearance—seem almost pedestrian.

Summary: From Daft Punk to Paul McCartney


LONDON, July 13 (Reuters) - Theresa May became Britain's new prime minister on Wednesday, promising to carve out a bold new future in the world as she embarks on the monumental task of leading the country out of the European Union.

May, 59 assumed office after an audience with Queen Elizabeth and drove straight to her new home of 10 Downing Street, vacated hours earlier by David Cameron.

"We will rise to the challenge. As we leave the European Union we will forge a bold new positive role for ourselves in the world, and we will make Britain a country that works not for a privileged few, but for every one of us," she said.

Cameron stepped down after Britons rejected his entreaties and voted to leave the EU in a referendum last month, severely undermining European efforts to forge greater unity and creating economic uncertainty across the 28-nation bloc.

SEE ALSO: New poll spells good news for Donald Trump

May must try to limit the damage to British trade and investment as she renegotiates the country's ties with its 27 EU partners. She will also attempt to unite a divided ruling Conservative party and a fractured nation in which many, on the evidence of the vote, feel angry with the political elite and left behind by the forces of globalization.

Acknowledging the struggles faced by many Britons, May declared: "The government I lead will be driven not be the interests of the privileged few, but by yours. We will do everything we can to give you more control over your lives.

"When we take the big calls we'll think not of the powerful but you, when we pass new laws we'll listen not to the mighty but to you, when it comes to taxes we'll prioritize not the wealthy but you."

The United States congratulated May and said it was confident in her ability to steer Britain through the Brexit negotiations.

"Based on the public comments we've seen from the incoming prime minister, she intends to pursue a course that's consistent with the prescription that President Obama has offered," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.

An official photograph showed May curtseying to a smiling Queen Elizabeth, for whom she is the 13th prime minister in a line that started with Winston Churchill.

She is also Britain's second female head of government after Margaret Thatcher.

See more of May through the years:

Britain's Home Secretary, Theresa May, delivers a speech at RUSI (Royal United Services Institute) in London, Britain June 30, 2016. REUTERS/Dylan Martinez

Britain's Home Secretary, Theresa May, arrives in Downing Street in central London, Britain June 27, 2016. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls

Britain's Home Secretary Theresa May speaks on the third day of the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester northern Britain, October 6 , 2015. REUTERS/Phil Noble

Britain's home secretary Theresa May arrives at Westminster Abbey for a thanksgiving service on the final day of 70th anniversary Victory in Europe (VE) day commemorations in central London May 10, 2015. REUTERS/Suzanne Plunkett

Britain's Home Secretary Theresa May addresses the Police Federation's conference in Bournemouth, southern England, Britain May 20, 2015. REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth

Britain's Home Secretary Theresa May curtsies as she greets Queen Elizabeth during a ceremonial welcome for Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto and his wife Angelica Rivera, at Horse Guards Parade in London March 3, 2015. The President and his wife are guests of Queen Elizabeth during their three day state visit to Britain. REUTERS/POOL/Leon Neal (BRITAIN - Tags: POLITICS ROYALS ENTERTAINMENT)

Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron (L) and Home secretary Theresa May arrive at a ceremonial welcome for the President of Singapore Tony Tan, and his wife, at Horse Guards Parade in London October 21, 2014. The President and his wife will be guests of Queen Elizabeth during the first state visit of a Singapore President to Britain. REUTERS/Toby Melville (BRITAIN - Tags: POLITICS ROYALS)

Britain's Home Secretary Theresa May speaks as she opens the Ukraine Forum on Asset Recovery at Lancaster House in central London, April 29, 2014. REUTERS/Andrew Winning (BRITAIN - Tags: CRIME LAW POLITICS BUSINESS)

Britain's Home Secretary Theresa May gestures next to an unidentified man during the evening swimming session at the London 2012 Paralympic Games at the Aquatics Centre August 30, 2012. REUTERS/Suzanne Plunkett (BRITAIN - Tags: SPORT OLYMPICS SWIMMING POLITICS)

Britain's Home Secretary Theresa May arrives for the service of thanksgiving to mark the Diamond Jubilee of Britain's Queen Elizabeth at St Paul's cathedral in central London June 5, 2012. Four days of nationwide celebrations during which millions of people have turned out to mark the Queen's Diamond Jubilee conclude on Tuesday with a church service and carriage procession through central London. REUTERS/Kieran Doherty (BRITAIN - Tags: ANNIVERSARY ENTERTAINMENT SOCIETY ROYALS)

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (R) meets with British Home Secretary Theresa May at the London Conference on Somalia, February 23, 2012. REUTERS/Jason Reed (BRITAIN - Tags: POLITICS)

EU leaders, keen to move forward after the shock of 'Brexit', want May to launch formal divorce proceedings as soon as possible to help resolve the uncertainty.

But she has said the process should not be launched before the end of year, to give time for Britain to draw up its negotiating strategy.

Although she favored Britain remaining in Europe, May has repeatedly declared that "Brexit means Brexit" and that there can be no attempt to reverse the referendum outcome.

The shock vote partly reflected discontent with EU rules on freedom of movement that have contributed to record-high immigration - an issue on which May, as interior minister for the past six years, is politically vulnerable.

But EU leaders have made clear that free movement is a fundamental principle that goes hand-in-hand with access to the bloc's tariff-free single market, a stance that will hugely complicate May's task in hammering out new terms of trade.

"My advice to my successor, who is a brilliant negotiator, is that we should try to be as close to the European Union as we can be for the benefits of trade, cooperation and of security," Cameron told parliament in his last appearance before resigning.

Appearing later in Downing Street with his wife Samantha and their three children, he delivered his parting remarks to the nation after six years dominated by the Europe question and the aftermath of the global financial crisis.

"It's not been an easy journey and of course we've not got every decision right," he said, "but I do believe that today our country is much stronger."

In parliament, Cameron took the opportunity to trumpet his government's achievements in generating one of the fastest growth rates among western economies, chopping the budget deficit, creating 2.5 million jobs and legalizing gay marriage.

Yet his legacy will be overshadowed by his failed referendum gamble, which he had hoped would keep Britain at the heart of a reformed EU.

RELATED: Meet the UK's new Prime Minister

May is seen by her supporters as a safe pair of hands to steer the country through the disruptive Brexit process. Colleagues describe her as cautious, unflappable and intensely private.

"I think around the cabinet table yesterday the feeling was that we have our Angela Merkel," said Jeremy Hunt, health secretary in Cameron's team which met for the last time on Tuesday.

"We have an incredibly tough, shrewd, determined and principled person to lead those negotiations for Britain," Hunt told Sky News television.

German Chancellor Merkel will be May's most important counterpart on the continent as the process unfolds. Both women are renowned for their firmness, pragmatism and discipline.

The new British leader is expected to immediately start putting together a new cabinet, a complex political balancing act in which she will try to satisfy opposing camps in her party.

She has said she plans to set up a new government department to lead the process of quitting the EU which would be headed by someone who had campaigned on the Leave side.

Financial markets, which had been extremely volatile since the referendum, reacted positively to news on Monday that May would become prime minister earlier than expected.

Stock markets traded within sight of their highest levels of the year as the prospect of stimulative economic policy across the developed world eased immediate concerns over the impact of the Brexit vote.

Economists predicted in a Reuters poll that the Bank of England would halve its main interest rate to 0.25 percent on Thursday in a pre-emptive strike to try to ward off a recession and reassure markets.

(Additional reporting by Kate Holton, Estelle Shirbon, William Schomberg, Guy Faulconbridge, Karin Strohecker, Michael Holden, Paul Sandle, Andy Bruce, Steve Addison and Ana Nicolaci da Costa; Writing by Mark Trevelyan)

Summary: An official image showed Theresa May curtseying to the queen during an audience at Buckingham Palace.


Selena Gomez paid tribute to her longtime friend Christina Grimmie Saturday night at the Miami stop of her Revival World Tour.

“When she was 14, we met her and my parents and I signed her,” said Gomez, her voice breaking. “One thing about Christina and her family is that she holds her faith so closely to her. And I think it’s not about a religion and it’s not about anything or good deeds. It’s just that she had faith, and I don’t really understand how this really happened, but I would like to dedicate this next song to her.”

The singer’s fans shouted out words of support as Gomez wiped away tears before performing Hillsong Worship’s “Transfiguration” while sitting at the piano.

While singing “Nobody,” Gomez became overwhelmed with emotion and was seen mouthing “I’m sorry” to her fans as she struggled to finish the song.

Earlier in the day, the “Same Old Love” singer mourned the loss of her friend on Twitter. “My heart is absolutely broken. I miss you Christina,” she captioned a black-and-white photo of herself and Grimmie.

“Words cannot begin to describe the pain I am feeling,” Gomez’s stepfather Brian Teefey, who was also Grimmie’s manager, told PEOPLE in a statement. “I learned this business through the eyes of a father and Christina was like a second daughter to me.”

The former Voice contestant was fatally shot by 27-year-old Kevin James Loibl – who was quickly tackled by Grimmie’s brother Mark before shooting himself – late Friday after opening for pop-rock band Before You Exit at the Plaza Live in Orlando.

This article originally appeared on People.com

Summary: The singer got emotional as she described her friendship with Christina Grimmie


Natural-gas futures surged to a nearly nine-month high Thursday after weekly data showed stockpiles rose less than expected, stoking expectations that U.S. supplies could be falling at a time of rising demand.

The U.S. Energy Department said natural-gas stockpiles rose 65 billion cubic feet in the week ended June 3, well short of the 79 billion-cubic-foot increase projected in the consensus estimate of analysts surveyed by The Wall...

Summary: Natural-gas futures surged to a nearly nine-month high after weekly data showed stockpiles rose less than expected, stoking expectations that U.S. supplies could be falling at a time of rising demand.


When that family-room couch starts to look tired and dingy, it's tempting to throw a blanket on it—or just throw it out. Having your couch professionally cleaned, however, means you don't have to do either.

Many upholstery-cleaning companies in the U.S. claim they can spruce up your couch and make it look nearly new. Almost every city has a bevy of these outfits, which are usually small and individually run and also offer services like carpet, drape and even mattress cleaning. We put the services to the test with couches...

Summary: Cranky Consumer tests out cleaning services that promise to make your couch look almost new.


Story Homes has almost 30 years of experience in building high quality, aspirational homes. A family owned business, still chaired by owner Fred Story; Story Homes has grown significantly over recent years, with aspirations to become a national house builder. We are well known in Cumbria, the North East and southern Scotland for building homes and communities that customers aspire to live in, and we are now making a name in Lancashire and the wider North West thanks to our reputation for high quality and award winning customer service.

Summary:
1 job
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John Berry had long been curious why his World War II veteran father always had a tear in his eye when he spoke about Australia.

His dad was among American defence personnel at Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands and his three weeks leave in Australia and the warmth of its people had reminded him there was some good left in the world.

After three years as US ambassador to Australia his son can now relate to his father's emotional response to the land down under.

"It was a tear of joy," he told the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday in his final address before wrapping-up his posting.

"I suspect I will always have one in mine when I remember my time in this blessed lucky country."

Mr Berry vowed to return home to tell Americans how great Australia is, but he also has a reciprocal message - aimed at those fixating on China's rise and forecasting America's downfall.

"America is and always will be a Pacific and global power," he said.

"We will remain a rising power for generations to come."

Mr Berry declared the US foreign policy "rebalance" to the Asia-Pacific region of recent years should "now rightfully be called the new normal".

The US-Australia alliance and co-operation had made both countries safer.

Intelligence sharing and co-operation at Pine Gap in central Australia had helped foil far more terrorist attacks than had occurred.

"We will not rest until that number is 100 per cent," he said.

Reflecting on the upcoming US presidential election, Mr Berry was full of praise for Australia's unique electoral system especially compulsory voting, a time limit on campaigns and parliamentary boundaries set by an independent commission.

"If adopted in America (those reforms) would make my country stronger," he said.

Co-operation between Australia and US astronauts and scientists was essential to the greatest human endeavour of this century, Mr Berry said.

"When we go to Mars, and we will - all communications will be managed right here at Tidbinbilla (in the ACT)," he said.

Mr Berry will return to the US to take up a role as president of the American Australian Association.

Summary: The outgoing US ambassador to Australia insists America remains a "rising power for generations" to come.


A French tourist will face court charged with assaulting a female paramedic outside a north Queensland backpackers.

The 21-year-old is accused of punching the paramedic in the face and dragging her out the side of the ambulance.

Police allege the attack happened when the woman and another paramedic were attempting to treat the man after being called to the Cairns hostel early on Wednesday morning.

The man has been charged with serious assault of a public officer and is expected to appear in Cairns Magistrates Court on Thursday.

Summary: A man accused of assaulting a female paramedic outside a north Queensland backpackers is due to face court on Thursday.


China has successfully launched two men into space on a mission to the country's orbiting laboratory.

The Shenzhou-11 spacecraft blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in the Gobi desert today with Jing Haipeng, 50, and Chen Dong, 38, on board.

The two men will play an integral part of the country's longest-ever crewed mission to space, the Xinhua news agency reported.

Chinese astronauts Jing Haipeng and Chen Dong. (AAP)

For 33 days, the astronauts will conduct experiments related to medicine, physics and biology after docking with the Tiangong 2 space lab.

President Xi Jinping said he hoped the mission would "enable China to take larger and further steps in space exploration, and make new contributions to building up China as a space power."

China is pouring billions into its military-run space programme and working to catch up with the US and Europe, with hopes to have a crewed outpost by 2022.

© Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2016

Summary: China has successfully launched two men into outer space


Russia's former Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev. (AFP)

Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev after losing trust in him, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says.

Ulyukayev was detained on Monday night and charged with extorting a $US2 million ($A2.7 million) bribe from Rosneft, Russia's biggest oil company in a case that threatens to expose fault lines in Putin's inner circle.

Peskov told reporters that Ulyukayev's arrest did not concern a $US5 billion deal for Rosneft to purchase a stake in mid-sized oil producer Bashneft.

Ulyukayev has denied he is guilty of receiving bribes, a Russian investigator has told a court.

Ulyukayev, whose ministry has been overseeing a sell-off of state assets, is the highest-ranking Russian official to be arrested while in office since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Summary: Russian Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev says he is innocent after being charged with receiving a $2 million ($A2.7 million) bribe.


That’s the 49ers’ net passing yards. That’s not a typo. There’s nothing wrong with your eyes: 6 yards ... the 49ers’ passing game gained 18 feet. Colin Kaepernick was 1-for-5 for 4 yards before being pulled and Blaine Gabbert 4-for-10 for 35 yards in a mop-up role. The two were sacked a combined six times for 33 yards. On the bright side, neither Kaepernick nor Gabbert threw an interception.

After a two-week trip that offered both promising (Miami) and demoralizing (Chicago) results, the 49ers bring their 11-game losing streak back to Levi’s Stadium, where they will play running back Matt Forte, left, and the Jets. Forte has rushed for 80 or more yards in six games this season.

Noteworthy stats from Sunday’s game:

Total offense yards for the 49ers in the second half: 20 passing, 19 rushing and two first downs

QB rating for the Bears’ Matt Barkley, playing in the seventh game of his three-year career

Season-high-equaling punts for the 49ers with a season-worst 38.5-yard average

Summary: There’s nothing wrong with your eyes: 6 yards ... the 49ers’ passing game gained 18 feet.  After a two-week trip that offered both promising (Miami) and demoralizing (Chicago) results, the 49ers bring their 11-game losing streak back to Levi’s Stadium, where they will play running back Matt Forte, left, and the Jets.  QB rating for the Bears’ Matt Barkley, playing in the seventh game of his three-year career


The video of the first sighting of the rare ghost shark went viral Sunday after scientists discovered the creature swimming in the Pacific Ocean between California and Hawaii in 20...

The footage is from a whale watching trip in California.

Joe Tanner was paddling on his surfboard off the Oregon coast, waiting to catch a wave, when he felt something grab his leg

Officials say a great white shark has died after it was spotted struggling in shallow water in Cape Cod.

Joseph Tanner was resting his arms on his surf board, his lower body dangling in the water, when something grabbed his right leg and yanked him under the waves.

A surfer says he's grateful to be recovering in a Maui hospital after a shark bit him -- even though the attack forced him and his wife to postpone their honeymoon.

A Virginia couple was on vacation at North Myrtle Beach in South Carolina and stumbled across a prehistoric shark tooth.

A diver off the coast of Mexico is lucky to be unharmed after a huge great white shark broke into a cage in an astonishing scene caught on camera.

A privately funded great white shark research group has confirmed the waters off Long Island's Montauk Point are a "nursery," a first in the study of great whites in the northwest ...

Summary: Sharks news articles and videos from FoxNews.com's Science section.


The Theatre by the Lake in the northern Lake District has staged a Christmas play every year since it opened in 1999. This year it’s The Emperor and the Nightingale, adapted from a Hans Christian Andersen story by Neil Duffield. Guardian photographer Christopher Thomond was on hand to capture the final two weeks of rehearsals and preparations leading up the opening night

Summary: Guardian photographer Christopher Thomond was on hand to capture the final weeks of preparations for the Lake District theatre’s Christmas play


The world’s largest hedge-fund firm posted billion-dollar swings in its largest funds during the first half of the year, highlighting how unpredictable markets are roiling many of Wall Street’s most prominent traders.

Bridgewater Associates LP’s flagship hedge fund dropped about 12% through the end of June, according to people familiar with the firm. That marked the worst start to a year for the Pure Alpha fund since 1995. Pure Alpha bets on and against markets world-wide in an effort to stay ahead of macroeconomic trends.

Meanwhile, the firm’s slightly smaller All Weather fund rose 10%, according to these people. All Weather uses a risk-parity strategy intended to adapt to a number of market conditions.

It wasn’t clear exactly how much Bridgewater gained or lost in dollar figures, as the firm runs permutations of its funds that use borrowed money and other trading strategies to amplify bets.

Pure Alpha is the firm’s largest fund, amounting to about 45% of the firm’s roughly $150 billion under management, according to a person familiar with the matter. All Weather encompasses about 40% of the asset base, this person said. A fund that blends the two approaches accounts for the remainder.

Institutional Investor’s Alpha trade publication reported Bridgewater’s June performance figures Wednesday.

Bridgewater’s billionaire founder, Raymond Dalio, has been outspoken in predicting an eventual economic crunch. In a client note this spring reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, he said “the global economy is slowly moving toward an inflection point” that will be reached within the next year.

In that note, he repeated his longtime thesis that persistent low central bank interest rates will be increasingly ineffective in boosting economies world-wide.

And yet the S&P 500 is up 4% this year, including dividends, despite volatility that followed Britain’s vote to exit the European Union last month.

The average hedge fund lost about 1% through June 30, according to early estimates from researcher HFR.

But Bridgewater is hardly the average hedge-fund firm. Not only is it the largest by assets, but it has made more money for its clients than any other hedge fund in history, according to asset manager LCH Investments. Its clients include some of the world’s largest sovereign-wealth funds and pension funds.

Before this year’s losses, Pure Alpha reported an average annualized return of 13%, after fees. Backers continue to line up to hand over more money, as there is an extensive waiting list of prospective investors into the fund, people familiar with the fund said. It has risen every year since 2000.

Automated, computer-driven approaches similar to All Weather did well in the immediate wake of Britain’s vote last month, benefiting from longstanding bets on a strengthening U.S. dollar.

The Salient Risk Parity Index is up 19% this year, off a 12% loss in 2015.

This year’s positive performance for such funds follows a period last fall when some rivals blamed risk-parity funds for selling their portfolios all at once in a market swoon, exacerbating a downturn.

Mr. Dalio, who is credited with helping invent the risk-parity strategy decades ago, took the unusual step afterward of publicly defending the approach as a worthy long-term performer. He has indicated that the majority of his net worth is invested in Bridgewater’s risk-parity funds.

Write to Rob Copeland at rob.copeland@wsj.com

Summary: Pure Alpha lost about 12% through the end of June, while All Weather rose 10%.


Bob Dylan, the 2016 winner of the Nobel Prize in literature, has written a speech that will be read at the annual awards banquet in Stockholm, the Nobel Foundation announced Monday.

And though Dylan won't attend the Dec. 10 event, Patti Smith will perform his 1963 tune "A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall.” In addition to performing at the banquet, Smith is on the 2016 Nobel Week agenda to discuss the importance of role models, including several Nobel laureates who have inspired her.

Dylan, whose songs are taught as poetry at colleges across the country, is the first musician to be awarded the Nobel for literature.

“He was talking about life, politics, civil rights — he made music the equivalent of books,” longtime music critic Robert Hilburn told The Times in October, when the honor was announced. “Look at all the great writers. When you talk about words having an effect on people around the world for generations — his words make us dream, they inspire us, they comfort us, they exhilarate us… .

“You could have given him this prize 20 years ago for the cultural revolution he created with just words.”

Follow Christie D’Zurilla on Twitter @theCDZ.

In a 'radical' choice, Bob Dylan wins the Nobel Prize in literature

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Good things don't always come around for the right reasons, but as long as they come around, the reasons become irrelevant.

That's one of my prevailing workplace philosophies.

Being kind to your workers, paying them well and making them feel valued and engaged is a net positive for a company. I'd like it if business leaders did those things because they're the right things to do, but if they do them only because it's a good business decision, that's fine too. We wind up at the same good place.

To that end, let's look several recent examples of the way businesses and corporations are helping — or may soon help — push for positive change.

The debate over raising the minimum wage has been rancorous, and the opposition often says company executives are against a wage increase because it will be bad for business.

But a leaked survey of 1,000 business leaders from across the country conducted by a company run by Republican pollster Frank Luntz revealed the opposite. About 80 percent of the executives said they favored raising their state's minimum wage.

The survey was obtained by a liberal watchdog group called the Center for Media and Democracy, along with video of a webinar LuntzGlobal conducted on the results.

Huge majorities of the survey respondents also supported increasing paid maternity leave and offering more paid sick leave.

Surprise! Clearly these results don't line up with what many of our more conservative business groups and leaders advocate. But they do make sense, given what we know about today's working world.

More and more, companies want to do right by their employees, in part because they need to do right by them in order to attract talent and retain the best people.

Offering a higher minimum wage might be a sizable expense for a company, and, of course, not every business is buying into the thinking revealed in that poll. But companies willing to take a longer view can see the advantages that can come from paying its lowest-earning employees a living wage: better candidates; better retention; better opportunities for promoting from within; and better staff morale at all levels, to name a few.

(I don't want to get into an argument over the efficacy of a minimum wage increase in this column. I've written about that extensively in the past. My general view is that there are probably better ways to help lower-income workers, but since there seems to be no political will to take those nonwage-related steps, an increase in pay is the best option.)

The push for a higher minimum wage is picking up steam, and as the results of the LuntzGlobal poll suggest, businesses may wind up helping pave the way for more change.

Paid parental leave is another issue where companies seem to be moving more aggressively than federal, state and city lawmakers.

Fortune reported on Tuesday that Twitter will soon start offering 20 weeks of fully paid time off to new mothers and fathers, following the lead of other tech companies like Facebook and Etsy.

On its website, the magazine quoted Jeffrey Siminoff, Twitter's vice president of inclusion and diversity: "We're a very watched industry because of the products and services we offer. We want to lead by example and by doing so we can influence the decisions of others."

In North Carolina, in the wake of a controversial and, in my opinion, discriminatory new law that limits protection for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, the corporate world has again shown it can be an ally for the LGBT community.

A slew of companies and organizations protested the state law, and on Tuesday, PayPal canceled plans for a new Charlotte-based operations center that would have created 400 new jobs.

"The new law perpetuates discrimination and it violates the values and principles that are at the core of PayPal's mission and culture," the company said in a statement.

That same day, Mississippi passed a sweeping "religious freedom" law that allows businesses to deny services to LGBT people and opens the door for all manner of discrimination. Many of the state's largest employers, such as Nissan, Toyota, Tyson Foods and MGM Resorts International, spoke out against the law.

Pressure from businesses recently led the governor of Georgia to veto a similar bill.

It would be nice if companies were embracing or standing up for these different issues for purely altruistic reasons. I'm sure some are, but there's undoubtedly a hefty dose of pragmatism involved. Business leaders can tell which way the winds are blowing, and they have reason to align themselves with the desires and attitudes of a changing workforce.

And that's fine. If it gets us to a place where people are earning more and receiving fully paid sick and parental leave, if it knocks down the last flailing legislative attempts at discrimination, I couldn't care less about the motivation.

Good things don't always come around for the right reasons. But I applaud any business or corporation that helps make good things happen, whatever the reason might be.

TALK TO REX: Ask workplace questions — anonymously or by name — and share stories with Rex Huppke at IJustWorkHere@tribpub.com, like Rex on Facebook at www.facebook.com/rexworkshere and find more at www.chicagotribune.com/ijustworkhere.


A divided Connecticut Supreme Court has reinstated Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel's murder conviction in the 1975 killing of Martha Moxley, rejecting a lower court ruling in an appeal that his trial lawyer didn't adequately represent him.

The state's highest court on Friday issued a 4-3 decision ordering a lower court to reject Skakel's appeal.

It wasn't immediately clear if Skakel will be sent back to prison or allowed to remain free if he appeals or asks the high court to reconsider.

His lawyer, Hubert Santos, said he was reviewing the ruling and had no immediate comment.

Skakel, a nephew of Robert F. Kennedy's widow Ethel, was convicted of murder in 2002 in the killing of Moxley in a wealthy Greenwich neighbourhood three decades ago when they were teenage neighbours.

Moxley was bludgeoned with a golf club. Skakel was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison.

But he was freed in 2013 on $US1.2 million bail after a judge granted him a new trial based on claims that Skakel's trial lawyer, Michael Sherman, made a series of poor decisions in representing him.

The judge found, in part, that Sherman failed to argue that Skakel's brother could have been responsible for the crime and failed to present a key alibi witness for Skakel.

Sherman had defended his work.

During arguments before the state Supreme Court, prosecutor Susann Gill told the justices that Sherman did a competent job investigating and trying the case and that Skakel's appellate lawyers had not met the high burden under case law to prove ineffective counsel.

She also stood by the state's position that there was "substantial" evidence that Michael Skakel killed Martha Moxley.

Santos argued that Sherman made numerous poor decisions, including not focusing on Skakel's older brother, Thomas Skakel, as a possible suspect.

Santos also said Michael Skakel had an alibi on the night of the killing at 10pm, the time that he said evidence shows Moxley was killed.

He cited testimony that Michael Skakel and some relatives left the neighbourhood at about 9.30pm to go to his cousin's house 20 minutes away to watch a Monty Python movie.

Santos also said there was no forensic or physical evidence linking Skakel to the killing.

Thomas Skakel's lawyer has previously said his client had nothing to do with the slaying.

Summary: A Supreme Court has overturned a lower court ruling and reinstated the murder conviction of Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel over a 1975 death.


Meanwhile, the situation inside the detention center has grown more volatile in recent months, with reports that prisoners have engaged in hunger strikes, suicide attempts and violent attacks on guards.

Lawyers for the detainees have predicted for months that some would kill themselves. They have complained repeatedly about their access to the detainees, and have litigated in federal courts to try to get more information about the prisoners' medical and psychological health.

The lawyers have also strenuously protested the administration's efforts to have all litigation over the treatment of the detainees dismissed under the Detainee Treatment Act, a law signed by Mr. Bush on Dec. 30 that would strip the courts of jurisdiction to hear habeas corpus petitions from detainees.

Action on nearly all of those petitions has been suspended in recent months, pending a ruling by the Supreme Court this month on the case of a former driver for Osama bin Laden.

In public statements, Defense Department officials have often dismissed the detainees' suicide attempts as less than serious and as the actions of trained Qaeda terrorists to manipulate public opinion. The first hunger strikes by detainees at Guantánamo began soon after the camp opened in January 2002, and two of those prisoners were forcibly fed through tubes that year. Dozens of other suicide attempts followed.

Over one eight-day period in August 2003, 23 detainees tried to hang or strangle themselves, including 10 on a single day. But the Pentagon did not disclose the episode until January 2005, and lawyers for the detainees have complained about what they say has been a pattern in which the government has withheld information about suicide attempts or minimized their importance.

In late 2003, military officials at Guantánamo began to re-classify many of the suicide attempts as "manipulative, self-injurious behavior" that was intended to bring pressure for better conditions or for release. Officials at Guantánamo acknowledged that those designations were not necessarily made after any formal psychological evaluation.

But early last summer, as a new wave of protests broke out, officials at Guantánamo and at the Pentagon grew increasingly concerned, Defense Department officials said.

Doctors overseeing the treatment of detainees at Guantánamo sought new guidance from the Pentagon about the circumstances under which they could force-feed hunger strikers by tubes inserted through their noses and into their stomachs. While Defense Department officials took new measures to try to break a wave of hunger strikes that began last summer, they also undertook a review of procedures they would follow for the possible burial of detainees or the transfer of their remains in the event that any of them succeeded in committing suicide, military officials said.

Military officials began trying to discourage the detainees from killing themselves in part by having military and medical personnel cite passages in the Koran that condemn suicide. The detainees were systematically told that annual reviews of their status as "enemy combatants" had been completed, that they would remain at Guantánamo for at least another year, and that they should reconcile themselves to the situation, Defense Department officials said.

The military's review of the hunger-strike issue, which included senior Pentagon officials and officers of the United States Southern Command, which oversees Guantánamo, eventually led to a decision to begin strapping those detainees who refused to eat into metal "restraint chairs" while they were force-fed.

After the use of the chairs was disclosed by The New York Times in February, military officials insisted that they were acting only to save the lives of hunger-striking detainees who were precariously close to serious harm or death.

Interviews with military officials indicated that only a handful of the detainees who were then being force-fed had lost so much weight that they were classified by doctors there as "severely malnourished." The restraint chair was used on all of those who refused to eat, military officials said, regardless of their medical condition.

For months after the use of the restraint chairs became public, lawyers for the detainees and other critics of United States detention policy predicted that the tougher measures would push the prisoners to take more radical steps to end their lives.

What may have been the most serious such incident before Saturday's suicides came on May 18, when two detainees were found unconscious in their cells after ingesting a large quantity of anti-anxiety medication that various prisoners had apparently hoarded for the purpose. Another detainee said he had also tried to commit suicide but did not have enough medication; military officials said they did not believe his attempt had been serious.

Military officials said other detainees violently attacked guards in subsequent searches of their cells. A few of the detainees have since told their lawyers that the upheaval was provoked by guards who mistreated the prisoners' Korans as they tore through their cells.

Another brief hunger strike began barely two weeks later, the military authorities said, and eventually involved some 75 detainees. The chief spokesman for the military task force charged with guarding and interrogating the detainees, Cmdr. Robert Durand of the Navy, described that episode, like others before it, as an "attention getting" effort intended to increase public pressure for their release.

Summary: They were the first deaths of detainees to be reported at the military prison in Cuba since it opened in early 2002.


Make Jack, Liz and The Girly Show gang part of your mobile device! More

Give your ordinary mobile device an extraordinary look. More

Remind yourself that your job could be worse with The Office mobile wallpapers. More

Make your smart phone smart enough to read graphic novels. More

Play the game inspired by cubicle mayhem and workday boredom. More

Go Green on your iPhone by planting and growing a virtual flower. More

Watch your favorite NBC show on your TV, launch the tvChatter app on your device, choose the show from the social program guide, and enjoy the real time streaming commentary text. More

Summary: Photos from the 2 hour premiere with Claire in college.


MacAskill, from Dunvegan on the Isle of Skye, was filmed by a friend last year performing tricks with his bike in Edinburgh, jumping onto spiked fences and leaping over rooftops.

The video, called Inspired Bicycles, launched the 25-year-old into the limelight and the cyclist found himself featured in the New York Times, starring in a TV advert for the new Volkswagen Golf Estate and playing a cameo role in the music video for Doves’ single Winter Hill.

Reflecting on the past 18 months, MacAskill said, "I still can’t believe the first video reached so many people that actually liked it and passed it on.

"Even Lance Armstrong thought it was a must see.

"Now I get to make another, even crazier video and basically ride my bike as a job. It doesn’t get any better than this.”

To read more about Danny MacAskill's new project, Way Back Home, go to: www.redbull.co.uk/waybackhome.

Summary:
In April 2009 Danny MacAskill posted a video featuring his extreme cycling on
  YouTube. It received 300,000 views overnight and has had more than 21
  million plays to date. He describes how his life has changed since the
  making of that video.


Feb 11th 2011, 21:26 by T.W. | MEXICO CITY

ONE of the striking features of Mexico’s crackdown on drug gangs is that the resulting violence has kept a wide berth of the capital. Of the 34,612 murders related to organised crime that the government counted between 2007 and 2010, just 1.9% took place in Mexico City. Considering that the metropolis accounts for about 8% of the country’s population, that’s not bad going.

You don’t need to go far to find trouble, however. The state of Mexico, which almost encircles the capital, has seen a big increase in violence, as has Morelos, which shares a border with the south of Mexico City. As you can see in the following chart, the number of killings in these states has increased sharply since the end of 2006, when the government’s assault began.

But how bothered should you be if you live in Mexico City? If violence has broken out at the opposite end of the state next door, it might not affect you in the least. If it’s lapping at the edges of the capital, however, it might be more of a problem.

Thanks to the recent publication of some comprehensive data on the location of homicides, it is now possible to plot the violence more precisely. In the second chart, I have plotted killings in Mexico City, plus those that took place in the municipalities that directly border it (13 from Mexico state and three from Morelos). This useful map should give you a better idea of what I’m getting at.

Two things stand out. Firstly, Mexico City is well insulated from the violence taking place in Morelos. Though some Morelos municipalities, such as Cuernavaca, have seen an alarming rise in killings (now tapering off, it seems), the three municipalities that border Mexico City have seen almost none.

In Mexico state, however, is the opposite is true. In this state of 125 municipalities, the 13 that share a border with Mexico City have accounted for a disproportionately large chunk of the trouble. Indeed, over the past four years they have witnessed 797 murders linked to organised crime—just over half the total for the entire state.

The message from these numbers is that for Mexico City, much of the violence happening in its neighbouring states is closer to home than its residents might like to think. Violence in the capital itself, strictly defined, has remained stable. But when one includes the immediate suburbs, the annual number of killings has more than doubled since 2007.

Summary: ONE of the striking features of Mexico’s crackdown on drug gangs is that the resulting violence has kept a wide berth of the capital. O  f the 34,612 murders related to organised crime that the government counted between 2007 and 2010, just 1.