Initial reports that a Dallas hospital's electronic medical record system failed to flag a man who turned out to be infected with the Ebola virus underscores how clunky, outdated and inefficient health information systems typically are in the U.S., a medical IT CEO charged Friday.

"The worst supply chain in our society is the health information supply chain," said Jonathan Bush, head of Athenahealth. "It's just a wonderfully poignant example, reminder of how disconnected our health-care system is."

"It's just a very Stone-Age sector, because it's very conservative," Bush said. "Hospital health care is still in the era of pre-Internet software."

Read MoreHHS' Burwell: We have tools to stop Ebola spread

The infected man, Thomas Eric Duncan, first went to the hospital Sept. 25 with flu-like symptoms but was released that same day. Just days later, he returned to the hospital, where he eventually tested positive for the Ebola virus.

On Thursday, the hospital released a statement that essentially pointed a finger at a flaw in its electronic records system, but the hospital has since recanted that statement, saying "the patient's travel history was documented and available to the full care team in the electronic health record (EHR), including within the physician's workflow."

Even so, medical IT experts say many hospital systems need to be improved.

In an interview with CNBC conducted prior to the hospital's reversal, Bush cautioned that he is not blaming either Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, nor its electronic health software vendor Epic Systems, for the breakdown in communication.

Read MoreTexas hospital with Ebola patient probed

Instead, he said, there is a problem among U.S. medical providers overall of relying on electronic health record systems that tend to be customized for individual providers, and not networked together nationally so that they can be updated in response to situations like the current Ebola epidemic in parts of West Africa.

"The hyperbole should not be directed at Epic or those guys at Health Texas," Bush said. "The hyperbole has to be directed at the fact that health care is islands of information trying to separately manage a massively complex network."

Summary: The failure of a hospital's electronic records to flag a man with Ebola underscores how outdated such IT systems typically are in the U.S.


10/09/2015 AT 03:05 PM EDT

shippers – contrary to rumors and reports, the rapper and the tennis superstar are

A rep for Williams says in a statement to PEOPLE that the pair are not engaged, adding, "They are simply longtime friends."

friends and nothing more. They've never dated, a source tells PEOPLE.

Drake and Williams were rumored to be romantically involved after they were spotted dining together at a Cincinnati restaurant in August. Williams was in town to play at the Western & Southern Open, where Drake was seen cheering her on from the stands.

Drake and Serena Williams leaving the U.S. Open

Speculation that the two were dating heated up after the rapper was

once again at the U.S. Open, and sitting front row at her

When asked at a July press conference whether Drake was her "lucky charm," Williams replied, "We've been friends for, like, so many years â¦ Just like family."

Summary: Serena Williams has said that she and Drake are "just like family"


A 4-year-old girl died on Tuesday after being shot in the head in an apparent road-rage incident

updated 10/21/2015 AT 12:15 PM EDT

•originally published 10/21/2015 AT 09:15 AM EDT

A 4-year-old girl was shot in the head and killed in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Tuesday afternoon in an apparent road-rage incident, PEOPLE confirms.

Gunfire erupted on Interstate 40 at around 3 p.m. Tuesday. The girl, who was riding in a car with her mom and dad, was fatally wounded after another vehicle pulled up alongside the family's car and someone opened fire. She was hit in the head.

"This should have never happened. This is a complete disrespect of human life," Albuquerque Police Chief Gorden Eden told reporters on Tuesday, according to

He pleaded for anyone with any information about the incident to come forward. "We have absolutely no suspect information at this time," Eden added. "We are in desperate need of information to help us resolve the conflicting information we're getting right now."

The highway was crowded with mid-afternoon traffic at the time. "We know that people had to have been witnesses," Eden said.

The girl's parents were not injured in the shooting, police said. Authorities do not believe the family knew the gunman.

that she saw two cars involved in a road-rage incident: a red truck and a red sedan. "The red truck was not allowing the red car to pass [and] kept swerving from lane to lane to keep the vehicle behind them," Jonell Tafoya said.

In a statement, police described the suspect who allegedly fired at the girl as a white male his mid 20s to early 30s with short dark hair and a dark complexion. He has a thin manicured goatee around his mouth, a thin face, soft jaw and average build, and he was wearing a black shirt with gold or yellow writing on it at the time of the incident.

Anyone with information is asked to call 505-242-COPS.

Summary: Albuquerque police are asking for anyone with any information about the incident to come forward


Target will shutter 11 U.S. stores in February, more than double the amount it closed around the same time last year, as it looks to shed underperforming locations.

"The decision to close a Target store is only made after careful consideration of the long-term financial performance of a particular location," the company said in a Tuesday statement.

Among the closures are one store in Minnesota, the company's home state; three stores in Illinois; and three Michigan locations. The selected stores will close Feb. 1.

Like most retailers, Target usually trims its portfolio at least once a year. The Minneapolis-based retail giant shuttered four locations last November and three in November 2012.

Read MoreOnline sales growth to slow this holiday: Forrester

Eligible employees will receive an option to transfer to another location, the company said, noting that employees who choose not to transfer will be offered severance.

Summary: Target will shutter 11 stores in the US, more than it has closed in the last two years combined.


Peter Liversidge avoids easy definition. His work is so diverse that critics are sometimes reduced to listing his past achievements in the hope it will shed some light on their creator. This is a shame, because Liversidge is an offbeat talent of a very British kind. Humour is the key to his art, a particularly surreal form of pedantry that is reminiscent of the comic genius Spike Milligan.

His most accessible pieces are the clunky cardboard replicas of luxury goods that he's been making for the past few years. Liversidge creates counterfeits, from Cartier watches to digital cameras, that wouldn't deceive a five-year-old. Often he chooses items that have some kind of mechanical element – such as a pair of binoculars or a video camera – or are themselves the mechanism, like batteries, a roll of film or a credit card. These objects may be useless and his rendering of them less than adequate, but this is, in part, a cunning game: they fetch a higher price as artworks than the originals ever will.

Of course this is a classic pop art strategy, as old as Warhol, yet Liversidge reinvigorates it by exploiting our affection for nostalgia, offering escapism from the realities of the everyday. His artworks are flights of the imagination; he wants us to question what is possible.

Which brings us to Liversidge's ongoing Proposal series, which has evolved over the past 10 years from scrappy ideas on a page of foolscap to a series of books featuring hundreds of ideas. All are delightfully impractical, from freezing over the Mersey to wrapping a halo of lights around Arthur's Seat, and some are absurdly reductive, such as a project to fill one of Liversidge's own exhibitions with smoke so that the art is concealed behind a thick white mist. What we are left with is very little: merely an opening to the realms of possibility.

Why we like him: Perhaps for a free-standing gin stall serving shots to thirsty culture vultures at the Edinburgh festival in 2006.

Get stuffed: Liversidge is an amateur taxidermist.

Illuminating ideas: He has been collaborating with his east London neighbour, the architect Asif Khan, on an award-winning series of cool-to-the-touch Tetra lights, an ecologically sound alternative to neon.

Where can I see him? Peter Liversidge is showing at Tate Liverpool as part of The Fifth Floor: Ideas taking space, Tate Liverpool until February 1.

Summary: From proposals for totally impractical ideas to cardboard replicas of luxury goods, Peter Liversidge brings a peculiarly British humour to his art, says Jessica Lack


FORTUNE — Big Oil may be going out of style, but it is certainly not going away.

With major players like ConocoPhillips COP and Marathon mro splitting up, industry leaders and the market are starting to question the model of the huge, integrated oil company that handles every portion of the business, from plumbing crude out of the ground to selling it at the gas tank.

But just because the Big Oil’s big business model is being questioned — and rightfully so — doesn’t mean it’s going anywhere.

A few days ago, Fortune pointed out that many big oil companies are undervalued. Splitting them, in theory, could be worth billions of dollars to shareholders. But Big Oil companies need to consider many more factors than short-term shareholder perks before making such drastic decisions. Some may go for it, deciding to opt out of the integrated, one-stop-oil-shop model. But despite the changes major petroleum companies may experience, oil will likely stay Big with a capital B.

When it makes sense to be big, and when it doesn’t

Within the industry, different parts of oil companies are descried as sections of a river: upstream, midstream and downstream. A typical Big Oil company owns the whole river. Upstream involves looking for new wells, drilling them, and pumping crude out of the ground. Midstream means the transportation of new oil by ship routes and pipelines. Then you hit downstream, which is all about processing the product. Downstream assets include refineries, which distill crude into different chemicals, including gasoline. Gas stations, and other retail operations, are also downstream.

Big profits happen upstream. It pays well and pays quickly to strike oil, but companies have to spend a lot of money up front to explore new sites and then drill them.

When oil prices are low, it makes sense to have a hand in the refining and retail businesses, since both provide a steady stream of money that can fund searching for new wells and drilling. So when oil prices dipped during 1980s, then stayed low through the early 1990s, it spurred a mega-merger trend among major oil companies. Hence, we currently have companies like ExxonMobil, BpAmaco, and ConocoPhillips.

That model failed ConocoPhillips, which announced on July 14 that it will spin off its downstream division by the first half of 2012. The market reacted well to the announcement, and share prices of Conoco jumped 7.5% at the news, but the gap faded by the end of the trading day, closing at 1.6% higher than the opening price. Conoco’s breakup comes on the heels of Marathon’s announcement in January that it would undergo a similar split. The market loved it — the company’s share price rose 30% after the announcement.

The success of these sales generated speculation that other big oil companies may follow suit. The refining business is volatile, and may be more trouble than its worth, some argue. Also, many “integrated” companies aren’t actually integrated in practice, says Phillip Weiss, a senior energy analyst with Argus Research Group. “Generally integrated oil companies do not refine the oil they produce, instead it goes to wherever is closest,” he says.

That was the case with Conoco, and many analysts are starting to look to BP BP as the next in line for a split. The company needs to refresh its strategy. Its stock is undervalued, many analysts say. One J.P. Morgan analyst argued that a BP split could unlock $100 billion worth of value for shareholders.

But BP probably won’t split. Not that the integrated model is ideal. It isn’t. But it’s very hard to cut a giant in half. “The integrated model isn’t what it used to be and it may not be necessary,” says Weiss, “ but if you have it, it may not be easy to get rid of it.”

Why Marathon and Conoco are exceptions

Marathon and Conoco were in better positions to split than other companies. Marathon in particular is different: while many oil and gas companies are shucking their refining businesses in America, Gary Heminger, CEO of Marathon’s downstream spinoff Marathon Petroleum, believes the company will have an advantage in the market.

“Our strategy was that diesel sales around the globe are going to outpace gasoline, so we did something different,” Heminger told Fortune.

Instead of cutting off refineries, Marathon is upgrading them to produce a higher percentage of diesel than its competitors, which Heminger hopes will help the company meet growing demand in the global market.

Conoco, on the other hand, will probably focus the bulk of its business on oil exploration and drilling. But Conoco’s also in a slightly different spot than other super majors, Weiss says. “Conoco’s not as large as Chevron cvx , Exxon xom , BP or Shell rdsa . Sitting where it did, it probably was better positioned to make a run at doing this than larger companies.”

In the wake of these splits, Big Oil companies will be looking at their assets to trim extra flab. But they’ve already been doing this. Chevron announced plans to sell several downstream assets this year, including a major refinery in Ireland. And Shell has trimmed its refining capacity by 40% over the last 12 years.

Since many major oil companies are looking to get rid of assets downstream, it can be tough to find buyers. That’s why Conoco’s spinoff makes sense, says Weiss, because it’s better for shareholders to create a standalone refining company then sell downstream assets too cheaply.

Breaking up is hard to do

As anyone who has ended a relationship will tell you, breaking up can be brutal, even when it’s the right call. “The complexity of de-integrating these companies is massive.” says Alan Thomson, a Houston-based senior partner at The Boston Consulting Group.

You have to untangle shared departments, he says, such as environmental safety and finance. That’s why it does not make sense for a company like Exxon to split. “ExxonMobil has always been the quintessentially integrated company,” Thomson says. “They still very much manage that supply chain from crude to customer.”

Also, profit growth in refining may be slow in the U.S. and Europe, but having that ability can be an advantage in other places. “If you have aspirations in participating in China, being able to offer a full range of technologies and capabilities is still … very attractive,” Thomson says.

As the price of oil fluctuates, as it is wont to do, oil companies will mutate to profit most. Some will shrink and split. But for others, the best course of action will be to stay big. It all depends on whether the price of oil will stay high enough to warrant the headache of breaking apart the giants. Companies that split are banking that the price of petroleum to stay high. But if there’s any guaranteed uncertainty in this business, it’s the price of oil.

Summary: Splitting up energy giants may make sense while oil prices are as high as they are today, but it may not be worth the organizational headache for Big Oil to break apart.


02/24/2016 AT 09:00 AM EST

brings her back to a "horrible" time in her family's life.

to the miniseries yet, she says the show has resurfaced dark memories from the 1994-95

, during which her late father

worked on the NFL star's defense team.

"I was 10, and the teachers would like close down the classroom we'd all be watching it on TV," Kardashian, 31, told

. "It was so crazy, but I mean people were really cruel during that time. They used to key 'guilty' on my dad's car, like when we were at church. ... It was horrible at that time, they were incredibly mean and cruel."

Kardashian's parents were close friends with Simpson and his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson at the time of her death. After a high-profile trial, Simpson was acquitted of both Nicole and Ron Goldman's murders.

Kardashian said that while she's heard the show is "phenomenal" ("

raves about it and loves it"), there are moments featuring the famous family that aren't quite accurate.

"Like when O.J. was contemplating suicide it was in my room, and not Kim's room," she explained. "They're kind of sensationalizing the Kardashian name in, but I think to bring a younger audience in."

She added, "There was some scene of us chanting 'Kardashian' while my dad was reading the potential suicide note and I'm like – I even called Kim, because I was 10 – so I said, 'Did that happen, I don't remember any of that happening?'... She goes, 'Absolutely not, did that happen.' "

The star said she isn't upset about the portrayal but wonders how Simpson's own children,

, are handling the resurgence of attention surrounding their parents.

"I lived one version of it. I more feel bad for the children, because – not that you would ever get over that situation – but they're finally getting a little normalcy going on in their life," she said.

Regardless, Kardashian is grateful for the series' portrayal of her dad by

, saying, "They've done a great job." Her mother

is also featured in the show and played by actress

, saying, "I'm a little more sensitive to it cause he was my 'Uncle O.J.' "

Summary: Khloé Kardashian was 10 years old during O.J. Simpson's 1994-95 murder trial


03/16/2016 AT 07:05 AM EDT

They've been happily engaged for four months, but

had to relive an uncomfortable part of their relationship's past as the season unfolded on TV. Namely, Higgins' decision to tell both Bushnell and runner-up

Ben Higgins and Lauren Bushnell

"Post filming was more of an emotional roller coaster than the actual show," Bushnell tells PEOPLE exclusively in this week's issue. "I fall more in love with Ben every day and it's hard to separate what happened long ago and my current feelings. It's confusing. It does wear on me."

Bushnell says she had a heart-to-heart conversation with Higgins after their Jamaican engagement, in which he admitted he had told Fletcher he loved her, but "I hadn't soaked it in or made sense of it yet. I was still on a high from getting engaged."

Of watching the show back, the flight attendant, 26, says, "It hurts. It's like, why did I have to go through that hurt? It's already a few months of confusion and tears and then to have to deal with it again, it's hard."

Still, "Ben is the most understanding, and empathetic, supportive and a great listener," says Bushnell. "Anytime I do feel things, I express them and he listens and we talk about it."

For his part, Higgins says he doesn't regret the sentiment, but that his feelings for Lauren since the show have only grown stronger.

The Bachelor's Ben Higgins and Lauren Bushnell on the cover of PEOPLE

PEOPLE's Celebrating All 20 Seasons of The Bachelor collector's edition

The Image Bank / Getty

"I can't apologize for being honest or expressing what I thought was the best thing to express at the time," says the business analyst, 26. "At the time, it was the best definition of what I was feeling."

Continues Higgins: "Don't get us wrong. Throughout this whole show airing and conversations we've had about decisions and life, it hasn't always been easy. But it's added a whole new level to our relationship. And [the show ultimately] led me to this woman who I love deeply. She's the only woman I'll love from now on."

Summary: After their engagement, Ben revealed to Lauren that he had also said "I love you" to JoJo


The doctor who performed the autopsy on murder victim Shaylyn Ammerman's remains characterized the toddler's alleged rape and strangulation as "the worst case of sexual trauma" she has ever encountered, according to court records obtained by PEOPLE.

next to the White River in a remote section of Gosport, Indiana. Shaylyn was last seen on Tuesday night inside her father's home.

In court documents filed Monday morning, prosecutors allege that 22-year-old Kyle Parker snatched Shaylyn right out of her crib and then drove the child to an isolated area where he raped her in the front seat of his car.

Court records claim Parker – who has been charged with rape, murder, child molesting, kidnapping, strangulation, aggravated battery, obstruction of justice, failure to report a dead body and unlawful disposition of a body – was invited to Shaylyn's father's home the night she vanished.

According to police, Parker and Shaylyn's uncle, Adam Ammerman, had just become friends. Adam and Justin Ammerman, Shaylyn's father, share a home, according to investigators.

According to the documents, Parker and Adam were drinking alcohol and watching a movie. Adam allegedly told police he fell asleep but awoke to the sound of the front door closing. He allegedly told detectives he peered out his bedroom window and watched Parker heading for his car, "carrying something." Authorities say Adam subsequently passed a polygraph test.

Prosecutors say Parker initially lied to investigators about his alleged involvement in Shaylyn's death, allegedly telling them it was Adam who killed her and then asked him to help dispose of the child's body.

Parker allegedly told investigators he agreed to help his friend. He allegedly later told police where they'd be able to locate the girl's body, the documents state.

When confronted with Adam's positive polygraph results, Parker allegedly began to cooperate, confessing to police that he acted alone to kill the girl. He allegedly admitted to using bleach to clean evidence on Shaylyn's body.

The results of Shaylyn's autopsy revealed "injuries consistent with a violent sexual assault," according to court records.

Parker allegedly told police Shaylyn was alive and clothed when he kidnapped her, and confessed to suffocating her with a blanket he kept in his car.

Dr. Donna Stewart, who conducted the autopsy, told police, "This was the worst case of sexual trauma she had seen in her career."

In court records, detectives claim they interviewed several of Parker's friends, who all allegedly claimed the suspect preferred "pornography of a violent nature" and expressed interest in girls in their early teens.

Parker appeared in court on Monday, entering a plea of not guilty to the charges against him. He is being held without bail and has a second hearing scheduled for late May.

Shaylyn's funeral is scheduled for Wednesday at the Christian Life Center in Spencer, Indiana, authorities confirm.

Summary: Police allege Kyle Parker blamed 1-year-old's homicide on his friend, who is also the child's uncle


It’s not easy being the king. In Netflix’s case, being the most popular streaming-video service means that expectations for the company are sky-high—and so is the share price. When you trade at those levels, even the tiniest sign of weakness can trigger a wave of fear, which is exactly what happened after the company reported its latest quarterly results on Monday.

When Netflix announced earlier this year that it was expanding into more than 130 countries, the company’s investor fans got excited about the potential growth that this expansion might bring in terms of new subscribers.

Some of that growth has materialized: Netflix NFLX said it added 6.7 million subscribers in its latest quarter, including 4.5 million internationally. That beat analysts’ consensus forecasts. But the company’s projected growth is well below what most had expected. It will likely add just 2 million new international subscribers in the next quarter, when most analysts had estimated it would add 3.45 million. That’s a big miss.

On the Netflix earnings call—which actually took the form of a live interview with CEO Reed Hastings and other senior executives broadcast on YouTube—the company explained that its international growth is somewhat lumpy because of how the roll-out is working in different markets. In some cases, they said, there had been a big uptick because of pent-up demand, but that might not continue in the future.

Watch: Your Netflix subscription just got more expensive

Whatever the explanation, the lackluster forecast stoked the market’s fears that Netflix’s growth rate would start flattening compared to its past performance, fears that pushed the stock down by as much 14% in after-hours trading on Monday (the fact that Amazon just launched what looks like a significant Netflix competitor probably didn’t help).

It’s not as though Netflix will suddenly stop adding new subscribers or growing revenue—it’s more the rate at which those things happen that matters. When your stock trades at almost 100 times your projected earnings for the next year, you are essentially performing a kind of high wire act, and the downside risk is substantial.

Over the past year or so, Netflix has become the poster child for the cord-cutting phenomenon, in which younger video consumers either get rid of their cable box or don’t even sign up for one, preferring to use Netflix and other streaming services like Hulu.

Being the symbol of that movement, and building an impressive portfolio of hit shows like Orange Is The New Black and House of Cards, has helped the company achieve a market capitalization of more than $45 billion—which makes it more valuable than CBS, HBO and Viacom put together. Some of that premium is clearly justified, but how much? That’s what the market is currently trying to figure out.

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One of the risks for Netflix is that its growth will slow simply because it already has more than 80 million subscribers, with about half of those in the United States. In a sense, most of the people in the U.S. who might want Netflix probably already have it.

That—along with increasing competition from Amazon AMZN , as well as HBO—means the company must continue ramping up its offerings of TV shows and movies to appeal to as many new users as possible. And that is going to require a massive investment in content production. This year alone, the company plans to add 10 feature films, 30 kids shows and 12 documentaries, for a total investment of $5 billion.

Some of this focus on original content is also being driven by the TV networks and other media companies that have licensed content to Netflix in the past, at fairly favorable rates. Many of these players are increasingly reluctant to give the company their best programming, in part because they want to roll out their own streaming services.

The end result is that Netflix’s costs are increasing fairly dramatically, and that is having—and will continue to have—an impact on the bottom line. Even in just the past year, Netflix’s operating profit margin has narrowed substantially: A year ago it was 6.2%, and in the most recent quarter it was just 2.2%. Those pressures are part of the reason why the company boosted its prices earlier this year.

There’s no question that Netflix is still sitting comfortably on the streaming-video throne. It’s going to take more than a forecast miss or a new Amazon video offering to topple the company from its perch. But kings have been deposed before, and it’s usually a messy business. That’s what many Netflix shareholders have nightmares about, and that’s not likely to change—if anything, it may get worse.

Summary: Expectations are sky-high for the streaming company's future growth. But are they too high?


Ginger Zee and Val Chmerkovskiy

05/22/2016 AT 04:45 PM EDT

Ginger Zee has worked hard to make it to the

meteorologist be forced to sit out Monday's performance finale.

, a source confirms to PEOPLE that Zee has injured her pelvis and is having back spasms as a result.

"Right now she can't dance at 100 percent and [troupe member] Jenna Johnson is standing in for her during camera blocking today," says the source. "She won't know until tomorrow if she can do the dances. Ginger is seeing the show's physical therapist and is resting so that hopefully she will be able to dance tomorrow night."

In an interview with PEOPLE on Saturday, Zee revealed she is slated to pay homage to the legendary film dance duo Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire on Monday.

"I mean, how could a Ginger go on DWTS without channeling Ginger Rodgers," said Zee, who is partnered with dance pro Val Chmerkovskiy. "But I will say that Ginger and Fred's routines are deceptively complicated. They have ballroom elements but also jazz, Broadway and tap. Val has never done tap before so we've both been learning something new."

"I've really learned how much I can accomplish in life from competing on this show," she continued. "I've pushed myself to my limits and beyond and I feel so much stronger because of it."

Contestants Nyle DiMarco, Kim Fields and Jodie Sweetin have all also suffered injuries this season.

' two-night finale begins Monday (at 8 p.m. ET) on ABC.

Summary: Ginger Zee has injured her pelvis and is having back spasms as a result


6 p.m. 7 -- Willkommen Amid Shepherdstown's quaint old homes, the Bavarian Inn (164 Shepherd Grade Road, 304-876-2551), a German-themed hotel with white-and-black peaked chalet roofs perched high above the Potomac, certainly stands out. For decades, the inn's vast formal dining room has been a meeting place for dignitaries, including Senator Robert C. Byrd, whose picture adorns a wall. The best bets are its traditional Bavarian dishes with sauerkraut, but others, like sea bass crusted with rye and pilsner sauce, stand out as well. Entrees are $17 to $33. Venison, wild boar and other game dishes are served in the fall and winter.

7:30 p.m. 8 -- A Night at the Opera House One of the oldest movie theaters in America, the Shepherdstown Opera House (131 West German Street, 304-876-3704) first showed silent flicks in 1909. After falling into disrepair for years, it reopened in 1992 and now offers films each weekend (a schedule is at www.operahouselive.com; admission is $7). Get there early to order ginger beer and popcorn with real melted butter and to hear the short talks that often precede the films. More important, early birds can grab an extra pillow from a pile at the front of the theater -- the seats are harder than Yankee Stadium bleachers.

Sunday 9 a.m. 9 -- Market Value Pick up a scone or a blueberry muffin at the Shepherdstown Sweet Shop Bakery (100 West German Street, 304-876-2432) and join Shepherdstown residents at the Sunday farmers' market just behind the public library on German Street. Organic farmers from West Virginia and Maryland explain the difference between endive and radicchio to interested locals, and everyone tastes local cheeses, lettuces and salsas.

10:30 a.m. 10 -- A Walk in the Woods As Washington commuters have moved into Shepherdstown, some residents have pushed to retain rural areas near town. The 104-acre Yankauer Nature Preserve on Whitings Neck Road is one of the results. The Nature Conservancy and the local Audubon chapter maintain several short hiking trails through its gentle hills and dense woodland. In spring and summer, Yankauer offers excellent bird-watching, especially for cardinals and waterfowl, and wildflower displays. The Potomac Valley Audubon Society (304-676-3397, www.potomacaudubon.org) has more information.

Noon 11 -- Harpers Ferry and Antietam On the way home from Shepherdstown, Civil War buffs should make two stops: Harpers Ferry, W.Va., where the abolitionist John Brown raided the federal armory in 1859; and Antietam, Md., above, site of the single bloodiest day in the Civil War, when some 23,000 men were killed in a standoff after Robert E. Lee first invaded the North. The Harpers Ferry National Historical Park visitor center (off Route 340, 304-535-6298; www.nps.gov/hafe) offers an overview of the area around the armory. The Antietam National Battlefield has a visitor center (off Route 65, 301-432-5124) and a self-drive tour. Information and directions are at www.nps.gov/anti.

Shepherdstown is a 90-minute drive from Washington or Baltimore, three hours from Philadelphia and four and a half hours from New York. Having a car is essential for Shepherdstown weekends.

Just outside the town center, the Clarion Hotel and Conference Center (233 Lowe Drive, 304-876-7000) was the setting in 2000 for President Clinton's ill-fated peace talks between Israel and Syria. Its 168 rooms and suites are $130 to $229.

The Thomas Shepherd Inn, a bed-and-breakfast in a restored mansion (German and Duke Streets, 888-889-8952), has six rooms at $89 to $150.

The German-themed Bavarian Inn (164 Shepherd Grade Road, 304-876-2551) has 73 rooms and suites, most with Potomac River views, at $85 to $285.

JOURNEYS Correction: June 10, 2005, Friday The 36 Hours column last Friday about Shepherdstown, W.Va., misstated the number of men killed in a single day at Antietam, the Civil War battlefield in Maryland near Shepherdstown. It was 3,650, not 23,000. (The number 23,000 is the total killed, wounded and missing.)

Summary: Article on 36-hour visit to Shepherdstown, W Va; photos; maps (M)


Some thought it would never happen. But as of Wednesday, you can run Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Microsoft’s Azure cloud, according to a Microsoft blog post.

The prospect of peaceful coexistence between Microsoft msft , long seen as the archetype of proprietary, closed-source software company, and the leading backer of the open-source Linux operating system, would have been unthinkable just years ago. After all, RHEL and Windows Server have been duking it out for years in the server operating system wars.

But Microsoft softened its stance as it moved into the cloud era. It had to. The open source model, which makes source code available to developers for examination and deployment, has become such a huge force in technology that Microsoft had to change its ways.

In the open source world, a company like Red Hat rht sells services and support for the software, which itself remains low-cost or free. Clearly, that model was anathema to companies like Microsoft, Oracle orcl , and other companies that made their money selling proprietary software in addition to charging for support and service.

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But the open source wave was too big to fight and Microsoft, especially under its new chief executive Satya Nadella, is all about making Azure a cloud for all technologies. Microsoft must, too, because it is coming from far behind in the public cloud battle and has to make up ground against market leader Amazon amzn Web Services.

At a big Meet Azure event four years ago, Microsoft featured the MySQL database, WordPress, and Ubuntu Linux—all open-source products— running on Azure. So, Microsoft Azure already supported Ubuntu and other Linux distributions, but Red Hat Enterprise Linux, which is widely adopted by businesses, was seen as the one that got away. It was a through-the-looking-glass sort of day.

On the same blog post, Microsoft said that Walmart’s wmt OneOps open-source cloud deployment tool will also run on Azure. The retail giant’s tech arm built OneOps to make it easier to move workloads to and from different cloud environments, in a bid to nix cloud lock-in.

Fortune Q&A with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

Last November, Red Hat and Microsoft announced their intent to put RHEL on Azure, and as of today, customers can get the Red Hat images or sofware they need from the Azure Marketplace.

Update: This story is a bit more nuanced than first thought. A Microsoft spokeswoman said customers could already bring their own RHEL license and run the OS and other Red Hat products on Azure provided they register with Red Hat Cloud Access and build the software image needed to deploy on Azure.

This just shows what customer demand will do. As mentioned, RHEL competes fiercely with Microsoft Windows Server, but there’s been chatter for years that customers really wanted to be able to run RHEL on Azure even though they could already run it on Google goog Cloud Platform and Amazon Web Services, Azure’s two main public cloud rivals.

So the people have spoken, and their suppliers apparently listened.

This story was updated at 7:53 a.m. February 18, 2016 to reflect that users could, starting in November, bring their own RHEL licenses to run on Azure and to add that Azure now supports Walmart’s OneOps cloud deployment tool.

Summary: Mountain? Meet Mohammed.


Donald Trump has no plans to stick to a game plan.

On Tuesday, April 19, GOP frontrunner Donald Trump sat down with Fortune in a wide ranging interview on his business career and what he would do if elected president. A number of times in the interview he contradicted what he had said earlier in the interview, or something he has said in the past. The biggest change: Trump told Fortune that he no longer has plans to eliminate the national debt in eight years, as he had earlier claimed he would, but many economists said was impossible. It would require annual GDP growth north of 20% a year, if Trump were to lower taxes as he has pledged. That’s 10 times the 2% GDP has been growing recently.

Trump declines to say whether he had a plan for a contested election. And he said he had not yet made the determination of whether he would self-fund his general election campaign.

Related: Business the Trump Way

Trump declined to say who his campaign advisors would be. But he says he would be releasing a list of names within weeks. He says that there are a number of Fortune 500 CEOs and other executives advising him, but, as in the past, the only outside advisor he was willing to name was Carl Icahn. On a question of whether he had selected a chief economics advisor, Trump stumbled. At first he said he had, and wasn’t going to announce it. Then he said he would rely on a number of people for economic policy issues, and largely make his own decisions.

One person Trump is unlikely to name as an advisor: Janet Yellen. Trump says that Yellen had done a “serviceable” job as chair of the Federal Reserve. And he says he would be likely to put someone else in the position when Yellen’s term in over, which is not until early 2018.

Related: Donald Trump Likes Low Interest Rates But Says He’d Replace Janet Yellen

The full transcript of the entire interview is here. But here are some his best sound bites from the interview:

On his business troubles in Atlantic City:

“What happened is the bond holders came to me and said why don’t you put on debt. And I said let me look at it, and they offered me so much debt, and I said this is too much debt for the company. All of those things were good as an individual, but I said to them [bankers] will it be a good thing or bad thing for people?”

On starting a trade war with China:

“First of all I never said that. . .China has zero respect for our country. They have zero respect for our president and our leadership. . .I would tell China that either you start playing by the rules, or we will be imposing tariffs on your products coming in. That doesn’t mean I am doing it, because in my opinion if they believe it they are going to play by the rules. But they have to believe it.”

On picking up supporters from Bernie Sanders:

“One thing we have in common is trade. We both know the U.S. is getting ripped off by trade. The difference is I can do something about it and he can’t.”

Related: Here’s Where Donald Trump Says He’s Like Bernie Sanders

On his the Fortune 500 CEO he admires the most:

“I don’t want to say because I know so many of them, and they’re friends. Some who do a great job and some who don’t, frankly. But I’d rather not say because I’ll create such problems for myself.”

On his own business if he becomes president:

“But it is a business that is very unimportant to me if I won the presidency. My executives and my children will run the company and they’ll run it well. It’s not a hard company to run. We are dealing now with over 121 deals worldwide for licensing. Tell him about the hotels, Eric [Trump].”

On whether he uses a computer and why his office is PC-free:

“Yes. I do. They bring one in.”

On his advisors, besides Carl Icahn:

“Numerous. I am going to put out a list in the next three or four weeks. We have tremendous endorsements from the business community.”

Summary: Highlights from Fortune's interview with Donald Trump.


BY picking up sound and transforming it into electrochemical impulses, the ears act like microphones sending coded signals through the nervous system into the brain. But following the discovery that ears also act as tiny sound-producing loudspeakers, scientists are encountering many surprises as they probe the mysteries of hearing.

One recent result of this rapidly developing field of research has been the invention of instruments with miniature microphones that listen for the faint sounds emitted by healthy ears. Scientists believe these devices offer doctors a quick and reliable tool for detecting deafness, even in newborn infants, among whom deafness is otherwise hard to diagnose.

Physiologists are still marveling at the discovery that ears produce sound. "It is almost as astonishing as if the eye could produce light or the nose produce odors," said Dr. William E. Brownell of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, one of the leading researchers in "otoacoustic emissions," or sound produced by ears.

In a continuing Rhode Island study that began in 1989, microphone-equipped devices have been used to test the ears of some 4,700 newborn infants, and have already proved their worth in detecting problems early.

Dr. Susan J. Norton of Children's Hospital and Medical Center in Seattle, a participant in the Rhode Island clinical study, said, "It is unlikely that any of these children would have been identified before 12 months of age using previously available techniques."

But useful though otoacoustic emissions appear to be for clinical diagnosis, their main interest to scientists is in the light they shed on a baffling perceptual system that endows humans and other mammals with superlatively sensitive hearing over a wide range of frequencies and loudness. It is this system, some scientists believe, that made speech possible.

The notion that the ear might produce sound was suggested in 1946 by Dr. Thomas Gold, a Vienna-born astrophysicist, who reasoned that the high sensitivity of the human ear and its wide range of frequency response might be best explained in terms of some amplifying system analogous to those used in radio receivers. If that was the case, the biological amplifier might not only increase the intensity of electrical signals sent by the ear into the nervous system, but might also produce sound of its own.

In 1978 a major discovery lent substance to this prediction. Dr. David Kemp, an English physicist, discovered that the cochlea, a hollow, spiral-shaped bone in the skull that contains the organs of hearing, actually emits sounds.

These sounds, known as otoacoustic emissions, were found to be of two types: spontaneous and evoked.

Spontaneous emissions of sound are produced by the ears of normal people from time to time for no apparent reason. Although a microphone in the ear can clearly register such sounds, they are rarely noticed by the hearer, perhaps because the brain filters them out from the flow of signals that underlie perception.

Spontaneous emissions are apparently not related to tinnitus, or ringing of the ears, an ailment that can be caused by very large doses of aspirin, among other things. Dr. Glenis R. Long of Purdue University says that only about 3 percent of people suffering from tinnitus are found to produce spontaneous sound emissions of their own.

The other kind of ear-produced sound, evoked otoacoustic emissions, is similar to echoes, generally somewhat distorted from the original sound. The types of distortions found in these sound emissions appear to correspond to the kind of interference patterns that occur when one sound frequency is imposed on another.

A person who fails to emit echo-like sounds from his or her ear in response to a test tone generally turns out to be deaf, or suffering from disease or the influence of certain drugs. When a sound-producing device called a transducer is inserted in an ear canal and emits a brief click, a healthy cochlea responds a few thousandths of a second later by sending back an echo, which is picked up by a miniature microphone.

Scientists discovered that the otoacoustic echo response disappears when a person is taking large doses of aspirin, quinine, or psychoactive drugs. Aspirin, in fact, is known to cause temporary hearing loss. According to Dr. Long, people possessing "perfect pitch," the ability to sing or whistle a specified note without first hearing it on a pitch pipe or tuning fork, lose some of this ability when taking certain drugs.

Significantly, the echo response disappears a few minutes after death. This, many scientists believe, implies that the otoacoustic response is the result of active sound production, not just a passive echo of external sound. Debate Over Cause

But this hypothesis has touched off a lively debate among physicists, electrical engineers, physiologists, biochemists and acousticians as to what actually produces the sounds that come from the ear.

One group believes that there is an active, electromechanical amplifying mechanism in the cochlea, similar in principle to electronic amplifiers, that is stimulated by an alternating electrical field produced by the stria vascularis, a tiny organ within the cochlea.


U.S. vehicle safety regulators have said the artificial intelligence system piloting a self-driving Google car could be considered the driver under federal law, a major step toward ultimately winning approval for autonomous vehicles on the roads.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration told Google, a unit of Alphabet googl , of its decision in a previously unreported Feb. 4 letter to the company posted on the agency’s website this week.

Google‘s self-driving car unit on Nov. 12 submitted a proposed design for a self-driving car that has “no need for a human driver,” the letter to Google from National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Chief Counsel Paul Hemmersbaugh said.

“NHTSA will interpret ‘driver’ in the context of Google‘s described motor vehicle design as referring to the (self-driving system), and not to any of the vehicle occupants,” NHTSA’s letter said.

“We agree with Google its (self-driving car) will not have a ‘driver’ in the traditional sense that vehicles have had drivers during the last more than one hundred years.”

Major automakers and technology companies such as Google are racing to develop and sell vehicles that can drive themselves at least part of the time.

All participants in the autonomous driving race complain that state and federal safety rules are impeding testing and eventual deployment of such vehicles. California has proposed draft rules requiring steering wheels and a licensed driver in all self-driving cars.

Karl Brauer, senior analyst for the Kelley Blue Book automotive research firm, said there were still significant legal questions surrounding autonomous vehicles.

But if “NHTSA is prepared to name artificial intelligence as a viable alternative to human-controlled vehicles, it could substantially streamline the process of putting autonomous vehicles on the road,” he said.

If the car’s computer is the driver for legal purposes, then it clears the way for Google or automakers to design vehicle systems that communicate directly with the vehicle’s artificial pilot.

In its response to Google, the federal agency offered its most comprehensive map yet of the legal obstacles to putting fully autonomous vehicles on the road. It noted existing regulations requiring some auto safety equipment can not be waived immediately, including requirements for braking systems activated by foot control.

“The next question is whether and how Google could certify that the (self-driving system) meets a standard developed and designed to apply to a vehicle with a human driver,” NHTSA said.

Google is “still evaluating” NHTSA’s lengthy response, a company spokesperson said on Tuesday. Google executives have said they would likely partner with established automakers to build self-driving cars.

Worries About People Undermining Safety

Google told NHTSA that the real danger is having auto safety features that could tempt humans to try to take control.

Google “expresses concern that providing human occupants of the vehicle with mechanisms to control things like steering, acceleration, braking… could be detrimental to safety because the human occupants could attempt to override the (self-driving system’s) decisions,” the NHTSA letter stated.

NHTSA’s Hemmersbaugh said federal regulations requiring equipment like steering wheels and brake pedals would have to be formally rewritten before Google could offer cars without those features.

For example, current federal rules require alerts on dashboards if tire pressure runs low. NHTSA said a test would need to be created that shows the vehicle computer is informed of the problem. NHTSA raised the question of whether humans in the vehicles should also be made aware.

In January, NHTSA said it may waive some vehicle safety rules to allow more driverless cars to operate on U.S. roads as part of a broader effort to speed up development of self-driving vehicles.

NHTSA said then it would write guidelines for self-driving cars within six months. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said the administration may seek new legal authority to allow deployment of autonomous vehicles “in large numbers,” when they are deemed safe, the department said.

The process of rewriting federal regulations governing the design, placement and operation of vehicle controls could take months or years. The NHTSA counsel said Google could consider applying for exemptions for certain regulations, providing NHTSA with supporting documents.

Summary: They said Google's A.I. self-piloting system could be considered a driver under federal law.


Before you go, we thought you'd like these...

Score a stronger, more toned upper body with this awesome new exercise.

Lea Michele hasn't been shy about her fitness journey. While filming Scream Queens in New Orleans, she's been sharing workout post after workout post on her Instagram account. And the benefits extend far beyond looking great: "Today @ErinRomney and I talked a lot during our session about the importance of exercise not just for your body but for your mind...and listening to your body for what you need that specific day," Lea wrote yesterday. "I'm so grateful to be feeling so strong both physically and mentally in my life right now."

The woman behind Lea's inspiring photos (and strong, toned physique) is Erin Romney, the founder of Romney, the New Orleans-based boutique studio that Lea has been frequenting. Oh, and @romneypilates' account is just as motivating—that's where we found this killer exercise, shown below.

The move works your arms, shoulders and core with a bonus lower body burner at the end. You need a set of light handweights, a BOSU ball and a pair of crazy-awesome sunglasses (kidding about that last one). If you're at home or just want to focus on your upper body, go ahead and ditch the BOSU. Ready to give it a try? Do 3-5 sets of 15 reps.

Summary: Score a stronger, more toned upper body with this awesome new exercise. Lea Michele hasn't been shy about her fitne  journey. While filming Scream Queens in New Orleans, she's been


(Originally published by the Daily News on Oct. 11, 1985. This story was written by Terri Minsky.)

Orson Welles, a man who was physically and creatively bigger than life, died at his Los Angeles home yesterday at the age of 70. His physician said Welles had been suffering from diabetes and a heart ailment but gave no specific cause of death.

Welles was a legend in his own lifetime, which turned out to be both a blessing and a curse. As a young man he was hailed as a prodigy. At 22 he was writing directing and acting in critically acclaimed Broadway plays.

As 23 he frightened millions of Americans into believing Earth had been invaded by Martians, in his radio broadcast of H.G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds.”

At 26 he made his first movie, “Citizen Kane,” which became a classic.

New York Daily News published this on Oct. 11, 1965.

In later years he failed to interest Hollywood in his projects. So out of place did he feel in a community that once had embraced him that he refused to attend the Academy Awards ceremony when he was honored in 1970.

“I’m an old Christmas tree,” he told his biographer, Barbara Leaming, “the roots of which have died. They just come along and while the little needless fall of me, replace them with medallions.”

He found himself pitching wine on television, wrapping his sonorous voice, which had given life to Othello, Macbeth and King Lear, around the words: “Paul Masson will sell no wine before its time.”

Henry Jaglom, a director who has been close friends with Welles for 15 years and helped form the Weljag production company, said yesterday that Welles recently had raised money to finance a movie of “King Lear.”

“I just had lunch with him the other day and he was very optimistic and positive about life, full of hope for the first time in a long time,” Jaglom said.

Although Welles’ movies did not make money at the time of their releases they are among the best ever made.

Besides “Citizen Kane” there was “The Lady from Shanghai,” “The Magnificent Ambersons,” “Othello” and “Touch of Evil.”

He was born May 6, 1915. His father was an unsuccessful inventor and his mother a concert pianist.

In his youth Welles was known for his precociousness. Upon graduating from his school at 16 he sailed to Ireland, where he presented himself at the Gate Theatre as a visiting actor from New York though he never had acted in New York in his life. He was immediately cast in a lead role of “Jew Suss.”

By the age of 20 he had acted in several role on Broadway and had begun his directing career under the New Deal’s works Progress Administration. He inspired controversy, staging an all-black “Macbeth” in Harlem and directing “The Cradle Will Rock,” a play about the unionization of the steel industry.

When he made “Citizen Kane” the Hollywood method of movie-making was to tell a story in linear, chronological fashion. Welles used quick cuts and flashbacks to tell the story of a wealthy man, loosely based on William Randolph Hearst, who died mysteriously whispering the word: “Rosebud.”

His height and voice made him a dashing leading man in his 20s and 30s and his prowess with women became nearly as legendary as his talent. He was married three times, first to wealthy Chicago socialite Virginia Nicholson, then to the beautiful actress Rita Hayworth and last to an Italian countess, Paolo Mori. He had a long public affair with actress Dolores Del Rio. His fondness for heavy food and drink ballooned his weight to near 300 pounds.

He made his last movie in the America, “Touch of Evil,” in 1957. Afterward he had trouble raising money in this country for his projects because he had developed a reputation for being unpredictable — his movies took too long to make and were not profitable.

He continued to look for movie financing in Europe, where he made “Chimes at Midnight” in 1960 — a pet project which wove together scenes from several Shakespearan plays. Welles cast himself as Falstaff.

Summary: Orson Welles died at his Los Angeles home at the age of 70.


Stocks fell for a third day on Monday as investors waited to see what the Federal Reserve would do with interest rates later this week and whether Britain would exit the European Union. The Fed had been expected to start raising interest rates, but now appears likely to remain in a wait-and-see mode. Its two-day meeting starts Tuesday. Last month, many investors were betting the Fed would raise interest rates, but the two most recent monthly jobs reports, which were weaker than expected, seem to have made a rate hike less likely. And stocks, particularly in Europe, remain under pressure because of investor concerns over whether Britain will remain in the European Union. A referendum vote is June 23. LinkedIn shares jumped 46,7 percent after Microsoft announced plans to buy the company. Microsoft fell 2.6 percent. Twitter shares jumped as well, by 4 percent, on speculation LinkedIn’s buyout could mean better buyout prospects for Twitter. Firearms makers climbed as investors wondered if the mass shooting in Orlando will lead to greater sales. Sturm Ruger advanced 8.5 percent, its largest one-day gain in more than a year. Smith & Wesson rose 6.9 percent. Symantec jumped 5 percent after it said it would buy another security company, Blue Coat, for $4.6 billion. Symantec was the biggest gainer in the S&P 500 on an overall down day.

Summary: Investors awaited the Fed’s decision on interest rates and the fate of Britain’s EU membership.


The bull market’s 7th birthday this week (or 112th, depending on how you look at it) may have been bittersweet—considering its best days were last May, even though it’s still technically a bull—but it was still a week worth celebrating, as the S&P 500 rose more 1% through Friday.

That puts the S&P 500 spx down just 1% year to date, and if next week is half as good as Friday was, when the index rose nearly 2%, then 2016 will finally get into green territory, and investors may actually make some money this year, just in time for spring.

Since the S&P 500 peaked on May 20 last year, however, it has still lost nearly 5%. And while many blue-chip stocks may have already begun their final descent of this 84-month-and-two-days-old bull market, several Fortune 500 companies are setting new record highs as we speak—which seems as proper a birthday celebration as any for stocks.

Top on the list is Tyson Foods tsn , whose shares are trading at an all-time high, having risen another 58% since the broader market last set a new record. The meatpacking company said last month that it also expects its profits to be higher than ever this year as consumers increase their grocery store spending and Tyson reaps more cost savings from its 2014 merger with Hillshire Brands.

Dollar General dg stock also just reached a new high after its earnings beat Wall Street’s expectations on Thursday. It has advanced 14% since the S&P 500’s peak. Campbell Soup cpb , whose shares are up 37% over the same time period, and General Mills gis are also trading at record levels.

And while some stocks are no longer as high as they were in recent days or months, they have still come a long way up while the overall market was retreating. Some notable examples include Facebook fb , Google googl and Amazon amzn , which have each risen more than 35% since the S&P 500’s record last May.

Those stocks’ best days of this bull run may be ahead of them.

Summary: Because even stocks should be at their best on their birthday.


Before you go, we thought you'd like these...

Need a vacation but have young kids at home and are worried about making it fun for both you and them? Once you've gone on one

you know it's not as easy as it seems to enjoy your personal relaxation time while entertaining your little ones. Somehow your time chilling by the pool turns into your 8-year-old fighting with his older brother and your 5-year-old begging you to go inside for juice every 5 minutes.

Yes, being a parent on vacation sometimes isn't much of a vacation at all. But the truth is, sometimes it has a lot to do with your

whether or not you fully enjoy your time away from home. After all, some destinations are better for couples and some are better for friend trips, while others are great for the family.

destinations the entire clan can enjoy.

- for a classic beach vacation

- for the safety conscious

- for those looking not to break their budget

- for those looking for breezy weather

- for those with a baby who don't want to sacrifice an adventure

5 of the best family-friendly travel destinations

(Photo by Daniel Munoz/Getty Images)

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24. Dubai, United Arab Emirates

24. Dubai, United Arab Emirates

24. Dubai, United Arab Emirates

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11. New York City, United States

11. New York City, United States

11. New York City, United States

(photo credit: daoleduc via Getty Images)

10. Cape Town Central, South Africa

(photo credit: Getty Images/Flickr RF)

10. Cape Town Central, South Africa

(photo credit: Paul Bruins Photography via Getty Images)

10. Cape Town Central, South Africa

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(photo credit: Peter Stuckings via Getty Images)

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Summary: Need a vacation but have young kids at home and are worried about making it fun for both you and them? Once you've gone on one family vacation you know it's not as easy as it seem


Law firm Quinn Emanuel has filed one of two lawsuits in Germany against Volkswagen vlkay for institutional funds in claims that could run into billions of euros over the carmaker’s emissions test cheating scandal, litigation funder Bentham Europe said on Tuesday.

“The breadth of the shareholder base that is represented by Quinn Emanuel should be a wake-up call to Volkswagen AG that it needs to engage with shareholders now, resolve matters and concentrate on regaining its market share,” said Jeremy Marshall, chief investment officer of Bentham Europe.

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The so-called ‘Dieselgate’ scandal has forced out Volkswagen’s (VW) previous chief executive, tarnished one of Germany’s most renowned corporate brands and driven down VW’s share price since it erupted last September.

Bentham Europe, which plans to publish more information after the second lawsuit is filed in Germany, said the claims related directly to the sharp fall in VW’s share price in the week beginning Sept. 21, 2015.

It said the lawsuits were representing a “true cross-section” of the investor base of the embattled company, from sovereign wealth funds and international asset managers to public and multinational company pension funds, including the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS).

VW, which is facing a handful of investor lawsuits, admitted last September it had cheated U.S. diesel emissions tests and that illegal software could be installed on up to around 11 million vehicles worldwide.

Summary: The emissions scandal has driven down VW's share price since it erupted last September


Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump has lashed out at his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton's policies and personal record, arguing that she is part of a political establishment that has undermined the US economy and national security.

In a speech in New York on Wednesday, Trump hit back at Clinton as the candidates seek to land early blows against one another in the fight for voters in the November 8 presidential election.

"We will never be able to fix a rigged system by counting on the same people who rigged it in the first place," Trump said.

He repeated accusations that Clinton's decisions as President Barack Obama's first secretary of state were influenced by donations to her family's Clinton Foundation charity, even though the State Department has said it has no evidence of any such link.

"Hillary Clinton may be the most corrupt person ever to seek the presidency of the United States," he said.

Trump accused Clinton of perfecting the politics of "personal profit and even theft".

Clinton has defended her record and said the foundation fully disclosed donation records.

On Tuesday, Clinton delivered her own blistering attack on Trump, saying that putting the real estate magnate in the White House would be a disaster for the U.S. economy.

Clinton also said Trump's plan to scrap trade deals could start "trade wars" and that the agreements should instead be renegotiated if they do not benefit American workers.

Summary: Donald Trump has lashed out at Hillary Clinton's personal record, saying the US can't fix a "rigged system by counting on the same people who rigged it".


Despite being free to strike independent trade agreement with fast-growing nations beyond the EU, where we often have deep historic links, the Treasury assumes we sign none. It is a travesty to present such chicanery as “analysis”.

Why should we respect any Treasury recommendation or forecast? The Treasury backed UK entry into the disastrous exchange rate mechanism in 1990, which led to “Black Wednesday”. The Treasury urged us to sell half our gold reserves for under $300 an ounce, after which gold rose more than six-fold.

In 2003, the Treasury “forecast” UK trade could expand by 50pc over the subsequent three decades if we joined the euro – a forecast which, given subsequent European stagnation and the cataclysmic failure that is the single currency, today looks ridiculous.

And now, the same Treasury, led by senior mandarins keen to secure a gong, or a cushy number in Brussels, have produced yet another deeply-politicized document. Intelligent people can be on opposite sides of this referendum.

Those of us backing Brexit aren’t “economically illiterate”, Mr Osborne. This Treasury document, though, including no possible Brexit benefits, and entirely ignoring the growing prospect of another systemic eurozone crisis, is deeply disingenuous – doing a disservice to our democracy.

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen”. That’s how George Orwell opened his dystopian masterpiece 1984, calling into question his entire faith in government. That’s how I felt reading through this disgraceful Treasury document.

Summary: Earlier this month, the government published a leaflet strongly urging us to vote “Remain” in the European Union – and sent it to all 27m UK households.


When I was growing up, my father would go to bed with a transistor radio set to an all-news station. Even without a radio, my father was attuned to the menace of history. A Jew born in Vienna in 1924, he fled his homeland in 1938; his parents were killed in the Holocaust. I sometimes imagined my father was listening for some repetition of past evils so that he could rectify old responses, but he may just have been expecting more bad news. In any event, the grumbling static from the bedroom depressed me, and I vowed to replace it with music more cheerfully in tune with America. These days, however, I find myself on my father's frequency. I have awakened to anti-Semitism.

I am not being chased down alleyways and called a Christ killer, I do not feel that prejudicial hiring practices will keep me out of a job and I am not afraid that the police will come and take away my family. I am, in fact, more grateful than ever that my father found refuge in this country. But in recent weeks I have been reminded, in ways too plentiful to ignore, about the role Jews play in the fantasy life of the world. Jews were not the cause of World War II, but they were at the metaphysical center of that conflict nonetheless, since the Holocaust was part of Hitler's agenda and a key motivation of his campaign. Jews are not the cause of World War III, if that's what we are facing, but they have been placed at the center of it in mysterious and disturbing ways.

I was born in 1963, a generation removed and an ocean away from the destruction of European Jewry. My mother was born here, so there was always half the family that breathed in the easy air of postwar America. You don't have to read a lot of Freud to discover that the key to healthy life is the ability to fend off reality to a certain extent. Deny reality too much, of course, and you're crazy; too little and you're merely miserable. My own private balancing act has involved acknowledging the fate of my murdered grandparents and trying to live a modern American life. I studied English literature in college and in graduate school, where I toyed with a dissertation on Milton, a Christian concerned with justifying the ways of God to man. I dropped out of graduate school to become a writer, but I always felt about my life in America what Milton says of Adam and Eve entering exile -- the world was all before me.

Living in New York, pursuing my writing life, I had the world forever all before me. I chose within it -- I married and had a child. For 10 years I worked at a Jewish newspaper. But my sense of endless American possibility never left me -- even working at a Jewish newspaper seemed a paradoxical assertion of American comfort. My father's refugee sense of the world was something that both informed me and that I worked to define myself against. I felt it was an act of mental health to recognize that his world was not my world and that his fears were the product of an experience alien to me. I was critical of the Holocaust Museum in Washington. I didn't want ancient European anti-Semitism enshrined on federal land. But now everything has come to American soil.

Recently, I read an interview with Sheik Muhammad Gemeaha -- who was not only the representative in the United States of the prominent Cairo center of Islamic learning, al-Azhar University, but also imam of the Islamic Cultural Center of New York City. The sheik, who until recently lived in Manhattan on the Upper West Side, explained that ''only the Jews'' were capable of destroying the World Trade Center and added that ''if it became known to the American people, they would have done to Jews what Hitler did.'' This sentiment will be familiar to anyone who has been watching the news or reading the papers. In Kuwait, there were reports that New York rabbis told their followers to take their money out of the stock market before Sept. 11; in Egypt, the Mossad was blamed for the attack. It is easy talk to dismiss as madness, I suppose, but because so many millions of Muslims seem to believe it, and because airplanes actually did crash into the World Trade Center, words have a different weight and menace than they had before.

So does history, or rather the forces that shape history -- particularly the history of the Jews. It would be wrong to say that everything changed on the 11th of September for me. Like the man in the Hemingway novel who went bankrupt two ways -- gradually and then suddenly -- my awareness of things had also been growing slowly. My father's sister escaped in the 1930's from Vienna to Palestine -- now, of course, called Israel -- and I have a lot of family there. I grew up knowing that Israel, for all its vitality, was ringed with enemies; I knew how perilous and bleak life had become after the collapse of the Oslo peace process a year ago and how perilous and bleak it could be before that.

I knew, too, that works like the ''Protocols of the Elders of Zion,'' the Russian forgery about demonic Jewish power, have been imported into Arab society, like obsolete but deadly Soviet weapons. By grafting ancient Christian calumnies onto modern political grievances, Arab governments have transformed Israel into an outpost of malevolent world Jewry, viewing Israelis and Jews as interchangeable emblems of cosmic evil. So when the Syrian defense minister recently told a delegation from the British Royal College of Defense Studies that the destruction of the World Trade Center was part of a Jewish conspiracy, I wasn't really surprised.

I'd gotten a whiff of this back in early September, while following the United Nations conference on racism and discrimination in Durban, South Africa, where the Arab Lawyers Union distributed booklets at the conference containing anti-Semitic caricatures of Jews with fangs dripping blood -- a mere sideshow to the isolation of Israel and the equating of Zionism with racism that ultimately led to the United States' withdrawal. Singling out Israel made of a modern nation an archetypal villain -- Jews were the problem and the countries of the world were figuring out the solution. This was hardly new in the history of the United Nations, but there was something so naked about the resurrected Nazi propaganda and the anti-Semitism fueling the political denunciations that I felt kidnapped by history. The past had come calling.

I felt this in a different form reading coverage of Israel in European papers. Though public expressions of anti-Semitism are taboo in a post-Holocaust world, many Europeans, in writing about Israel, have felt free to conjure images of determined child killers and mass murderers. Earlier this year, the Spanish daily La Vanguardia published a cartoon depicting a large building labeled ''Museum of the Jewish Holocaust'' and behind it a building under construction labeled ''Future Museum of the Palestinian Holocaust.'' The cartoon manages to demonize Jews and trivialize the Holocaust simultaneously. Tom Gross, an Israel-based journalist, recently pointed out to me that a BBC correspondent, Hilary Andersson, declared that to describe adequately the outrage of Israel's murder of Palestinian children one would have to reach back to Herod's slaughter of the innocents -- alluding to Herod's attempt to kill Christ in the cradle by massacring Jewish babies. After leading an editor from The Guardian on a tour of the occupied territories, Gross was astonished at the resulting front-page editorial in that highly influential British paper declaring that the establishment of Israel has exacted such a high moral price that ''the international community cannot support this cost indefinitely.''

I understood that the editorial, speaking of the cost of the establishment of Israel -- not of any particular policies -- implied that Israel's very right to exist is somehow still at issue. (One cannot imagine something similar being formulated about, say, Russia, in response to its battle with Chechen rebels, however much The Guardian might have disagreed with that country's policies.) And this reminded me inevitably of the situation of the Jews in 1940's Europe, where simply to be was an unpardonable crime.

I had somehow believed that the Jewish Question, which so obsessed both Jews and anti-Semites in the 19th and 20th centuries, had been solved -- most horribly by Hitler's ''final solution,'' most hopefully by Zionism. But more and more I feel Jews being turned into a question mark once again. How is it, the world still asks -- about Israel, about Jews, about me -- that you are still here? I have always known that much of the world wanted Jews simply to disappear, but there are degrees of knowledge, and after Sept. 11 my imagination seems more terribly able to imagine a world of rhetoric fulfilled.

There are five million Jews in Israel and eight million more Jews in the rest of the world. There are one billion Muslims. How has it happened that Israel and ''world Jewry,'' along with the United States, is the enemy of so many of them? To be singled out inside a singled-out country is doubly disconcerting. There are a lot of reasons why modernizing, secularizing, globalizing America, whose every decision has universal impact, would disturb large swaths of the world; we are, after all, a superpower. Surely it is stranger that Jews, by their mere presence in the world, would unleash such hysteria.

And yet what I kept hearing in those first days in the aftermath of the attack on the World Trade Center is that it was our support of Israel that had somehow brought this devastation down on us. It was a kind of respectable variant of the belief that the Mossad had literally blown up the World Trade Center. It could of course be parried -- after all, the turning point in Osama bin Laden's hatred of the United States came during the gulf war, when American troops were stationed in Saudi Arabia. But it had a lingering effect; it was hard to avoid a certain feeling that there was something almost magical about Israel that made it toxic for friends and foes alike.

This feeling will not go away, if only because our support of that nation makes it harder to maintain our coalition. Israel has somehow become an obstacle to war and an obstacle to peace simultaneously.

Lately, of course, bin Laden has added treatment of Palestinians to his list of grievances, and this may revive the sense that Israel bears some measure of responsibility. Large lies can be constructed out of smaller truths. The occupation of the West Bank by Israel, though it grew out of a war Israel did not want, has been a nightmare for the Palestinians and a disaster for Israel morally, politically and spiritually. It is a peculiar misery to feel this way and to feel, at the same time, that the situation has become a weapon in the war against Israel. Bin Laden would not want a Palestinian state on the West Bank, because he could not abide a Jewish state alongside it.

Neither could many of our allies in the Muslim world, who keep euphemistically suggesting that if only the ''Mideast crisis'' were resolved, terrorism would diminish. It has a plausible veneer -- and indeed, it would be an extraordinary achievement if the Palestinians got a homeland and Israel got safe borders. But since most of the players in the Middle East do not accept the existence of Israel, since ''solving the Mideast crisis'' would for them entail a modern version of Hitler's final solution, the phrase takes on weird and even sinister overtones when it is blandly employed by well-intentioned governments calling for a speedy solution. And this Orwellian transformation of language is one of the most exasperating and disorienting aspects of the campaign against Israel. It has turned the word ''peace'' into a euphemism for war.

I grew up in a post-Holocaust world. For all the grim weight of that burden, and for all its echoing emptiness, there was a weird sort of safety in it too. After all, the worst thing had already happened -- everything else was aftermath. In the wake of the Holocaust, American anti-Semitism dissipated, the church expunged old calumnies. The horror had been sufficient to shock even countries like the Soviet Union into supporting a newly declared Jewish state. Israel after 1967 was a powerful nation -- besieged, but secure. American Jews were safe as houses.

I am not writing this essay to predict some inevitable calamity but to identify a change of mood. To say aloud that European anti-Semitism, which made the Holocaust possible, is still shaping the way Jews are perceived; Arab anti-Israel propaganda has joined hands with it and found a home in the embattled Muslim world. Something terrible has been born. What happened on Sept. 11 is proof, as if we needed it, that people who threaten evil intend evil. This comes with the dawning awareness that weapons of mass destruction did not vanish with the Soviet Union; the knowledge that in fact they may pose a greater threat of actually being used in this century, if only in a limited fashion, is sinking in only now.

That a solution to one century's Jewish problem has become another century's Jewish problem is a cruel paradox. This tragedy has intensified to such a degree that friends, supporters of Israel, have wondered aloud to me if the time has come to acknowledge that the Israeli experiment has failed, that there is something in the enterprise itself that doomed it. This is the thinking of despair. I suppose one could wonder as much about America in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, since many American values will now be challenged and since, in fighting a war, you always become a little like your enemy, if only in accepting the need to kill. I grew up at a time when sex education was considered essential but what might be called war education, what a country must do to survive, was looked upon with a kind of prudish horror. I suppose that will now change. In any event, Israel has been at war for 50 years. Without that context, clear judgment is impossible, especially by those accustomed to the Holocaust notion that Jews in war are nothing but helpless victims -- a standard that can make images to the contrary seem aberrant.

I have a different way of looking at the Israeli experiment than my friends who wonder about its failure. It is connected to how I look at the fate of European Jewry. When the Jews of Europe were murdered in the Holocaust, one might have concluded that European Judaism failed -- to defend itself, to anticipate evil, to make itself acceptable to the world around it, to pack up and leave. But one could also conclude in a deeper way that Christian Europe failed -- to accept the existence of Jews in their midst, and it has been marked ever since, and will be for all time, with this blot on its culture. Israel is a test of its neighbors as much as its neighbors are a test for Israel. If the Israeli experiment fails, then Islam will have failed, and so will the Christian culture that plays a shaping role in that part of the region.

I am fearful of sounding as though I believe that the Holocaust is going to replay itself in some simplified fashion -- that my childhood fantasy for my father is true for me, and it is I who am straining to hear Hitler's voice break over the radio. I do not. Israel has a potent, modern army. But so does the United States, and it has proved vulnerable to attack, raising other fears. The United States spans a continent, and its survival is not in doubt. But experts who warn us about American vulnerability refer to areas the size of entire states that will become contaminated if a nuclear reactor is struck by a plane. Israel is smaller than New Jersey.

I am aware that an obsession with the Holocaust is seen as somehow unbecoming and, when speaking of modern politics, viewed almost as a matter of bad taste if not bad history. I do not wish to elide Israel's political flaws by invoking the Holocaust. But that very reluctance has been exploited and perverted in a way that makes me disregard it. ''Six million Jews died?'' the mufti of Jerusalem, a Palestinian Authority appointee, remarked last year. ''Let us desist from this fairy tale exploited by Israel to buy international solidarity.'' (The utterance is particularly egregious because the mufti's predecessor paid an admiring visit to Hitler in 1941.) The demonizing language that is used about Israel in some of the European press, and about Jews in the Arab press, is reminiscent of Europe in the 1930's. I grew up thinking I was living in the post-Holocaust world and find it sounds more and more like a pre-Holocaust world as well.

Ten years ago, I interviewed Saul Bellow in Chicago and in the course of the interview asked him if there was anything he regretted. He told me that he now felt, looking back on his career, that he had not been sufficiently mindful of the Holocaust. This surprised me because one of his novels, ''Mr. Sammler's Planet,'' is actually about a Holocaust survivor. But Bellow recalled writing ''The Adventures of Augie March'' -- the grand freewheeling novel that made his reputation -- in Paris in the late 1940's. Holocaust survivors were everywhere, Bellow told me, and, as a Yiddish speaker, he had access to the terrible truths they harbored. But, as Bellow put it, he was not in the mood to listen. ''I wanted my American seven-layer cake,'' he told me. He did not wish to burden his writing at that early moment in his career with the encumbering weight of Jewish history. ''Augie March'' begins, exuberantly, ''I am an American.''

I, too, want my American seven-layer cake, even if the cake has collapsed a little in recent weeks. There is no pleasure in feeling reclaimed by the awfulness of history and in feeling myself at odds with the large universalist temper of our society. Thinking about it makes me feel old, exhausted and angry.

In the Second World War, American Jews muted their separate Jewish concerns for the good of the larger struggle to liberate Europe. I understand the psychological urge to feel in sync with American aims. But Israel sticks out in this crisis as European Jewry stuck out in World War II, forcing a secondary level of Jewish consciousness, particularly because the anti-Zionism of the Arab world has adopted the generalized anti-Semitism of the European world.

The danger to America, which has already befallen us, and the danger to Israel, which so far remains primarily rhetorical, are, of course, connected. And though it is false to imagine that if Israel did not exist America would not have its enemies, people making the link are intuiting something beyond the simple fact that both are Western democracies.

In ''Cultures in Conflict: Christians, Muslims and Jews in the Age of Discovery,'' Bernard Lewis points out that after Christians reconquered Spain from the Muslims in the 15th century, they decided to expel the Jews before the Muslims. The reason for this, Lewis explains, is that although the Jews had no army and posed far less of a political threat than the Muslims, they posed a far greater theological challenge. This is because Jews believed that adherents of other faiths could find their own path to God. Christianity and Islam, which cast unbelievers as infidels, did not share this essential religious relativism. The rabbinic interpretation of monotheism, which in seeing all human beings as created in God's image recognized their inherent equality, may well contain the seeds of the very democratic principles that the terrorists of Sept. 11 found so intolerable.

Is it any wonder that in the minds of the terrorists and their fundamentalist defenders, Americans and Jews have an unholy alliance? Expressing my separate Jewish concerns does not put me at odds with our pluralistic society -- it puts me in tune with it, since it is here of all places that I am free to express all my identities -- American, Jewish, Zionist. And if Jews kicked out of Spain clung, at peril of death, to a religion with such an ultimately inclusive faith in the redeemable nature of humanity, who I am to reject that view? Perhaps the optimistic American half of my inheritance isn't at odds with the darker Jewish component after all. In this regard, the double consciousness that has burdened my response to our new war need not feel like a division. On the contrary, it redoubles my patriotism and steels me for the struggle ahead.


Windows 10 auto-upgrades are like a sick, cruel joke being played on us by this point. Most stories that start with “My Windows 10 PC auto-upgraded” tend to end with “and then all my data was lost,” but this particular version has a happy ending, because it involves Microsoft paying out a lot of money.

A California woman has won $10,000 from Microsoft, after the tech giant gave up challenging a court case. Teri Goldstein alleges that after her computer was upgraded to Windows 10, it became slow and unreliable.

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“I had never heard of Windows 10,” Goldstein said. “Nobody ever asked me if I wanted to update.”

Goldstein subsequently took Microsoft to court, suing for lost wages and the cost of a new computer (running OS X, I hope). Goldstein won the initial court case, and although Microsoft initially appealed, it just dropped that case. So Goldstein should be seeing a $10,000 check show up from Microsoft sometime soon.

In a statement to the Seattle Times, Microsoft said that “we’re continuing to listen to customer feedback and evolve the upgrade experience based on their feedback.”

As well as being a great Monday morning story of justice, the ruling has to be worrying for Microsoft. Ever since Windows 10 upgrades became more pushy (bordering on “malware” in some cases), horror stories of Windows 10 upgrades gone wrong have been doing the rounds of the internet. If even a tenth of affected customers can get a payout on the level of Tori Goldstein, this might be the most costly software update in history.

This article originally appeared on BGR.

Summary: Windows 10 auto-upgrades are like a sick, cruel joke being played on us by this point. Most stories that start with “My Windows 10 PC auto-upgraded” tend to end with “and then all my data was lost,…