Photo: Santiago Mejia, Special To The Chronicle

Cade Becker gets ready before the 51st annual Piedmont High School bird-calling contest on Tuesday, May 24, 2016 in Piedmont, Calif. Becker and Elie Docter, right, hosted the contest.

Cade Becker gets ready before the 51st annual Piedmont High School bird-calling contest on Tuesday, May 24, 2016 in Piedmont, Calif. Becker and Elie Docter, right, hosted the contest.

From left: Alec Opdyke, Vivian Anable Eme and Katherine Irving rehearse the American/Caribbean Flamingo bird call before the 51st annual Piedmont High School bird-calling contest on Tuesday, May 24, 2016 in Piedmont, Calif.

From left: Alec Opdyke, Vivian Anable Eme and Katherine Irving rehearse the American/Caribbean Flamingo bird call before the 51st annual Piedmont High School bird-calling contest on Tuesday, May 24, 2016 in

Sophomores Kay Sibal, left, and Maya Guzdar deliver their winning willow ptarmigan call. “I just think this entire thing is funny,” Sibal said afterward.

Sophomores Kay Sibal, left, and Maya Guzdar deliver their winning willow ptarmigan call. “I just think this entire thing is funny,” Sibal said afterward.

Audience members laugh during the 51st annual Piedmont High School bird-calling contest on Tuesday, May 24, 2016 in Piedmont, Calif.

Audience members laugh during the 51st annual Piedmont High School bird-calling contest on Tuesday, May 24, 2016 in Piedmont, Calif.

Maya Guzdar, left, and Kay Sibal react as they win first place during the 51st annual Piedmont High School bird-calling contest on Tuesday, May 24, 2016 in Piedmont, Calif. The duo won with their Willow Ptarmigan call.

Maya Guzdar, left, and Kay Sibal react as they win first place during the 51st annual Piedmont High School bird-calling contest on Tuesday, May 24, 2016 in Piedmont, Calif. The duo won with their Willow

Bryn Lawson performs during the 51st annual Piedmont High School bird-calling contest on Tuesday, May 24, 2016 in Piedmont, Calif. The team imitated the Lyrebird call.

Bryn Lawson performs during the 51st annual Piedmont High School bird-calling contest on Tuesday, May 24, 2016 in Piedmont, Calif. The team imitated the Lyrebird call.

Grace Foster, center, attaches paper-bird feathers to Bryn Lawson, left, as Krystyna Olszewska watches before the 51st annual Piedmont High School bird-calling contest on Tuesday, May 24, 2016 in Piedmont, Calif. The team imitated the Lyrebird call.

Grace Foster, center, attaches paper-bird feathers to Bryn Lawson, left, as Krystyna Olszewska watches before the 51st annual Piedmont High School bird-calling contest on Tuesday, May 24, 2016 in Piedmont,

Timothy Harkins, left, and Ting Hsu Engelman laugh as they judge the 51st annual Piedmont High School bird-calling contest on Tuesday, May 24, 2016 in Piedmont, Calif.

Timothy Harkins, left, and Ting Hsu Engelman laugh as they judge the 51st annual Piedmont High School bird-calling contest on Tuesday, May 24, 2016 in Piedmont, Calif.

Maya Guzdar, center, and Kay Sibal, right, react as they are presented with the first-place trophy during the 51st annual Piedmont High School bird-calling contest on Tuesday, May 24, 2016 in Piedmont, Calif. The duo won with their Willow Ptarmigan call.

Maya Guzdar, center, and Kay Sibal, right, react as they are presented with the first-place trophy during the 51st annual Piedmont High School bird-calling contest on Tuesday, May 24, 2016 in Piedmont, Calif.

Participants rally before the 51st annual Piedmont High School bird-calling contest on Tuesday, May 24, 2016 in Piedmont, Calif.

Participants rally before the 51st annual Piedmont High School bird-calling contest on Tuesday, May 24, 2016 in Piedmont, Calif.

Elizabeth Jordan laughs as she holds her five-year-old daughter, Joy Jordan-Thobe, as they watch the 51st annual Piedmont High School bird-calling contest on Tuesday, May 24, 2016 in Piedmont, Calif. Jordan, a graduate of the school, said her father, Jay Knowland, won the first held contest.

Elizabeth Jordan laughs as she holds her five-year-old daughter, Joy Jordan-Thobe, as they watch the 51st annual Piedmont High School bird-calling contest on Tuesday, May 24, 2016 in Piedmont, Calif. Jordan, a

Audience members who packed Piedmont High School’s auditorium seemed to enjoy the 51st annual bird-calling contest Tuesday night. Two sophomores took home top honors.

Audience members who packed Piedmont High School’s auditorium seemed to enjoy the 51st annual bird-calling contest Tuesday night. Two sophomores took home top honors.

Bird callers flock to Piedmont High’s squawk contest

It’s the first time in years they don’t have a deal lined up to perform for a national audience on late-night TV, but that didn’t ruffle the feathers of students competing in Piedmont High School’s yearly bird-calling contest.

Participants squawked, chirped and hollered with as much comedic intensity and questionable scientific accuracy as ever Tuesday night at the 51st annual contest.

In years past, winning students made appearances on “The Tonight Show” and the “Late Show with David Letterman.” With Letterman’s retirement, a deal has yet to be struck with another late-night host to showcase their feistiest fowl cries.

But there was still an auditorium full of fans to impress at Piedmont High, and sophomores Maya Guzdar and Kay Sibal made the most of the opportunity as they earned first place with their willow ptarmigan bird call.

As the final act of the night they portrayed a baby bird and its mother singing together in Brazil, where they had flown, mistakenly thinking they were headed for the Winter Olympics.

It could be they scored points with the judges — faculty members Ting Hsu Engelman and Tim Harkins, and ecologist Scott Terrill — by coming up with the only sketch that directly touched on this year’s contest theme, the Olympics. It was the first time the event had an official theme.

“We’re feeling like bird brains right now,” Guzdar said after the win. “We were not expecting any of this at all. Normally, underclassmen do not get first or anything.”

In second place, students Anna Campbell and Koyuki Narter imitated the northern pintail at the end of a sketch riffing on “The Sound of Music.” They had squawked out a parody of “Sixteen Going on Seventeen.”

Third place went to Andrew Collins, Laine Ratzer, and Katie St. Claire for a “hawkward” bit about two female snowy egrets fighting over a male.

The hosts of the event joked about this year’s absence of Hollywood glamour.

“Why am I here? Why is anyone here? I thought Letterman would be watching this right now,” said Cade Becker, one of the masters of ceremony. “So this year, the students are performing for the sole purpose to look like idiots in front of us?”

The audience laughed at the good-natured jabs. There’s a chance an agreement will be reached with a TV show to let the winners perform, but most students simply enjoyed entertaining the capacity crowd.

“I just think this entire thing is funny,” said co-winner Sibal, dismissing the importance of a spot on TV. “We’re not sure if we’re going or where we’re going. It doesn’t really matter.”

Jenna Lyons is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jlyons@sfchronicle.com Twitter: JennaJourno

To view videos of performances by the Piedmont High School bird-call winners and other contestants, go to sfchronicle.com.

Summary: Bird callers flock to Piedmont High’s squawk contest  Participants squawked, chirped and hollered with as much comedic intensity and questionable scientific accuracy as ever Tuesday night at the 51st annual contest.  With Letterman’s retirement, a deal has yet to be struck with another late-night host to showcase their feistiest fowl cries.  [...] there was still an auditorium full of fans to impress at Piedmont High, and sophomores Maya Guzdar and Kay Sibal made the most of the opportunity as they earned first place with their willow ptarmigan bird call.  [...] place went to Andrew Collins, Laine Ratzer, and  Katie St. Claire for a “hawkward” bit about two female snowy egrets fighting over a male.  [...] this year, the students are performing for the sole purpose to look like idiots in front of us?  There’s a chance an agreement will be reached with a TV show to let the winners perform, but most students simply enjoyed entertaining the capacity crowd.  To view videos of performances by the Piedmont High School bird-call winners and other contestants, go to sfchronicle.com.


On Friday, TomKat jumped the couch. Katie Holmes filed for divorce from Tom Cruise after 5 1/2 years of marriage. Best-selling biographer Andrew Morton, author of “Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography” (St. Martins Press), explains why it was a true Hollywood romance — because from the beginning, Holmes was playing a part.

When Tom Cruise turned 42, his best friend, controversial Scientology leader David Miscavige, threw a lavish birthday party, costing an estimated $300,000, on board the church’s cruise ship.

He flew in singers, dancers and even Tom’s favorite sushi chefs for the bash, where the actor was serenaded with the medley of songs from his box-office hits.

“It’s the best birthday ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, and I mean ever,” he said, with typical understatement.

Tuesday, Tom’s 50th birthday, will lack some “evers.” He will be in his trailer in the wilds of Iceland, where he is filming the aptly named “Oblivion.” Instead of the expected cards and presents from Katie Holmes, she sent him a confetti of legal papers and correspondence marking the end of their five-year marriage.

PHOTOS: TOM CRUISE AND KATIE HOLMES

KATIE PLOTTED ESCAPE FOR WEEKS

At least one thing he knows he’ll get is a call from Miscavige, to congratulate and console. Wives may come and go. Scientology is forever.

Holmes’ bombshell, in the midst of his international publicity campaign for “Rock of Ages,” in which he stars as an aging singer, shows exquisite if cruel timing. Tom has admitted he was “blindsided” by her decision, just as Nicole Kidman, his second wife, was stunned when he abruptly decided to end their 10-year marriage even though she was pregnant.

As a leading member of a religion founded by science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, Cruise doesn’t believe in karma. But Katie’s carefully executed escape plan means that, deliberately or not, she is getting one back for the sisterhood.

When he and Kidman divorced, Cruise effectively gained custody of their adopted children, Connor and Isabella. This time, however, Cruise has no such guarantees.

Holmes, presumably with the advice of her lawyer father, Martin Holmes, is playing hardball. She has hired a legal pit bull, New York lawyer Allan E. Mayefsky, who has been involved in several vicious splits, including the divorce of model Christie Brinkley. She wants full custody of Suri, the 6-year-old daughter Cruise dotes on.

Suri’s future education — whether in the rituals of Scientology, like her step-brother and -sister, or a more conventional avenue — will be a critical concern.

“Katie doesn’t want Suri getting deeper into the cult,” sources tell me.

Suri is now at an age where she will face frequent formal interrogation about her behavior, what Scientologists call “sec checking.” In the fight for the heart and mind of Suri, her future religion — Katie was raised a Catholic — will be critical.

Like Nicole before her, Katie will now not just be Tom’s foe, but also considered an enemy of the Church of Scientology. When news leaked of the breakup, former high-ranking leaders of Scientology contacted me to say: “We told you so.” Since the beginning of the TomKat love fest, which began with the diminutive actor bouncing up and down on Oprah’s couch, they have known that the romance was as carefully choreographed by Scientology as his 42nd birthday party.

Even their prenup had, according to Scientology insiders, a series of mileposts where Katie would receive bonuses for how long she stayed with the actor. She received $3 million for every year of service, sources said — with a big bonus if she gave him children.

In the months before they married, they claimed Katie had signed up for a five-year contract. Well, those five years are now up — the couple married in November 2006.

For Katie to leave in this way — she made the announcement to a “saddened” Tom — shows how badly she wants out. Holmes saw what happened to her predecessor.

When the man dubbed “Tom Terrific” dumped Nicole Kidman in early 2001, she learned that she had been written out of the script of his life by his lawyer, rather than in a face-to-face conversation.

Kidman was toast the moment she said in an interview that she embraced a number of religions, not just Scientology. Given the fact that her father is a psychiatrist — deemed to be the mortal enemies of Scientology — she was already suspect. These public pronouncements put her beyond the pale. For the church’s most prominent poster boy, his partner had to be a Scientologist.

After Nicole, the search was on for a new partner for Tom Terrific. It didn’t take long. Sparks had already flown between the actor and his new leading lady, Penelope Cruz, during the making of “Vanilla Sky.” She was groomed as Kidman’s successor. He took the Spanish actress to Scientology’s Celebrity Centre in Hollywood and encouraged her to take a few courses.

While Penelope studiously read Scientology texts and attended auditing courses — the equivalent of a confessional — she was never really committed.

“I have great respect for all religions, but I do not intend to join any of them at the moment,” she said tactfully, but fatally for her chances of marrying the Scientologist leading man.

When their relationship officially ended in 2004, no one was happier than her father, Eduardo, who had secretly been in touch with an organization based in Germany — the most hostile European country to Scientology — which helps members of cults and their families.

After the Cruz breakup, the lovelorn actor turned to his best friend, Scientology leader Miscavige, for help in finding a new wife. The diminutive church boss, who has a notoriously volcanic temper, became irritated with constant calls from Tom. As the head of a multibillion-dollar operation, he felt it was below him to be seeking out women for the Hollywood star. He deputized his wife, Shelly, to take over the task.

The first girl she chose seemed ideal. She was a Sea Org member, that is to say committed to working full time for Scientology. The girl found herself “running into” Cruise, all the while thinking she was auditioning for a part in a movie. She dated Cruise a couple of times but then asked Scientology spokesman Tommy Davis, the son of actress Anne Archer, if she was being deliberately “set up.”

Her reward was to be told by Davis on Cruise’s behalf that the relationship was over. Then, according to friends, she was sent to a top security Scientology base and forced to scrub public bathroom floors with a toothbrush as punishment for messing up her assignment.

Tom had already moved on, briefly romancing 19-year-old actress Yolanda Pecoraro, whose only claim to fame was appearing as a bikini babe in the TV drama “Dr. Vegas.” She did, though, bear a remarkable resemblance to Penelope Cruz. The daughter of a Nicaraguan mother and Italian father, she had been a Scientologist since the age of 13 and was by the side of the actor when he received a special Scientology award in November 2004.

When that hookup bit the dust, he gave Scientology leaders a wish list of women he would like to date. They included Jennifer Garner and the up-and-coming actress Sofia Vergara.

When Vergara got an invitation from Cruise’s friend Will Smith to attend a pre-Oscar party, she had no idea she was being set up. She was dazzled by Tom’s megawatt smile and amused by the blizzard of phone calls, flowers and chocolates that followed their first meeting.

It was not long before he casually suggested they head for Celebrity Centre where, surprise, surprise, Miscavige was waiting to layer on the charm. It soon became clear that she was being auditioned for the biggest role of her life — Mrs. Tom Cruise Mark III. It was made clear that if she took the part, she would have to renounce her Catholic faith and convert to Scientology.

“She was fundamentally terrified of Scientology,” a friend told me. “She sincerely believed that she would be struck down by God and burn in hell if she joined.”

Exit Sofia — running for the hills.

After that debacle, the church went into overdrive to find him a partner. They put out a casting call for possible brides, telling them that there was an upcoming Cruise movie they might get a part in. Former Scientologist Marc Headley, who filmed many of the auditions, recalls that first they rounded up Scientology actresses like Erika Christensen, Erica Howard and Sofia Milos. None was deemed acceptable.

They were looking for a woman who would accept the teachings of Scientology, but who would also look good on Tom’s arm — and not make too many waves.

“They had to look outside the herd, so to speak. They went for Jennifer Garner, Scarlett Johansson and Jessica Alba, in that order. Jennifer and Jessica didn’t bite, but Scarlett took the bait and came in for an audition. When she arrived at the address and found out it was the Scientology center in Hollywood, she freaked out and didn’t do a tape.”

Finally, the Scientology casting crew hit on Katie Holmes, then 26, after they read an interview in which she said she would like to marry Tom. A senior Scientologist was sent to New York to give her the once-over. He liked what he saw.

She must have been thrilled. Ever since she was a little girl, she had told her three older sisters that she was going to marry Tom and live in a beautiful mansion where she would start the day by sliding from her bedroom into her own swimming pool.

Their first meeting was right out of the Cruise book of romance. He took her on a motorcycle ride to the beach at Santa Monica, later sending a limousine filled with chocolates and flowers to her apartment.

“I was in love from the moment I shook his hand,” she later gushed. In the coming months, the former star of “Dawson’s Creek” would turn gushing into an art form.

Tom, meanwhile, was bouncing up and down — literally. Vergara watched their antics from a distance, and thanked her lucky stars. “She had a narrow escape,” recalled a friend. “She privately pitied the poor girl. Katie is a much weaker, more innocent person than Sofia.”

It had been only six weeks since Katie had broken off her engagement with actor Chris Klein, and now she was falling into marriage with a star 17 years her senior. Her family and friends watched in horror as they saw the normally vivacious woman turn into a Stepford Wife, silent, dutiful and stooping. She was now nicknamed “Dead Eye” Holmes, the young actress cocooned by Scientology handlers wherever she went.

Katie may now regret signing in June 2005 a comprehensive contract with Scientology. But the reward was a proposal on top of the Eiffel Tower and marriage in an Italian castle in November 2006.

In her rare interviews since, her responses are brief, guarded and inconsequential, endlessly repeating the numbing mantra that her life is “magical.”

But, hey, presto, the magic has worn off. Hollywood’s modern-day Snow White has woken from her dream. While she and her family face whatever hocus-pocus Cruise and Scientology try on them, the search will be on for Mrs. Cruise Mark IV.

Summary: ( )On Friday, TomKat jumped the couch. Katie Holmes filed for divorce from Tom Cruise after 5 1/2 years of marriage. Best-selling biographer Andrew Morton, author of “Tom Cruise: An Unauthori…


In contrast, Ajax made wholesale changes and the only outfield department to emerge unscathed was the attacking partnership of Nikos Machlas and Shota Arveladze, the Georgian having scored the goal which kept Ajax's frail hopes of progress alive.

Having been pulled apart in a 4-4-2 formation at home, Ajax ended the first game playing a match-up against Celtic and extended the tactic into the next instalment of the tie, with both sides using a 3-4-1-2 deployment.

It was evident immediately that this arrangement made Ajax considerably more potent, especially as Celtic steadily withdrew into their own territory, defending needlessly deep - proof of how seriously Martin O'Neill's men were taking the Dutch threat.

Only once in the first half did Jackie McNamara get ahead of his attackers into the box and that was to chase an angled pass from Henrik larsson that was played too near to Fred Grim.

Another declaration of intent was signalled when Abuhakari Yakuba was cautioned for a wild lunge at Larsson as Ajax showed their intention of salvaging their pride if not the tie.

To add to the mounting anxiety around Celtic Park, Ajax twice got into the vulnerable area behind Didier Agathe on the Celtic right, first to free Arveladze and then to spring Rafael Van der Vaart.

Wamberto, who was playing behind the Ajax front pair in the equivalent role to McNamara, proved considerably more effective at pushing into he box and he forced goalkeeper Robert Douglas into a frantic blocking save when he was allowed a free shot after 20 minutes.

Celtic survived but failed to learn the necessary lesson and paid the price on the half-hour. Again Wamberto wriggled through the Celtic back line, eluding Valgaeren before ramming a rising drive past Douglas.

Suddenly, Celtic's position looked much less assured and composure was required urgently but not only were they failing to make ground on the flanks, they were making trouble for themselves on the left where Steve Guppy looked very uncomfortable.

When he gave the ball away two minutes after Ajax scored he invited them to do so again. Ajax picked out Van der Vaart, who stung Douglas's palms as the goalkeeper turned the ball away.

Celtic's single clear opportunity of the opening 45 minutes came from a corner kick, which saw Sutton's header booted clear almost on the line by Christian Chivu.

An explosive moment arrived almost on the interval when Van der Vaart, maddened by a nipping challenge by Neil Lennon, booted Paul Lambert and was cautioned.

Ajax still needed to score two more goals in the next 45 minutes and Celtic had to dig deep to stop the flow and their nervous fans did their best to spur them on.

Summary: Celtic (0) 0 Ajax (1) 1 (Agg 3-2)             Celtic reached the group stage of the Champions League for the first time after an edgy encounter with Ajax at a packed Celtic Park last night - but not in the manner that their partisans in the 60,000 crowd had anticipated


Irina Shayk and Bradley Cooper

07/20/2016 AT 07:55 PM EDT

, put their beach bodies on display while on vacation in Lake Garda, Italy.

star, still sporting a thick beard, looked toned and muscular in a black bathing suit after taking a swim with his blue goggles. Shayk, meanwhile, was stunning as she put her assets on display in an itsy-bitsy black bikini.

The globetrotting couple of nearly two years, who were recently spotted together

, vacationed in Italy this time last year. The pair

kissing and cuddling on the peddle beaches of the Amalfi Coast last August.

Cooper, 41, and Shayk, 30, also shared some European PDA back in March during a romantic night out at the L'Oreal Red Obsession Party in Paris. The duo were all smiles as they mingled with guests, with Cooper keeping his hand securely around his girlfriend's waist.

The couple were first linked in April 2015, but even before taking to social media as a couple they

about their relationship. They made their first public appearance as a couple in early March while attending a Paris Fashion Week event.

Summary: Bradley Cooper and Irina Shayk looked stunning on vacation in Italy


Geographic information systems aren’t exactly new. Drugstore chain Walgreens has used the technology for close to 15 years for market planning.

More recently, however, the company has endowed that visual information with location-specific data—and published far more broadly, so that store managers and its corporate real estate team can use it for planning.

The system, called WalMap, can be used to visualize local community trends. A spike in flu medication prescriptions could help store managers decide earlier to order more vaccine, preventing shortages. Walgreens sales executives can reference trends in supplier conversations. Plus, the interactive maps can be used by the corporate planning team to determine the best place for a new store, based on community demographics, competitor information, and sales trend information. They can even be viewed on an iPad.

“Ten years, our teams had to print out a map and take it with them. Now they can bring their mobile device, and have access to updated sales, demographics and other targeted information,” said Jillian Elder, director of enterprise location intelligence for Walgreens WBA .

Occasionally the maps serve a higher purpose. Managers in Texas in September were able to help local authorities predict the next targets for a local crime spree. “With some of our visualizations, we were able to put a stop to this,” Elder said.

Walgreens turned its maps interactive using the ArcGIS service from GIS company Esri, which has been its GIS partner since 2000.

The resource houses millions of maps available to companies that want to overlay proprietary data with the most up-to-data public information about specific locations. There are literally millions of maps published there. Most internal teams have access to basic information; Elder’s team created a special addition specifically for Walgreens’ real estate, strategy, and mergers and acquisition teams.

As of the latest FAQ information on its corporate web site, Walgreens generated more than $76 billion in sales last year across more than 8,300 locations across the United States and Puerto Rico.

For more details on the Walgreens mapping system, check out this video:

Follow Heather Clancy on Twitter at @greentechlady. Read her Fortune coverage and subscribe via her RSS feed. And please subscribe to Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily newsletter on the business of technology.

Summary: The $76 billion company is taking its geographic information systems mobile, helping employees answer questions in near real time.


How we pick the Power 50

The list is compiled by FORTUNE editors, who consider four criteria: the size and importance of the woman's business in the global economy, the health and direction of the business, the arc of the woman's career (resume and runway ahead), and societal and cultural influence.

Summary: Most Powerful Women in Business 2012


On the radio during the race he let his feelings be known, expanding on them afterwards. “So the brake pedal going to the floor is not classed as a safety issue? Quite interesting,” he said over team radio. “I think Charlie [Whiting, race director] needs to read up on what is safe and what isn’t.”

Button eventually retired with a hydraulic pressure issue eight laps from the end and had not changed his mind. The 36-year-old added: “The brake pedal went to the floor, and obviously it’s never nice for a driver to get that feeling," he said. “For me that’s a safety concern, a safety problem. I don’t think you should get punished. It could end in an accident.

"It's a joke really. Stopping an incident should be praised, not penalised. The sport's got a long way to go before it's good again."

The stringent radio clampdown has come under fire from all quarters this year – Sebastian Vettel described them as “complete b******t” this weekend – but there is no sign yet they will be relaxed.

Summary: What should have been and so nearly was a day to remember for Jolyon Palmer ended in “


So much for the upstarts eating McDonald’s Corp.’s lunch.

Shake Shack Inc., once called the “Tesla for burgers,” was supposed to revolutionize the burger experience. A sizzling initial public offering last year had investors salivating over its potential. One Wall Street analyst even offered the highest of compliments, dubbing Apple Inc. the...

Summary: Shake Shack shares still aren’t cheap enough ahead of Thursday’s first-quarter earnings report.


Traditional folk will lament the lack of an open hearth. "Fireplaces are the worst thing you could ever put in. They draw heat out of the room. Log burners are all right, but not fireplaces," Paul says. Don't get him started on Agas ("totally impractical, bad for the environment and expensive to run") or wind farms ("the most stupid thing on the planet"). He's lived in an airtight house for the past 10 years, having come across the concept in Sweden. "I would never live without an airtight house and ventilation box. It's plain unhealthy," he says.

A heat exchange unit enables the stale air leaving the house to heat the fresh air as it enters; there is no contamination as the fresh air is channelled through an adjacent yet separate part of the machine. In summer a bypass system ensures the incoming fresh air is not heated. "Building regulations in Britain don't permit airtightness. We had to really fight to do this," Paul says.

Apart from the circular vents in each room and the lack of any smells (no paint aroma, even though building work has only recently been finished), you wouldn't have a clue the house is airtight. Perhaps the most blatant "eco" element is the solar park, but this is hidden in a field. Heat captured in the 20 panels is stored in rocks in the ground and distributed to the living space and swimming pool when needed. "Heat is even taken out of the house in summer and stored in the rocks for the winter," Paul says. "The results are amazing. We are getting so much more energy than we expected."

Other more simple yet "totally obvious" eco components include a water recycling system, where water from roofs is stored and delivered to loos, washing machines and outside taps; and a sewage treatment plant which turns sewage into purified water.

Paul bought the farm at auction in July 2007; parts of it were falling down but he still had to pay about £1 million. "There is always demand for this kind of property – I would have paid more for it," he says. His builder, Steve Barton, an expert at traditional Cotswolds building techniques, maintained the basic layout of the farmyard and used original stone and beams to restore the barns. The middle barn now forms the hub of the house, with the sitting room and kitchen on the ground floor and stairs up to a glass landing, with the cinema at one end and a massage room at the other. The former dairy has been converted into the spa (pool, steam room, sauna, hot tub) and an extension houses the master bedroom with an enormous composite stone bath.

While the house will be cheap to run ("about the same as a small flat") there has been no scrimping on building materials or fixtures. The roof cost £100,000 and the kitchen, created by interior designer Sara Anton, features composite stone worktops and a Gaggenau fridge with electronic shelves.

Paul thinks Barnsley Hill Farm might sell to a city boy with a conscience, as a second home. There are certainly plenty of gizmos and gadgets; the temperature-controlled wine store in the dining room for example, and the integrated sound system and mood lighting. Barnsley House, an esteemed celebrity hang-out is a few minutes away - but the spa at the farmhouse is better, according to Paul, and why eat out when local celebrity chef Warren Hoile (www.oohlalacatering.co.uk) can come to your kitchen?

Mps and environmentalists are queuing up for a tour of the house. "The response has been astonishing. Next I'm going to build smaller, more affordable homes," says Paul. "I want to show how easy it is to build amazing houses that are a joy to live in but low cost and low energy. The only thing stopping me is planning authorities and building control."

The most important energy reducing factor. The whole building is airtight.

An air system changes the air in the property once every two hours, replacing stale, damp air with warm, dry, filtered air.

Solar panels feed into underground system for year-round energy supply.

LED and low energy lighting throughout. Lighting the garden consumes the same amount of electricity as one traditional light bulb.

Feeds lavatories, washing machines and garden taps.

State-of-the-art system turns sewage into purified water.

Summary: Restored Barnsley Hill Farm is an eco house with a spa, cinema and seven   bedrooms - and it uses just 10 per cent of the energy required to run a   normal house.


Sruli Schochet photographed this tattoo on a man's arm in a Walmart in Arkansas, USA. He was under the impression that it said "Strength" in Hebrew. Unfortunately it spells "matzoh," a cracker-like unleavened bread traditionally eaten by Jewish people during Passover. Read on for more hilarious examples of misspelt tattoos...Picture: Sruli Schochet

Summary: Tattoo lovers in Wales have been urged to get professional spellchecks and   translations, pictured here are some hilarious examples of misspelt tattoos.


Replacing hips and knees has become a common affair. Now, people are increasingly swapping out weakened or injured ankles to get back on their feet.

Ankle replacement is an alternative to the more common fix, ankle fusion restoring more range of motion and flexibility. Newer artificial joints can include parts such as mobile bearings that make moving up and down on an incline easier. That helps patients climb stairs, hike, or ski,...

Summary: Patients with ankle problems that make walking painful are increasingly opting to replace the joint, giving them more flexibility and range of motion. Until recently, doctors typically fused bones together to relieve patients’ ankle pain.


In an increasingly-open-floor-plan world, noise-canceling headphones have become a necessity in the workplace. Now, Amazon has been granted a patent to make a pair even more helpful for your office needs.

The tech giant’s patent indicates that the headphones will still cancel out your co-workers’ conversations, but will be smart enough to turn off the noise cancellation “when it ‘hears’ certain sound patterns, frequencies and even keywords like a name,” according to CNET.

The Next Web reports that the headphones will also listen for phrases to automatically turn the noise cancellation back on, as well.

So far, there’s no indication when (or if) they’ll hit the market.

Summary: They could make your open office way more bearable.


Robbie Myers, 50, has been the editor in chief of Elle magazine for 12 years and lives on the Upper West Side after an itinerant youth that included stretches in Philadelphia; St. Louis; Estes Park, Colo.; and Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

I just returned from an 18-day trip to Paris and Milan for the collections. Well, now that I check my calendar, I got back the third, but when you’re gone for so long, you don’t even know what day of the week it is. The Paris shows were great, and the back stories were as interesting as what was on the runway. There were some fun things in Milan as well, but over all it’s a lot of clothes to look at. You also have to bring a lot of clothes for 18 days. Actually, there was a little mishap with the luggage I had packed and not all my dresses, and some of my best ones, were available to me.

So I went with basic black, which is pretty standard for me and most magazine editors I know. It’s a Narciso Rodriguez dress from this season and has a nice little zip up the back. Narciso is always good on the details. And I tend to wear things that have a slimmer silhouette because I’m a fairly petite person. In some of the more voluminous things, I feel like I look like R2-D2.

The black dress also worked because I was going straight from the office to a cocktail party for the “Hearst One Hundred Twenty Five” book signing at Rizzoli. The jewelry I wore were all personal pieces. I had on a Cathy Waterman floral patterned bracelet and a Tiffany bangle, which was a gift. My gold hoops I’ve had so long I don’t know where they came from. I wore my 10-year anniversary ring and also two bands: my daughter is gold and my son is platinum. I got a ring each time I had a child.

Generally, though, I don’t wear a ton of jewelry. I do have some estate pieces I love that my grandmother gave me. I’ll pull them out for the bigger events like our Women in Hollywood party.

The heels were Prada. I sort of liked the cage effect, and again they’re in black, so pretty practical. There are some people in our industry who wear runway pieces and wear them really well. I love the way Carine Roitfeld dresses. She looks amazing in her clothes. We have similar tastes, although I’m not saying I have the wardrobe that she does. I’m not somebody who wears the editorial pieces.

I do wear a lot of dresses because they’re just one unit and it’s very easy to put on and then you’re dressed. I don’t have to think too much. It has to be quick in the morning because I take my son to school. I imagine it’s the same for all working moms. There’s a whole life that’s lived before we’re out the door, so it better be pretty efficient.

A version of this article appears in print on October 28, 2012, on page ST11 of the New York edition with the headline: Black is Her Go-To, Even if Luggage Gets Lost in Transit. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe

Summary: The editor in chief of Elle magazine is a working mother and relies on efficient outfits to get through her day.


The boots on the ground at Bagram were overwhelmingly American. This was a town of 40,000 inhabitants and about 7,000 local ancillary workers, who came in daily. It had power and water plants, sewage treatment, waste disposal, recycling and landfill, industrial zones, suburbs of storage and newly built barracks, town planners and a director of public works. Management was outsourced to private contractors and staffed by civilians servicing Operation Enduring Freedom, the official name of the war in Afghanistan, which ends next month for the Americans, after 13 years (and when Bagram will finally be empty). Britain handed over its bases to the Afghan government two weeks ago.

My interest in Bagram stemmed from my work about Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, published in 2010, where I made a series of pictures examining the institutional spaces of Guantánamo naval base and its prison camps. Guantánamo and Bagram are linked. The Bagram Theater Internment Facility, a makeshift US prison in a former Soviet aircraft hangar, preceded the prisons at Guantánamo. It was replaced with a purpose-built prison in 2009, and between them, the old and new facilities have held more detaineees than Guantánamo. Many who ended up in the latter passed through the cages in Bagram first, and I know men who were subject to interrogation and abuse in both.

A mural of the Hindu Kush mountain range in a meeting room PHOTO: Edmund Clark

Research told me that Bagram is situated close to the Hindu Kush mountain range, but it had not prepared me for the mountains’ constant looming presence. Depending on where you are, the time of day, the weather and the dust, they are on occasions indiscernible, at other times sharpened by light and snow, but always there. The mountains are inside, on the walls, too: meeting rooms with murals of the Hindu Kush

on all four walls, photos of planes against mountain backdrops, T-walls painted with images of soldiers and Afghans with the range behind them. Inside a dining facility I found simple paintings of mountains and monuments showing a different Afghanistan, by an Afghan artist called Majeed (I have no other information about him). These transcend the confines of the base, taking the viewer to passes and lakes in the Hindu Kush and other ranges.

The base perimeter, at midday, when the mountains are most indistinct PHOTO: Edmund Clark

My nine-day visit coincided with Eid al-Adha, the Muslim festival of sacrifice, and a period of enhanced insurgent activity. Most nights were punctuated by amplified chants of 'incoming, incoming’, and two to a dozen distant impacts. No one was killed inside the base. Outside, a man rammed his motorcycle into an armoured column. Only he exploded.

Wars of resistance are characterised by fluid insurgencies fighting more sophisticated occupying powers, stationary in their fortified enclaves; watching across a technological gulf and an abyss of mutual incom-prehension; waiting for the duration to sap resources and political will.

My work at Bagram juxtaposes the mountains of eight of my photographs with those in four paintings by Majeed and three poems by Afghan insurgents.

It is a reflection on the war in Afghanistan and the relationship between the mountains, the insurgents and the forces occupying the bases, the vast majority of whom never leave their enclaves. Their vision of Afghanistan is what they see over their perimeters or represented on the walls inside.

Summary: Over 13 years, the US airbase at Bagram in Afghanistan evolved into a   self-contained world for its military and civilian inhabitants. In his new   book, the photographer Edmund Clark focused on the looming mountains that surround   this strange town


Vice Media announced on Tuesday that it will begin broadcasting its daily HBO half-hour newscast on Sept. 26.

The show, called “Vice News Tonight,” will run weeknights for 48 weeks a year. Josh Tyrangiel, who was previously the editor of Bloomberg Businessweek and chief content officer for Bloomberg Media, was hired by Vice last October to oversee the show.

The daily show is part of Vice’s broader ambitions to make its programming available across the media spectrum. The company, which started as a free punk magazine in Montreal in 1994, introduced its own cable channel, called Viceland, this year. It is not clear what size audience the channel attracts, but Vice plans to release ratings for it next month.

Vice recently announced an agreement with ESPN to produce and distribute films and other programs. In the last several years, the company has raised hundreds of millions of dollars in financing and signed deals with major media companies including Rogers Communications, a Canadian media conglomerate. It has also pushed to expand its presence internationally, announcing multiplatform deals with the Times of India Group and the Moby Group, a Middle Eastern media group.

Vice already produces a weekly newsmagazine show for HBO, called “Vice,” which began in 2013.

In a statement, Mr. Tyrangiel said he wanted to make broadcast news more appealing to young viewers.

“We’re going to have to earn people’s time and attention with great reporting and original forms of storytelling,” he said.

Plans for “Vice News Tonight’’ were first announced in March 2015. At the time, Richard Plepler, chief executive of HBO, said the show would debut that year. A spokesman for Vice Media said in an email that the show was “on schedule.”

Vice has been on an aggressive hiring push in the last year, snapping up dozens of journalists from news organizations including MSNBC, the BBC, The Guardian and The New York Times. Along with Mr. Tyrangiel, the company has hired Nellie Bowles, a technology reporter from The Guardian, and Madeleine Haeringer, an executive producer at MSNBC and veteran of NBC News.

Vice promoted Mr. Tyrangiel in May to run all of the company’s news operations as part of a reorganization of the division. It also laid off roughly a dozen employees.

A version of this article appears in print on August 3, 2016, on page B6 of the New York edition with the headline: Vice Media to Begin Nightly HBO News Program Sept. 26. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe

Summary: “Vice News Tonight” will be a weeknight newscast for younger viewers, part of a broader effort to make Vice Media available across the media spectrum.


The figures show Britain has fewer doctors per head than former Communist states such as Lithuania and the Czech republic.

Greece has more than twice as many doctors as the UK compared to its population, the report shows.

Experts warned of “acute shortages” of doctors among GPs and Accident & Emergency departments.

Dr Cliff Mann, President of the College of Emergency Medicine, which represents A&E doctors, said: “We have been warning for some years that we have got fewer doctors than in most parts of the developed world.”

"When you have shortages of doctors in some areas it means longer waits. In A&E that's not really an option, so it means doctors work harder and harder, it means there is a greater chance of mistakes, and ultimately it means risks to lives, he warned.

Around 500 A&E doctors who trained in this country are now working in Australia, he said - the equivalent of two years' trainees - because “burnout” levels were too high in this country.

Dr Mark Porter, chairman of British Medical Association’s Council, said: “At present, the NHS is under incredible pressure from rising patient demand and flat lining funding.”

He said Wednesday’s Government announcement of extra funding for the NHS was a “step in the right direction” but would not solve desperate shortages of doctors in some parts of the health service.

“Key specialities such as emergency care and GP services are facing particularly acute shortages,” he said.

The OECD report found that the number of doctors in the UK has increased more rapidly than in any other EU country since 2000, rising by over 50 per cent between 2000 and 2012.

As a result, the number of practising doctors per 1000 population rose from 2 to 2.8, the report says. “This nonetheless remains below the EU average of 3.4 doctors per 1000 population,” the report states.

The report says most of the increase in the number of doctors in the UK in the early 2000s came from doctors who came to this country from abroad.

“While most of the increase in the number of doctors in the United Kingdom in the early 2000s came from the entry of foreign-trained doctors, the situation changed just before the economic crisis with most of the increase now driven by a strong rise in the number of graduates from domestic medical education programmes,” the report states.

The figures show Greece has the highest proportion of doctors per head of population, with 6.2 practising physicians per 1,000 people, followed by Austria with 4.9 doctors per 1,000. Germany has 4 doctors per 1,000 people, while Italy has 3.9, Spain has 3.8 and France has 3.3 doctors.

Poland has the lowest number of doctors per head of population, the report shows, with just 2.2 doctors per 1,000 people. Romania and Slovenia each have 2.5 physicians per 1,000 population, while Ireland has 2.7 doctors per 1,000 people, just below the UK’s figure of 2.8.

A Department of Health spokesperson said: “This year the NHS was ranked the best healthcare system in the world. There are now 8,300 more hospital doctors and 1,000 more GPs working in England than there were four years ago."

Summary: New OECD figures show only Romania, Poland, Slovenia and Ireland have fewer   doctors per head than the UK


The U.K.’s decision to leave the European Union could cast doubts over Tata Steel Ltd.’s efforts to sell its businesses in Britain, analysts said.

The Mumbai-based company, whose British unit is one of Europe’s largest steelmakers by production capacity, said in April that it wanted to sell its U.K. operations, citing severe funding problems and...

Summary: The U.K.’s decision to leave the European Union could cast doubts over Tata Steel’s efforts to sell its businesses in Britain, analysts said.


This wouldn't be an issue if it weren't for the fact that in front of Schneiderlin in this France team are five attacking players who are meant to be the ones that go forward. Schneiderlin runs into a congested right wing where three teammates are already perfectly positioned to launch an attack.

Nothing bad happens in this scenario - Schneiderlin gets to the halfway line and runs out of ideas but it's the kind of forward thinking play that can often land you in trouble. How many times have we seen Arsenal, as an example, abandon their posts and rush forward at goal, only to lose the ball and be outnumbered on the counter attack?

It isn't a coincidence that the Manchester United player was originally left out of Deschamps squad.

Diarra, by contrast, loves nothing more than sitting back and defending - he is a creative player's dream teammate since knowing there is always someone behind to mop up mistakes, makes it easier to try things and create chances.

The Marseille midfielder's record of seven goals in 299 club games suggests this is a player who rarely tries to find the back of the net and he can usually be found lurking out of frame during the action on TV, only getting the ball when an attack has broken down.

This is him against Armenia, the kind of nation that doesn't pose an enormous threat on the counter-attack/at all (sorry Armenia).

And here he isn't for France's opening goal against Russia in a 4-2 friendly win.

Summary: France have so much attacking power in their Euro 2016 squad that they didn't even bother including the spectacular Hatem Ben Arfa, who has scored 17 goals in 34 Ligue 1 games this season.


Simple but satisfying, somewhere between a vegetable and a starch, dried peas are a great base for a filling meal. Cloves make a good flavouring, and a jar is a good investment as whole spices last well. But if you don’t want to splash out, and can’t cadge a couple from a friend, then use another spice – nutmeg works well.

A gammon hock (£1.99 from Morrisons; mine weighed 2lb/900g)

11oz/300g carrots (27p) sliced, steamed and turned in 1 tbsp butter (7p)

Put the peas in a large pan. Stick the cloves in the onion and add along with the herbs and nestle in the gammon hock. Add 3 pints/1.8 litres water.

Bring to the boil on top of the stove and simmer until tender. (Depending on the age of the peas, this may take a couple of hours. You can reduce the cooking time, and fuel cost, by soaking the peas in water overnight first, or by using a pressure cooker.) Remove the onion.

Pull the meat from the gammon bone and get rid of the skin and fat.

Serve the peas with shreds of gammon and carrots.

Summary: Our great new series of delicious meals at affordable prices. This week: ham   hock and pease pudding


The season at Taos Ski Valley ended earlier this month, but its real estate is heating up.

Local real-estate agents call it the "Bacon bounce": Property sales at Taos Ski Valley, a rugged resort with European flair in the mountains of New Mexico, have multiplied since December, when New York hedge fund founder Louis Bacon said he was buying the ski area from a family that has owned it for decades. The deal is raising expectations that long-planned improvements will now happen.

"The announcement gave us the final push," said Peter Trevisani, who spent weekends at Taos Ski Valley for years before he and his wife Wendy bought a contemporary condominium in a Bavarian-style chalet in February. Now the couple uses the condo for weekends with the children, all avid skiers. They are also hoping the modernization of the resort will make it a good investment.

The Trevisanis, both managing directors at Thornburg Investment Management in Santa Fe, paid $750,000 for the 1,951-square-foot, three-bedroom condo, which is nestled between fir trees at 10,200 feet. It combines wood, earth tones and vintage ski advertisements with stainless steel and contemporary furniture.

In addition to the condo purchased by the Trevisanis, two more condos in the same development have changed hands since Dec. 13, when Mr. Bacon's intended purchase was disclosed. All three sold at asking price, one for $765,000—higher than most properties on offer at Taos Ski Valley, although still below the original, pre-downturn price of $1.2 million in 2008, when they were built. In all, 11 homes and eight plots of land have changed hands since Dec. 13, compared with two homes and one piece of land in the same period a year earlier.

"For two weeks after the deal was announced, the phone rang off the hook," said Keith Dowell, owner of Taos Ski Valley Realty. "It's quite unusual, especially at this time of the year," added Jolie Jones, a real-estate agent with Piñon Investments of Taos who sold the units.

The activity comes after a long period of stagnation in the small ski town known for steep chutes, dizzying altitude and grand views across the high desert of northern New Mexico. At the same time, overall vacation home sales have been surging: Earlier this month, the National Association of Realtors said the number of second homes bought for part-time personal use jumped 30% in 2013, the biggest gain in 10 years. The West accounted for 28% of the purchases.

In an email, Mr. Bacon said his investment in the resort would be "substantial." "I knew it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," he said. "Taos Ski Valley is one of the top ski areas in the country." Mr. Bacon, 57, is the founder and Chief Executive of New York-based Moore Capital Management, one of the biggest hedge funds in the U.S. with $14.9 billion under management. In 1992, he founded the Moore Charitable Foundation to support nonprofit organizations with a focus on land and water conservation. Mr. Bacon said he owns around 61.5 acres of land in Taos. He said he is an enthusiastic outdoorsman and has skied almost every run at Taos Ski Valley last winter.

Mr. Bacon wouldn't say how much he is paying for the resort, which he will own through a private entity. The deal is under contract, with its closing still subject to the transfer of a Forest Service permit.

Mr. Bacon's acquisition ends a family ownership that goes back to 1954, when Ernie Blake, a German immigrant who served as a U.S. military intelligence officer during World War II, flew his plane across the southern Rocky Mountains and spotted an old mining town near a big snow basin. Living in an 11-foot camper with his family, Mr. Blake built a resort that soon found a following for its expert terrain, bone-dry powder and plentiful sunshine. On the way up, skiers pass through the town of Taos, with its adobe houses, Native American Pueblo and a history of eclectic visitors, ranging from Georgia O'Keeffe to D.H. Lawrence.

"It is a place that has so much more spirit than a purpose-built resort," said Chris Stagg, the late Mr. Blake's son-in-law, ski school director and Vice President of Taos Ski Valley, which locals call TSV.

As other resorts were acquired by corporations and modernized, TSV didn't make major improvements. Its lift network was built in 1973. Skiers reach Kachina Peak, the highest point of the Ski Valley, only by hiking up a ridge, carrying their skis. The village looks dated, with a number of buildings from the 1960s and 1970s, and it lacks modern accommodations, spa services and restaurants.

Skier numbers have fallen. This winter, TSV sold 215,000 lift tickets, said Mr. Stagg, down from 220,000 last year and well below the 365,000 tickets sold at the peak in the 1994-95 ski season. Meanwhile, U.S. ski areas reported an 11% year-over-year increase in visitors in the 2012-13 ski season from the year before, the latest figure available from the National Ski Areas Association, a Colorado-based trade association.

In 2010, the Blake family drew up a Mountain Development Plan and a Village Master Plan for improvements to the resort. They were approved by the U.S. Forest Service and the town, but putting them into action, the Blakes estimated, would require $20 million. Last summer, they contacted Mr. Bacon about a sale.

The resort's renovation, Mr. Bacon said, will adhere to the plans, which include two new lifts, one of them to Kachina Peak, mountain bike trails for the summer and a more welcoming base area. Under the plans, the village will keep its European feel and family atmosphere, but offer better access for pedestrians, with a reconfigured parking system and skier drop-off area. The plans also aim to give guests an immediate view of the main lift, now partly obscured by stairs, and a "sense of arrival" that the village now lacks. In addition, there will be new condominiums, as well as restaurants and retail space.

The Blake family won't retain any stake in Taos Ski Valley, but Mr. Blake's son, Mickey, will retain a seat on the board of directors, while Mr. Stagg will remain Vice President. Chief Operating Officer Gordon Briner will become Chief Executive Officer.

"I see this as a unique opportunity to build a sustainable business over the long-term, and do so by revitalizing the base area and facilities in a way that is consistent with the Blakes' vision, while preserving and protecting a vital natural resource," Mr. Bacon said.

There are limits to how hot the market can get. The town of Taos is planning to build a new, longer airport runway, but for now, the nearest major airport is a three-hour drive south in Albuquerque. Some visitors are deterred by altitude of the resort, where the base is at 9,207 feet. In addition, the Ski Valley is small and has little room for expansion because most of the land is owned by the U.S. Forest Service. Some home buyers prefer to buy in Taos itself, 20 miles south, where it is warmer and sunnier, with more dining and shopping options.

"Now that so many good things are happening at Taos Ski Valley, the challenge is to convince people to buy here, as opposed to the town of Taos," said Jerome de Bontin. A French-born business man who until recently was general manager of the New York Red Bulls soccer team, Mr. de Bontin helped fund the Village Master Plan. With several partners, he plans to redevelop three parcels of land in the base area, including adding a "parking club" where day-use members have showers and valet services. He also plans to develop an upscale hotel and condominiums.

Write to Cecilie Rohwedder at cecilie.rohwedder@wsj.com

Summary: Sales at the resort are rising, supported by the hedge fund founder's planned purchase of the area.


Foroohar is an assistant managing editor at TIME and the magazine’s economics columnist. She’s the author of Makers and Takers: The Rise of Finance and the Fall of American Business.

Here’s a telling numerical contrast that says a lot about the state of business and the economy in America today: the new Fortune 500 list shows that overall growth for big business stalled in the last year, with profits dropping 11% for firms on the list. Yet just last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that CEO pay was rising. The figures might seem to be in opposition but, in the increasingly Kafkaesque world of big business and the capital markets, they aren’t.

Why? For the last couple of years, corporate earnings have been flattening out, as Main Street has struggled along in the longest, weakest recovery of the post World War II era. This despite markets being buoyed by historically low-interest rates and the Fed’s $4 trillion money dump post financial crisis. As stocks have gone way, way up, so has corporate pay. As the WSJ reports, “Pay across the survey rose by a median 5.5% to $11.4 million, nearly two-thirds of which was tied to performance.”

The key word there is performance. Performance pay is typically awarded in stock options, which have special tax benefits, thanks to changes in how executive pay can be doled out made in the 1990s. Of course, it’s best for CEOs to exercise such options when the markets are high. And that gets us to the record number of share buybacks that have been pulled off by corporations in the U.S. over the last couple of years. Buybacks, which essentially involve companies buying up their shares on the open market, jacks up the price of the stock.

Some, like Warren Buffett, argue that they can be a mark of a company’s belief in its own future potential. But what’s interesting is that the majority of recent buybacks have been done during market peaks, not so much as a way to express belief in the future, but to cash in on the present, and ensure that share prices remain up. Even if the underlying growth story on Main Street isn’t bullish–certainly the case these days (witness last Friday’s disappointing job numbers).

The result is a market that goes up, and enriches the 10% of the population that owns 80% of the stock (and particularly lines the pockets of the C-suite), but no real change in the underlying corporate growth story (witness those falling profits). If companies were putting all that back all that buyback money in things like worker training, research and development spending, factory and technology upgrades, or even (gasp) worker pay, the Main Street story might change. But they aren’t. This process of “financialization,” by which the markets rule Main Street rather than the other way around, is something of deep concern for American capitalism’s future.

Sadly, I fear that the contrast between corporate profits and corporate pay means we may be at a tipping point. There is very little ammo left to artificially bolster stock prices in the absence of real economy growth, and stronger job creation (and even more importantly, the creation of better paying jobs–much of what we are creating is low-level service work). At some point, everything in the markets must connect back to Main Street.

Summary: Profits at big companies are down—but CEO pay is up


Comedy Central’s problems in late night are, from a certain perspective, a matter of regression. After years of hogging Emmys, viewers’ hearts and the political-comedy spotlight with Jon Stewart’s Daily Show and Stephen Colbert’s Colbert Report, it’s no surprise that the follow-ups would seem not just less successful but unsuccessful. It’s tough to follow a legend, and Daily Show replacement host Trevor Noah as well as Nightly Show host Larry Wilmore (entering Colbert’s 11:30 p.m. timeslot) suffered, from their shows’ first moments, by comparison.

So while the timing—both early into the show’s run and at the height of a pitched presidential election—is unfortunate, it comes as no surprise that Comedy Central is trying something new at 11:30. Larry Wilmore’s Nightly Show has been cancelled, putting an end to an interesting and unusual experiment: A late-night chat show focused in large part on the subject of race. (It’s worth noting the unfortunate fact that Wilmore’s departure from late-night makes the genre significantly less diverse.) While less catastrophic a comedown than Noah’s inept handling of The Daily Show franchise, Wilmore’s show still felt strangely disconnected, hamstrung by its attempt to launch a star and a manner of viewing the news at a time when the news was moving too quickly to allow for introductions.

Those comedy stars who’ve been able to succeed against the backdrop of a presidential election without precedent have used established personae to deliver finely honed messages. Colbert is among them: After a rocky start at CBS’s Late Show last fall—and a first episode distinguished by an anodyne interview with Jeb Bush that diminishes in memory—the host has harnessed the wildness of our current election, particularly the deeply unconventional Republican convention, to produce his absolute best material. Like NBC’s Seth Meyers, another star who’s made the most of the election, Colbert is a host that gets more and more lost in the background the more politics unfold as usual. On TBS, meanwhile, Samantha Bee has introduced new, remarkable shadings of rage and indignation to a tone and style familiar from her years as a Daily Show correspondent.

Unlike Bee, Meyers or Colbert, Wilmore had a relatively limited baseline. When they get furious or fed up or just go on a tangent, it means something. All things being equal, Wilmore’s introduction to much of his audience concurrent with the sort of news that moves a comic to shift into a new gear was a huge disadvantage. The manner in which Wilmore expressed his annoyance—an unfamiliar abrasiveness in contrast to Colbert’s intellectualized buffoon—likely turned some viewers off, as well. Consider Wilmore’s controversial gig at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, in which he called the President the “n”-word and railed against the media harder even than the savagest previous hosts. It’s not that it wasn’t funny, and it’s not that he didn’t make fair points. But Wilmore was so relatively unknown that, while doing less would have made less of a splash, doing quite so much with so little finesse felt like one more loud voice in the year of Trump.

I’d argue that Noah and Wilmore have precisely the opposite problems: Noah is too laconic by half, checked-out of a presidential election his whole shtick is to pretend (or acknowledge) that he doesn’t understand by virtue of his South African citizenship. Wilmore never got the chance to nail the “comedy” part of “political comedy,” so quickly has the current election outpaced a novice host’s ambitions as well as reached into rich veins of potential inquiry unrelated to Wilmore’s core mission. There was plenty on the series that was well-put-together—the episode airing in the immediate aftermath of Pulse shooting in Orlando caught my eye. But in the main, being forced to respond to a presidential election that defied satire did Wilmore no favors. Perhaps, had this been the ho-hum Hillary Clinton-Jeb Bush matchup many people expected, people would be casting about for new, intriguing voices; Wilmore’s focus on race would have allowed him to do interesting stuff while the two nominees sought to be the most inoffensive. But that’s not how it shook out. Only the most tested and shrewdest stars have been able to make hay out of a race whose coverage, itself, is the entertainment.

Summary: It might have survived any election but this one


Hosszu said she was pleased with her medal haul. “Honestly, I’m superexcited,” she said. “This Olympics was a good one for me.”

It was dreamlike for DiRado, who finished second behind Hosszu in the 400 I.M. and placed third in the 200 I.M., also won by Hosszu. Her other gold came in the 4x200 freestyle relay, where DiRado took the place of a struggling Franklin. DiRado considered the backstroke event her “fun third event.” She looked shocked when she glanced at her time at the end of the final and saw a “1” next to her name.

“The emotions definitely came out as soon as I finished,” DiRado said.

And she is done. To end her career with an Olympic gold medal, DiRado said, “is the perfect way to go out.”

Summary: DiRado came from behind to win the 200-meter backstroke, collecting her fourth medal of the Rio Games.


09/19/2016 AT 02:50 PM EDT

This week has been all about getting Ryan in the right mental state.

He obviously has been deeply affected by what happened and I've been working to help him move on and

. Now that we are in the thick of the competition, we really only have two days to learn the dance before we have to start showing it to the director.

Making things a little more difficult this week was having to balance my prior commitments to promote my active wear line on QVC. That meant Ryan had to fly with me to Philadelphia.

Traveling during a rehearsal week can be hard, but I think it was a blessing because it got Ryan out of Los Angeles. It gave him time to just be by himself while I worked and then we would dive right into rehearsal.

It's been a big transition from doing the slow foxtrot last week to doing a quickstep, but Ryan has been working his butt off to nail this dance.

The quickstep is all about being on your toes and running around the ballroom so I can see in his face sometimes that he definitely

when the protester was tackled by security. But he's an Olympian and would never tell me he's in pain. He never complains about anything.

and give it his all and try harder than the time before.

and we are dancing to the theme from

. We won't be dressed up like Muppets or anything but we're going to pay homage in a really fun way that I think will show off a new side of Ryan that people really haven't seen before. I think he's been having fun hamming it up.

is the important word there.

Ryan got to see very quickly how much the cast and crew of

is a family and how supportive they can be when someone is having a hard time, but now I want him to regain his confidence that the audience is supporting him as well. Regardless of how our dance goes, I want Ryan to go out there this week and have fun and feel the love.

airs Mondays and Tuesdays (8 p.m. ET) on ABC.

Summary: The pro dancer blogs exclusively for PEOPLE


Malcolm Turnbull has had a frank discussion with Saudi Arabia's deputy prime minister about how to fight Islamic State and its propaganda machine.

The prime minister and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Naif discussed IS during a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the United Nation's general assembly in New York on Tuesday.

Mr Turnbull raised the need to challenge extremist propaganda, especially on social media.

The discussion also focused on the difficulties of creating a clear path towards a political settlement in Syria.

The prime minister also reiterated Australia's commitment to negotiating a free trade agreement with the Gulf Cooperation Council.

Earlier, Mr Turnbull told reporters he would be discussing a range of issues with the crown prince.

"In recent times I've had very detailed, frank discussions with President el-Sisi of Egypt, President Erdogan of Turkey," he added.

Summary: Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Naif of Saudi Arabia to discuss the Islamic State propaganda machine.


An estimated 30 tonnes of fertiliser containing a potentially explosive substance has been found off the coast of Bali, Indonesia. (Twitter)

Indonesian authorities are investigating a possible terror link after around 1500 bags of potentially explosive ammonium nitrate fertiliser were found on a boat from Malaysia.

The boat was intercepted today by police in waters off the east coast of Bali, the head of Bali Customs Husni Saiful, told reporters this morning.

Ammonium nitrate was found in 1500 sacks of the fertiliser on board, sparking concern of possible terror threat, ABC News reported.

The haul, an estimated 30 tonnes of the substance, has been confiscated by police.

"This is some kind of fertiliser and on its own there's not a problem but once it is mixed it can be used as an explosive," Mr Saiful said.

"But about whether it's terrorism or for a bomb, that would be explained by the police.”

Local authorities are expected to further address the media this afternoon.

© Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2016


South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill is "well aware" of the challenges his state faces as he marks the fifth anniversary of assuming the leadership.

But the premier told a business event in Adelaide on Thursday that despite the state's high unemployment, decline in manufacturing and power problems, the state has plenty to feel encouraged about, such as boosts to business confidence and investment.

"Certainly, our unemployment rate is too high," Mr Weatherill said, which is again the highest in the nation at 6.7 per cent.

"Commodity prices remain low, our traditional manufacturing base is on the decline and we're being held back by an outdated national electricity market."

But the premier said retail sales were strong, tourism was on the rise and the defence industry offered "virtually limitless possibilities", especially the submarines project.

"The future submarines build will generate jobs and economic activity for decades to come," he said.

"Indeed, it's possible that some of the South Australians who will eventually work on that project haven't even been born yet.

"Few people in this state are able to envisage the full scope and implications of the submarines work."

Mr Weatherill has also hailed the success of the state's Investment Attraction Agency, which was set up a year ago to attract new investment that created sustainable jobs.

He said it had secured 12 major projects worth more than $970 million, generating 4500 jobs in the process.

Friday will be five years since Mr Weatherill was sworn in as premier, replacing Labor leader Mike Rann.

After a strong start and successfully returning the ALP to government in 2014, the premier has had difficulties, including dealing with the fallout from the royal commission into child protection and the recent statewide blackout.

He has also championed the debate over increasing South Australia's future role in the nuclear fuel cycle, including the possibility of storing the world's high-level nuclear waste.

The premier said his government would continue to pursue the same three-pronged strategy it began with - investing in job creation and infrastructure to foster economic growth and ensuring the state's voice was heard on national issues.

Summary: On the eve of his fifth anniversary of becoming South Australia's premier, Jay Weatherill says his state faces several challenges but should feel encouraged.


A female Australian employee of a non-governmental organisation has been kidnapped by gunmen in the Afghan capital, Kabul, Afghan police say.

General Abdul Rahman Rahimi, the Kabul city police chief, said that a Pakistani-born Australian woman was abducted on Saturday night.

Rahimi added that she was with her driver while she was taken away by gunmen.

It is not clear what happened to her Afghan driver.

"We have had lots of developments in the abduction case ... but right now I can't share it with the media," said Mr Rahimi.

Another police official with the Kabul police chief's office, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, said that she was more than 40 years old and worked for the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief or ACBAR.

In Australia, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said in a statement, that the embassy was making "urgent inquiries" into the issue.

The statement added: "We continue to advise Australians not to travel to Afghanistan because of the extremely dangerous security situation, including the serious threat of kidnapping".

In April, another Australian female aid worker was kidnapped in eastern Nangarhar province; she was released in August after nearly four months in captivity.

Summary: The Australian embassy in Kabul is making urgent inquiries into reports an Australian has been kidnapped in Afghanistan.


We’re outsourcing everything else in America these days. Why not vote fraud?

I grew up in Chicago, where the crooks who stole elections were of the home-grown variety. Now, the Russians are getting into the act, with clever computer hacks designed to disrupt US elections by remote control.

Federal officials say that Russian hackers are behind breaches of voter registration systems in Arizona and Illinois, and a breach at a contractor for the Florida elections office. In addition, “there have been attempted hacks in almost every state,” said Denise Merrill, Connecticut’s secretary of state and president of the National Association of Secretaries of State.

It’s conceivable such attacks could throw the Nov. 8 election into chaos. But it’s improbable. Hackers can’t get into our voting machines and outright change results.

The hackers can, however, mess with voter registration rolls, possibly affecting who can vote on Election Day. That would definitely sow confusion, but again, specialists and elections officials insist that there are enough safeguards and backups to protect the integrity of the vote.

Nonetheless, even the whiff of a threat is hardly welcome in the current political environment. For days now, Donald Trump has been whipping up public outrage with claims that the US election is “rigged.” Evidence of Russian attacks on our voting system would reinforce that narrative and could further embitter an already vitriolic presidential race.

Let’s consider some background about how elections work.

Thanks to the American tradition of federalism, elections are wonderfully decentralized. Votes are recorded at 13,000 local jurisdictions, each with its own bureaucracy and technology. And through a combination of good sense and happy accident, those voting systems can’t really be hacked remotely for the simple reason they are not connected to the Internet.

In a previous article, I quoted an expert who said that some vote tabulation systems are online. Wrong, according to the National Association of Secretaries of State. “The equipment that people vote on is not connected to the Internet,” the association said in an open letter to Congress in September. “Vote counting is never done with systems connected to the Internet, and tabulation systems are not networked.”

Sure, there are weak spots. For example, Virginia in 2015 decertified thousands of older touchscreen voting machines after an investigation determined hackers could break in via their Wi-Fi cards and change voting results.

There are also 31 states that allow Americans overseas to submit their votes electronically. But even these votes are printed out on paper before being counted. Any effort to tamper with a significant number of them would likely be easily detected.

Back in the States, voting remains resolutely offline. In Massachusetts, for instance, ballots are collected and counted by a scanner in each precinct. The count is put onto a printout or stored on a digital memory card, and this is carried to the community’s town hall, where the votes are recorded.

“It’s a closed system,” said Brian McNiff, a spokesman for Massachusetts Secretary of State William F. Galvin. “It’s not on the Internet.”

A far bigger risk are all-electronic machines that don’t generate a paper record of each vote that can be used in a recount. These are used in about a dozen states and ought to be retired. Still, since they are not connected to the Internet, they’re not in danger of being hacked from afar.

But some state systems that collect and store information about which voters are properly registered to cast a ballot are online, and it’s here where the bad guys could get in and do some damage.

The most serious threat would be a partial deletion or corruption of voters’ data, such that people may show up at the polls Nov. 8 only to be told that they weren’t registered to vote, on a large enough scale, such an attack could cause severe disruptions.

But voter registration data is typically printed out by election officials in advance. Think of those thick books they use at the polling place to check off your name. A proper hack would likely have to occur weeks ahead of the election and, just as likely, would be spotted. Indeed, federal officials are on high alert, and the Department of Homeland Security said 33 US states and 11 local governments so far have asked for help in checking the security of their voting systems.

Even if hackers were somehow able to get past these defenses and corrupt the registration files, there are workarounds. In most places, you can show some ID and cast a provisional ballot that will preserve your vote until the voter database is restored from a backup copy.

One troubling possibility would be a hack of the Associated Press, which provides news organizations around the country with updated vote totals throughout election night. Imagine a report coming out early in the night that falsely shows Hillary Clinton sweeping every state in the Eastern United States; that might discourage Donald Trump voters in Western states from coming out to vote. Then when the official — and accurate — results are revealed, there’d be a firestorm of public outrage.

An AP spokesman declined to describe his organization’s security plans, simply saying that “AP has been working diligently to ensure that vote counts will be gathered, vetted and delivered to our many customers on Nov. 8.”

Merle King, executive director of the Center for Election Systems at Kennesaw State University in Georgia, is in the camp of those who think it’s highly improbable hackers will disrupt the election. But, as King warns, they might not have to, as the mere suspicion of electoral hacking has further poisoned an already toxic political climate.

“It’s a pretty high risk that after the election we’re going to be dealing with the fallout,” King said. “I think it is starting to combine with other factors to erode confidence in the outcome of the election.”


A 18-month-old boy has undergone head surgery, with the toddler among 16 people injured in a gas explosion in Sydney's Chinatown district last night.

Oliver Saeter has a large laceration to the back of his head from the explosion, which happened as hundreds of diners were eating in a busy food court on Little Hay Street in Haymarket.

Oliver's brother, Cody, and father, Jason were also injured during the blast.

Oliver Saeter (left) needs head surgery after he was injured in the Sydney Chinatown blast. (9NEWS)

"My little baby, Oli, who is only 18-months-old, had a very deep head laceration and lost a lot of blood," Mr Saeter told 9NEWS.

Mr Saeter also suffered a nasty bruise after he was struck by flying debris.

"It was a very scary moment, a very horrible moment," he said.

"I was quite angry about it all because it shouldn’t happen, I would have thought."

At least 200 people were in the five-storey building that houses the Dixon House Food Court when the blast happened in its loading dock about 7.30pm yesterday.

Authorities said gas had been building up in the basement of the building and was ignited possibly an electrical motor.

Were you there? Send an email to contact@9news.com.au with your details.

NSW Fire and Rescue is expected to be on scene for hours. (9NEWS)

The force of the blast blew out a roller-door and also exploded back out towards the restaurant area.

Firefighters said it was lucky no-one had died in the explosion.

"No-one was killed and we are so thankful for that," Fire and Rescue NSW Inspector Norm Buckley said.

A witness described the blast as "unreal".

"It took a couple of seconds to sink in, at the moment, I was just in shock for a while," one told 9NEWS.

"I think a few thought it was an explosion so they just sort of stepped back away and assessed what was going on to understand the next move."

Firefighters worked quickly to switch off the gas and monitor gas levels.

"The explosion consumed all the fuel so there was a lot of evacuations… We continued the gas monitoring throughout the incident. It did end up being quite a prolonged incident. We found it was a gas leak in the basement, the loading dock and service area," Insp. Buckley said.

HAZMAT crews have been monitoring the situation for further gas leaks.

© Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2016

Summary: A 18-month-old boy has undergone head surgery, after he was among 16 people injured in a gas explosion in Sydney's Chinatown district last night.


A senior Rebels bikie charged with the murder of underworld figure Pasquale Barbaro is alleged to have been a director of large-scale criminal activities for at least three years.

Abuzar Sultani, 27, was one of nine men arrested during police raids across Sydney on Tuesday after authorities vowed to stamp out gangland violence.

The assassination of Barbaro, gunned down on an Earlwood footpath two weeks ago, is the latest in a spate of underworld killings in the city this year.

Sultani did not appear in person in Newtown Local Court on Wednesday and his lawyer did not apply for bail.

Along with the murder charge, the known Rebels member was slapped with 17 charges dating back to 2013 including directing the activities of a criminal group, numerous counts of commercial drug supply, possessing an unregistered gun and conspiracy to murder.

Documents tendered in court allege Sultani plotted to kill fellow Rebels member Ricky Ciano at Wamberal on the NSW Central Coast in August 2015.

He is accused of multiple cases of assault, breaking and entering and robbery and is also implicated in serious assaults and drug supply matters as part of a "larger criminal group".

Court papers state police have found "vast amounts of money" in the 27-year-old's possession on numerous occasions, despite his having no legitimate employment or means to support himself.

Other charges involve the alleged supply of almost 5kg of the drug ice and 1.3kg of MDMA since August. He is also accused of possessing 29 guns and more than 9300 rounds of various kinds of ammunition.

Sultani is due to face Burwood Court on December 21, when he is expected to apply for bail.

Three other of the nine men arrested on Tuesday were also charged with Barbaro's murder and faced various courts across Sydney on Wednesday.

Summary: A Sydney man charged over the murder of gangland figure Pasquale Barbaro has been refused bail after he was arrested during police raids.


Pressure is again piling on NSW Health Minister Jillian Skinner ahead of a state cabinet reshuffle after a backbench colleague called for her sacking.

Drummoyne state Liberal MP John Sidoti has spectacularly broken ranks, telling his local newspaper "I want her gone" over her handling of an upgrade at Concord Hospital.

He called for a new health minister to get the $150 million project over the line, after a senior doctor at the hospital spoke out about dire conditions at the facility.

Mr Sidoti retreated from the comments after they hit the front page on Tuesday, and has since called the health minister to apologise.

"I'm not going to make any excuses or sugarcoat it - I got it wrong," Mr Sidoti told reporters in Sydney.

"Am I frustrated? Am I upset? Am I emotional? Of course, I am," he said.

"It should have been my position to work a lot closer with her to get the outcomes we need."

Mr Sidoti said he was speaking up for his constituents but regretted his approach.

"I should've handled it very differently, not so publicly."

Mr Sidoti refused to say whether he still wanted Ms Skinner sacked.

"It's not up to me to say ... what I want is a hospital upgrade."

Ms Skinner downplayed the embarrassment, acknowledging her colleague's "passion and enthusiasm" for the hospital while defending her record.

"He's a great local member when it comes to advocating for his local hospital - I don't blame him for that," Ms Skinner told reporters.

"I'll move on when I feel I can no longer do a competent job and when the premier wants me to move on."

Ms Skinner said planning was under way and money already set aside for the Concord Hospital upgrade, insisting she had never failed to deliver on promises to build or redevelop hospitals.

NSW Premier Mike Baird is standing by his minister.

"I'm listening and watching the minister on a regular basis and I can tell you I'm very proud of her and the job she is doing," Mr Baird said.

But NSW Labor health spokesman Walt Secord said Concord Hospital conditions were at crisis point, and Ms Skinner's time was up.

"Doctors, nurses and patients all believe that NSW needs a new health minister and now the Liberal party backbench are saying the same thing," he told reporters.

"It is time the premier reshuffled, refreshed his front bench, and got a new health minister."

Ms Skinner has drawn sustained criticism throughout the year over her handling of issues including a chemotherapy under-dosing scandal, a deadly baby gassing tragedy and cremation mix-ups.

Summary: NSW Liberal MP John Sidoti has apologised for calling for Jillian Skinner to be sacked.


Photo: Jon Ehman/Special To SFGATE

The entrance to an old coal mine on a cliff at Land's End in San Francisco. The mine was built to tap a vein of coal discovered in 1891.

The entrance to an old coal mine on a cliff at Land's End in San Francisco. The mine was built to tap a vein of coal discovered in 1891.

The hole at the bottom accesses the rest of the mine if you have ropes or other climbing gear. The discoloration of the rocks below shows that the water normally reaches just below the bricks at high tide.

The hole at the bottom accesses the rest of the mine if you have ropes or other climbing gear. The discoloration of the rocks below shows that the water normally reaches just below the bricks at high tide.

The extremely low king tide revealed rusty old mine machinery, a car engine and other objects normally hidden underwater.

The extremely low king tide revealed rusty old mine machinery, a car engine and other objects normally hidden underwater.

The low tide also exposed starfish and other marine life.

The low tide also exposed starfish and other marine life.

Jon Ehman's favorite discovery was this old ship's propeller. From a wreck perhaps?

Jon Ehman's favorite discovery was this old ship's propeller. From a wreck perhaps?

An old engine that someone dumped long ago?

An old engine that someone dumped long ago?

Another view of the engine block.

Another view of the engine block.

The beach below the mine has a view of the Golden Gate Bridge.

The beach below the mine has a view of the Golden Gate Bridge.

More junk from the past. Next: Photos from the mine's interior.

More junk from the past. Next: Photos from the mine's interior.

Nearly half of the tunnel has been washed away, leaving a long gap between sections.

Nearly half of the tunnel has been washed away, leaving a long gap between sections.

The tunnel’s clear sections were at tall enough to walk through.

The tunnel’s clear sections were at tall enough to walk through.

Cave-ins have nearly sealed the eastern end of the tunnel.

Cave-ins have nearly sealed the eastern end of the tunnel.

Looking north from the top of the cave.

Looking north from the top of the cave.

A wooden plank is buried under sand, deposited over decades of high tides washing into the cave.

A wooden plank is buried under sand, deposited over decades of high tides washing into the cave.

Recent raccoon footprints are evidence of the tunnel’s only regular visitors.

Recent raccoon footprints are evidence of the tunnel’s only regular visitors.

Looking east from the eastern terminus.

Looking east from the eastern terminus.

Looking west toward the cave.

Looking west toward the cave.

After more than a century of sand and high tides, it’s hard to say what the original structure was used for.

After more than a century of sand and high tides, it’s hard to say what the original structure was used for.

The eastern terminus is nearly sealed from 124 years of mudslides pouring over the tunnel.

The eastern terminus is nearly sealed from 124 years of mudslides pouring over the tunnel.

King tides aid exploration of SF's hidden old coal mine

Last year we told the story how in 1891 an old miner discovered a vein of coal within the city limits of San Francisco at Land's End, inspiring magnate Adolph Sutro to tunnel into a cliff overlooking Baker Beach.

The now nearly forgotten mine, on a cliffside 200 feet below what was once the Ferries Railway track, was never fully developed. Years of high tides, harsh weather and subsidences have eroded its passages.

This week, Jon Ehman, a professional services manager for a local tech startup, took advantage of the extremely low-tide water level that occurs during the king tides in order to explore the mine.

Over the years the water level has gradually risen, making accessing the mine difficult and dangerous.

"There is a limited window on how long you can stay out there due to the rising tide," Ehman said in an email. "Basically, the tide needs to be less than minus one foot. Any higher you risk getting stuck in the coves."

To safely enter the mine, Ehman recommends rope or other climbing gear. One of the three openings, on the face of the cliff, can be reached without technical gear, but it requires free-climbing skills. Ehman watched an experienced rock climber scale the precipice to the entrance in about 10 minutes.

Ehman found a number of objects — some evidently old mining machinery parts — exposed by the tide. Normally they remain hidden under several feet of water.

"The most interesting thing I found was what I believe is a ship propeller," Ehman said. "There were also some interesting ornate brass metals and an old Ford engine."

A selection of Ehman's photos, used with his permission, can be found in the above slideshow. We also included photos of the mine's interior, courtesy of photo-journalist Sierra Hartman and Atlas Obscura.

More of Ehman's pictures can be found on his Imgur page.

Summary: An extremely low tide exposes century-old objects below San Francisco's long-forgotten coal mine.


Kate Gosselin, the TLC "star," famous for her role in the reality show "Jon and Kate Plus Eight," filed for divorce after 10 years of marriage due to irreconcilable differences. She received primary custody of their eight children and Jon was left to focus primarily on his romantic affairs. The couple had a set of twins followed by sextuplets in 2007. Dancing with the Stars New Cast

Summary: View "Dancing" with Trouble Season 10 photos in CBS News' "Dancing" with Trouble Season 10 photo gallery


BY GEORGE RUSH AND JOANNA MOLLOY With Jo Piazza and Chris Rovzar

Thursday, September 30th 2004, 7:06AM

Paris Hilton has two faces - and one of them is very, very ugly.

In a recently surfaced 12-hour videotape, Hilton is shown in a rather disturbing scene with two African-American men who ask her if she would model their fashion line.

Hilton, standing with pal Brandon Davis, is polite to the men, but calls them "dumb n--s" after they leave, according to British reporter Carole Aye Maung, who reviewed the tape.

"Two ... guys begin talking to her," Maung told us. "She's being very, very sweet to them. [But] she definitely uses the N-word. It's so cruel, because they were so lovely, and she was being so lovely to them."

Hilton's reps refused to comment when asked about this specific incident on the tape, first uncovered by Star magazine.

According to Maung, the marathon recording includes footage of Hilton "making love" with Nick Carter in the back of a car, greeting one-time boyfriend Jason Shaw in the nude and rolling a "cigarette."

She jokes: "It'll be Paris Hilton Two: How to roll a joint."

It's doubtful she's laughing today.

Martha Stewart's going deeper inside to go "inside."

Sources close to the hoosegow- heading homemaker tell us that she has been studying meditation techniques as a way of coping with life at the federal prison she'll enter next week in Alderson, W. Va.

They add that Stewart has conferred with consultant David Novak, who served 10 months in prison and wrote "Downtown" about the experience - though Novak tells us, "I never comment about my clients."

"Martha's been told that there's a total lack of privacy and that it's very noisy," says one source. "She's been meditating to help deal with it."

Stewart, who will serve five months in prison for lying to the government about a stock trade, expressed her disappointment yesterday that she will not be sent to a prison where her 90-year-old mother can visit her more easily.

Is Donald Trump having second thoughts about jettisoning one of his contestants on "The Apprentice"? Skip the rest if you don't want to know.

We hear that Stacie J., the Ford model and Harlem Subway shop owner who was iced out by fellow females on the show, may be unfired.

She and her image-builder, Ronn Torrosian, refused to comment.

An NBC rep wouldn't confirm, but slyly noted, "I can say the show will feature a lot more surprises and twists as we get closer to the finale."

Maria Shriver called herself a "multitasking maniac" Monday at the Pierre, where cousin Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, Jessica Seinfeld, Ann Curry, Soledad O'Brien, Deborah Roberts, Donna Hanover and Shriver's mother, Eunice, 83, watched her get America Online's first Chief Everything Officer award.

Shriver, the wife of actor-turned-Calif. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said she liked the title better than "First Lady" of her state.

She must be busy: At the party for ABC's "The Insider" Monday night, the newswoman was caught by surprise when she heard that Jay Leno had announced his plans to retirement.

"Aviator" star Leonardo DiCaprio is off the hook, thanks to a Manhattan judge who threw out a $45 million lawsuit that accused him of egging on his buddies to beat up Roger Wilson outside Asia de Cuba in 1998.

Wilson had accused DiCaprio and his friends of harassing "Showgirls" star Elizabeth Berkley. The actor and screenwriter was dating Berkley at the time and became angry when DiCaprio and Co. supposedly called her repeatedly to get her to come to the restaurant.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Paula Omansky said that while DiCaprio may have said something like "someone should kick this guy's a-," there's no evidence that the man who actually punched Wilson in the throat, Todd Healy, heard DiCaprio. However, Omansky said a suit against Healy may proceed, reports Helen Peterson of the News.

A word to the wise

A.J. Jacobs set out to be the smartest person in the world, but he was taken out of circulation by a red blood cell.

The Esquire editor got tripped up by the meaning of "erythrocyte" when he appeared on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire."

You can't fault Jacobs, the grandson of liberal nonagenarian Theodore Kheel, for trying. He has read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica and reams of other books, which he's chronicled in his memoir, "The Know-It-All."

Fellow smarties who braved the rain to toast Jacobs at the venerable Carriage House on Tuesday night included Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, Esquire's David Granger, Time Out sex columnist Jamie Bufalino, "Pop-Up Video" head Tad Low, "Swell" author Ilene Rosenzweig and Simon & Schuster jefe David Rosenthal.

DAVID O. Russell and Mark Wahlberg are giving back. They attended a dinner and screening of their flick "I Huckabees" last night, benefiting the Ghetto Film School, a nonprofit that aids and teaches film students. Along with Russell and Wahlberg, director Rory Kennedy and designer Zac Posen are on the school's advisory board ...

THE NAMES of New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey and his alleged Israeli lover, Golan Cipel, didn't even come up when Governor-to-be Richard Codey met with Israeli consul Arye Mekel Tuesday. The state Senate president, who'll take over Nov. 15, accepted Mekel's invite to visit Israel, with which the state has strong trade ties (the two places also happen to have nearly the same area, though Jersey has 1.5 million more people) ...

ASHLEY AND Mary-Kate Olsen must've been really thirsty Tuesday night when they dined at Nobu Next Door with two male pals. "Both of them drank a Red Bull, a diet Coke, a tea and a water - all at the same time," reports our sushi-eating spy. And, we are happy to report, "Both of them ate."

Summary: Paris Hilton has two faces - and one of them is very, very ugly. In a recently surfaced 12-hour videotape, Hilton is shown in a rather disturbing scene with two African-American men who ask her if she would model their fashion line. Hilton, standing with pal Brandon Davis, is polite to the men, but calls them "dumb n--s"after they leave, according to British reporter Carole Aye