Italy’s anti-trust agency said on Monday it had fined German carmaker Volkswagen 5 million euros ($5.54 million) for allegedly misinforming car buyers about diesel emissions results.

The Italian watchdog said it would impose the highest fine in its power on Volkswagen, which it said had marketed diesel-powered cars that had been tested for polluting emissions using a software that gave artificially low results.

Volkswagen vlkay said it plans to challenge the fine at an administrative court.

Volkswagen and its Italian division “have fully cooperated with the utmost openness and transparency” to help ascertain the facts, the carmaker said and “are certain that the IAA-decision presents well-founded grounds of appeal”.

Europe’s largest automaker is caught up in its biggest-ever corporate scandal and faces criminal investigations in the United States, South Korea, and elsewhere over cheating in diesel emissions tests.

Summary: The agency said it would impose the highest fine in its power.


President Obama nominated Acting Secretary of Education John B. King to take on role full-time on Thursday.

King has been at the Department of Education since 2015 and began serving as acting Secretary in January 2016. The former New York State Commissioner of Education took over when longtime Obama cabinet official Arne Duncan stepped down from the position at the end of 2015. Duncan left his post to return to his family in Chicago. King had been the Deputy Secretary of Education under Duncan.

“Since joining the Department of Education, John has worked to build on the progress our country has made in expanding opportunity for all of our children,” Obama said in a statement. “There is nobody better to continue leading our ongoing efforts to work toward preschool for all, prepare our kids so that they are ready for college and career, and make college more affordable”

Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), the chairman of the Senate education committee and former Education Secretary under President George H.W. Bush, signaled support for King’s nomination in a statement issued shortly after Obama’s announcement.

“I have urged the president to nominate an education secretary, and I am glad he has done so,” Sen. Alexander said. “John King will receive a prompt and fair hearing in our committee. “

Summary: King has served as the Acting Secretary since Jan. 2016


Heavily armed police have arrested a man in a town south of Melbourne after making him crawl across the front lawn of a residential home.

The Special Operations Group arrested the 26-year-old man in Mornington on Friday morning as part of an ongoing investigation into a number of burglaries and thefts, Victoria Police said in a statement.

The man was arrested in Pamela Place "without incident".

Footage from a Seven Network news helicopter shows the man crawling across the lawn as armed police train their guns on the 26-year-old.

He is then told to lie down with his hands behind his back and is then handcuffed.

Mornington resident Mitchell Beer told AAP an armoured vehicle "full of heavily armed police" and a handful of police vehicles sped past him with lights and sirens blaring about 10am.

Friday's arrest followed the explosion of a homemade device - believed to be a petrol bomb - in nearby Dorothy Crescent about 8pm on Thursday.

AAP understands the two incidents are unrelated.

No one was injured when the device detonated near an empty car parked outside a home, a police spokesman said.

The area remained cordoned off on Friday morning.

Summary: A suspected petrol bomb has exploded in a residential street south of Melbourne but there are no reports of injuries.


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

Beware the Southeast's roads: You'll find the worst drivers in the country on them, a new SmartAsset analysis found.

"Maybe it's the heat causing road rage," the financial data site quips.

Perhaps there's some truth to that notion. The Southeastern state that is warmest year-round — Florida — ranked No. 1 in the analysis, meaning its residents are the worst drivers in the country.

SmartAsset found that Floridians do web searches for the terms "speeding tickets" and "traffic tickets" more often than residents of any other state.

Another factor that contributed to the Sunshine State's ranking: 76.2 percent of its drivers are insured, the second-lowest rate in the nation. Only Oklahoma — ranked No. 3 for the worst drivers overall — has a lower insured rate, at 74.1 percent.

For its analysis, SmartAsset examined four factors and gave them equal weight:

The 10 states with the dubious distinction of ranking highest in terms of having the worst drivers are:

Check out the US cities with the worst traffic below:

US cities with the worst traffic

41 percent extra travel time

36 percent extra travel time

33 percent extra travel time

31 percent extra travel time

30 percent extra travel time

29 percent extra travel time

28 percent extra travel time

26 percent extra travel time

26 percent extra travel time

26 percent extra travel time

To help protect yourself on the road, check out: 7 Car Maintenance Tips for Safe Summer Travel 15 Ways to Prepare for Seasonal Driving Hazards These 10 Behaviors Spark Serious Road Rage in American Drivers

What's your take on this news? How would you rank drivers in your state? Share your thoughts below or on our Facebook page.

Summary: Beware the Southeast’s roads: You’ll find the worst drivers in the country on them, a new SmartAsset analysis found.


They’re such familiar phrases — everyday mini-crises of modern life, and that makes them a perfect match. It’s one made not in heaven but in a British laboratory. And what a beautiful scientific marriage it is.

Scientists have for the first time recharged a smartphone with urine, according to Engineering and Technology Magazine. Ioannis Ieropoulos and his team at the University of West England developed a small fuel cell that turns urine into electricity, and while microbial fuel cells have already proven capable of charging a basic mobile phone, this is the first time they’ve charged a “modern-day smartphone.” The fuel cells are one square inch, cost between 1 and 2 British pounds (about $1.33 to $2.66) and produce electricity using “natural biological processes,” according to the magazine.

Read More: How Credit Impacts Your Day-to-Day Life

Seriously: Using urine to produce electricity could be incredibly impactful. A single fuel cell and 600 mL of urine (about 2.5 cups) produced enough energy for three hours of phone calls on a smartphone. It could help provide affordable electricity to communities in the developing world with little or poor power infrastructure, which is what Ieropoulos and other researchers developing similar systems are trying to do.

Read More: What’s a Bad Credit Score?

While those scientists continue to refine their impressive problem-solving skills, it’s kind of fun to think of some other (less important) things we could do with “Urine-tricity,” as Ieropoulos calls it.

It’s not too much of a stretch to think people would pee as a means to power their smartphones. Plenty of people would rather spend money than wander the world with a dead phone, considering you can buy charger cables pretty much anywhere, as well as device-charging phone cases and portable chargers. There’s also the common tactic of buying a coffee, beer or snack to justify your use of an establishment’s power outlets. At least pee power allows you to charge your phone by taking advantage of something you already need to do, as opposed to whipping out your credit card to solve your battery-life woes.

Read More: What’s a Good Credit Score?

If you want to get really nerdy about it, you could pitch pee power to the super frugal as an opportunity to save with tag lines like “Bacteria: It’s Good For Your Budget!” or “Waste Not, Watt Not.” After all, we waste energy (and money) by keeping phones plugged in even when they’re charged (though hours of unnecessary phone charging won’t ding your finances by way of a huge utility bill as much as leaving a charged laptop or another more powerful device plugged in).

Then there are the ridiculous first-world problems it could solve, like needing a bathroom and a phone charge in the midst of a night out or a Pokémon Go excursion. (You’d probably need a lot of pee to keep that game going, though.) Sure, this might present a bit of a public urination problem — but then again, maybe it’s a solution: Relief & Recharge is a pretty good port-a-potty name, if you ask me.

Summary: On the other hand, it's an unlimited resource.


08/22/2016 AT 10:55 AM EDT

Could a third child be in

In a sneak peek at Wednesday's episode of

, the former Playboy model sits down with the celebrity clairvoyant medium for the first time, and learns that she's susceptible to pregnancy.

"You have two kids?" Henry asks her right away.

"I do," agrees Wilkinson, 31.

have two children together: Hank IV, 6, Alijah Mary, 2.

"Okay, cool. Would you ever be open to having a third?" the medium continues to question her.

"Why would you ask?" she says giggling in response.

"Well, because um you have a susceptibility to some hormonal changes, which would indicate a susceptibility to pregnancy," he tells the reality star. "So, it's good to keep in mind. From your perspective, is having a third child something you'd ever be interested in?"

After taking a moment to let the reading sink in, she tells Henry that her feelings about having another child have changed as of late.

"I said absolutely not," she began. "But now, our daughter just entered pre-school and that second that she went into the pre-school, I was like, 'I got empty nest syndrome already.' "

Hollywood Medium With Tyler Henry airs Wednesday (8 p.m ET) on E!

Summary: Someone has possible baby news for Kendra Wilkinson and it isn't her doctor


The world's second largest meteor has been discovered in northern Argentina, a news report says.

A team of experts found the 30,800 kilogram meteorite buried in the province of Chaco, about 800 kilometres northwest of the capital Buenos Aires on Saturday, the news agency Telam says.

The discovery was made in an area called Campo del Cielo, which lies in the municipality of Gancedo, where a meteor shower hit approximately 4000 years ago.

The world's largest discovered meteor - called Hoba - weighs more than 50 tonnes and was found in Namibia nearly a century ago.

Summary: A team of experts have found a 30,800 kilogram meteorite they believe landed in northern Argentina 4000 years ago.


Courtney Love, JT LeRoy and Laura Albert

09/16/2016 AT 04:30 PM EDT

He wrote bestselling books, made numerous public appearances, became a Hollywood "it" boy and befriended a slew of A-list celebrities, but author JT Leroy never actually existed.

In 2006, Laura Albert shocked the the literary world and Hollywood alike when she revealed that she was the person behind the beloved and celebrated young author – supposedly a HIV-positive transgender ex-prostitute who chronicled his troubled upbringing in the novel

Now 10 years after the scandal broke and Albert was labeled the mastermind of one of the entertainment's most elaborate hoaxes (a word she adamantly refutes), the Brooklyn native is telling her side of the story in the new documentary

"I understand people feeling hurt and they feel I took their time, but this was never a joke for me," she tells PEOPLE. "All I can is when JT felt pain and felt suicidal, that was real for me. That was real

Albert, now 50, explains that first began disguising herself as JT when she would call hotlines to talk about the sexual abuse she says she experienced as a child. Albert says that at the time, there was so much stigma around discussion of women's sexuality and abuse that the only way she felt she could be heard was to present herself as a boy named Terminator.

"If I was going to have a voice and express anything, I needed to be a blonde haired, blue-eyed little boy," she says. "I had no words to express how I felt sexually because I had so much shame, but as JT I could tell someone and I could get help."

"JT was created the way an oyster creates pearls. He started as Terminator and then transformed into JT LeRoy," she says.

When a doctor encouraged Albert to put her thoughts on paper, JT was truly born.

"[My doctor] said, 'Why don't you write a story about what it's like to be a kid on the street. I thought I was going to write almost an instruction manual for social workers, but when JT started writing it was completely different."

Albert's first story as JT was

, a short story about heroin.

As her writing became increasingly popular and after she published her first novel as JT, Albert enlisted the help of her sister-in-law to disguise herself and go out in public as JT.

JT skyrocketed to fame and was labeled an "it boy" among Hollywood's elite, befriending the likes of Courtney Love, Winona Ryder and more. Albert's sister-in-law would meet celebrities at Hollywood events, and Albert would step in when JT talked to them on the phone.

"I didn't want to do a documentary for so many years because everyone was focused on the celebrity part of JT, but what they didn't realize was that JT was me," Albert says of her decision to finally speak out. "This is the first time I felt my story could be communicated in the right way."

The mesmerizing saga of JT LeRoy's rise to fame and ultimate downfall when Albert was eventually exposed is chronicled in

, in select theaters now.

Summary: Laura Albert reveals how she managed to fool Hollywood and live under the guise of JT LeRoy for years


09/28/2016 AT 05:40 PM EDT

On Wednesday, Jackson Millarker will break new ground by guest starring on

which will make him the first openly transgender child actor to appear on television.

Before his episode airs, Millarker and his parents are opening up to PEOPLE about his journey to the small screen.

Here are five things to know about the 8-year-old actor.

"When we explained the role to him, he was very excited about the opportunity to portray a character that is so similar to himself," moms Stacey and Jen tell PEOPLE. "Jackson has been a young activist in our community and he knew that

would portray the role of a transgender child in a positive light."

"We followed Jackson's lead from a very early age and supported him in every aspect of his transition," his parents share. "He is very wise beyond his years and was able to communicate open and honestly about his feelings and what he was experiencing. He was always a very gender-neutral child, but at the age of 4 he started experiencing intense anxiety in his daily life."

"As his parents, we pulled together resources and support to help us through the earliest stages of his transition, while at the same time continuing to give him the freedom to express himself however he felt comfortable," they add. "At the age of 6, he came to us with the request to use male pronouns at home. He quickly decided that he wanted to use male pronouns exclusively, because he realized that he was in fact transgender. He entered second grade as his true self, a boy. His family, friends, and school have been very supportive from the beginning. He is now a confident, happy, healthy young man."

"Aubrey Anderson-Emmons [who plays Lily] and I were near her room on the set, and the two dads were walking around the corner," Jackson tells PEOPLE. "When

walked around the corner, he stuck his tongue out at me!"

The fun didn't end there, recalls the young actor: "My favorite moment was when I got to play the game with Aubrey! We got to do it over and over again," he says. "It was really fun! I felt welcomed from the very beginning! In the first five minutes of meeting the cast, I was already laughing."

"Since I can remember, I have enjoyed performing," he reveals. "I have always performed plays at home for my family. When I was 6, my parents finally signed me up for a theater class! I joined a musical theater troop and I was Baloo in the

. I love being on stage and making people laugh and smile. I also absolutely love frogs!"

"Be yourself!" he encourages. "Remember that you are loved and that you, too, are special!"

's "A Stereotypical Day" airs Wednesday at 9 p.m. ET on ABC.

Summary: "Since I can remember, I have enjoyed performing,"  Jackson Millaker tells PEOPLE


Mike Baird has performed a second policy backflip in as many days, announcing he will pursue a six-month trial of shark nets along NSW's north coast after another shark attack.

After resisting calls to install nets, which kill other marine life, the premier announced the policy change on Wednesday, a day after he reversed a ban on greyhound racing.

The premier says he will lobby the federal government to install shark nets along the state's north coast after a 25-year-old man, named in media reports as Seneca Rus, was bitten at Ballina while surfing with friends on Wednesday morning.

The attack comes less than two weeks after 17-year-old Cooper Allan was mauled by a great white at Ballina's Lighthouse Beach.

Following Mr Allan's attack the state government announced up to 100 "smart" drumlines would be placed along the NSW coastline with the focus on the northern beaches in a bid to keep swimmers safe.

Now, Mr Baird says these drumlines aren't enough.

"Ultimately we get to the point where we have to prioritise human life over everything," he told NSW Parliament.

"Certainly the sentiment in that local community has shifted. It was against nets, no doubt about it. The recent attacks have started to shift that."

About a year ago, Mr Baird wrote about his apprehension over installing shark nets: "While the safety record is great, nets don't just catch sharks, they catch other sea-life too. That reality is a serious concern to all of us."

A recent trial to install eco-friendly barriers around Ballina was scrapped after conditions became too rough.

Primary Industries Minister Niall Blair said the shark nets would add to existing measures, such as tagging programs and aerial surveillance.

"We will be doing everything we can to get those nets, if approved, in the water as soon as possible," he said.

Wednesday's attack has shut down all beaches in Ballina for 24 hours and authorities are trying to determine what type of shark was involved.

Mr Rus told police he first felt a bump on his board before he was attacked and fell into the water.

He was then was taken by friends to Ballina Hospital suffering injuries to his lower right leg.

"Got a good chink out of his shin... he was super lucky," said surfer Scott Crump, who was in the water at the time.

"So rattled....I would have been next in line on the buffet."

There have been six shark attacks at Ballina Shire beaches since January last year, including one that killed Japanese surfer Tadashi Nakahara.

Summary: A man who was bitten by a shark on NSW's north coast has driven himself to hospital and all beaches in the Ballina Shire have been shut.


A Melbourne man is fighting for life with burns to 75 per cent of his body after an explosion in his garden shed.

Upper Ferntree Gully CFA captain Peter Smith said the man was filling a diving cylinder inside his shed when the explosion occurred at 5.20pm on Tuesday.

"There was a very small fire following the explosion, which was enough to burn 75 per cent of his body," Mr Smith told AAP on Wednesday.

The man in his 40s, suffered burns to his head, back, hands and legs and also broke his leg as a result of the backyard explosion at Upper Ferntree Gully.

Ambulance Victoria says he was put into an induced coma and flown to The Alfred hospital in a critical condition.

Forty minutes later paramedics were called to an home in Moe where a woman was injured when she apparently threw an accelerant onto a fire to light it.

She has burns to the face, neck and shoulder.

The woman was airlifted to The Alfred hospital in a stable condition.

Summary: A man is in a critical condition in hospital after suffering burns to his body and face in a shed explosion in Melbourne.


A koala has found its way into a teenage boy's bedroom after busting into his Adelaide Hill home uninvited late at night.

Nicholas Sneath, 14, said the koala rushed into his bedroom when he opened the door late on Sunday, thinking the small shadow outside belonged to his dog.

"I opened it up and there is a koala there looking down the hallway at my mum and dad who are nervously screaming, laughing and all that," he told AAP.

The teen jumped on to his bed for protection and snapped photos and videos of surprising guest.

Nicholas and his parents then ushered the animal out of their Stonyfell home using a sheet, through the doggy door they suspect it used to get in.

"We were petrified. We honestly weren't going near this thing," the boy's mother Karena Sneath said.

While the koala did no damage, its unique smell lingered.

"He did leave a distinct eucalyptus scent in my room," Nicholas said.

Summary: A koala has snuck into an Adelaide Hills home late at night, making its way into a teenager's bedroom.


A drug addict in a WA prison repeatedly threatened to kill his stepmother, saying he wanted to eat her, but the information was not relayed properly to authorities and he murdered her less than a month later, an inquest has heard.

The circumstances leading up to Sally Kaur's murder are now being investigated by WA Deputy State Coroner Evelyn Vicker after it was revealed Catalin Alin Borbil had told a chaplain and a fellow inmate he wanted to kill his stepmother.

Counsel assisting the coroner Kate Ellson said on Tuesday that Ms Kaur moved to Perth from Singapore in 2010 and married Borbil's father, but the relationship was marred by violence and she was assigned a domestic violence advocate in 2012.

Ms Ellson said a month before Ms Kaur was killed in December 2013, Borbil was remanded in custody for offences including possessing a controlled weapon, stealing a car and possessing drug paraphernalia.

He told a prison chaplain: "I hate her and if I can get a gun I will put it to her head."

The following day, Borbil told a prisoner he intended to kill his stepmother, put her in a trunk then eat her, and the remark was reported to a prison social worker.

In a second meeting with the same chaplain a few days later, Borbil said: "I say goodbye to her every morning and she just ignores me, I have told her 'one day I am going to f*** kill you'."

Borbil was later granted bail with a condition that he live with his father, but there was no mention of who else lived there.

"More concerning is the fact that no information about any of the threats he had made towards his stepmother was available to the police sergeant prosecutor," Ms Ellson said.

Two weeks later, Ms Kaur was chopping vegetables in her Koondoola home when she was confronted by her 19-year-old meth-affected stepson, who demanded money.

After the 57-year-old victim accidentally cut him with her knife, Borbil stabbed her at least 15 times in the chest, neck and stomach, and ransacked the home, leaving her in a pool of blood.

Borbil was sentenced in 2015 to life behind bars with a minimum of 17 years.

Ms Ellson said what Borbil told the chaplain was not reported to anyone until five days after he was released on bail, while the threat reported to the other prisoner never led anyone to contact Ms Kaur or her domestic violence advocate.

The coroner is examining whether anything could have been done to prevent Ms Kaur's death.

National domestic violence helpline: 1800 737 732 or 1800RESPECT. In an emergency call triple-zero.

Summary: A WA coroner is examining whether anything could have been done to prevent the murder of a woman killed by her stepson after he threatened her life.


Several inmates at the Wacol Youth Dentention Centre in Brisbane have scaled a sunshade. (9NEWS)

Four inmates who scaled a roof at a Brisbane youth detention centre have come down without incident.

The inmates gained access to the roof of a building at the Wacol detention centre about 11.30am on Thursday.

Two came down two hours later while the other two followed at about 3pm.

The justice department says they didn't make any threats or demands, and there are no reports of injuries to the youths or to staff.

The department will review the incident.

Summary: Footage has emerged appearing to show several inmates have scaled a sunshade structure at the Wacol Youth Detention Centre.


Is it true that you should wait an hour after eating before you go swimming?

SAN DIEGO — Patients who undergo a "poop transplant" to treat severe diarrhea often see their symptoms get better within days, but their gut bacteria continue to undergo dramatic c...

Food allergies in children have been on the rise for years.

A 27-year-old man who was suffering from severe constipation for 10 years underwent surgery to remove a large stool from his colon.

There comes a point in every woman’s life when your digestion doesn’t seem to be working as well as it did in the past.

Crohn’s disease, a condition marked by inflammation in the lining of the digestive tract, can cause diarrhea, fatigue, weight loss and malnutrition, and affects an estimated 201 ou...

A Chinese war veteran who went to the doctor with stomach pains was shocked to learn the source of his discomfort was a 1.1-inch bullet lodged in his abdomen, Central European News...

Summer is a big season for kidney stones.

It's a book that "caused something of a storm in its native Germany," writes Annalisa Barbieri for the Guardian.

Summary: Indigestion news articles and videos from FoxNews.com's Health section.


ZURICH—Strong sales of a new drug helped push Actelion Ltd.’s earnings higher in the third quarter, prompting Europe’s biggest biotech to upgrade its full-year guidance for a second consecutive quarter.

Allschwil, Switzerland-based Actelion said Tuesday that Opsumit, a treatment for pulmonary arterial hypertension, was quickly being adopted in the markets in which it has launched. The drug, a follow-on to the company’s blockbuster...

ZURICH—Strong sales of a new drug helped push Actelion Ltd. ’s earnings higher in the third quarter, prompting Europe’s biggest biotech to upgrade its full-year guidance for a second consecutive quarter.

Allschwil, Switzerland-based Actelion said Tuesday that Opsumit, a treatment for pulmonary arterial hypertension, was quickly being adopted in the markets in which it has launched. The drug, a follow-on to the company’s blockbuster Tracleer treatment that will lose patent protection next year, generated 59 million Swiss francs ($62.58 million) during the period.

In quarter ended Sept. 30, Actelion said core net earnings, which exclude items the company’s management deem “exceptional,” rose 28% to 176 million francs from 137 million francs a year earlier. The company said the performance would have been even better—32%—if measured in constant currency, which strips out the effect of exchange rate movements.

Opsumit’s performance, as well as much of the rest of its drug portfolio, prompted the company to boost its forecast for full-year core earnings growth to the low-20% range when measured in constant currency. In July, Actelion said it saw core earnings growing in the midteens.

The strong performance comes as Actelion readies to file a new drug, Selexipag, for regulatory approval. Like Opsumit and Tracleer, Selexipag treats PAH, which causes arteries running from the heart to the lungs to constrict and raise blood pressure in the lungs. Actelion has carved out a reputation as a PAH specialist since it was founded by two former Roche scientists in 1997.

In an interview, Chief Executive Jean-Paul Clozel said he was encouraged by the acceptance Opsumit was receiving, particularly with patients currently using Tracleer. “It is going to grow very much,” Dr. Clozel said of Opsumit, adding “many (patients) have been upgraded.”

Dr. Clozel said the company would like to file Selexipag with regulatory authorities at the end of this year or in early 2015. Actelion also has two other drugs that treat different diseases in Phase III trials, the final stage of human testing before drugs are submitted to authorities for approval.

Getting new products to market is a priority for Actelion, which still generates the bulk of its revenue from Tracleer even though sales of the drug have begun to fall. In the third quarter, sales of Tracleer dropped 3% but still accounted for 361 million francs, or 73% of the company’s total product revenue.

Total product sales rose 13% to 496 million francs.

In early trading, Actelion shares rose 3.2% to 105.70 francs.

Actelion, which has been speculated as a target for an inversion deal, hasn’t been approached for a takeover, Dr. Clozel said. Inversions are deals in which a U.S.-based company acquires a company in lower-tax country to reduce its tax obligations. The U.S. recently took steps to discourage inversions.

“It is very good that the U.S. government has taken measures because to see these deals that are motivated by tax and business, not science, isn’t good for the industry,” Dr. Clozel said. “I’m pleased by this evolution.”

Write to Andrew Morse at andrew.morse@wsj.com

Summary: Strong sales of a new drug helped push Actelion’s earnings higher in the third quarter, prompting Europe’s biggest biotech to upgrade its full-year guidance.


Most children living in residential care in Australia feel unsafe due to bullying, harassment and violence, research shows.

They want a safe place that feels like a home, where life is better than when they lived with their families or in foster care, a report for the child abuse royal commission found.

The research included interviews with 27 children and young people living in residential care units, most of whom said they did not feel safe.

Most talked about bullying, harassment and violence as an ongoing issue, the report released on Monday said.

"Even when they were not directly assaulted, many reported living in fear and having to hide from other young people for extended periods of time," it said.

Young people also said they were very aware of and concerned by the threat of sexual harassment and assault.

The participants in the study felt that because residential care was often unsafe, most children and young people should be placed in alternate forms of accommodation.

For those who could not be given more appropriate placements, residential care should be seen as a permanent solution and the number of moves from one unit to another limited, they said.

They want better matching of peers to reduce the likelihood of violent interactions and some say in where and with whom they were placed, the report said.

It noted many of the older youths described their time in the out-of-home care system as chaotic and unstable, moving from one arrangement to another due to placement breakdown that was often a result of physical, emotional or sexual abuse.

About 2400 children live in residential care, or one in 20 of the total number of children in out-of-home care in Australia.

Summary: Research commissioned by the child abuse royal commission shows most children in residential care say they don't feel safe.


Thursday, June 6th 1996, 2:00AM

Deposed "CBS Evening News" anchor Connie Chung, who lost her job alongside one man, is coming back to TV alongside another her husband, talk show host Maury Povich.

The two are teaming up for a half-hour syndicated news show scheduled for launch in fall 1998. It will be produced by DreamWorks SKG, the production company headed by entertainment moguls Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg.

The yet-untitled program, Chung and Povich told the Daily News yesterday, will focus on the top news of the day and is designed to run between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. weekdays.

"It will be run like any news organization is run, with a staff that has great news experience," said Povich.

He also said yesterday he will fold his five-year-old daytime talker after its contract with Paramount runs out in two years. Chung she said she "will be looking for other projects" in the interim.

Chung lost her seat beside Dan Rather at the "CBS Evening News" desk in May 1995 in a headline-grabbing controversy over coverage of stories.

Summary: Deposed "CBS Evening News"anchor Connie Chung, who lost her job alongside one man, is coming back to TV alongside another her husband, talk show host Maury Povich. The two are teaming up for a half-hour syndicated news show scheduled for launch in fall 1998. It will be produced by DreamWorks SKG, the production company headed by entertainment moguls Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg. The yet-untitled program, Chung and Povich


BY MITCHELL FINK WITH EMILY GEST

Friday, October 16th 1998, 2:05AM

Kids Say the Darndest Things" is the title of Bill Cosby's new book.

But adults say the darndest things, too, as Cosby did recently.

The CBS funnyman had just concluded an appearance on ABC's "Live With Regis & Kathie Lee," to promote his book, when he stood up, hugged host Kathie Lee Gifford, and whispered something in her ear: "Give my best to Frank [Gifford], and tell him I'm so happy that they're

not doing that well . . . because Frank was the best."

But a whisper can sound like a scream when you're unknowingly speaking into an open microphone on live TV as Cosby was.

And by "they," Cosby meant ABC's "Monday Night Football," which dumped Frank from the broadcast booth after more than two decades, cutting his responsibilities back to anchoring the short pre-game show. And it's true that the ratings for "Monday Night Football" this season are generally lower than last year.

"A lot of people" have told her "the same thing," Kathie Lee told me on Wednesday night. "This was Bill's opinion, and I value it." She also described Cosby "as a man who would never say anything privately that he couldn't say publicly."

The Giffords were among the 800 people who attended Wednesday's annual Rita Hayworth Gala at the Waldorf-Astoria.

Also attending were Peter Jennings, Dan Aykroyd and Donna Dixon, Art Garfunkel, George Plimpton, Deborah Norville, Ivana Trump and O.J. lawyer Robert Shapiro.

The event, spearheaded each year by Hayworth's daughter, Princess Yasmin Aga Khan, raised more than $1.6 million to battle Alzheimer's disease, which caused the flame-haired film star's death in 1987.

But the main topic of conversation among the notables who attended was not the ongoing Clinton scandal, the ethnic murders in Kosovo, the skittish stock market, or even the Yankees. People were still buzzing about the chaos at Monday's G&P Foundation Gala at the Sheraton.

Many prominent New Yorkers attended both events, including songwriter Denise Rich, who founded G&P after her daughter Gabrielle died of leukemia in 1996. People at the Hayworth party came up to Rich all night long, saying it made no difference that the seating went haywire. No big deal, they were saying, everyone had a swell time. Especially the gossip columnists.

Jerry Seinfeld's former girlfriend, Shoshanna Lonstein, had a terrible story to tell Wednesday. She made it to the Milk Studios as part of a celebration for the 30th anniversary of "Sesame Street," but her new lingerie collection did not.

"A messenger was supposed to pick up [the lingerie]," the budding 23-year-old designer explained, "but it sat in my office for two days and I didn't know it." By the time Lonstein realized the mistake, it was too late to get the merchandise to the W. 15th St. studio.

Of course, clothing wasn't the focus of the fashion show. The focus was totebags the models carried, because they were designed by fashion luminaries Nicole Miller, Bill Blass, Donna Karan, Bob Mackie, Vera Wang and Lonstein.

Paul Simon officially exorcises his post-"Capeman" funk next Thursday, when he'll turn up as Marc Anthony's surprise guest at the Children's Health Fund Gala.

You may recall that last winter's Broadway musical "The Capeman" was conceived and written by Simon and starred Anthony. Simon took its failure pretty hard and went into semi-reclusion. Anthony went a different route: He started dating Mira Sorvino.

Simon is the co-founder of CHF, and I'm told he'll definitely be joining Anthony on stage at the Pierre Hotel during his three-song set.

Hollywood's most famous openly gay couple Anne Heche and Ellen DeGeneres took an American Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., Wednesday to take part in a special candlelight vigil for Matthew Shepard, the gay college student who was fatally beaten in Wyoming.

Guess what movie the airline showed? I don't know how many times Heche has seen herself in "Six Days, Seven Nights," also starring Harrison Ford, but she had a chance to see it again en route.

According to a fellow first-class passenger, the girlfriends spent much of the flight feverishly making notes of things they might want to say at the memorial. Heche was mostly hunched over her tray table, writing. But when the in-flight movie came on, Heche, according to the onlooker, "periodically stole glances of herself."

She probably knew she was better in "Wag the Dog."

Summary: Kids Say the Darndest Things"is the title of Bill Cosby's new book. But adults say the darndest things, too, as Cosby did recently. The CBS funnyman had just concluded an appearance on ABC's "Live With Regis & Kathie Lee,"to promote his book, when he stood up, hugged host Kathie Lee Gifford, and whispered something in her ear: "Give my best to Frank [Gifford], and tell him I'm so happy that they're not doing that


Tuesday, September 4th 2001, 2:23AM

MORE THAN A billion dollars had been spent to rehabilitate drug addicts in New York State over the past 10 years, and, Gov. Nelson Rockefeller informed the opening session of the 196th Legislature on Wednesday the 3rd of January 1973, there was almost nothing to show for this.

He had long championed medical approaches to the mushrooming drug problem. Now his heart had hardened. He wanted the nation's toughest set of drug laws. He wanted mandatory life imprisonment for pushers, with no hope of parole or probation. He wanted mandatory life for drug users who committed violent crimes. He wanted an end to youthful-offender status. He wanted no plea bargaining, no cut-rate sentences.

"This reign of fear cannot be tolerated," he barked at the stunned-silent lawmakers. "People are terrorized by the continued prevalence of narcotic addiction and the crime and human destruction it breeds. This has to stop."

Aside from the American Civil Liberties Union ("Police state!") and Mayor John Lindsay ("Deceptive gesture offering nothing beyond momentary satisfaction!") and the other professional bleeding hearts, the spirit of the Rockefeller proposal was widely hailed, even by such a good Manhattan liberal as Assemblyman Andrew Stein. "People are fed up with knee-jerk reaction against measures to deal with drugs," Stein said. "It's not anti-liberal to be concerned with the growing drug cancer that threatens to destroy our city and the lives of our children." Conceded the Daily News: "It may be that some modification in the bill's specifics will be warranted."

There was the point. The spirit of the Rockefeller Law was not the issue. The issue was: How could this ever work?

EVEN AS Rockefeller sent his bill to the Legislature on Jan. 10, the numbers were emerging, and they were impossible:

In New York City alone, there had been 2,385 felony narcotics arrests in 1963, 3,375 in 1964, 3,855 in 1965 and 5,387 in 1966, in which year the state's social approach to drug addiction shifted from in-patient treatment to methadone maintenance. In 1967, the city's arrest count was 7,190. A year after that, it was 9,626. And in 1969, the number hit 15,431 - of which, in an overwhelmed judicial system happy to settle for bargained pleas wherever it could, only 32 went to trial.

After 1970, when the arrest count reached 26,792, the state amended its drug laws to exempt marijuana from the sterner reaches of justice, and the totals plummeted. Still, in 1972, there were some 3,500 felony drug cases on the crowded calendars of the city's Special Narcotics Courts, and despite much recent expansion of the court system, there was time and room to try just 300 of these.

Now Rockefeller wanted everyone tried, automatically, period, no deals. The courts could never hope to handle such a load.

And there were only 20,000 prison cells in the entire state anyway.

WHOLLY UNWORKABLE, agreed the New York State District Attorneys Association. "I don't see how the courts could function at all," said Presiding Justice Harold Stevens of the Appellate Division. The state courts administrator calculated that New York City alone would require 106 more judges. The state Bar Association noted that hundreds of millions of dollars would have to be laid out for new courthouses and prisons.

Rockefeller was unbudged, and through February, the arguments of his critics got lost in the din of emotional testimony at several public hearings. A W. 84th St. minister lamented that addicts had burned down his church. A Harlem community leader raged against the hoodlums who had mugged his elderly mother. A physician declared that there were 75,000 young heroin addicts in the city's schools.

The Rockefeller bill went sailing through the Legislature with little political resistance. There was no question it would fast become law. Consequences would have to be assessed at some later time.

Summary: By JAY MAEDER MORE THAN A billion dollars had been spent to rehabilitate drug addicts in New York State over the past 10 years, and, Gov. Nelson Rockefeller informed the opening session of the 196th Legislature on Wednesday the 3rd of January 1973, there was almost nothing to show for this. He had long championed medical approaches to the mushrooming drug problem. Now his heart had hardened. He wanted the nation's toughest set of drug


By BRUCE SCHREINER, Associated Press

SHELBYVILLE, Ky. - A Kentucky doctor said Monday that he saved a truck driver's life when he amputated part of the man's penis after discovering a rare and deadly cancer, but the man told a jury he wanted to escape from the hospital when he learned it was removed without his knowledge.

The truck driver, Phillip Seaton, 64, of Waddy, is suing Dr. John Patterson, who performed the 2007 surgery that was initially meant to be a simple circumcision to relieve inflammation.

"What I saw was not a penis. What I saw was cancer," Patterson, a Frankfort urologist, testified in Shelby County Circuit Court.

Patterson said he removed less than an inch of Seaton's penis. The rest of the penis was amputated by another doctor later, said Patterson's lawyer, Clay Robinson.

Seaton's wife, Deborah, is also a plaintiff in the suit, which seeks unspecified damages for "loss of service, love and affection."

In earlier testimony, Phillip Seaton described the moments after being told part of his penis had been removed.

"I pulled the dressing down, and I didn't see nothing," Seaton said under questioning by his attorney, Kevin George. "Then I came out of the restroom and I said, `I'm getting the hell out of this damn hospital.'"

Patterson testified the cancer prevented him from inserting a catheter into Seaton's urethra, and he was concerned about the possibility of kidney damage from urinary retention. Although Deborah Seaton was in the hospital waiting room, the doctor said he did not consult her because she had not accompanied her husband to office visits or into the pre-operation area, which he thought was unusual.

"My impression was she would not be someone I would ask what he would want," Patterson testified.

Deborah Seaton testified that if the doctor had consulted her after finding the cancer, she would have advised him to halt the surgery and wake up her husband.

"It's his body," she said. "He should have a say in it."

Phillip Seaton had earlier testified about his emotional state since the surgery, saying he was a "bad case."

"I didn't have no say in it," he testified. "I wasn't told what had to be done. It was just done."

Seaton testified that Patterson had told him he would cut foreskin during the circumcision and described it as "more or less in and out." He said he had even joked with the doctor about the procedure.

During opening arguments, Robinson said Seaton had before the surgery initialed a document authorizing treatment in unforeseen circumstances.

George said the document had been read to Seaton because he cannot read.

The eight-woman, six-man jury was shown graphic images early in the day.

George presented four photographs of Seaton's groin saying, "You can see there's nothing there." He also told jurors that Seaton "doesn't feel like a man" anymore.

Robinson offered up a photograph of the cancerous tip of a penis -- not Seaton's.

Seaton's brother, David Seaton, testified that Phillip Seaton has been depressed and angry since the surgery.

"The spark is gone out of his life. He used to be such a happy person," David Seaton testified.

The jury includes two alternates.

Testimony is scheduled to resume Tuesday.


D'IBERVILLE, Miss. -- A man in southern Mississippi is accused of trying to walk out of a D'Iberville grocery store without paying for food items he'd stuffed into his cargo shorts including live lobsters.

Police Chief Wayne Payne says 35-year-old Nathan Mark Hardy was arrested Saturday after allegedly being caught stuffing food into his cargo shorts - two bags of jumbo shrimp, a pork loin and two live lobsters.

Payne says Hardy, of Biloxi, tried to escape by throwing the pork loin at employees at the local Winn Dixie but fell while running away. He was arrested at the scene.

The shoplifting charge is a misdemeanor, but Hardy remained jailed Wednesday in the Harrison County jail with no bond pending a hearing on a probation violation.

Summary: Associated Press D'IBERVILLE, Miss. -- A man in southern Mississippi is accused of trying to walk out of a D'Iberville grocery store without paying for food items he'd stuffed into his cargo shorts including live lobsters.


's camp announced that she was

, the pop star appeared back in the midst of actions that seemed anything but therapeutic.

Around 9 p.m. Monday, Spears's father Jamie and her mother Lynne – who earlier visited Britney's kids Preston, 2, and Jayden, 1 at

's house in Tarzana – arrived at their daughter's home.

Whatever occurred at the family reunion didn't last long, as Spears, clutching a bag, bolted from the mansion, hopped into a car with her

Adnan Ghalib and sped off, says a source.

Their getaway hit a speed bump, however, when their car got a flat tire and forced them into a Chevron station for air. They then returned to Britney's house and to mother Lynne, leaving Ghalib to depart soon after.

About 90 minutes later, around 1:30 a.m., mother and daughter left the house together themselves, headed to a Longs Drugstore in Studio City.

The action-packed evening actually got underway much earlier Monday evening, when Spears and her confidante Sam Lutfi went for a short drive around Beverly Hills.

When they returned to her Summit home at around 6 p.m., the visibly distraught singer – who appeared to be arguing with Lutfi – jumped out of the white Mercedes near the gated community's guardhouse.

Spears – wearing brown high heels, cutoff shorts and a plaid fedora as she clutched her Yorkie puppy London – wandered around in tears and, at one point, sat down on the curb. "She looked completely lost," says an on-scene source.

Only Spears seemed to downplay the incident, saying, "I'm fine. I'm â¦ having a nice time with my dog."

The singer ended up hopping into a car with photographer Filipe Teixeira, who gave her a lift to a Ralph's supermarket in Studio City before he brought her home – and she invited him and another photographer inside. Ghalib, who'd been noticeably absent from Spears's side in recent days, showed up about half an hour later.

Later on, police cars pulled up to the house in response to a call from security at Spears's gated community.

"Spears drove through the gates and paparazzi followed her car on foot," said LAPD Officer Mike Lopez. "By the time officers arrived, the paparazzi were off the property, but officers handed out citations for those who were illegally parked."

Summary: She begins the evening in tears – then runs off with Adnan Ghalib after a visit from her parents


(LAKE FOREST, CA.) - It's no secret that Barack Obama has been aggressively courting evangelical voters, but his appearance at

Saturday night was a clear indication that Christian voters can be a tough bunch.

For starters, Pastor Rick Warren, one of America's most prominent evangelical ministers, was clearly in control of the forum. Although he was cordial, calling both Obama and John McCain his friends, he asked tough questions and didn't let Obama veer off into his stump.

"Don't give me your stump speech on these," Warren told Obama when he asked him about domestic issues.

Warren also often signaled Obama to wrap up his answers at times when it looked like he could veer off onto a tangent. He would give an "uh" or glance at his notes, indicating that Obama needed to speed things up.

The audience at Saddleback was equally as tough as Warren. They respectfully applauded for Obama when he came out on stage, but during the first half of the program, they only clapped a few times. However, as Obama began to express a more conservative position on issues such as marriage, the audience noticeably perked up.

"I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman," Obama said as the crowd applauded, adding that "God's in the mix."

Obama's lines on building bridges across "partisan, racial, and religious lines" also garnered a lot of applause and even a standing ovation at the end.

And when Warren asked Obama to defend his line of questioning, Obama happily obliged. "One of the things if you are a person of faith like me, I believe that things will work out and we will get the president that we need," Obama said and later added, "I trust in the American people, they are going to make a good decision."

Summary: Pastor Rick Warren Questioned Candidates Read more by Maria Gavrilovic on CBS News' From The Road.


THE four foods that seem to lend themselves most naturally to nosalt cookery are tomatoes, onions, mushrooms and eggplants. These vegetables have an innate flavor that is more pronounced when they are cooked, and if treated properly their flavor gratifications need not be enhanced by salt.

I try to limit my daily intake of sodium to 2 grams, which is the equivalent of 2,000 miligrams a day. I have indicated the sodium content of some ingredients that are relatively high in sodium. I note, for example, that the sodium content of celery in one recipe is 132 milligrams. But I add that the recipe servces four to eight and therefore is from 17 to 33 milligrams per serving.

As to the sodium content of eggplant, it may be stressed that there are only 5 milligrams of sodium for each pound of the vegetable. That is why I find it ironic that almost all cookbooks recommend sprinkling the cut eggplant with salt before cooking. As of this writing, I have examined 10 books that touch on eggplant cookery in an international vein, and typical is this excerpt from Ada Boni's ''Italian Regional Cooking'' (Bonanza Books, New York), for which, incidentally, I have great admiration:

''Wash the eggplants and cut them in half lengthwise. Sprinkle with salt and leave to drain for one to two hours in a colander. This will rid them of their somewhat bitter flavor.''

What fascinates me about this instruction is that I have never found eggplants to be bitter when cooked directly after cubing, slicing or chopping. And I am puzzled: I wonder if these are not old wives' admonitions that have been repeated from some centuries-old beliefs. Or is it that today's eggplants have through the mutations of the years simply lost the bitterness of their ancient versions.

The cultivation of eggplants is ancient indeed. In his recently published book, ''Food,'' (Simon & Schuster, 1980), Waverley Root notes that eggplant is a native of southeastern Asia, where it is believed to have been cultivated ''more than four thousand years ago.'' But it is a relative newcomer to the Western kitchen. It was introduced into northern France by Louis XIV and into America by Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson had them sent to him regularly from abroad and experimented with them at Monticello.

It is curious to me that eggplant has never had a large following in the Western world but seems indispensable in the kitchens of India, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Greece.

With the possible exception of mushrooms, eggplant in any and all of its forms (but particularly when sliced and cooked) is the most meatlike of vegetables. It has a pronounced and seductive flavor and marries exceedingly well with the flavors most often associated with the Mediterranean - garlic, capers, tomatoes, onions, celery and peppers. All or most of these things are components of some of the most Mediterranean of dishes, the ratatouille of France and the caponata of Sicily.

I said ''any and all of its forms,'' for eggplant comes in many colors, white, purple and striped, and sizes including finger length and like a small mandolin. One theory about the name eggplant is that the original eggplant was shaped like an egg and porcelain white. Such eggplants are occasionally found in the market and in home gardens. I find them much milder in flavor than the solid purple.

One of the things that I have noted since I com-menced a diet without salt is that taste buds are, in a sense, renewed. And that the enjoyment of no-salt cooking is increased in the process of eating. There are those who claim that I have ''brainwashed'' myself, but I rather prefer the notion that I have ''palate-washed'' myself. I feel that I have educated my palate to another direction. I have also found that the initial reaction to some no-salt dishes is that they are boringly bland at first bite. But with the second and third bites I find that the depth of flavor increases several fold.

I noted recently that almost all foods in their natural state contain amounts of sodium (after all, it is the sodium in salt that is the enemy and not salt, per se). Salt simply has an enormously high concentration of sodium. Even lettuce, which is recommended on most low-sodium diets, contains sodium. As one who finds small merit in iceberg lettuce but much merit in the likes of Boston and Bibb lettuces, I was interested to discover that while Boston and Bibb lettuces contain only 15 milligrams of sodium per head there are 49 milligrams of sodium in each head of iceberg.

Some of the ingredients included in these recipes (all of them nosalt) contain a fair amount of sodium - these include shrimp, celery and Parmesan cheese. But consider the recipe for shrimp-stuffed eggplant. It contains half a pound of raw shrimp, which have 280 milligrams of sodium, and yet it serves four to eight people, so the amount of sodium is a relatively small 35 to 70 milligrams a person.


NEW YORK — When Allbritton, the media company that owns Politico, put its seven television stations up for sale this spring, analysts quickly singled out one as the most attractive: WJLA, the company’s ABC-affiliated station in Washington. It is the biggest of the bunch, the best known and, perhaps most important, a magnet for political spending.

WJLA banked $33 million in election-related advertising last year. Only three stations in the United States earned more, and two of those were also in Washington. That’s because the stations’ signals reach citizens in a crucial battleground state, Virginia, as well as the political power brokers in the nation’s capital. If Allbritton were to sell WJLA by itself, it could fetch $300 million.

That math helps explain why Gannett paid $1.5 billion for 20 stations last month, why the Tribune Co. agreed last week to pay $2.7 billion for 19 stations — and why more consolidation in the marketplace is forecast.

The increasingly expensive elections that play out across the country every two years are making stations look like a smart investment, with the revenue piling up each time a candidate says “I approved this message.’’

Despite an array of digital alternatives and a rapidly transforming television business, 30-second commercials remain one of the most valuable tools of campaigns and political action committees. As Leslie Moonves, chief executive of CBS Corp., which owns 29 stations, said last year, “Super PACs may be bad for America, but they’re very good for CBS.”

Next year’s midterm elections will be a boon to stations, as well, and “2016 could be amazing,” said Mark Fratrik, chief economist for BIA/Kelsey, a media consultancy.

Station owners have come to dread what they call “odd years,” like 2013, when there is little political spending. For stations blessed to be in swing states, political ads routinely represent a third of their overall ad revenue in election years.

For instance, WBNS, the highest-rated station in Columbus, Ohio, grossed about $50 million in advertising last year, of which at least $20 million was attributed to campaign spending. Columbus is the nation’s 32d-largest TV market.

Contrast that to the next biggest market, KSTU, the most popular station in Salt Lake City. Kantar Media estimates that KSTU brought in about $29 million in advertising last year.

On paper, these two stations are equals; WBNS came out far ahead because Columbus was in the middle of a hotly contested race between President Obama and Mitt Romney to win Ohio’s 18 electoral votes.

Fratrik said that stations in Ohio enjoyed, on average, a 38 percent increase in total ad revenue last year, in large part because of political spending. The increases were more than 40 percent for some stations in Wisconsin, where a recall election for governor added to the political drama. One of the stations being bought by Tribune is up the road from Columbus in Cleveland. Another is in Milwaukee. Two others are in Virginia, and one is in Colorado.

As he talked up Tribune’s acquisition to investors this week, Peter Liguori, Tribune’s chief executive, made sure to mention the increased exposure to swing-state advertising.

Analysts say the surge in station consolidation this year has also been driven by low interest rates and by an enormous rise in retransmission fees for stations, which are the equivalent of per-subscriber fees for cable channels like ESPN and MTV.

Summary: Despite an array of digital alternatives and a rapidly transforming television business, 30-second commercials remain one of the most valuable tools of campaigns and political action committees. As Leslie Moonves, chief executive of CBS Corp., which owns 29 stations, said last year, “Super PACs may be bad for America, but they’re very good for CBS.” That helps explain why Gannett paid $1.5 billion for 20 stations last month, why the Tribune Co. agreed last week to pay $2.7 billion for 19 stations — and why more consolidation in the marketplace is forecast. The increasingly expensive elections that play out across the country every two years are making stations look like a smart investment, with the revenue piling up each time a candidate says “I approve approved this message.’’


In the last two years, the company has gone from 109 employees and five branches to 22 employees and two branches.

It’s understandable, then, that the decline and current status of a business he grew and nurtured has left Fawzy feeling uncommitted to his job and lacking passion for it.

Like many professionals, Fawzy said he wonders whether he can “get his spirit back” or if he should simply pack it in and try something completely different.

About 60% of workers around the globe say that they are either unsatisfied with their jobs and companies or that their jobs are just “ok”, according to an ongoing Glassdoor.com survey with data from companies in 190 countries. Only 23% of employees in the United States are passionate about their jobs, according to Deloitte LLP’s 2010 Shift Index Report.

Career experts say working to your potential without passion is difficult — and can be even harder when you once felt enthusiasm for a job and lost it. But there are ways to get it back.

Recognising that something is missing is the first step to getting your career, and your passion, back on track, said Stella Mandehou, a career services manager with the American University in Dubai.

“By taking responsibility for change... you will eventually take the initiative to change,” she said.

Mandehou said careers are much like relationships.

“If you want to fall back in love with your work, try to ‘spark’ that relationship by learning something new about your field,” she said. “Gain a new skill, read a new book or attend a professional conference or seminar and show enthusiasm about learning and sharing experiences.”

Mandehou also suggested becoming a mentor to someone in your field. You’re likely to feel like you are making important contributions to someone else’s career and may “absorb some of that lost beginner’s enthusiasm and excitement,” she said. Likewise, you can try to step back and look at your career the way you did when you first started. “Focus on experiencing your work with a state of curiosity and exploration,” she said.

Melbourne, Australia-based executive career coach Mary Goldsmith said taking a break from the day-to-day routine and doing something different for a week can be the answer for some people.

“When people have lost their passion, it often means they’re burnt out or plain bored,” she said. “Sometimes, we need to remove ourselves from a situation to create space to develop some perspective, identify the things we enjoy and help plan the next steps.”

In countries like Egypt, where Fawzy runs his business, major political and social turmoil make it easy to both lose sight of what you want out of work and make your plans for your future more unclear, according to Bruce Kasanoff, author of Smart Customers, Stupid Companies: Why Only Intelligent Firms Will Thrive, and How to Be One of Them.

“You may have had a vision for what people needed [in the market] five years ago, but what do they need now?” he said.

Being open-minded and adaptable in situations like these is essential to success, added Kasanoff.

For Shawn Achor, author of The Happiness Advantage and forthcoming book Before Happiness, the best way to maximise both happiness and success at work is to find the position that puts you at the “intersection” of three key areas:

If you can — honestly — answer yes to those three questions about your current job, then you are in the right place, said Achor. If you can’t, it is probably time for a change.

But before you head for the exit, lean on workplace social support networks. They are the biggest predictor of happiness at work, said Achor, and they can easily falter in times of stress. For someone in Fawzy’s position, that can mean something as simple as making one positive comment per day to an employee about the job he or she is doing or sending out a positive email to someone new at work each day.

“The best way to re-energise passion for work is to invest in your social relationships,” said Achor.

Career Coach is a twice-monthly column on BBC Capital in which we consider the career turning points and questions many professionals face. We welcome questions from readers at careercoach@bbc.com.

Summary: Itâs easy to fall out of love with your work. Hereâs how to reignite the passion ... or recognise itâs time to move on.


PerkStreet Financial, a Boston start-up that promised to disrupt the traditional banking model and tried to capitalize on consumer rage over bank card fees, said this week that it will shut down.

The company was hit by headwinds that have challenged traditional banks, too: low-interest rates that hurt profit margins and new laws that limit the fees merchants pay when customers swipe debit cards.

PerkStreet, launched five years ago, could not grow quickly enough attract new investors to keep the company operating, said Dan O’Malley, its chief executive.

PerkStreet shuts down Sept. 26, but much of its 25-person staff will be laid off before then, he said.

“The industry is just tough,” O’Malley said.

O’Malley declined to say how many customers had joined PerkStreet, but said they spent about $500 million a year in transactions. While their deposits, placed in FDIC-insured banks, are safe, PerkStreet does not have the money to pay the generous rewards it offered to entice customers to open checking accounts and use debit cards, O’Malley said.

That has angered some customers, including Gabriel Fancher of Tennessee. Fancher said the company should have warned customers that it was closing its perks program. He had earned over $500 in rewards and was saving to buy a computer.

“I feel cheated, and I’m really disappointed,” Fancher said in an e-mail.

PerkStreet was among a new breed of financial companies that aimed to use the Internet and other technologies to provide products and services at lower costs and disrupt the traditional banking model.

Early on, PerkStreet offered online checking accounts and rewards that paid 2 percent cash back on debit card purchases to checking account customers who maintained balances of $5,000 or more and 1 percent for other customers.

To reduce its costs, the company recently shrank its rewards to 2 percent on online purchases and 1 percent on all other purchases.

The strategy was to profit from the fees that merchants pay banks each time customers use debit cards.

The Dodd-Frank law, adopted by Congress after the recent financial crisis, capped the so-called swipe fees at 21 cents for each transaction, compared to 44 cents previously. The savings for retailers was supposed to lower costs for customers.

The new law cut into bank revenues, and many financial institutions have eliminated rewards programs and tried to raise fees elsewhere, said Greg McBride, a senior analyst with Bankrate.com, a consumer-oriented financial site.

“If you owned a fast-food joint, and if the government told you could only charge so much for a hamburger, what would you do?” McBride asked. “You’d raise the price of the soda and the fries.”

PerkStreet faced other problems. It tried to partner with traditional banks to hold and insure its deposits. But low interest rates, which limit the profits banks earn from lending those deposits, made it difficult to attract partners.

With fewer banks willing to participate, the existing partners — Bancorp Bank in Delaware and New York-based Provident Bank — could charge more, cutting into the company’s revenue.

PerkStreet’s failure is a reminder that disrupting the traditional bank model is difficult, said Jim Van Dyke, president and founder of Javelin Strategy & Research, a California firm that tracks bank innovation and technology.

A good debit rewards program is not enough to entice customers to leave their bank, where they may have multiple accounts and their mortgage and other products, Van Dyke said.

Start-ups that are working with merchants to develop online payment networks and offering consumers more control over their accounts will probably fare better, he said.

“Their value proposition wasn’t compelling enough,” he said of PerkStreet.

Provident Bank, which is shutting down its PerkStreet accounts, has agreed to redeem rewards for its customers. Bancorp will keep the accounts open, if customers want, but won’t redeem rewards.

O’Malley, who has been responding personally to angry Twitter and Facebook posts from customers, said PerkStreet had paid out more than $4 million in rewards before running out of money.

“I wish we had another option,” he said, pointing out that he will soon be working without pay. “It’s disappointing for customers and us.”

Summary: PerkStreet Financial, a Boston-based start-up that promised to disrupt the traditional banking model and tried to capitalize on consumer rage over bank card fees, announced this week that it will shut down.  The company was hit by some of the same headwinds rocking traditional banks: a low-interest rate environment and new laws that limit the fees that merchants pay when customers swipe their debit cards.  Ultimately, PerkStreet hasn’t grown fast enough since entering the market five years ago and couldn’t attract new investors, said Dan O’Malley, the company’s chief executive. All operations will cease on Sept. 26, but much of the company’s 25-person staff will be leaving before then, he said. “The industry is just tough,” O’Malley said. “Banking has been such an incredibly volatile space.”


Visions of the Universe has over one hundred images of space, including cigar-shaped galaxies photographed by the Hubble trelescope. Photograph: Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP

A child has just stepped onto the Red Planet. While visitors to Visions of the Universe, an exhibition of astronomical photography that has just opened at the National Maritime Museum, gaze at hyper-lucid images of the rings of Saturn and moons of Jupiter, she stands in front of a panoramic projection of images from Mars that are so vast, so detailed, that to stand here feels like a real-life visit to the empty desert of this alien landscape.

Mount Sharp looms ahead, photographed by the Curiosity rover in 2012. Its orange strata lie exposed layer on layer beneath the pale Martian sky. Rocks in the foreground look solid enough to touch.

I drag myself away beyond the solar system to the very edge of the universe, to gaze on tiny shining cigar-shaped galaxies photographed by the Hubble space telescope at the very limit of human knowledge.

By the time they reach this image of the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field, one of the last glories in this enrapturing show, many visitors will feel, as I did, ecstatic and overwhelmed – not just by the beauty of the cosmos but the scales of time and space this exhibition encompasses. To put it bluntly, this is the most beautiful and significant exhibition I have seen in ages. It is a great moment, when a revolution in science and art explodes into the public eye like the proverbial champagne supernova in the sky.

The quality of photographs taken by the Hubble orbiting telescope, robot space explorers like Cassini and Galileo and most recently Curiosity has transfigured our perceptions of space. Tiny dots in the night sky are now known to be just a hint of astral magnificence. Beyond the naked eye rise stupendous veils of luminous smoke in a space that is not empty, but teeming with energy like a Turner painting.

It is one thing to look at these pictures in a book or on the Nasa website, but this exhibition shows them at the scale they deserve, in a brilliantly generous display that reveals the full daunting wonder of these eerily gorgeous pictures from beyond our atmosphere.

There are even some dazzling pictures taken by amateur astronomers, one of whom happens to be the Turner prize-winning artist Wolfgang Tillmanns. His photographs of Venus in transit across the pink disc of a filtered sun raise a question: is it art? This show proves astronomy is generating some of the most visually beguiling images of our time, but is their beauty that of art or science?

When the Hubble telescope photographed the Pillars of Creation, immense columns of star-forming dust in the Eagle nebula, the resulting image was given colours that symbolise different key elements identified in it. Ever since, photographs from space have been cherished, and processed, as aesthetic objects as well as factual records. Yet the colours and atmosphere enrich scientific knowledge. Among other things we sense the sheer sublime scale of phenomena that are light years across, and millions of light years away.

Science or art? The question fades before the power of a reality that dwarfs us. This exhibition proves that Keats was right. Beauty is truth.

• Visions of the Universe is at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, until 15 September.

• The standfirst of this article was amended on 12 June 2013 to correct the name of the National Maritime Museum, from the Royal Maritime Museum as the original said.

Summary: Dazzling photographs of the cosmos at National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, skirt between spheres of science and art


Whatâs this? A sad farewell, thatâs what.

This is the last-ever version of the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG, dubbed the “GT Final Edition”. And it's only available in a limited run of 350 models. In fact we should have labelled this a “last drive”.

What! They're killing off the SLS?

Yep. As we told you late last year, Mercedes took the uncomfortable decision to axe its halo, gullwinged supercar. We asked AMG chief Tobias Moers exactly why the SLS was canned after just four years. He told us: "It was always only supposed to have a life cycle of three years. We've expanded it out to this year already. End of story."

So tell me about the Final Edition.

It gets the same 583bhp, 6.2-litre naturally aspirated V8 engine as the SLS AMG "GT', 480lb-ft of torque, rear-wheel-drive (obviously), a double-clutch seven-speed gearbox with the faster mapping of the “GT” version – including a “race start” function – and AMG ride control offering up two levels of damping, Sport and Sport+.

Then there's the carbon fibre bonnet with a central air outlet, a carbon fibre splitter on the front apron, a fixed carbon fibre rear wing nicked from that bombastic Black Series SLS we love so much here at TG, forged light alloy wheels wrapped in special Dunlop Sport Maxx Race tires, matte graphite paintwork of our test car (taken from the SLS GT3 anniversary car, not the red one above) and gloss-black rear apron struts.

Inside, there's diamond-patterned black leather, contrast top-stitching in silver, silver seat belts, carbon fibre trim and a numbered plaque.

You can, of course, flex your wallet a little more with some options: carbon fibre mirrors/engine cover/interior pack, ceramic brakes and the excellent Bang & Olufsen sound system. Though, this last option is unnecessary, because the only sound system you'll ever need is that 6.2-litre, naturally aspirated V8.

Hang on. If this is the last ever SLS, why didn't AMG make it as fast as the SLS Black?

We asked Tobias the very same question. Shouldn't they have put the Black's 622bhp V8 and lightweight componentry into this car? "No," he replied. "The Black Series SLS stands on its own."

AMG discussed internally putting the engine and drivetrain from the Black into the Final Edition, but decided against, lest it ruin the exclusivity of the Big Yellow Benz. So, there you have it.

When you're driving through town, with the gearbox set to “comfort” and the suspension on its softer setting, the SLS Final Edition is like a big, powerful, friendly Mercedes. This is good. The ride is firm – it's no S-Class – but not crushingly so, and there's that sense of occasion you won't get from other big-engined Benzes; that long bonnet ahead, the gullwing doors.

When you're driving on a fast B-road, with the gearbox set to “manual” and the suspension set to nasty and your mind set on having a riotously good time, the SLS is like a big, loud, unfriendly bear. This is also good. The ride is super stiff, the gearbox is snappy and sharp, the nose bites in cleanly and quickly, and the rear steps out if you show it but a modicum of disrespect. The optional AMG ceramic composite brakes we had on our test car were also superb: squeaky when cold, but once up to temp they felt incredibly strong and with plenty of proper bite (a definite tick in the option box).Then there's the engine.

That atmospheric V8 veers between hilarious and terrifying. Plant your foot and you'll get from zero to 62mph in 3.7 seconds and on to a top speed of 199mph should the road allow. Anywhere, anytime, this thing is fast.

And as ever with the SLS, it's the engine that almost tyrannises your experience. Wring it right up to its 7,050rpm redline, and it'll spear you off down the road in a cacophony of old-school noise. An old-school noise that is very, very good.

It's impossible to drive this car without giggling like you're on heavy painkillers. Which makes it all the more depressing that this is the last time we'll see it in action: AMG is killing off this lovely, naturally aspirated monster for good.

Dynamically, the Final Edition is just like the GT we drove a while back, though with a fraction keener bite into the corners thanks to that lighter bonnet and rejigged aero. If you are a) Tanner Foust, or b) have complete mastery over the throttle, there's a great mass of grip with oversteer on demand. If you are not a) Tanner Foust, or b) have no concept of “slow-in-fast-out”, we'd advise supergluing the ESP button on.

€225,505 – or around £187k. Which is a fair whack for a car that isn't a Black Series, but it is a lovely thing. A soul-affirming thing.

Though we'll have to wait a long, long time for another Mercedes supercar that occupies this corner of the market, at least there's a smaller, 911-rival coming later this year. Find out more here.

This story originally appeared on TopGear.com.

Summary: After a four-year run, Mercedesâ gullwinged monster heads towards the exit, but not without first spawning a heavy-breathing special edition.


05/14/2014 at 10:20 AM EDT

Courtesy Prescott Valley Police Dept; GreenPimp/Getty

Authorities say a Northern Arizona teenager sporting a stolen tuxedo was arrested at a

after the store owner spotted him in the formalwear.

Police say Kyle Laderoot faces a felony charge after a business owner saw him wearing the tuxedo stolen from her Prescott Valley store. The 18-year-old is accused of breaking a window and taking the $600 tuxedo off a mannequin.

The arrest happened at a Prescott Valley charter school's prom in Jerome.

Prescott Valley police Sgt. Brandon Bonney says the store owner accompanied Jerome police to the prom and identified the tuxedo by color, style and its designer label.

Bonney says Laderoot gave authorities conflicting statements. He's been appointed a public defender, but court documents don't name an attorney.

Summary: Looking sharp always comes at a price


In a letter to the FTC, Google challenged the findings of a study on journalism.

On its public policy blog last night, Google laid out arguments against the Staff Discussion Draft of Potential Policy Recommendations To Support The Reinvention Of Journalism which studied how journalism, particularly in the newspaper profession, had been affected by the move to electronic readership over the past decade, and into the future.

The basis of the government’s argument:

So the question is, how do you fill that revenue void? There are a laundry list of proposals including taxes on broadband, grants to universities and subsidies for mail delivery. One particular part got Google’s goat, however.

They specifically called out the ‘Hot News’ protection risk in the Blog post. Here’s a snippet from the Potential Policy Recommendations to Support the Reinvention Of Journalism document:

Some stakeholders have proposed amending the Copyright Act to specifically recognize hot news protection. Advocates argue “the copyright act allows parasitic aggregators to ‘free ride’ on others’ substantial journalistic investments,” by protecting only expression and not the underlying facts, which are often gathered at great expense. They define parasitic aggregators as those that, without permission, post enough material to render the original news stories redundant. This free-riding undercuts revenue for those who make investments in journalism and undermines their incentive to do so, according to advocates. They suggest that federal hot news legislation could help address revenue problems facing newspapers by preventing this free-riding.

Sounds a little bit like Google News, eh? Google GOOG says:

But we strongly disagree with a number of policy recommendations set forth in the Staff Discussion Draft, such as the suggestion that Congress enact a federal hot news doctrine — something that would not only hurt free expression, but also the very profession of journalism that the proponents of hot news say they support.

Legislation like this wouldn’t just hurt (or kill?) Google News, it would also curtail a lot of aggregation sites, many of which use Google’s Adsense to generate revenue.

The draft is just a working document and is a long way from becoming legislation, but you can bet Google is keeping a close eye on this.

Below, I’ve embedded Google’s Comments to FTC 20 July 2010:

Summary: In a letter to the FTC, Google challenged the findings of a study on journalism. On its public policy blog last night, Google laid out arguments against the Staff Discussion Draft of Potential Policy Recommendations To Support The Reinvention Of Journalism which studied how journalism, particularly in the newspaper profession, had been affected by the move to…


Morgan Harrington and Hannah Graham

Police are looking into a connection between the man arrested and charged with abducting University of Virginia student

earlier this month and murdered Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington, who disappeared in 2009.

"For the past five years, the Virginia State Police has been aggressively pursuing the investigation into the disappearance and death of 20-year-old Morgan D. Harrington of Roanoke, Virginia," spokeswoman Corinne Geller told PEOPLE.

of Charlottesville, Virginia, provided a significant break in this case with a new forensic link for state police investigators to pursue."

Geller did not say what that evidence is or what Matthew's connection to Harrington may be. Sources told WTVR CBS 6 in Virginia that forensic evidence belonging to Matthew matched forensic evidence collected during the investigation into Harrington's disappearance and death – and indicated that she had some sort of contact with Matthew the night she disappeared. Harrington was last seen on October 17, 2009, after attending a concert at the University of Virginia. Her remains were found three months later on a farm in Albemarle County.

"There is a still a great deal of work to be done in regards to this investigation and we appreciate the public's patience as we move forward," Geller said, urging anyone who may have information on the Harrington case to contact the VSP at 434-352-3467, or the Jefferson Area Crime Stoppers at 434-977-4000.

"Right now, the public's focus needs to remain on helping Charlottesville Police locate and bring Hannah Graham home," Geller said.

Graham has been missing since the early hours of Sept. 13, when she was spotted at Charlottesville's Downtown Mall with Matthew, the last person believed to have been seen with her before she vanished, said police.

and led a nationwide manhunt for the University of Virginia Medical Center employee, he was arrested in Galveston, Texas, on Sept. 24. He has been

back to Virginia, where he is expected to appear in court on Oct. 2 on a charge of abduction with intent to defile.

City of Charlottesville / Reuters / Landov

As police search the vast countryside outside Charlottesville with canine units, helicopters and ATVs, revelations about Matthew's past have begun to surface. Matthew was accused of an alleged sexual assault in October 2002, at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, while he attended college there.

Matthew was never charged in that case. Liberty University, a Christian school founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, will not confirm why Jesse Matthew left the school soon after the incident.

Police at the time questioned Matthew and the female student who accused him of sexually assaulting her, who decided later to not press charges. "It was my understanding that he was cooperative and gave a full statement about what happened," Lynchburg Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Chuck Felmlee told PEOPLE.

"These are two parties who knew each other," he said. "This wasn't a stranger situation. There were no eyewitnesses and no forensics. The supervising prosecutor made the decision that there was simply not sufficient evidence to proceed with a criminal charge."

As the weeks wear on since Graham disappeared and her parents continue to hold out diminishing hope for her safe return, investigators still can't locate the athletic, upbeat and straight-A student, Charlottesville Police Chief Timothy Longo said at a news conference on Sept. 25. He said authorities are doing everything they can to find her.

"I can't lose hope until I have to, until I need to," Longo said. "I have hope, I think Hannah's mom and dad have hope. We all know, though, how as each day goes by that hope will diminish."

Summary: Virginia State Police find forensic evidence connecting Jesse Matthew Jr. to murdered 20-year-old Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington


Assurant tumbled 11% Wednesday after the discovery of yet another seamy side to the mortgage industry.

The American Banker published a story laying out apparent abuses in the business of so-called force-placed insurance – the practice in which creditors such as mortgage servicers buy an insurance policy to replace a homeowner’s lapsed one.

That’s fine as far as it goes, since it helps to cover the banks and mortgage investors against damage on properties where homeowners have fallen behind on their payments.

The problem, the American Banker reports, starts with the fact that the force-placed policies “can be 10 times as costly as regular policies, raising struggling homeowners’ debt loads, pushing them toward foreclosure – and worsening the loss to investors on each defaulted loan.”

The report, written by Jeff Horwitz, continues:

Evidence of abuses and self-dealing in the force-placed insurance industry suggests that there may be far larger problems in how servicers are handling distressed loans than the sloppy document recording that has been the recent focus of industry woes.

Behind banks’ servicing insurance practices lie conflicts of interest that align servicers and their insurer partners against borrowers and investors. Bank of America Corp. owns a force-placed insurance subsidiary, and most other major servicers receive commissions or reinsurance fees on the very same policies they purchase on investors’ and borrowers’ behalf.

“There’s no arm’s-length transaction here, and that creates all sorts of incentives for the servicer to force-place excessive insurance and overcharge consumers for policies that provide minimal benefit,” said Diane Thompson, of counsel for the National Consumer Law Center. “Servicers and insurers have turned this into a gravy train.”

The ride on that gravy train has been especially savory for Assurant, which has been expanding the highly profitable specialty property business that contains the force-placed insurance operation. The American Banker says that specialty property has brought in more than 90% of the company’s profits over the past year.

Assurant tells the American Banker that its practices are regulated by state insurance overseers and that it believes it is in compliance. But analysts note that the company has been warning about falling margins in that business as the mortgage servicing business consolidates.

The biggest servicers, led by Bank of America , JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo , have been expanding their control of the U.S. market, which stood to mean less dollars coming Assurant’s way even before the latest revelations.

“In the specialty property division, revenues are likely to be pressured by low loan originations, a decline in forced-placed penetration rates, and a shrinking REO book,” JPMorgan analyst Jimmy Bhullar wrote in a note to clients last month.

Assurant was down $4.50 at $35.64.

Summary: Assurant tumbled 11% Wednesday after the discovery of yet another seamy side to the mortgage industry. The American Banker published a story laying out apparent abuses in the business of so-called force-placed insurance – the practice in which creditors such as mortgage servicers buy an insurance policy to replace a homeowner’s lapsed one. That’s fine as far…


02/26/2015 AT 05:35 PM EST

from a young singer/songwriter has more than a catchy tune – it has a positive message.

"I want women to know it's okay to not feel confident about how they look 100% of the time because what makes someone beautiful is how they treat others, and their personality in general,"

, 17, tells PEOPLE about her song "Under the Skin."

The self-taught guitar player, who has been writing music for six years, says the song was initially inspired by her two young cousins, ages 6 and 11.

"The 6-year-old just loves looking at herself. She's very confident. But the one that's 11, she's at that age when you start realizing your flaws and getting more self-conscious and aware of your body," says Hill, who lives on the outskirts of Charlotte, North Carolina. "And that's when you start not liking what you see."

But Hill, who has released two EPs, admits there is also a more personal side to the song, which includes the lyrics: "Spend 45 minutes standing in front of the mirror/You look at what everyone has and it don't seem fair/That you ain't got the prettiest smile or the prettiest hair/Seems like all you do is just stand and stare."

She actually calls it a song to herself. "While I was writing it, I realized I was kind of talking to myself because I've been hard on myself in the past. This is a message to me, too."

She goes into more detail on her

: "When I was in middle school I use to think I was so chubby. I hated the gap in my teeth (before I got braces), I hated my hair, and the fact that I wasn't as tiny as some of my friends ... Then I started thinking that maybe guys wouldn't like me because I wasn't skinny. This was all in between the ages of 11 and 14. How crazy is that!?"

Even though she can look back now and laugh, she knows many young people struggle with the same issues. She hopes her video – which features female friends and family, including those two special cousins – will expand the reach of her song's message.

"We told everybody to show up in whatever they felt most confident in," says Hill. "They could wear makeup if they wanted to – it wasn't going to be a natural-beauty type thing. It was more like, wear what you feel most comfortable in to showcase your true beauty."

One thing's for sure: Carson Hill is onto something beautiful. Keep an eye out for this inspirational young songwriter as she moves to Nashville next year.

Summary: Carson Hill, 17, encourages young women to look "Under the Skin"


Whether you like it or not—whether they like it or not—corporate directors are seizing control at major companies. Which raises an important question: Are they ready for the job?

The latest reminder is a Wall Street Journal report that federal bank regulators are grilling individual directors of major Wall Street firms, sometimes monthly, as well as sitting in on board meetings and even instructing boards to add members with specific qualifications. It’s happening at the biggest firms—JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs—and at smaller banks. While regulators have met with bank boards for years, the current intensity of oversight is unprecedented.

Not so long ago, it would have been unimaginable. Few directors possessed the competence or the information to conduct meetings with regulators in the absence of managers. Now they’re being pressed for detailed information on such issues as how a bank is managing its financial risks, which can be extremely complex. Under Dodd-Frank and Sarbanes-Oxley, regulators wield impressive power over a bank’s fortunes, so the directors had better be prepared with good answers.

The larger trend is that many strong forces are pushing directors of all companies to assume more authority. In addition to stricter regulation worldwide, think of cyber-attacks, dramatic disruption of business models, the experience of the financial crisis, activist investors—all threaten the foundation of a company’s competitiveness. When threats are so dire, directors rightly feel they must involve themselves.

The problem is that by the nature of their role—typically meeting six to ten times a year—they can’t manage the company, and in any case they often aren’t qualified to oversee operations in much detail. Tougher regulations mandate that nearly all directors be independent, not working for the company or suppliers, among other forbidden affiliations. As a result, many directors possess no deep understanding of the business. How could they? Independence sounds great, but there’s a theory that if more bank directors had known the banking industry, maybe the financial crisis wouldn’t have been quite so bad.

And even when directors are knowledgeable and the board is well organized, they can’t be sure they’re getting the information they need. Why didn’t the Risk Policy Committee of J.P. Morgan Chase’s board realize in 2012 that an employee named Bruno Iksil, a.k.a. the London Whale, was placing huge bets that eventually cost the company $6.2 billion? Because even though the bank had an elaborate risk management system, reports of those bets never rose all the way up to the committee. The directors didn’t know what they didn’t know. More broadly, directors can never know as much as the managers they’re supposed to be overseeing.

So directors are being squeezed in a vice: In a faster changing, riskier world, they may feel compelled to grab control and shove the CEO aside (or regulations may require them to do so), yet the nature of their position means that many of them can never be fully qualified to do that.

Despite the increasing pressures and time requirements, plenty of people still want to serve as corporate directors. Whether they’re actually up to the job will increasingly differentiate winning companies from losers.

Summary: In an age of disruption, investor activism, cyberwar, and regulator pressure, corporate boards are taking on ever more authority.


Recently, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said paid leave in the state would have to wait. The priority issue, he stated, was women’s equality, including ways to get at equal pay. We hear this same refrain, this false choice, presented all the time.

As national women leaders told the governor, “Pitting paid family leave against an agenda for women’s equality is like saying we can’t build bridges because we need to build roads. In fact, the lack of paid family leave is a key contributor to women’s lower pay and inequality. The glass ceiling is held in place by thick maternal walls.”

Despite changes in America’s workplaces, women still have primary responsibility for care giving. And the lack in compensation for time to care costs women hundreds of thousands of dollars over a lifetime.

In a nation that is supposed to value families and personal responsibility, being a good parent or following doctor’s orders affects your ability to stay employed, to advance, to build assets or even to pay your bills. Lose a job for staying home with a sick child and it may be harder to get the next one. Take a little time to care for your dying father and you may find yourself in bankruptcy court – and that can affect your credit rating and your ability to get hired at the next job. Take a few years to raise young children and your next starting pay – and all the lifetime of raises based on that pay – may take a hit from which you’ll never recover.

Some argue that women would get equal pay with men if they didn’t take breaks. Having a baby may be a joy – but it’s not a break. Studies show that women who experience an interruption in employment do experience a decrease in wages – a reflection of the notion that they’ve taken a “break” and lowered their value by “not working.”

Many new moms who wind up out of a job would be delighted to go back to the one they had — but their employer prevents it. The Pregnancy Discrimination Act prohibits firing someone for being pregnant, but it does not require that employers hold the job open until that person heals from childbirth. The Family and Medical Leave Act does include that job protection, but it leaves out 40% of the workforce. At the time, when they need a steady income the most, too many moms risk losing their jobs when they have a child.

But there is good news, including a clear path forward with tangible policy solutions. The drop in income is less likely to happen when women have access to paid family leave. Researchers Houser and Vartanian found evidence that paid family leave boosts the chance that women will return to the workforce and receive pay increases once they do.

An analysis of the impact of California’s paid leave program found that paid family leave increases a woman’s attachment to the firm that she works in, as well as increasing the number of hours that she works after returning to the job.

In short, common sense policies like a family leave insurance fund not only strengthen families and lower turnover but also help lessen the gender wage gap. That’s why Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Rosa DeLauro have re-introduced a federal bill, the Family Act, to create such a fund. In addition to California, Rhode Island and New Jersey have paid family leave programs, and more states are working toward building their own programs – hopefully with the help of competitive grants the Department of Labor has included in its budget.

But we need more than paid family leave to close the gender pay gap. Women are nearly two-thirds of minimum wage workers. Guaranteeing a living wage and equal pay are critical; ensuring that workers can earn paid sick days would help stop income and job loss that impacts women’s earnings when they need to take a day off work to recover from an illness or care for a sick child.

We’ll never solve the problem of women’s lower – and often really low – pay until we also ensure that women and men have access to affordable time for caregiving. It’s not about either or; it’s about both.

Ellen Bravo is the Executive Director of Family Values @ Work, a nonpartisan network of coalitions in 21 states helping spur family-friendly workplace policies, such as paid sick days and affordable family leave.

Summary: Being a good parent or following doctor’s orders affects your ability to stay employed and move up the economic ladder.