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To show off the results of her dieting and exercising, the former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Brandi Glanville took to Instagram on Monday where she posted a NSFW picture of her butt. Like ya do.

The 43-year-old mother of two shared a photo of herself rocking a tiny black G-string thong -- a post she says was inspired by Kim Kardashian.

WATCH: Hollywood's Hottest Bikini Bods!

"I've struggled with wanting to post this but I've worked so hard on my body &at 43 after 2 kids I'm very proud," Glanville captioned the skin-bearing snapshot. "I love that @kimkardashian makes the point that moms are hot even after kids and post sexy selfies."

Glanville, who stressed that the pic featured "zero filters" and "zero photo shop [sic]" made sure to mention that she was "given the blessing of my family" and that she "prepped for the haters" who would inevitably comment on the pic.

See more sexy celeb bikini bods:

Brandi Glanville posts NSFW nude pic, says she was inspired by Kim Kardashian

Happy Saturday. 😎🌴🙏🏻 #familytime 💜@davidbeckham @brooklynbeckham X VB

Love this @gmilanesi airstream she did for @casamigos in honor of the bohemian artist Amos Ferguson #tacoheaven

Traveling the world is one of the most beautiful things in life. Thank you Brazil for having me and my family, and big thanks to @Airbnb for putting us up😘😘😘🇧🇷

"In the summertime when the weather was hot🌞 You can stretch right up and touch the sky🏝 When the weathers fine...." #summer #ready4myvacation

Watching over the bay at the fairmont beach in Barbados

See the light in others and treat them as if that is all you see. -Wayne Dyer #letThereBeLight

Long Weekend ahead got me like... @constancejablonski 😎 Fin de Semana Largo me tiene...

we love our little Gus Gus & we love our @kortnijeane high waisted bottoms 😻☀ 5.26.16

Mixing and matching my favorite pieces from the 5x5 Swim Project with @lspaceswim 💙 Shop this and more on @REVOLVE (available now) #REVOLVE5x5 #REVOLVEaroundtheworld Link in bio!

Happy sunny day!! Are you guys ready for #aintyourmama video!!??

Bought three new swimsuits today 👙 This one is my favorite!

So #blessed to be on the #lake with my #family and to have a day off of work! #sisters #saltandpepper @scherzygirl

עכשיו בחנויות 👙☀ קולקציית בגדי ים בעיצובי ! #BARforhoodies

Last minute dip. No bottoms, no problem. #nothingisgonnaruinmyday 🇧🇸🙏🏽☀🌴

Bae Watch ! #donthasslethehoff @micahmarcus

Cheers to the (almost) weekend 💃🏻✌🏽 trying to figure out what to wear on Kelly & Michael and I'm thinking I'll just go with this look 😜☀

He'll be a merman in no time thanks to @thewaterwhisperer #mumlife ✨

@bowie82 and I enjoying some time at the pool before celebrating @samanthapatridge 21st!!!!

Feeling motivated to eat my greens.. 😂🌴 #SundayFun #SportsIllustrated

Sundays are for hanging around 😎

Girls just wanna have sun 😜☀🌴 #happysaturday 📷: @farrahaviva

Beachin' w the bday girl!

So much fun relaxing this weekend. Monday came right at me like...

Oh hey there :) snapchat bellathornedab 😍😝 #miami #flexfriday #happyfriday #casualfriday #badass #treatyoself #southFlorida #curlyhair

Into the wild 🐯🐯🐯 @victoriassecret #puravida

With my #island baby🌺 @sophialabraham #hawaii #BestHawaiiTripEver @hotmiamistyles #beach #beachbody #summer #beachbunny 🌊🌺🎉✨🌴

Take me back to the Maldives (+alcohol!) 🐬🌴🐚🌪💦

Dinner with mah babe @cash_warren 🌺#adultspringbreak

My girl craved some vitamin D ☀ #5months ✋🏼

Oh it's a rough day here in paradise it's cloudy oh well just have to make the best of it. 🌴 #poweofpositivethinking

The most beautiful day.. 🌺☀

Look who I found?! 🌴

#Hawaii Time🌺🌊❤🌴 @SophiaLAbraham #ALOHA 🐢

❤It feels good to remember who you are before the world told you who you should be........ #Solitude #Authenticity #Clarity

My Mai Tai is as big as my head. This one is for my Grandmother Sugarplum who loved her "high tides" whenever she was in Hawaii. I think she would have loved this one.

This is 14. Omg. 🌴🌪👯 #spingbreaking with our friend @ellataitelman and our @mimsygray

Finally some relax time 😍😘 so happy I had this boy supporting me here :) now headed back to LA👙👑@greggsulkin #sxsw #iloveyou #happytuesday #traveltuesday #tan #tot #pool #boyfriend

We are NOT horsing around 😂😂 #MLS #sissysquad #plusmom #hydrate

Havin fun in the sun in my @alleaswim 😎 #nofilter #bikini #girls #bffs #happytimes #caligirl #springbreak

Hat game on point! @katherineh82 @marabethpoole #msl #hydrate #sissysquad #plusmom 😂

Missing that catamaran life! #noonecallsmecaptainhere 😞⚓

Of Course I Couldn't Do It Without The Help Of My Partner In Crime.... #ProudMoment 🐟

She takes #BAYWATCH to another level.. World fell in love with @alexannadaddario in #SanAndreas and I was so impressed by her chops and presence every day, that I had to have her "rep the squad" in our film. Just wait til you see her - and all our girls - kick ass and protect the bay. #GameOver #BaywatchBabes #CoverYourEyesBoys #BAYWATCH SUMMER 2017.

That time I hung out with the @VictoriasSecret Angels… watch me & @ddlovato on #VSSwimSpecial, tonight 9/8c @cbstv

So many beautiful and authentic locations for the filming of The Return of Xander... Blessed.

Left my phone behind to be present! I am so grateful for the people I've met this year but more importantly for the people who have been consistent and by my side through thick and thin. That'd be YOU. Thank you for another year! Love you guys!

Just another manic Monday 😏 @janellehansen

No shoes no shirt no problems 🐳🍍🌴

Happy Happy Birthday to my favorite twins and members of our girl group! 🎈🎈

43 is good... Very good #islandvibes

So long Curacao! Refreshed and ready to see what's next... 🍹🍍🌴🌞🌞🌞

99 problems but a beach ain't one. 😂🌴☀ I am seriously in #paradise and can't get enough! #maui #badjoke #WestinKaanapali #SiegfriedGetaway #1year

Another view of lovely Savannah

Primera vez en una piscina! First time in a pool!

Beach Bum 🌴🌞🌴 #Bahamas 🇧🇸

Ride the black swan 🎂🎉🎉🎉 #bestfriends ever #electrablue

Getting the Tum in the the sun 🌞👙🌞👙

If this is wrong I Don't want to be Right.... ✌ #turksandcaicos #vaca

🌺So much fun on my early bday celebration 🎂 feeling loved and blessed.

COA... Chilling with my baby boy 💦🌴☀💕🐤#coachilling #foreveronvacation #week2 @coachella

So far so good 🌙 👶🏼👣

WATCH: Kim Kardashian Shares Completely Nude Selfie

It's hard to deny that her hard work has indeed paid off. That fit physique doesn't lie!

It does seem a bit odd that she chose not to straighten up before snapping her headline-making pic – don't think we didn't notice those Ugg boots. And stiletto heels were an unusual choice for someone in a seated pose, but even Joanna Krupa has to give her credit for one seriously steamy semi-nude selfie.

WATCH: Uncensored Brandi Glanville on Botox & Sex

Do you remember these former 'Real Housewives'?

Brandi Glanville posts NSFW nude pic, says she was inspired by Kim Kardashian

Jeana Keough - Orange County

Shot in Coto de Casa, California. Dec 18, 2006 House of Vicki Gunvalson Talent: Jo de La Rosa Jeana Keough Tammy Knickerbocker Lauri Waring Vicki Gunvalson

Lauri Waring Peterson - Orange County

THE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF ORANGE COUNTY -- 'Final BBQ' -- Pictured: Lauri Waring Peterson (Photo by Isabella Vosmikova/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)

Jo De La Rosa - Orange County

Shot in Coto de Casa, California. Dec 18, 2006 House of Vicki Gunvalson Talent: Jo de La Rosa Jeana Keough Tammy Knickerbocker Lauri Waring Vicki Gunvalson

Kimberly Bryant - Orange County

THE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF ORANGE COUNTY -- Season 1 -- Pictured: Kimberly Bryant -- Bravo (Photo by Chris McPherson/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)

Tammy Knickerbocker - Orange County

Shot in Coto de Casa, California. Dec 18, 2006 House of Vicki Gunvalson Talent: Jo de La Rosa Jeana Keough Tammy Knickerbocker Lauri Waring Vicki Gunvalson

Quinn Fry - Orange County

THE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF ORANGE COUNTY -- Pictured: Quinn Fry (Photo by Kelsey McNeal/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)

Gretchen Rossi - Orange County

Los Angeles, California, USA. 19th Mar, 2015. Gretchen Rossi attends WE tv Presents: ''The Evolution of Relationship Reality Shows'' on March 19th, 2015 at The Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills.California. USA. Â© TLeopold/Globe Photos/ZUMA Wire/Alamy Live News

Lynne Curtin - Orange County

Mar 10, 2010 - New York, New York, USA - Reality personality LYNNE CURTIN from 'The Real Housewives of Orange County' attends Bravo Media's 2010 Upfront Party held at Skylight Studios. (Credit Image: ÃÂ© Nancy Kaszerman/ZUMA Press)

Alexis Bellino - Orange County

New york, USA. 3rd April 2013. 'The Real Housewives of Orange County reality star ALEXIS BELLINO attends the 2013 Bravo Upfront held at Pillars 37 Studios. (Credit Image: Â© Nancy Kaszerman/ZUMAPRESS.com/Alamy Live News)

Peggy Tanous - Orange County

Mar. 30, 2011 - Los Angeles, California, U.S. - Peggy Tanous.2011 Bravo Upfront in LA held The Roosevelt, Los Angeles, CA. March 30 - 2011.(Credit Image: ÃÂ© TLeopold/Globe Photos/ZUMAPRESS.com)

Lydia McLaughlin - Orange County

New york, USA. 3rd April 2013. 'The Real Housewives of Orange County reality star LYDIA MCLAUGHLIN attends the 2013 Bravo Upfront held at Pillars 37 Studios. (Credit Image: Â© Nancy Kaszerman/ZUMAPRESS.com/Alamy Live News)

Lizzie Rovsek - Orange County

WATCH WHAT HAPPENS LIVE -- Pictured: Lizzie Rovsek -- (Photo by: Charles Sykes/Bravo/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)

Alec McCord - New York City

Mar 10, 2010 - New York, New York, USA - Reality personality ALEX MCCORD from 'The Real Housewives of New York City' attends Bravo Media's 2010 Upfront Party held at Skylight Studios. (Credit Image: ÃÂ© Nancy Kaszerman/ZUMA Press)

Jill Zarin - New York City

Mar 10, 2010 - New York, New York, USA - Reality personality JILL ZARIN from 'The Real Housewives of New York City' attends Bravo Media's 2010 Upfront Party held at Skylight Studios. (Credit Image: ÃÂ© Nancy Kaszerman/ZUMA Press)

Kelly Bensimon - New York City

April 30, 2012 - Hollywood, California, U.S. - Kelly Killoren Bensimon signs her book ''I Can Make You Hot'' at Barnes & Noble at The Grove in Los Angeles, CA 4/30/12 2012..KELLY KILLOREN BENSIMON(Credit Image: ÃÂ© Scott Kirkland/Globe Photos/ZUMAPRESS.com)

Cindy Barshop - New York City

Apr. 10, 2011 - New York, New York, U.S. - Reality personality CINDY BARSHOP attends the 2011 TV Land Awards held at the Jacob Javits Center. (Credit Image: Â© Nancy Kaszerman/ZUMAPRESS.com)

Aviva Drescher - New York City

April 14, 2012 - New York, New York, U.S. - AVIVA DRESCHER attends the 'TV Land Awards' 10th Anniversary event held at the Lexington Avenue Armory. (Credit Image: Â© Nancy Kaszerman/ZUMAPRESS.com)

Kristen Taekman - New York City

NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 12: Kristen Taekman attends Big City Moms Biggest Baby Shower NYC at Metropolitan Pavilion on November 12, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by Robin Marchant/Getty Images for Big City Moms, Inc.)

Heather Thompson - New York City

NEW YORK, NY - MAY 14: Heather Thompson attends the 2015 NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment Upfront at The Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on May 14, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by Jim Spellman/WireImage)

Mar 10, 2010 - New York, New York, USA - Reality personality KIM ZOLCIAK from 'The Real Housewives of Atlanta' attends Bravo Media's 2010 Upfront Party held at Skylight Studios. (Credit Image: © Nancy Kaszerman/ZUMA Press)

Mar 10, 2010 - New York, New York, USA - Reality personality SHEREE WHITFIELD from 'The Real Housewives of Atlanta' attends Bravo Media's 2010 Upfront Party held at Skylight Studios. (Credit Image: ÃÂ© Nancy Kaszerman/ZUMA Press)

Mar 10, 2010 - New York, New York, USA - Reality personality LISA WU HARTWELL from 'The Real Housewives of Atlanta' attends Bravo Media's 2010 Upfront Party held at Skylight Studios. (Credit Image: ÃÂ© Nancy Kaszerman/ZUMA Press)

DeShawn Snow arrives at the 43rd NAACP Image Awards on Friday, Feb. 17, 2012, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles)

WATCH WHAT HAPPENS LIVE -- Pictured: Porsha Williams -- (Photo by: Charles Sykes/Bravo/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)

NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 23: (EXCLUSIVE COVERAGE) NeNe Leakes poses backstage after her Opening Night in the hit musical 'Chicago' on Broadway at The Ambassador Theater on November 23, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by Bruce Glikas/FilmMagic)

WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA - OCTOBER 29: Reality TV Personality Claudia Jordan attends the amfAR's Inspiration Gala after party at 1OAK on October 29, 2015 in West Hollywood, California. (Photo by Paul Archuleta/FilmMagic)

Jacqueline Laurita - New Jersey

June 24, 2010 - New York, New York, U.S. - After party for the off- Broadway opening of ''My BIg Gay Italian Wedding'' at INK 48 NYC 06-24-2010 Photos by Rangefinder- Photos Inc.ÃÂÃÂ©2010.JACQUELINE LAURITA.K65573RM(Credit Image: ÃÂ© Rick Mackler/Globe Photos/ZUMApress.com)

Caroline Manzo - New Jersey

Oct. 6, 2010 - New York, New York, U.S. - Reality personality CAROLINE MANZO attends 'The Spin Crowd' Season Finale Party held at Provocateur. (Credit Image: Â© Nancy Kaszerman/ZUMApress.com)

Danielle Staub - New Jersey

Mar 10, 2010 - New York, New York, USA - Reality personality DANIELLE STAUB from 'The Real Housewives of New Jersey' attends Bravo Media's 2010 Upfront Party held at Skylight Studios. (Credit Image: ÃÂ© Nancy Kaszerman/ZUMA Press)

Kathy Wakile - New Jersey

March 8, 2012 - New York, New York, U.S. - KATHY WAKILE THE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF NJ.Starlight Children's Foundation 27th Annual Gala at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City 03-08-2012.(Credit Image: ÃÂ© Mitchell Levy/Globe Photos/ZUMAPRESS.com)

Taylor Armstrong - Beverly Hills

Jan. 24, 2012 - Hollywood, California, U.S. - ''Giving Back Never Looked So Good'' hosted by Catt Sadler at Station Hollywood in Hollywood, CA 1/24/12 2012..TAYLOR ARMSTRONG(Credit Image: ÃÂ© Scott Kirkland/Globe Photos/ZUMAPRESS.com)

Adrienne Maloof - Beverly Hills

Oct 11, 2010 - West Hollywood, California, U.S. - ADRIENNE MALOOF arrives at Bravo's 'The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills' Premiere Party at Trousday in West Hollywood. (Credit Image: Â© Brian Dowling/ZUMApress.com)

Camille Grammer - Beverly Hills

Oct 11, 2010 - West Hollywood, California, U.S. - CAMILLE GRAMMER arrives at Bravo's 'The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills' Premiere Party at Trousday in West Hollywood. (Credit Image: Â© Brian Dowling/ZUMApress.com)

Carlton Gebbia - Beverly Hills

Los Angeles, California, USA. 7th May, 2014. Carlton Gebbia attends ABC Mother 's Day Luncheon held at Four Seasons Hotel on May 7th, 2014 Los Angeles, California, USA. © TLeopold/Globe Photos/ZUMAPRESS.com/Alamy Live News

Joyce Giraud - Beverly Hills

Los Angeles, California, USA. 29th Apr, 2014. Joyce Giraud attending the Los Angeles Premiere of ''Mom's Night Out'' held at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, California on April 29, 2014. 2014 © D. Long/Globe Photos/ZUMAPRESS.com/Alamy Live News

Kim Richards - Beverly Hills

Los Angeles, California, USA. 22nd February 2013. Kim Richards attending the QVC Red Carpet Style held at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles, California on February 22, 2013 . 2013(Credit Image: © D. Long/Globe Photos/ZUMAPRESS.com/Alamy Live News)

Brandi Glanville - Beverly Hills

Sept. 27, 2012 - Los Angeles, California, U.S. - Brandi Glanville attends Beverly Hills Lifestyle Fall 2012 Launch party on 27th September 2012 at Kyle by Alene Too,Beverly Hills, CA.USA.(Credit Image: © TLeopold/Globe Photos/ZUMAPRESS.com)

New York, NY - October 19, 2014: Larsa Pippen attends runway for PetiteParade Kids Fashion week at Bath House Studios

MIAMI, FL - MARCH 09: Cristy Rice attends Ocean Drive Magazine Eighteenth Anniversary event at JW Marriott on March 9, 2011 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Gustavo Caballero/Getty Images)

Marysol Patton attends Bravo Televisions' The Real Housewives of Miami' Season 3 premiere party on August 6, 2013 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Jeff Daly/Invision/AP)

Ana Quincoces attends Bravo Televisions' The Real Housewives of Miami' Season 3 premiere party on August 6, 2013 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Jeff Daly/Invision/AP)

Nov. 15, 2012 - Las Vegas, Nevada, USA - Karent Sierra at the 2012 Latin Grammy Awards held at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, Nevada on Thursday, November 15, 2012. (Credit Image: Â© Javier Rojas/Prensa Internacional/ZUMAPRESS.com)

Mary Amons - Washington, DC

Mary Amons attending the '3rd Annual Star Magazine All Hollywood Event' celebrating celebrities and their charities, held at the Trousdale in West Hollywood, California on April 03, 2011.

Lynda Erkiletian - Washington, DC

Lynda Erkiletian arrives at the American Red Cross 7th Annual Red Tie Affair at the Fairmont Miramar Hotel on Saturday, April 6, 2013 in Los Angeles. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)

Cat Ommanney - Washington, DC

TV personality Cat Ommanney attends Cat Ommanney's 'Inbox Full' book party at Ted Gibson Salon on March 3, 2011 in New York City. (Photo by D Dipasupil/FilmMagic)

Michaele Salahi - Washington, DC

Michaele Salahi at DrinkingAndDriving.org's 1st Annual Celebrity Charity Tabloid Roast, Ha Ha Comedy Club, North Hollywood, CA. 05-31-11

Stacie Scott Turner - Washington, DC

WASHINGTON - AUGUST 05: Cast member Stacie Scott Turner arrives at the premiere of 'The Real Housewives Of D.C.' at The Madison Hotel on August 5, 2010 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Paul Morigi/WireImage)

Summary: To show off the results of her dieting and exercising, former 'Real Housewives of Beverly Hills' star Brandi Glanville took shared a snap of her butt.


President Barack Obama will meet with U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen on Monday to discuss the economy and Wall Street reform, the White House said on Sunday.

Vice President Joe Biden will also attend the meeting. The president and the Fed chair meet regularly to discuss economic issues.

Obama has presided over a steady economic and jobs recovery since the 2008 financial crisis and is nearing the end of his term in office.

The Fed has signaled it will exercise caution on interest rate increases because of concerns over the global economy, after implementing its first rate rise in almost a decade in December.

“In the afternoon, the president will meet with Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen to discuss the state of the American and global economy, Wall Street reform, and the long-term economic outlook; the vice president will also attend,” the statement said.

Summary: Wall Street reform is also on the agenda.


The recent dustup between Amazon and publisher Hachette reminds us that retail is a brutal business — tough on employees, really hard on suppliers. Walmart, the largest physical retailer, and Amazon, the largest retailer online, illustrate the pain produced in the effort to make consumers’ prices as low as possible.

Consider the plight of those working in retail. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, retail salespeople and cashiers were the two largest occupations in the U.S. in 2013, together employing almost 8 million people. These are low-paid occupations under the best of circumstances. While the median hourly wage for all employed people was $16.87, cashiers made just 58% of the median, and sales clerks just 60%.

Numerous news articles document the tough working conditions for both Amazon and Walmart employees. Both employers face suits for not paying employees for all their required time at work, including time waiting to go through a security check at Amazon’s warehouses to guard against shoplifting. Amazon’s German employees have been striking over wages since last year. A homeless shelter in Jeffersonville, Ind., has had between two and six Amazon distribution-center employees living there at all times. Many articles describe the harsh work culture at Amazon, some calling it a “soul-crushing experience.”

Walmart is scarcely better. Fifteen percent of Walmart’s Ohio employees are on food stamps. Employees receive $2.66 billion in government assistance annually. A study by the University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Labor Research and Education noted that, even after statistically controlling for differences in geography, “Wal-Mart workers earn an estimated … 14.5 percent less than workers in large retail” and that “several recent studies have found that the entry of Wal-Mart into a county reduces both average and aggregate earnings of retail workers and reduces the share of retail workers with health coverage on the job.”

But it’s Amazon’s relationship with its suppliers that makes the company worse than Walmart. There’s no doubt that Walmart pressures suppliers for the lowest possible price. But once the products are in the stores, both Walmart and the chosen suppliers’ interests are well aligned — to sell as much as possible of the stocked items. It costs money to build stores and ship products to them. More important, choices are necessarily limited in a physical store. So Walmart wants to move as much of the merchandise it decides to sell as possible. Having chosen a supplier and negotiated a deal, there is at least some degree of temporary commitment by Walmart to the vendor.

By contrast, Amazon — with no stores and an IT infrastructure that makes the cost of adding items to sell close to zero — doesn’t care what you buy, or even which of their online partners you use, as long as you buy the product through Amazon. Take books, the focus of the recent conflict. Walmart stocks a relatively small selection, so it wants to move the specific books it offers. Walmart’s interests line up quite nicely with the authors and publishers it promotes. Amazon stocks everything (except apparently now books published by Hachette), so it doesn’t care which particular book you buy. Simply put, Amazon has less incentive to make any specific supplier successful. To Walmart, for books or anything else, selling a million units of one item is great; selling one unit of a million items is impossible in its physical stores. For Amazon, who cares? That’s why relationships with suppliers, always contentious, will be particularly problematic at Amazon, especially when Amazon controls so much of the retail market share.

Some believe that low-paid, overworked, unhappy employees are the new model in an Internet age of offshoring, outsourcing and computer-monitored work. It’s quite possible that online retailing is also creating a new model of retailer-supplier relationships, with much less sense of partnership and shared fate than in the past. If so, Amazon’s fight with Hachette presages trouble for lots of suppliers, not just book publishers, in the very near future — at least if Amazon’s market dominance persists.

Summary: With no stores and an IT infrastructure that makes the cost of adding inventory close to zero, Amazon doesn't have to care about its suppliers


KFC is about to begin an ad campaign with its first ever product-specific Colonel.

The chain’s new “Extra Crispy Colonel” will be played by the extra crispy actor George Hamilton, KFC announced in a press release. The company noted that it sells two different recipes: Original and Extra Crispy. The ad campaign featuring Hamilton will be promoting the latter with four spots that will begin to air nationally on Sunday.

The campaign will specifically be focused on KFC’s $5 and $20 Fill Ups. The Extra Crispy recipe is described as being “cooked to a golden brown,” which is what makes Hamilton the best man for the part. As KFC’s U.S. chief marketing officer said in the press release, “No actor was more qualified to play our Extra Crispy Colonel than a very tan George Hamilton.”

“I like to think I know a thing or two about being extra crispy,” Hamilton said in the press release. “It didn’t take long for me to get into character as the Extra Crispy Colonel. One could argue that my entire career has been leading up to this role.”

KFC has been flying through Colonels recently. Darrell Hammond was replaced last summer with fellow Saturday Night Live vet Norm Macdonald, and Macdonald was replaced just six months later with Jim Gaffigan. While Hamilton’s new role as the Extra Crispy Colonel won’t affect Gaffigan, it’s rumored that the comedian could be replaced with David Alan Grier, who would be the first African American to play the Colonel.

Summary: And he's played by an extra crispy actor.


A stalemate between Britain and the European Union over what happens next following Britons’ referendum vote to leave has opened up a host of possible scenarios.

Here are some that are (in some cases, barely) conceivable:

Prime Minister David Cameron, who said he will resign after losing his gamble to end British ambivalence about staying in, agrees with the EU establishment that the only legal way to leave is to use Article 50 of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty to negotiate a withdrawal.

He wants to leave triggering the process to his successor, who may not be chosen by the Conservative party until October. EU leaders want him to do it now, or at least as soon as possible, but they lack the legal power to force him.

In the most amicable divorce scenario, Britain would trigger Article 50, possibly (though unlikely now) as early as Tuesday when Cameron meets the other 27 EU leaders at a Brussels summit, or via a formal letter later from Cameron or his successor.

That sets a two-year time limit on negotiating an amicable withdrawal. Ideally, it would divide up assets and liabilities in the shared EU budget and other priority business, such as perhaps the status of British and other EU citizens who find themselves living on the wrong side of a hard new UK-EU border.

In an even more ideal world, it would set out a new, close economic relationship between Britain and the EU, possibly in a separate, parallel treaty taking effect from the exit date. The withdrawal treaty can be enacted by just 20 of the 27 other states representing 65% of the remaining population. A full new relationship would probably need unanimous support.

Two years is very tight but the negotiations can be extended if all 28 countries agree. If there is no deal, then Britain is simply out of the EU two years after Article 50 was triggered—an outcome written in to the treaty to limit uncertainties.

Really? Too good to be true. The EU is never this easy.

2. Sorry, We Didn’t Mean It

Britain is in political meltdown, with both main parties in civil war and pro-EU Scotland threatening to either block Brexit legally (unclear how) or break away. The referendum result is not constitutionally binding and government and parliament, maybe after a new election, could just ignore it. If so, the EU would carry on as before but a special membership deal it gave Cameron in February has been killed by the referendum result.

Really? Pushed democratic credibility beyond breaking point.

3. We Mean It, But Not Yet

Brexit campaigners have long been suspicious of the two-year limit in Article 50 and some have explicitly said it should only formally be triggered AFTER they have agreed a comprehensive free trade deal that relieves Britain of EU rules such as open EU immigration. Five years or more is the norm globally for such big trade deals. Britain would be a full EU member until then.

That is a nightmare scenario for EU leaders, plunging the bloc into open-ended negotiations with its second biggest power that would inspire eurosceptics across the bloc to emulate it and distract governments from other pressing European issues.

They rule out opening any negotiation until Britain binds itself to the timetable set out in Article 50. And they insist Britain cannot have its cake on market access and still eat it by ending EU budget payments and free movement of workers.

In theory, there could be an endless standoff, with Britain the sulky teenager at the table, poisoning the atmosphere next year as France and Germany run elections and the EU starts confrontational talks on a new 7-year budget. Something would have to give and some compromise would start to be worked out.

Really? Compromise is the EU Way; Don’t Rule This Out.

4. We Mean It—Or Maybe We Didn’t

Article 50 suggests a one-way exit, rather than a revolving door. EU officials insist that once triggered, a state cannot back out and stay. Lawyers are divided, however. Some British experts believe the leave notice could simply be withdrawn. In Brussels, others say that could happen but only if agreed by all. A future British government might conclude that the best way to end divorce proceedings is just to agree to stay married.

Really? See Scenario 2, but with added fanning of memories.

5. Can We Just Tweak This Quickly?

Some Brexit campaigners have suggested that the Leave vote simply serve as leverage to renegotiate better, semi-detached terms for Britain inside the EU which could be put to another referendum. EU leaders have ruled that out on the same grounds as above that “cherry picking” will spread and wreck the Union. Cameron’s deal, to protect the City of London from the euro zone and curb EU immigration, has been killed by a clause that linked it to last week’s referendum result. So any talks would start from a lower base and EU leaders would have to eat their words. But some kind of “associate membership” or “special partnership” has been around as an idea in Europe for a time.

Really? See 4, but never say never in Euro-compromise land.

6. Let’s Just Slip Into Something More Comfortable

Britain could try to join the European Economic Area or European Free Trade Association, joining the likes of Norway, Switzerland or Iceland in close partnerships with the EU. That could fly with the EU but British leaders would have to persuade Brexit voters to agree to the EU budget contributions and migrants that are accepted by some of those countries. It also would lack the kind of EU market access for services trade which is so important to Britain’s big financial sector. A more tailor-made deal would bring things back to earlier scenarios.

Really? Doesn’t seem to be what Britons want, at least now.

7. Why Don’t We Start Again?

One extreme view is that the fallout from Brexit in the EU might be so cataclysmic that Europeans would go back to the drawing board and effectively create a new kind of Union that could include Britain. Marshaling disparate national ambitions into a new structure would be a colossal task, not least in the wake of the bitterness that the current crisis has engendered.

Really? A definite long shot, not one for the near future.

Some people who voted to Leave have said that if it doesn’t work outside, Britain could always join the EU again. That is true, though it would get no favors. It would face a years-long accession process and require unanimous acceptance by existing members and have to accept a host of conditions that Britain has opted out of during its past 43 years—notably adopting the euro and a virtually 50% rebate on EU membership fees.

Really? One for the (very long-lived) birds.

9. Room for a Little One?

Some Scots hope to avoid Brexit by breaking from England. An idea that an independent Scotland could somehow simply sit in the vacant UK chair in Brussels is dismissed by EU officials.

At the time of the 2014 independence referendum, the EU said Scotland could apply for membership but would go to the “back of the queue,” behind the likes of Serbia, and that its hope of keeping the pound rather than the euro was a non-starter. There is some sympathy for Scots losing their place in the EU but also deep suspicion of secession, especially in Spain, Belgium and Italy, which have their own separatist problems. And a veto.

Really? Not soon, but Scotland could join the EU one day.

A new British government simply walks out. It could launch Article 50 and leave legally in 2019 without any negotiation. It could also ignore the two-year notice period and tear up its treaty obligations and quit right away, though that would undermine its credibility as a party to international law. There is, however, nothing the EU can do to prevent that.

It could retaliate on trade or against Britons living in the EU, however much that would create a painful tit-for-tat that would badly hurt Europe’s economy and citizens. Nonetheless, EU leaders fear that letting Brexit Britain walk all over them will only inspire other European nationalists to destroy the Union.

Really? Threat of mutually assured destruction then detente?

Summary: None of them are easy.


Travelers today might not think of New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport as the most impressive travel hub out there. In 2012, Travel and Leisure ranked it one of the nations’s worst airports, and travelers this summer may be in for delays as one of its runways gets a rehaul. But when it was featured in a LIFE photo essay in 1961, the airport—then still called Idlewild after the golf course it displaced—was a shining beacon of modern architecture. As the magazine wrote:

For eight of 11 international travelers presently arriving in New York, the warming symbol of journey’s end no longer is the stately, green copper Statue of Liberty seen from a boat deck, but a glistening complex of low-lying architecture—strongly suggestive of a world’s fair site—seen from the window of an airplane.

The airport had been open since 1948, but it experienced a major growth spurt between 1957 and 1962, when United, American, Pan American, Northwest and TWA all opened new terminals. LIFE praised its innovative meeting of form and function and its well-oiled logistical operation:

Idlewild is more than the handsomest, highest-geared air terminal in operation; it is several terminals, each attuned to the newest advances in the technology of getting people and freight on and off airplanes as fast as possible. Its every feature bespeaks speed and function. Yet, for the disembarking passenger Idlewild offers vivid and lasting impressions of one of America’s most imposing displays of artistic and industrial design.

JFK’s terminals are showing some cracks in their advanced age, but Dmitri Kessel’s images offer a reminder that today’s outmoded dinosaurs are often yesterday’s architectural triumphs.

Liz Ronk, who edited this gallery, is the Photo Editor for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter @lizabethronk.

Summary: The New York City airport, called Idlewild until 1963, was a futuristic architectural achievement when it opened several new terminals in the early 1960s


Welcome to the “gig” economy. You don’t have a career, but you have a job where you can work for a stint.

Sure, the unemployment rate as defined by the Department of Labor fell to 4.7 percent on Friday, with the US adding an anemic 38,000 new “jobs.”

But the facts behind the numbers tell quite a different story about today’s job market.

All is not so good in the gig economy, which, despite its growth “temporarily employing” millions of people, creates a chronic sense of nervousness and instability among those who have turned to it.

While temporary gig work is better than no work at all, to count it as equivalent to a full-time job with career paths and benefits is beyond disingenuous — it’s downright dishonest.

Some of the common gig jobs are: medical assistant, factory shift worker, accountant and architect.

Unfortunately, this economy doesn’t exhibit the stamina to inspire corporate America to commit to full-time hires.

A research piece published by Lawrence Katz of Harvard and Alan Krueger of Princeton shows that the net number of all new full-time jobs created is smaller than the increase in gig jobs from 2005 to 2015.

The alternative workforce is made up of “independent contractors,” people who obtain customers on their own; “on-call workers,” who are on standby until called for the day’s work; “temporary help-agency workers,” who are paid by the agency; and “workers provided by contract firms,” who work when needed for a company that contracts out their work.

Total US employment increased by 9.1 million jobs from 2005 to 2015, and the gig jobs increased by 9.4 million during the same time, according to the study, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Which suggests that President Obama’s claim to have added full-time jobs is somewhat sketchy and misleading.

Summary: Welcome to the “gig” economy. You don’t have a career, but you have a job where you can work for a stint. Sure, the unemployment rate as defined by the Department of Labor fell to 4.7 percent on Fr…


THERE was a time each year, soon after Alexis Lichine had returned to New York from the harvest at Prieure-Lichine, his chateau in Bordeaux, when we would drive up to Westchester to have lunch with Alfred A. Knopf.

In the course of publishing Mr. Lichine's books, Mr. Knopf had come to know and love wine. And so at one lunch in the early 1980's he announced that we would be drinking the four Bordeaux first growths from 1945: Latour, Margaux, Lafite-Rothschild and Haut-Brion. He had opened them earlier, he said, to let them breathe. Alexis and I exchanged concerned looks and, when we sat down to eat, our fears were fulfilled. All four wines were dead. Letting them breathe had not improved them; it had killed them.

How often have you heard a waiter or a wine steward say at the beginning of a meal: ''I'll just open this now and let it breathe''? Breathing is one of the least understood components of wine service and wine drinking, in restaurants or at home. Once, at Harry's Bar in Venice, I ordered a nondescript Italian white wine as an aperitif. A few minutes later, I was astonished to see the waiter decanting the bottle.

''To let it breathe,'' he explained.

Breathe? That wine needed to breathe about as much as the mineral water.

Alfred Knopf's wines were too old, the Harry's Bar wine too young. So when exactly does a wine need to breathe? The answer is: almost never. Certainly white wines don't. Occasionally, when a powerful red wine is opened before its time, aerating it may soften its rough, tannic edges. But this can be just as easily accomplished by pouring the wine into glasses and then letting it stand for a while before drinking it.

Simply uncorking the bottle early is practically useless. It will expose an amount of wine in the neck of the bottle equal to the size of the bottom of the cork. In other words, almost no wine at all. Mostly it gives the waiter or wine steward a bit of stage business to help inflate the pourboire. A really harsh young wine can be smoothed out a bit by decanting, but again, letting it sit in the glass for a while will accomplish much the same thing.

In 1863, when the French railroads began carrying wine from the Mediterranean to northern cities, Emperor Napoleon III called on Louis Pasteur to determine why so much wine was going bad in transit. Pasteur found that air, or more precisely, the oxygen in air, was the villain. Too much air, he discovered, allowed the growth of vinegar bacteria. On the other hand, he learned, small controlled amounts of air matured wine.

Wine matures in the bottle because of the oxygen that is found in the wine itself and in the small space between the wine and the cork. The process, oxidation, is the chemical reaction of oxygen with another chemical. And so steel rusts, copper turns green and a sliced apple becomes brown.

Oxidization in wine begins when the grapes are first picked, which is why they are rushed to the wineries, where oxygen contact can be eliminated or controlled.

The other legitimate reason for decanting wine is to avoid sediment. As they age, wines produce a deposit. It is harmless stuff, but many wine drinkers, and particularly American wine drinkers, prefer their wine squeaky clean. Filtration, a common practice in the wine industry, has mostly obviated any need for decanting; it strips out most particles before the wine is bottled. Critics say it can strip away the elements that give a wine its character and flavor.

But there is one wine that should always be decanted: vintage port. Vintage port spends long years, sometimes more than half a century, in the bottle, is never filtered and can have a considerable amount of sediment. It is often decanted over a candle. The candle light shows when sediment begins to flow through the neck of the bottle, and when the decanting process should stop.

In her Oxford Companion to Wine (1994), Jancis Robinson comes down against ever decanting wine to aerate it. She cites the great French enologist Emile Peynaud, who held that exposing wine to too much air begins a process of destroying its aroma. With very old wines, like Mr. Knopf's 1945 Bordeaux, prolonged exposure to air can be fatal, even when the surface area exposed is small. Chances are those wines would have died soon after pouring even without the previous exposure.

The difference between death and glory can be minutes. I recall a half bottle of Chateau Filhot 1911, at the Tour d'Argent in Paris. It was offered on the wine list for 100 francs or $20, hardly exorbitant for what was a 75-year-old Sauternes. The first glass was glorious. It had the intensity and richness of a wine a fifth its age; its color more burnished brass than gold, its bouquet redolent of flowers, its taste recalling the honeyed influence of botrytis.

Fifteen minutes later the wine was dead, its color muddy brown, its taste that of bitter, dried leaves. Locked safely in the restaurant's damp cool cellar, a few yards from the Seine, it might have lasted another 20 years. With its cork pulled, its life was quickly over.

I was lucky; I had a glass of a once great wine -- before breathing claimed another fragile victim. Good thing it was a half bottle. It would have been tragic to watch helplessly while a full bottle died that way.

Photo: IT'S JUST FOR SHOW -- Uncorking a bottle early does not accomplish much. (Jeffery A. Salter/The New York Times)(pg. F8)


Last Updated Jul 8, 2016 5:08 PM EDT

VALDOSTA, Ga. -- A man who called 911 to report a car break-in Friday ambushed a south Georgia police officer dispatched to the scene, sparking a shootout in which both the officer and suspect were wounded, authorities said. Both are expected to survive.

The shooting in Valdosta, just north of the Georgia-Florida state line, happened hours after five police officers were killed Thursday night during an ambush in Dallas. Despite saying the officer was lured to the scene by the gunman, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said there was no immediate evidence the shootings were related.

"We're putting pieces together to understand what happened and why, developing witnesses," said Scott Dutton, spokesman for the GBI, which is handling the case at the request of local police. "There's nothing to indicate there's a connection to that."

Officer Randall Hancock was shot multiple times as he responded to a 911 call about a car break-in outside the Three Oaks Apartments just after 8 a.m. Friday, Valdosta Police Chief Brian Childress said at a news conference.

"The officer called out on the radio screaming for assistance," Childress said, and officers from multiple law enforcement agencies swarmed the apartment complex.

The GBI later identified the suspected gunman as 22-year-old Stephen Paul Beck and said it was Beck who also placed the 911 call. Both Childress and Dutton identified the suspect as an Asian male. Charges against Beck were still pending Friday as he was being treated at a Florida hospital, Dutton said.

The officer is white, according to Valdosta city spokeswoman Sementha Mathews.

Dutton said one gunshot hit the officer in the abdomen, just below his protective vest. Other shots hit Hancock's vest. The officer fired back and wounded the suspect.

Hancock underwent surgery at a local hospital and was stable Friday as he rested with his family by his side, Childress said. The suspect was also considered stable, he said.

"I'm relieved that my officer is fine," Childress said. "I am also equally relieved that the offender is going to make it."

The incident comes amid an increase in ambushes and shootings on police officers.

"It is often said that a law enforcement officer leaves for work each day not knowing if he or she will return home safely to his or her family," Valdosta City Manager Larry Hanson said Friday. "Incidents like this bring realization to the danger police professionals face each and every day while carrying out their duties to serve and protect."

The police chief said Hancock was wearing a body camera, and its video footage had been turned over to the GBI.

Childress declined to comment on any possible motive when asked about his officer being shot so soon after the Dallas attacks. The Dallas officers were shot during a protest over the recent killings of black men by police in Minnesota and Louisiana.

"You start to wonder," the police chief said. "But any motive of why this happened this morning, it would be speculation."

Summary: The officer and suspect were both wounded in an exchange of gunfire after the incident in Valdosta, Ga.


Most of us think of chess as a thoughtful, contemplative game, but here at 60 Minutes, we've learned that among grandmasters, chess is a blood sport.

On 60 Minutes, the world's number one chess player, Norway's Magnus Carlsen, tells Bob Simon that winning a chess match is more than just defeating your opponent; it's destroying him.

"I enjoy it when I see my opponent...really suffering," Carlsen said with a wicked grin. "If I lose just one game...I just really want to get revenge."

It's not the first time we've heard this kind of talk. In 1972, Mike Wallace profiled the infamous Bobby Fischer, who was then only 29 years old and training for his famous Cold War showdown against Russia's Boris Spassky. Here's an excerpt from that profile:

WALLACE: Winning for winning's sake is important, but do you like to beat another man?

FISCHER: Yes, I like to beat another man.

WALLACE: You smile about it. Do you like to crush another man's ego?

FISCHER: Uh-huh, so when they go home that night, they can't kid themselves that they're so hot, you know?

We all know how Fischer's story ended - in madness -- but the board is still a world of opportunity for today's young superstars.

Watch Bob Simon's profile of 21-year-old chess prodigy Magnus Carlsen

© 2012 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Summary: Before he was a mad, reclusive, stateless resident of Iceland...chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer spoke with Mike Wallace. Time travel back to 1972, the Cold War, Jack Lalane...


March 28, 2016 | 9:43pm

An Oculus Rift VR headset at CES International in Las Vegas in January. Photo: AP

As Oculus VR finally ships its virtual-reality headsets to the public, it’s heralding the potential of video games and movies — but it’s also quietly giving a wink to porn producers.

The Facebook-owned startup announced Monday that its new “Rift” headset has more than 30 games available as the first units ship this week, with 100 titles expected by the end of 2016.

Meanwhile, insiders say Facebook execs appear to be relying on another kind of content to drive demand for the Rift — namely, VR porn flicks.

To date, VR porn is viewed mainly on smartphone-powered headsets like the Samsung Gear VR and Google Cardboard. VR porn videos already number north of 1,000 from professional studios alone.

At industry conferences and in media interviews, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey has lately emphasized that the company will have an “open platform” for developers — porn producers included — even if Oculus doesn’t sell the smut on its official site.

This January, at the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas, execs from Oculus discreetly swung by a booth operated by Utherverse, whose VR porn sites include RedLightCenter and HoloGirlsVR.

“They said how impressed they were with what we were doing with VR porn,” said Utherverse Chief Executive Brian Shuster, who has cranked out 60 VR adult “scenes” and “experiences” to date. “They weren’t there to do anything except reconnaissance, but they’re certainly keeping an eye on what’s happening.”

That’s despite the fact that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who scooped up Oculus two years ago for $2 billion, likes to cultivate a squeaky-clean image as a family man and philanthropist.

Oculus reps didn’t respond to requests for comment.

“I joke that Luckey ought to give us a referral fee for every sale of the Rift,” says Todd Glider, CEO of VR porn studio BaDoink, which has already produced more than 50 VR porn videos — a number it expects to double this year.

“Companies like Oculus are not going to say, ‘Yes, we’re going to publicly endorse porn,’ ” Glider adds. “But behind the scenes, they have to be saying this is the driver.”

A nagging question for the Oculus Rift is what users can do with it once they’ve paid the asking price of $599, a tab that has struck many as surprisingly stiff — especially considering that the Rift doesn’t come with the high-end PC needed to run it, typically priced at $900 and up.

Ela Darling — a porn performer who started making VR porn videos in 2014 — thinks she has an answer.

Most VR porn is viewed on smartphones, which have scant memory, she said.

But with the superior processing power of the Oculus, “you can move back and forth, you can walk around, you can see from different angles,” she says. “It gives you a greater sense of presence and immersion.”

Summary: As Oculus VR finally ships its virtual-reality headsets to the public, it’s heralding the potential of video games and movies — but it’s also quietly giving a wink to porn producers. The Facebook-o…


A drone crashed into the stands at the U.S. Open Thursday night. While no one was hurt—the device crashed into an empty section of seats during a second-round match between Flavia Pennetta and Monica Niculescu—the question of whether anybody should be able to fly these things over a sporting event, or other crowded venue, is very much in question.

Even a successfully piloted drone (or unmanned aerial vehicle), after all, can distract athletes who may not be the most even tempered lot.

And there could be life-and-death consequences of irresponsible drone use. Earlier this summer, firefighters in southern California said their response to a wild fire was delayed because of drones flying in the area.

But vendors including Amazon AMZN are champing at the bit to deploy drones to deliver products, inspect buildings and perform other commercial tasks. Intel INTC just invested $60 million in Taiwanese drone maker Yuneec. And all that business activity doesn’t even count all the drones, presumably like the U.S. Open offender, already being flown recreationally.

A few weeks ago, former US Airways pilot and hero Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger said that there should be more safeguards to prevent drones from interfering with commercial air traffic. Earlier this summer, U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D.-Calif) introduced the Consumer Drone Safety Act which, if passed, would outline when, where, and how recreational drones could be flown. It would also require manufacturers to build-in some fail-safe measures.

As for the U.S Open incident, news outlets subsequently reported that a New York City school teacher was arrested and charged with reckless endangerment and operating a drone in a NYC park outside of a prescribed area.

Footage of the incident is here:

And if you want to hear more on the market for commercial drones, see the video below.

Subscribe to Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily newsletter on the business of technology.

Summary: Nobody was hurt, but the accident exacerbates the debate over how much regulation needs to be applied to the use of unmanned aerial vehicles.


TMZ has confirmed producers of "

" have scuttled two of the last four episodes because

's rehab derailed the production schedule.

But here's the deal. We're told Charlie has a right under his contract to 86 the last two episodes. Sources tell us Charlie is only contractually bound to do 22 episodes, which he will have done. He wasn't required to do 24 episodes this season, although that was the plan.

Nevertheless, Charlie won't get paid a reported $825,000 per episode for the aborted last two. And, we're told the rest of the production staff won't be paid either.

Summary: TMZ has confirmed producers of "Two and a Half Men" have scuttled two of the last four episodes because Charlie Sheen's rehab derailed the production…


''I would urge the U.S. government to conduct those studies,'' Dr. Podgorski said. ''Shocking a couple of pigs and dogs doesn't prove anything.''

Many police officers defend the Taser, saying the weapon helps them avoid using deadly force and lowers the risk of injury to officers. Tasers let police officers subdue suspects without wrestling with or hitting them, said David Klinger, a former police officer and a criminology professor at the University of Missouri at St. Louis. And Tasers are surely safer than firearms.

''I think it is appropriate for deployment in the field,'' Mr. Klinger said. ''You trust this guy or gal with a gun, you should be able to trust them with a less lethal device.''

But human rights groups say the police may be overusing the Taser. Because the gun leaves only light marks, and because Taser markets it as nonlethal, officers often use it on unruly suspects, not just as an alternative to deadly force, said Dr. William F. Schulz, the executive director of Amnesty International USA. In recent incidents, officers have shocked a 9-year-old girl in Arizona and a 66-year-old woman in Kansas City.

''We think there should be controlled, systematic independent medical studies,'' Dr. Schulz said. ''We would like to see these weapons suspended until these questions are answered.''

A study by the Orange County, Fla., sheriff's office showed that officers used pepper spray and batons much less after getting the guns. But the use of Tasers more than made up for that drop, and the department's overall use of force increased 58 percent from 2000 to 2003. Last week, several police departments in Orange County agreed to restrict the use of Tasers to situations where suspects are actively resisting officers. The sheriff's office is not part of the agreement and says it is still studying the matter.

State and federal agencies do not keep tabs on Taser use, so no one knows how many times officers have fired the weapon. Officers have reported close to 5,000 uses of the M26 to Taser, but the company says the actual number is much higher.

Little evidence supports the theory that Tasers reduce police shootings or work better than other alternatives to guns, like pepper spray. Because of their limited range, Tasers are best in situations where an officer using a Taser is covered by another with a firearm, officers say.

A 2002 company study found that nearly 85 percent of people shocked with Tasers were unarmed. Fewer than 5 percent were carrying guns.

In Phoenix, which has equipped all its officers with Tasers, police shootings fell by half last year. Taser trumpets that statistic on its Web site. But last year's drop appears to be an anomaly. This year, shootings are running at a record pace, according to the Phoenix police department.

A 2002 study in Greene County, Mo., found that Tasers were only marginally more effective than pepper spray at restraining suspects. Pepper spray worked in 91 percent of cases, while the Taser had a 94 percent success rate.

The largest police departments have been slow to embrace the Taser. The New York Police Department owns only a handful of Tasers, which are used by specialized units and supervisors, a spokesman said.

The M26 was introduced only five years ago, but the technology is much older. John Cover, an Arizona inventor, created the Taser in 1969. Its name stands for ''Thomas A. Swift Electric Rifle,'' an allusion to the Tom Swift series of science fiction novels.

Engineers have known for generations that relatively small electric currents cause painful and uncontrollable muscle contractions. Tasers operate on that principle, firing barbs that are connected by wire to the gun and flood the body with current. The gun can deliver its shock even if the barbs do not break the skin because its current can jump through two inches of clothing.

Weak currents are not inherently dangerous if they stop in a few minutes. But stronger shocks can disrupt the electrical circuitry of the heart. That condition, ventricular fibrillation, causes cardiac arrest in seconds and death in minutes, unless the heart is defibrillated with an even larger shock.

The exact current needed to cause fibrillation depends on technical factors like the current's shape and frequency, as well as the heart's condition, said James Eason, a biomedical engineering professor at Washington and Lee University. But because fibrillation is so dangerous, scientists can conduct only limited human trials. They must estimate the threshold of fibrillation from animal trials and computer models.

Still, the broad parameters for fibrillation are known, and the first Taser from Mr. Cover had a large safety margin. In 1975 the Consumer Product Safety Commission concluded that weapon, which was 11 percent as powerful as the M26, probably would not harm healthy humans.

Then, in March 1976, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms claimed it had jurisdiction over the weapons because gunpowder propelled their barbs. The firearms bureau essentially outlawed them for civilian use; no federal safety standard was ever created.

But the original Tasers were bulky and often ineffective. For almost two decades, they remained a niche product used by a few police departments.

That began to change after 1993, when Mr. Smith and his brother Thomas created a company to market electric weapons to civilians. Patrick Smith, who had just graduated from the University of Chicago business school, saw enormous potential for an alternative to firearms.

''I just figured I'm going to go to out to Arizona, and I'm going to scratch and sniff and dig, and figure there's going to be gold in those hills,'' Mr. Smith said in an interview.

In January 1995, the Smiths introduced their first electric gun, which was powered by compressed nitrogen. As a result, the weapon was not regulated by the firearms bureau and could be sold to civilians.

For the next several years, the company struggled, as concerns over the gun's power kept sales slow. By 1999, the company, now known as Taser International, was near bankruptcy, with only $50,000 in the bank and $2.7 million in debt.

''It was pretty humiliating,'' he said. ''We had completely wiped out my parents financially.''

Hoping to stay afloat, the company introduced the Advanced Taser M26 in December 1999. The weapon closely resembled a handgun, a feature many police officers liked, and was very powerful.

According to Taser, the gun produced 26 watts of power, four times the power of the earlier model. A field test in 2001 by the Canadian police showed that the M26 was even stronger, with an output of 39 watts.

(Stun gun power is usually gauged in watts, a measure of electrical energy, even though the biological effects of electricity are more closely related to current strength, measured in amperes. Electrical engineers often compare the flow of electricity to a river: amperes are like the river's speed, while watts are the amount of water flowing by each second. As watts increase, amperes rise, but more slowly.)

Taser's sales rose as officers learned about the new gun. At meetings with police officers, company representatives encouraged them to receive a half-second shock to feel the weapon's power for themselves. ''These guys would leave just absolutely evangelical about the product because we would just drop them all,'' Mr. Smith said.

In its marketing, the company touted the safety of the M26, saying it had been extensively tested.

But Taser had performed only two animal studies before introducing the M26.

In 1996, Taser hired Robert Stratbucker, a Nebraska doctor and farmer, to test the weapon. Dr. Stratbucker, who is now Taser's part-time medical director, shocked a pig 48 times with shocks as large as those from the M26. The pig suffered no heart damage.

Three years later, the company hired Dr. Stratbucker and Dr. Wayne McDaniel, an electrical engineer, for an animal test at the University of Missouri. The scientists shocked five anesthetized dogs about 200 times with the M26. The dogs did not suffer cardiac arrest, although one animal had changes in its heartbeat, according to a report.

Taser has repeatedly said the studies proved that the M26 was safe. But the biomedical engineers who reviewed the gun's safety for The Times said Taser should have conducted far more research.

''I don't think there has been a definitive study saying that yes it can contribute to death or no it cannot,'' said Dr. Raymond Ideker, an electrophysiologist and a professor in the cardiology division at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Taser must test more animals and vary the shocks they receive to find the gun's safety margin, Dr. Ideker said.

In addition, while Taser claims that its Missouri study proves that the gun is safe for people who have used cocaine, it never tested animals dosed with cocaine. Because cocaine substantially increases heart attack risk, and Tasers are used on people who have taken cocaine, that omission is a serious flaw, said Dr. Wikswo of Vanderbilt.

The company should also examine risks other than fibrillation, some scientists say.

Dr. Terrence Allen, a former medical examiner in Los Angeles who examined cases in the late 1980's when people died after being shocked with earlier-model Tasers, said he was sure the weapons could be lethal. Taser is misrepresenting the medical evidence, said Dr. Allen, who has consulted for people who have sued the company.

Dr. Mark W. Kroll, a Taser director and the chief technology officer of St. Jude Medical, one of the largest pacemaker manufacturers, said Taser had adequately tested its weapons and they were safe. External pacemakers deliver much larger charges and do not cause fibrillation, he said.

Dr. Ideker countered that pacemakers and Tasers could not be easily compared, because the Taser's shock is very short and powerful, while a pacemaker delivers its charge over a much longer period.

Although Taser has performed only rudimentary studies of the M26, it has more closely studied the X26, the gun it introduced last year. In a 2003 study at the University of Missouri, Taser found that a shock roughly 20 times that of the X26 caused a healthy, anesthetized 85-pound pig to fibrillate.

Mr. Smith cites the 2003 Missouri study as proof that all Tasers have a safety margin of 20-to-1 or more. But the new gun puts out a charge only one-fourth as large as the older model, a fact Taser does not generally advertise.

The study said nothing about the M26, or about hearts stressed by disease, drugs or physical activity. ''I think another test is warranted,'' Dr. Ideker said.

Taser did not test the older gun, which is associated with nearly all the deaths, because ''we believed that the M26's safety record and prior testing speaks for itself,'' Mr. Smith said. ''Could it be done? Absolutely. There's time and expense involved.''

The X26 has become Taser's biggest seller, based mainly on the company's claims that it is even stronger than the M26 despite its small size and lower power. The company says the new gun enables electrical current to enter the body more efficiently.

No independent agency has tested the guns side by side, and in Taser's patent on the M26, Mr. Smith himself argued that weaker guns were often ineffective because they do not deliver enough current to incapacitate suspects. But neither deaths nor concerns about effectiveness have dampened police support and investor enthusiasm for Taser International. Stock analysts predict Taser will have $15 million in profits on sales of $60 million in 2004. Investors have bid up the company's shares 60-fold since last February, giving Taser a value of $1.2 billion.

The Smith brothers and their father, Phillips, have sold $46 million in Taser shares since November, according to federal filings. They still own $130 million worth of shares. Other Taser executives and directors have sold $14 million in stock. Mr. Kerik, the former New York police commissioner and a director, has sold $900,000 in stock. Mr. Kroll of St. Jude Medical has sold $1.7 million.

''It's been great,'' Patrick Smith said of the company's recent success. But making money is not his main goal, he said. ''If we could get a Taser on every officer's belt,'' he said, '' it would save hundreds of lives or thousands of lives a year.''

Meanwhile, the number of Taser-associated deaths is rising. In June alone, at least six people died, the most ever in one month: Eric B. Christmas, James A. Cobb, Jacob J. Lair, Anthony C. Oliver, Jerry W. Pickens and Mr. Lieberman.

The circumstances of the deaths vary widely. Among the six, Mr. Pickens was the only one hit with the X26.

Mr. Cobb fought for several minutes after being shocked, which suggests that fibrillation could not have caused his death. Some of the other men collapsed immediately, according to news reports and witnesses. Some of the men were fighting with the police when officers shot them. Others simply refused to obey orders.

Mr. Pickens was one. On June 4, in Bridge City, La., the police were summoned to help calm him after an argument with his 18-year-old son, Taylor Pickens. Jerry Pickens confronted the police in the family's front yard.

''My dad, he had been drinking, and he was kind of hostile toward the police,'' Taylor said. ''He kept trying to go back inside the house, and they said, 'If you're going to go back into the house we're going to Taser you.''' Mr. Pickens who was unarmed, began to walk inside, Taylor said.

''They counted down three, and then they shot him in the back,'' Taylor said. ''My dad stiffened up, and fell back.'' Mr. Pickens hit his head on a cement walkway and began foaming at the mouth, Taylor said.

Sharon Landis, Taylor's mother and Mr. Pickens's wife, said officers did not need to shock her husband. ''They could have pepper-sprayed him, they could have grabbed him,'' she said. ''He's 55 years old, and these are big burly cops.''

Mr. Pickens was pronounced brain-dead that day and removed from life support three days later, Ms. Landis said.

Toxicologic tests on Mr. Pickens are being conducted, said Gayle Day of the Jefferson Parish coroner's office. A spokesman for the sheriff's office said he could not comment on a continuing investigation. Mr. Smith said he could not comment on Mr. Pickens's death.

Three weeks later, Kris Lieberman died in Pennsylvania. The officers who shocked him were the only witnesses to his death, which the Pennsylvania State Police are investigating. But Mr. Lieberman's parents said the state police told them that their son was shocked twice and collapsed afterward. [Stan Coopersmith, chief of the Bushkill Township Police, whose officers responded to the call, said he could not comment on the incident until the state police finish their investigation.] But Taser said that the police chief had told the company that Mr. Lieberman fought briefly after the shocks and that an automatic defibrillator used by the officers indicated Mr. Lieberman was not fibrillating when he collapsed.

''I would suspect the autopsy will find a cause of death that does not include the Taser,'' Mr. Smith said.

Mr. Lieberman's parents say that he was troubled but that he did not use drugs. Police officers searched Mr. Lieberman's home after the shooting and did not find drugs, his parents say. Toxicologic tests are pending, the Northampton County Coroner said.

Mr. Lieberman's father, Richard, a plain-spoken farmer, said he had not decided whether to hire a lawyer. He simply wants to know if the gun caused his son's death. ''If he was the problem, we have to accept it,'' Mr. Lieberman said. ''If they were the problem, they have to accept it.''

Eric Dash contributed reporting from New York for this article.

Summary: Growing number of people, now at least 50, have died since 2001 after being shocked by Taser stun gun; Taser International, which makes several versions of gun, contends its weapons are not lethal, even for people with heart conditions or pacemakers; contends deaths resulted from drug overdoses or other factors and would have occurred anyway; its primary safety studies on M26, which is far more powerful than other stun guns, consist of tests on single pig in 1996 and on five dogs in 1999; company-paid researchers, not independent scientists, conducted studies, which were never published in peer-reviewed journal; photo (M)


SAN FRANCISCO—After all the talk, El Niño storms have finally lined up over the Pacific and started soaking drought-parched California with rain expected to last for most of the next two weeks, forecasters said Monday.

As much as 15 inches of rain could fall in the next 16 days in Northern California, with about 2 feet of snow expected in the highest points of the Sierra Nevada, said Johnny Powell, a forecaster with the National...

Summary: Drought-parched California braces for El Niño storms, faces risks of flooding and mudslides.


Tuesday is Equal Pay Day—so dubbed by the National Committee for Pay Equity, which represents feminist groups including the National Organization for Women, Feminist Majority, the National Council of Women's Organizations and others. The day falls on April 12 because, according to feminist logic, women have to work that far into a calendar year before they earn what men already earned the year before.

In years past, feminist leaders marked the occasion by rallying outside the U.S. Capitol to decry the pernicious wage gap and call for government action to address systematic discrimination against women. This year will be relatively quiet. Perhaps feminists feel awkward protesting a liberal-dominated government—or perhaps they know that the recent economic downturn has exposed as ridiculous their claims that our economy is ruled by a sexist patriarchy.

The unemployment rate is consistently higher among men than among women. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that 9.3% of men over the age of 16 are currently out of work. The figure for women is 8.3%. Unemployment fell for both sexes over the past year, but labor force participation (the percentage of working age people employed) also dropped. The participation rate fell more among men (to 70.4% today from 71.4% in March 2010) than women (to 58.3% from 58.8%). That means much of the improvement in unemployment numbers comes from discouraged workers—particularly male ones—giving up their job searches entirely.

Men have been hit harder by this recession because they tend to work in fields like construction, manufacturing and trucking, which are disproportionately affected by bad economic conditions. Women cluster in more insulated occupations, such as teaching, health care and service industries.

Yet if you can accept that the job choices of men and women lead to different unemployment rates, then you shouldn't be surprised by other differences—like differences in average pay.

Feminist hand-wringing about the wage gap relies on the assumption that the differences in average earnings stem from discrimination. Thus the mantra that women make only 77% of what men earn for equal work. But even a cursory review of the data proves this assumption false.

The Department of Labor's Time Use survey shows that full-time working women spend an average of 8.01 hours per day on the job, compared to 8.75 hours for full-time working men. One would expect that someone who works 9% more would also earn more. This one fact alone accounts for more than a third of the wage gap.

Choice of occupation also plays an important role in earnings. While feminists suggest that women are coerced into lower-paying job sectors, most women know that something else is often at work. Women gravitate toward jobs with fewer risks, more comfortable conditions, regular hours, more personal fulfillment and greater flexibility. Simply put, many women—not all, but enough to have a big impact on the statistics—are willing to trade higher pay for other desirable job characteristics.

Men, by contrast, often take on jobs that involve physical labor, outdoor work, overnight shifts and dangerous conditions (which is also why men suffer the overwhelming majority of injuries and deaths at the workplace). They put up with these unpleasant factors so that they can earn more.

Recent studies have shown that the wage gap shrinks—or even reverses—when relevant factors are taken into account and comparisons are made between men and women in similar circumstances. In a 2010 study of single, childless urban workers between the ages of 22 and 30, the research firm Reach Advisors found that women earned an average of 8% more than their male counterparts. Given that women are outpacing men in educational attainment, and that our economy is increasingly geared toward knowledge-based jobs, it makes sense that women's earnings are going up compared to men's.

Should we celebrate the closing of the wage gap? Certainly it's good news that women are increasingly productive workers, but women whose husbands and sons are out of work or under-employed are likely to have a different perspective. After all, many American women wish they could work less, and that they weren't the primary earners for their families.

Few Americans see the economy as a battle between the sexes. They want opportunity to abound so that men and women can find satisfying work situations that meet their unique needs. That—not a day dedicated to manufactured feminist grievances—would be something to celebrate.

Ms. Lukas is executive director of the Independent Women's Forum.

Summary: In The Wall Street Journal, Carrie Lukas of the Independent Women's Forum writes that a study of single, childless urban workers between the ages of 22 and 30 found that women earned 8% more than men.


[A]t a diner in Philadelphia Monday morning, Kasich said he wouldn’t direct his voters to support Cruz in the Hoosier State – a critical decision that could have the most weight in the state.

“I’ve never told them not to vote for me. They ought to vote for me, but I’m not over there campaigning and spending resources,” Kasich said. The Ohio governor will still be on the ballot in Indiana.

It is becoming apparent that this is an agreement between the two campaigns to hold their fire against each other in just three states – and a directive for the outside groups backing them to do the same.

There was already ample discussion about whether the Cruz-Kasich agreement was hatched too late to make a significant difference, but as yesterday came to a close, the discussion had turned – to whether or not a Cruz-Kasich agreement still existed in any meaningful form.

The “Never Trump” forces felt a renewed sense of hope 24 hours ago. Unfortunately for them, their optimism appears to have been premature.

Summary: What's more interesting than Ted Cruz and John Kasich striking a deal to stop Donald Trump? Seeing how quickly their alliance unraveled.


A US report that found Australia is ranked equal third among Western nations as a target for Islamic State-inspired terror attacks comes as no surprise to local authorities, the federal government says.

The US congressional committee report found Australia has been targeted by more IS-linked terrorism plots than Belgium, Israel and Germany over the last two years.

Justice Minister Michael Keenan said the report confirmed the view of local authorities.

"What I can say is that there is no country that is better prepared to deal with the threat of global terrorism than Australia," he told reporters in Adelaide on Thursday.

The Australian Parliament is due to pass a fifth tranche of counter terrorism laws when MPs sit later this month.

According to the report, the US was the top target among western nations with 41, France was second with 20 and Australia and the United Kingdom were equal third with eight.

The US House Committee on Homeland Security report describes the 100-plus attacks against western countries since 2014 as "an unprecedented wave of terror".

"ISIS-linked attacks against the west have been responsible for more than 1600 casualties since 2014," the committee's report states.

"The three highest-casualty attacks all occurred within the past year, including the November assault in Paris (480 people), the attack in Brussels (335 people), and the recent truck massacre in Nice (286 people)."

Belgium was fifth on the list with seven IS-linked terrorism plots while Germany and Spain were next with five.

Israel and Indonesia both had one.

The report found 89 per cent of suspects were military-aged males, with the average age 26, and attacks were getting deadlier and more destructive with the average number of casualties per attack jumping the last year from 48 to 58.

Most of the terror group's external operations were carried out by independent followers inspired by IS, rather than those who worked for the group directly.

US authorities, according to the report, have identified individuals tied to terrorism in Syria who have attempted to enter the US as refugees.

"Refugee flows have become a key pathway for terrorists to expand their reach into western countries," the report states.

"ISIS has advanced its operations by infiltrating operatives into the flow of refugees from the Middle East, including to plan attacks in Belgium, France, Germany, and Turkey."

Summary: Most of Islamic State's global attacks are carried out by independent followers inspired by the terror group, rather than affiliated members: US report.


Pretty soon, you might literally be grounded if you don’t pay your taxes.

This December, Congress will implement a law giving the U.S. government the power to revoke passports of those who don’t pay their taxes. According to the Wall Street Journal, the law would also allow the government, through the U.S. State Department, to prevent tax delinquents from getting a new passport.

The rule, expected to take effect in January, is nestled in a highway funding bill (H.R. 22). It targets people who owe $50,000 or more in unpaid taxes, including penalties and interest. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that the move would save the government $398 million over the next decade, according to the Journal report.

Americans traveling for humanitarian reasons will be able to ask for an exception if they’re tax delinquent, and the rule does not apply to people who are on an IRS payment plan or contesting a tax case in court.

The proposed regulation has angered some groups, particularly citizens living abroad, who may not receive the IRS’s mail, since the system isn’t set up to deal with expats very well. For those people, critics contend, their passports are their livelihood, and revoking them could have disastrous consequences.

Read next: This Country Has the World’s Most Expensive Passports

Summary: A rule designed to save the U.S. almost $400 million over the next decade.


Every major mobile network and high street retailer will try to sell insurance to customers when they are buying new phones. Some networks charge as much as £15 a month – or £180 a year – to insure the latest smartphones. Yet despite the costly premiums, research has shown that only one in five policyholders has ever made a claim.

When choosing mobile phone insurance, price is often the first thing we consider. For instance, it costs £12.50 a month to insure an iPhone 5 16GB with O2, and you will need to pay an excess of £60 if you need to replace the handset. However, if you make a second claim the excess doubles to £120. So a year's worth of premiums plus one replacement phone would cost you £210 – just under half the cost of a new handset.

However, making sure you are properly insured is harder than you might think. Many policies are riddled with exclusions. For example, it may not cover you for any calls made when your phone is lost or stolen.

It is crucial that you also comply with the conditions set out by the insurer, or you might be left out of pocket with a policy that will not pay out. For example, if your handset is stolen, you must tell the provider to bar the phone and contact the police to report the theft and get a crime reference number.

If you are one of the 20 million consumers who have home contents insurance, it is possible that your mobile phone is already covered – so check before buying a separate policy from your network.

But research from statisticians Defaqto shows that the cover within home insurance can be limited and may vary according to where the phone is kept. For example, nine out of 10 policies automatically provide cover for mobile phones when they are within the home, but the number of policies that automatically provide cover outside the home is lower.

"If you have 'away from home' cover on your contents insurance, you may be able to claim on that if your phone is lost or stolen while you're out," said Mark Greening of Gocompare.com, the comparison service. "Away from home cover is an optional extra on most standard home contents policies, but it doesn't necessarily add a lot to your premium if it doesn't come as standard. It's important that you check any single article limits that might apply to the policy." For example, this might limit payouts for any one item to just £500 – which wouldn't necessarily cover the cost of replacing the latest smartphone.

Getting cover on your home insurance might be cheapest in the short term, but a claim is likely to push up your premiums in future. "A relatively small claim of a few hundred pounds may have a knock-on effect on the cost of your household insurance, which could be substantially more expensive," said Mr Greening.

Millions of mobile users may be paying twice for insurance, as your phone may already be covered through a "packaged" (paid-for) bank account. Figures from Defaqto show that 71pc of packaged accounts include mobile phone insurance. Always check the level of cover, as it can vary. On its website, Defaqto analyses the quality of various financial products, including mobile phone insurance. For example, if you are looking for basic insurance cover, you may want to consider a product with one or two stars. But if you want a "Rolls-Royce" product – which includes replacements for damaged phones, for example – the more comprehensive policies have a higher star rating. See Defaqto.com for details. Bank of Scotland's range of Vantage current accounts, for instance, provides five-star cover with monthly prices ranging from £7.95 to £25. Keep in mind that you must register your handset in advance.

The cheapest deals usually come from stand-alone policies. You can also ensure that you are getting the level of cover that matches your needs. For instance, Protect Your Bubble (protectyourbubble.com) offers annual cover for an iPhone 5 16GB for £5.99 a month. This offers worldwide cover for theft and breakdown, as well as accidental and liquid damage. However, if you lose your phone, it will not be replaced unless you have selected this as an add-on for an extra £1 a month.

One way it keeps premiums down is to choose a policy that offers replacements that are refurbished rather than brand new. In some cases, customers will be offered phones of a "comparable specification" rather than an exact replacement. Given the cost savings, some people are happy to accept that.

Summary: We explain how to make sure you are properly insured, and how to pay as little   as possible for the handset.


Americans are drinking themselves to death at a record-breaking rate, according to a report.

More than 30,700 people in the country died in 2014 from alcohol-related causes, including alcohol poisoning, the Washington Post reports, citing new federal data. Last year’s rate of 9.6 deaths per 100,000 people is an increase of 37% since 2002, according to the newspaper.

More people died from alcohol in 2014 than from overdoses of prescription painkillers and heroin combined, the Post said. Those causes did not include deaths from drunk driving or homicides committed while drunk.

Excessive alcohol use is a leading cause of preventable death, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It accounted for about 88,000 deaths each from 2006 to 2010, health officials said.

Summary: More than 30,700 Americans died from alcohol-induced causes last year


San Jose's homes are historically expensive.

According to data out Wednesday from the National Association of Realtors, the median price of a home in the California city is now over $1 million — $1,085,000 to be exact — the first time that the group has registered such a high figure in a metro area.

All in all, during the second quarter, home prices increased in 83% of the 178 metro areas that NAR tracks, and the average price of a single-family home nationwide increased 4.9% year-over-year, to $240,700.

The rise in prices also highlighted the vast shortage of homes being built, according to Lawrence Yun, the chief economist for NAR.

"However, with homebuilding activity still failing to keep up with demand and not enough current homeowners putting their home up for sale, prices continued their strong ascent — and in many markets at a rate well above income growth," Yun said in the report.

We've highlighted this problem numerous times, dubbing it "the new housing crisis," and the NAR data reiterates that the supply of homes on the market — both new and existing — is running well below demand, pushing prices up and keeping first-time homebuyers out of the market.

Yun noted that the rate of new homes coming onto the market is well under the average for most recovery periods, and as incomes and wages rise, more people are looking to buy homes. Couple that with people in existing homes being disincentivized to move, and you get bidding wars that push prices out of many buyers' range.

"Many listings in a majority of markets — and especially those in lower price ranges — had multiple offers and went under contract quickly because of severely inadequate supply," Yun said in the report. "This in turn dented affordability and without a doubt priced out a segment of buyers attempting to seek relief from fast-growing rents."

This problem was also reflected in the affordability index from NAR:

"Despite falling mortgage rates and a small increase in the national family median income ($68,774), swiftly rising home prices caused affordability to decline in the second quarter compared to a year ago. To purchase a single-family home at the national median price, a buyer making a 5 percent down payment would need an income of $52,255, a 10 percent down payment would require an income of $49,504, and $44,004 would be needed for a 20 percent down payment."

While San Jose may be a bit of an outlier, it certainly reflects just how expensive things are becoming for American homebuyers.

RELATED: 10 US cities at risk of a housing bubble

10 US cities at risk of a housing bubble

Median list price: $428,600 Bubble index compared with 2001: +6% Bubble index compared with market peak: -26%

Median list price: $322,300 Bubble index compared with 2001: +7% Bubble index compared with market peak: -20%

Median list price: $159,900 Bubble index compared with 2001: +7% Bubble index compared with market peak: -1%

Median list price: $272,100 Bubble index compared with 2001: +9% Bubble index compared with market peak: -31%

Median list price: $690,000 Bubble index compared with 2001: +10% Bubble index compared with market peak: -35%

Median list price: $335,000 Bubble index compared with 2001: +13% Bubble index compared with market peak: -2%

#4: Salt Lake City, Utah

Median list price: $347,200 Bubble index compared with 2001: +14% Bubble index compared with market peak: -20%

Median list price: $400,000 Bubble index compared with 2001: +17% Bubble index compared with market peak: -1%

Median list price: $855,000 Bubble index compared with 2001: +19% Bubble index compared with market peak: -26%

Median list price: $981,500 Bubble index compared with 2001: +19% Bubble index compared with market peak: -18%

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Summary: According to data out Wednesday from the National Association of Realtors, the median price of a home in this California city is now over $1 million.