All Blacks coach Steve Hansen has explained why it took five days for the New Zealand Rugby Union to come forward about the alleged bugging of the world champions' meeting room in Sydney.

Police are investigating the delay after a listening device was found on Monday hidden in a chair at the Intercontinental hotel in Double Bay during a routine security check.

It wasn't reported to police until Saturday, hours before the All Blacks' Bledisloe Cup opener against the Wallabies at ANZ Stadium.

Superintendent Brad Hodder said "any delay in any investigation's always tough but we'll look at that information".

Hansen said All Blacks management decided it was best to wait for NZRU chief Steve Tew to arrive in Sydney from the Rio Olympics before taking the matter further.

"The reason that we didn't go there straight away was because we went through a process with the hotel and our CEO was away at the Olympics," Hansen said after the All Blacks beat the Wallabies 42-8 in a record-breaking performance at ANZ Stadium on Saturday night.

"He arrived and he needed to be spoken to and fully briefed on it.

"Once he was fully briefed, he said `righto we need to take this to the police'"

As an ex-policeman himself, Hansen said he could understand authorities being frustrated.

"Whether it was right or wrong, it's what's happened so we all have to accept that and deal with it," he said.

Supt Hodder said police didn't have a theory about who planted the device - and nor does Hansen or the All Blacks.

"Lots of people are speculating about who's done it and who hasn't and I don't think that's fair because no one knows who's done it and obviously there's plenty of people who could do it," Hansen said.

"So I think until the enquiry's done by the police, we should sit back and that's it, let them do their job and certainly not speculate on who planted it there because no one knows.

As evident by the All Blacks' biggest-ever win on home soil, Hansen said his world champion side wasn't distracted by the pre-game sideshow - "more shocked".

"It's not something that we wanted, bit it happened," he said.

"It's like an injury, isn't it. You've got to deal with it and it's not in your control.

"But how you react is in your control and we've just got on with our work and passed it over to the powers that be and they'll deal with it."

Wallabies coach Michael Cheika said his team wasn't bothered by the explosive revelation either.

"I don't think anyone accused us of putting it there, did they? It's got nothing to do with us," Cheika said.

Summary: NSW police say they're looking at what offences may have been committed with the apparent bugging of the All Blacks' team meeting room in Sydney.


A British woman killed in a stabbing attack at a north Queensland hostel has been remembered as the "life and soul of a party".

Mia Ayliffe-Chung, 21, was allegedly stabbed to death by a 29-year-old French man who yelled "Allahu Akbar" during the attack at Shelley's Backpackers in Home Hill on Tuesday night.

A 30-year-old British man was in a critical condition in Townsville hospital on Wednesday afternoon following the attack, while a dog was also killed and a local man had minor injuries.

Tributes began to flow on Wednesday for Ms Ayliffe-Chung, a Gold Coast waitress who'd moved to north Queensland for three months to extend her working visa.

Her friend, Sam Gostelow, described Ms Ayliffe-Chung as strong and independent.

"You oozed life, and you were always the life and soul of a party," Mr Gostelow posted to Facebook.

Mr Gostelow said he was about to travel north with her but had to change his plans and aimed to make the journey later on.

"The other man who was stabbed in this attack is currently fighting for his life ... that would of been me if i had gone with them like planned," he posted.

Another friend, Kyle Godwin, said the world had lost "one of the most beautiful young women to ever walk this planet".

"A girl like no other, one of the happiest, full of energy, delightful, energetic and hilarious girl(s) I've come across," he wrote.

Ms Ayliffe-Chung had kept a running diary on Facebook of her time in north Queensland, which included humorous encounters with native wildlife like snakes and toads.

Queensland police were on Wednesday still trying to determine whether the attack was motivated by terrorism.

Deputy Commissioner Steve Gollschewski said the man yelled "Allahu Akbar" during the attack and again while being arrested.

"While this information will be factored into the investigation, we are not ruling out any motivations at this stage, whether they be political or criminal," he said in Brisbane.

"Investigators will also consider whether mental health or drug misuse factors are involved in this incident."

Mr Gollschewski said the man, who was yet to be charged late Wednesday, acted alone and didn't have any known links to Islamic State.

He said police weren't looking for any other suspects and there was no known ongoing threat to the community.

"This is not about race or religion - it is individual criminal behaviour," he said.

The man was lawfully in Australia on a temporary visa and there were no records of him being on any watchlist.

He had arrived in the country around March but had entered Queensland via another state and was staying at the hostel.

Summary: A knife attack in the north Queensland town of Home Hill has left a woman dead and a man in a critical condition in hospital.


By Natalie Stone and Brittany King

08/30/2016 AT 10:25 AM EDT

were spotted together on Monday amid reports of infidelity in the couple's 19-year marriage.

The 82-year-old TV host donned his signature cuffed dress shirt, suspenders and glasses as he was seen walking hand-in-hand alongside his wife, who sported a blue and white top, dark pants, sunglasses and a hat.

surfaced that Shawn has been in a

with British public speaker Richard Greene, the couple participated in a taped interview Thursday citing the PEOPLE-confirmed news as "rumors."

"[It's] an interesting word, 'rumor.' You know, I'm been in the business – next May'll be 60 years – and I've dealt with rumors a long time, interviewed people involved with rumors. Rumors are what they are – they're rumors. And I tell you the truth: I don't pay any attention to them,"

Shawn, a 56-year-old former singer and TV host, is Larry's seventh wife. The two tied the knot in 1997 and share two sons: Chance, 17, and Cannon, 16.

During the interview, Shawn added, "Last week there was a rumor going around about Larry and a speech he made in Kiev, and there was all this [speculation] about that. This week I'm latest the pin-up girl. You have to just develop a shell around yourself and not get hard on the inside and stick together. We've been at it for a while."

In 2010, Larry and Shawn filed for divorce, but later reconciled and filed petitions to stop the proceedings almost three months after the original filing.

Summary: The duo were spotted outside their home on Monday


New Liberal MP Tim Wilson says he's watched with frustration as small politics has stifled tackling the big challenges.

Making his first speech in parliament, Mr Wilson, the former Human Rights Commissioner who replaced Andrew Robb in the blue ribbon seat of Goldstein, said he didn't love the game of politics.

He said his interest was public policy and how we secure this country's promise for future generations.

"I have watched with frustration as small politics has stifled tackling the big challenges ahead of us," he said.

Mr Wilson said the legacy of Mr Robb was to open up markets through international trade agreements.

Australia needed to restructure industries to create the employers of tomorrow and constructive reform of the health sector provided one of the greatest opportunities for Australia.

He said there needed to be a sensible discussion around industrial relations and those who argued for inflexible agreements were now the enemy of workers' security.

" Wherever the barriers are greatest comes the incentive for technology to smash the status quo," he said.

Mr Wilson said the same was true for tax reform and we had to stop fiddling at the margins.

"I have never understood why we tax people more than companies. It fosters perverse incentives for the wealthy to redirect energy to minimise tax rather than grow profits," he said.

Mr Wilson said cynicism pervaded modern political life and the best way to combat that cynicism was to act with integrity.

He said Australians needed to see that parliamentarians acted with conviction.

"Politics necessitates compromise on policy. Integrity comes from preferring defeat with your principles, than to win without them," he said.

Summary: New Liberal MP Tim Wilson has told parliament his interest is public policy and he has no love of the game of politics


If you’re a farmer growing fresh food, the conditions need to be just right to get from seed to harvest. And if you’re an entrepreneur nurturing a food-based startup, you need an ecosystem that gets you from the seed round to paydirt.

Boston is increasingly becoming that fertile ground.

The city is getting crowded with companies seeking to change the way we eat. There are indulgent ice cream brands and healthy beverage purveyors, “food-tech” entities using algorithms to track cattle or overhaul restaurant inventory systems, and high-minded food labs stealthily designing new recipes for major brands.

So it’s little surprise that the area’s venture capitalists have also begun to turn their attention to food. Deep-pocketed investors at Spark Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners have found success sowing their money into companies like Freight Farms and Blue Apron, respectively. Investors at Beechwood Capital, an established local player that made a fortune off the Crock-Pot, are now channeling their expertise into the next generation of eating. Meanwhile, a crop of new funds looking to invest exclusively in food-driven businesses has sprouted up around town.

Jeremy Halpern, an attorney at Nutter McClennen & Fish who helped establish the firm’s food and beverage group, has been keeping close watch on the funding landscape here and says he’s seen its pace quicken in the past two years. “There’s not only new funds being created pretty rapidly, there’s also some of the existing funds pivoting,” he said. And he’s part of that change: Last fall, he launched his own food-focused angel fund, Edible Ventures.

“Having that type of support here is huge,” said Lauren Abda, founder of Branchfood, a group that offers shared office space and networking opportunities to food-centric businesses in the Boston area. “It reinforces the opportunity for these companies and entrepreneurs that want to create transformative businesses.”

Kent Bennett is a partner at Cambridge-based Bessemer, an investor in Blue Apron (now a valued at $2 billion) and Toast, a local company that helps restaurants manage their point-of-sale operations. He said the move to underwrite these businesses stems from the primal nature of food. “I’m addicted to the stuff and can’t live without it,” he joked.

It’s a sentiment echoed around the startup world. After years of betting on tech, venture capitalists in Silicon Valley and beyond have been looking for ways to disrupt the $5 trillion global food industry. In 2015, $6.8 billion was invested in private food-related startups and media, according to Brita Rosenheim, whose New York consulting firm, Rosenheim Advisors, obsessively tracks the food entrepreneurship space.

“In the last two, maybe three years, there’s been this crazy tip” toward more funding in food, said Rachel Greenberger, who runs the Food Sol “action tank” at Babson College, which focuses on innovation and entrepreneurship within the food system.

But she’s also among the skeptics who have watched as valuations soared then plummeted in the past year, as dozens of companies launched variations of two of the buzziest food businesses: on-demand food delivery and meal kit models.

Greenberger said investing in the food industry comes with unique challenges, like fickle growing seasons and a reliance on fresh product. There’s an essential difference — when Amazon ships you a toaster, you know it’s not going to spoil. The same can’t be said for a meal kit.

And it means that investors can’t just put their faith in technology alone.

Who gets funded, and how, rests largely on the type of food business being built. Bessemer’s Bennett said many venture funds are “interested in massive industries that have the potential to be disrupted, and its tough to get into a bigger industry than food.” But they’re less apt to make a bet on a small baker or beverage maker that’s hoping to break out, he said.

That where Halpern and Edible Ventures comes in. The local angel group, which launched in October of last year, wants to find the next VitaminWater or Honest Tea, both of which were eventually acquired by Coca-Cola. While margins for food businesses can be small, hitting on a promising consumer product can prove fruitful, Halpern said, in part because global food players like Campbell Soup, General Mills, and Kellogg’s have all opened their own venture arms within the last year in the hopes of scooping up smaller brands.

There’s something very tangible about investing in an actual consumer good. “We are still monkeys. We like to pick up things and peer at them and hold them and shake them,” Halpern said. “The problem with tech and biotech is you don’t get to do that. There is something enormously satisfying about investing in a product that you see in a store and getting to say, ‘I own a piece of that.’ ”

Even so, the calculus has to be right to make a bet. So far, Edible Ventures has only invested in three brands: 18 Rabbits, a non-GMO granola bar; Owl’s Brew tea-based drink mixers; and Sonoma Cider, which makes organic alcoholic beverages.

Several other local funds are looking to help burgeoning new consumer products expand their growth. Beechwood Capital, which helped build Crock-Pot’s parent company into an $800 million business, is now getting into cutting-edge food products such as ChiaPods and cold-pressed watermelon water. Sherbrooke Capital, which focuses on healthy lifestyle brands, is backing Food Should Taste Good chips and Izze Beverages. And Whipstitch Capital has helped a lineup of local food brands like the Otter Creek Brewing and Blake’s All Natural Foods navigate their acquisitions by bigger brands.

There are also funds far more global in scope, such as Anterra, a joint venture from Fidelity and Rabobank, the EU-based food and agribusiness lender, which recently opened a Boston office for its $125 million fund. Its purpose is to finance agricultural startups seeking to overhaul food production systems.

Lauren Abda of Branchfood has noticed that investors with a deep knowledge of food systems tend to have an edge. “Food is big, it’s complex, and having that depth of understanding gives the investors a leg up in how to coach the founders and make helpful introductions for them,” she said.

That’s certainly been the case for Bruce Shaw, who spent the past 35 years as president and publisher of Harvard Common Press, which was best known for putting out food- and family-centric titles like Prairie Home Cooking and The Ultimate Rice Cooker Cookbook. In 2010, aware that the proliferation of recipes on the Web was about to undermine his business model, Shaw and his associate publisher, Adam Salomone, decided to invest in a recipe search engine, Yummly. The site now boasts 15 million unique visitors a month and has raised $24 million in outside investment.

Having sampled a taste of the startup scene, Shaw and Salomone began to scout out new investments in food technology firms. In 2013, they opened The Food Loft, a shared office space for food-based startups in their South End headquarters. The following year, they invested in Caviar, a delivery app that was later purchased by the mobile payments company Square for a reported $90 million. Their investment group, Salt Venture Partners, has recently invested in Alchemista, a corporate catering startup that has been bringing meals to TripAdvisor and Wayfair.

And while Salt Ventures is looking at new logistical models for restaurants and recipes, other more mission-driven funds like Fresh Source Capital and the Fair Food Fund are hoping to support smaller distributors and entrepreneurs attempting to bolster local food systems.

Branchfood’s Abda said the scope of the funding network and the willingness of investors to keep supporting food businesses is not only critical to the success of today’s food innovators but to the next phase of food disruption.

“It bodes well for the whole ecosystem,” she said.

Summary: The city is getting crowded with companies seeking to change the way we eat. And the money is following.


Trent Thorburn (l) and Tiahleigh Palmer. (AAP)

Tiahleigh Palmer's foster brother Trent Thorburn feared he had made the 12-year-old pregnant days before his father allegedly murdered the schoolgirl, a court has heard.

Police have told the Beenleigh Magistrates Court Thorburn admitted in an online conversation with his cousin on October 28, 2015 that he had sex with Tiahleigh and said he was concerned she might have been pregnant.

She was last seen alive two days later and her body was found on the banks of the Pimpama river on the Gold Coast on November 6.

Her foster father Rick Thorburn has been charged with her murder but was in an induced coma on Wednesday after reportedly swallowing pills either at Logan Central Police Station or at the Beenleigh Watch House following his arrest on Tuesday.

His lawyer Kelly Thompson said it was unclear when the 56-year-old would be brought out of the coma as his matter was adjourned until December 21.

Police prosecutor Sergeant Elen French told Trent Thorburn's bail application that despite repeatedly denying any sexual aspect to his relationship with Tiahleigh, police had received a statement from his cousin saying he had told her he had sex with his foster sister.

"She said he made the disclosure on Facebook messenger and that she had saved a copy of the conversation, which was subsequently provided to police," Sgt French told the court.

"During that conversation, he says he had sex with the victim on the prior Monday and he had only done so because she had threatened to kill his dog."

Sgt French said Thorburn, 19, had betrayed the girl's trust.

"He abused his position as big brother and took advantage of her. A consequence of that is her young life has been taken," she said.

Facing charges of incest as well as perjury and perverting the course of justice, Thorburn showed little emotion from the dock as allegations of his abuse of Tiahleigh were read out to the court.

Police also allege Tiahleigh herself revealed Thorburn's criminal behaviour in a conversation with a friend shortly before her disappearance.

Sgt French said Tiahleigh had said "Trent tried to touch me" to her friend.

It was also claimed Tiahleigh had informed her foster mother Julene Thorburn but the 54-year-old had taken no action against her son.

The Marsden State High School student's biological mother Cindy Palmer breathed a sigh of relief when Magistrate Pamela Dowse denied Thorburn bail, adjourning his matter to November 9.

Julene and the Thorburns' oldest son Josh, 20, have also been charged with perjury and perverting the course of justice and will face court next month.

The allegations against the Thorburns have also raised questions about the selection of carers in Queensland.

Child Safety Minister Shannon Fentiman revealed on Wednesday the Thorburns had been approved as foster carers in August 2014.

The family had also operated a day care centre, Ms Fentiman said, before police shared intelligence about the family with authorities in April.

"Their family day care approval was immediately revoked and their foster care approval was immediately suspended," Ms Fentiman said.

Opposition Leader Tim Nicholls said the case showed the need for an investigation into the state's foster care system.

But Foster Care Queensland executive director Bryan Smith defended the system, telling AAP the state had "one of the most in-depth and stringent arrangements around the approval of foster carers in Australia".

Summary: The foster father of Tiahleigh Palmer is due to face a Queensland court on Wednesday after being charged with the schoolgirl's murder.


Top Goldman Sachs officials defended their conduct in the financial crisis on Tuesday before the Senate Governmental Affairs Investigations Subcommittee. They flatly rejected the Securities and Exchange Commission’s fraud allegations against the firm, made in a civil suit filed earlier in April.The following is a look at some of the more dramatic moments in the hearing.Posted April 27 2010

Summary: Goldman Sachs officials defended their conduct before the Senate Governmental Affairs Investigations Subcommittee. The following is a look at some of the more dramatic moments.


A man accused of murdering his wife and her hairdresser at a Victorian salon 25 years ago knew details about the brutal deaths that alarmed police.

Margaret Penny and her hairdresser were found beaten and stabbed to death inside the Old London Coiffure Hairdressers in Portland in May 1991.

Robert Penny was charged with their murders in 2015 but died in March before he could face a committal hearing.

Within hours of the murders, Penny made comments to family members that police later deemed suspicious, the Victorian Coroners Court was told on Thursday.

He told his children "their mother had been killed with a comb knife and scissors", said counsel assisting the coroner Jessica Wilby.

He also allegedly told Claire Acocks' family that the hairdresser had "died quickly and was killed with a tail comb".

"He could not explain to police how he came to be in possession of this information," Ms Wilby told an inquest directions hearing.

The women's bodies were found on May 3 after Ms Penny failed to meet a friend for afternoon tea.

"They had been stabbed multiple times, which was described by police as 'brutal' and 'vicious'," said Ms Wilby.

Ms Penny had arrived for her regular 2pm appointment with Ms Acocks about 15 minutes late that Friday.

Ms Acocks was last seen alive at 3.05pm when she went outside to collect something from her car.

Neighbours reported hearing screams about 3.30pm and a door slamming.

Their bodies were discovered at 4.30pm.

Police interviewed 6000 people as part of the murder investigation, and despite an inquest in 1995, the murder remained unsolved.

The victims' families, however, continued to press authorities for answers.

"Suspicions had been raised by the Acocks and Penny families about the possible involvement of Mr Penny," said Ms Wilby.

Police were able to gather new evidence on fingerprint analysis, DNA, and the women's wounds thanks to advances in technology that were not available in 1991, and charged Penny with the murders in 2015.

Up to 50 witnesses were expected to give evidence at a committal hearing to determine whether he should stand trial.

But Penny died of natural causes on March 26, aged 84.

His granddaugther requested a second inquest into the women's murders, saying it would provide closure about her grandfather's possible involvement.

"This case has a long and complex history," said coroner Jacqui Hawkins.

"It's most unfortunate that the criminal process was unable to be completed due to Mr Penny's death."

The inquest will begin on November 23.

Summary: A coroner will consider the case of two women murdered in a Victorian hair salon 25 years ago.


The death of a 15-year-old boy killed when the stolen panel van he was a passenger in crashed after speeding away from police was a "tragedy of immense proportions", a West Australian coroner has found.

Giovani Wade Ryan died in hospital from a traumatic brain injury after the driver, who mistakenly thought police were chasing them, lost control on a gravel surface and rolled the van in Carnarvon, about 900km north of Perth, in October 2013.

None of the four boys in the van was wearing a seatbelt and Giovani, who was sitting in front, was flung out of the van.

Deputy State Coroner Evelyn Vicker ruled Giovani's death was an unlawful homicide and noted the 17-year-old driver was dealt with in the criminal jurisdiction for dangerous driving causing death.

"There is no doubt in my mind this was a tragedy of immense proportions," she said.

"All four boys in the panel van at the time of these events, despite drinking on a Friday evening (which was) inappropriate for their age, were essentially reasonable boys and were not known for being particular troublemakers."

Ms Vicker said the intention of the boys appeared to be "purely joy-riding" and they were all traumatised by the crash.

"Although the driver did have some history in the juvenile justice system, he was clearly somewhat amazed at their combined actions when he stated 'I can't believe we've just stolen a car', and his driving was not overall incompetent, despite the fact he had no licence and had never learned to drive," she said.

Ms Vicker said police, who had tried to stop the van but never chased it, did not cause or contribute to Giovani's death.

"While I accept the boys believed the police had engaged them in a pursuit, I am satisfied that was not the case," she said.

Summary: Western Australia's deputy state coroner has found police did not contribute to a crash that killed a teenage boy in Carnarvon in October 2013.


After 33 long years, the family of Sydney nurse Mary Louise Wallace has finally seen her killer brought to justice.

There were hugs and tears in the Supreme Court in Sydney on Friday when Robert John Adams was found guilty of murdering Ms Wallace in 1983.

"We've waited 33 years for this decision," Ms Wallace's sister Anne Fraser said outside court.

"...I didn't believe it, it'll take a while to sink in.

"We've known since the first week (it was Adams) and it's just thanks to police."

Adams, 64, showed no emotion when Justice Richard Button delivered the verdict following a judge-alone trial.

He said the former carpenter had shown a "chronic" tendency to rape and strangle women after meeting them in public and luring them to his car.

It was a modus operandi he'd used on at least three other women, who bravely came forward to testify at the trial.

"Whilst alone in his car with the deceased ... the accused choked or strangled her with the intention of having sexual intercourse with her without her consent," Justice Button said.

He said the act had caused Ms Wallace's sudden death.

"The accused treated the deceased very much as an object, just as he had treated three other young women," the judge added.

Ms Wallace was last seen with Adams in his car leaving a Crows Nest bar in the early hours of September 24, 1983.

Adams was a suspect but it would be 30 years before police arrested him, after advances in technology allowed them to match hairs seized from his car boot to strands from Ms Wallace's hairbrush.

That evidence, along with witnesses who saw Adams hosing his boot the weekend of Ms Wallace's disappearance, helped to satisfy Justice Button beyond doubt that Adams was the killer.

Ms Wallace's remains have never been found and her family desperately want Adams to reveal what he did with her.

"I'd like to know where her body is so we can take her out of the crime scene and lay her to rest somewhere," her sister Libby said.

Adams' bail was revoked after the verdict and he was taken into custody.

He is due to face a sentence hearing in February.

Summary: A NSW judge is due to hand down his verdict in the case of a man charged with murdering a Sydney nurse in 1983.


An Adelaide Hills man who used his skills as a welder to build a home-made gun has been jailed despite an expert report that said he was a good candidate for home detention.

Jesse Robert Sobey, 34, of Mt Barker, has been jailed for three years and five months over the home-made gun and three other weapons, including two shotguns, found by police when they stopped him in his car in February.

"You said you made up the firearm using your welding skills, having been a boiler maker and working with metal for a long time," District Court Judge Geraldine Davison said on Thursday.

The court heard Sobey had a history of drug abuse but a psychologist said he had cleaned up and his rehabilitation prospects were good, while another report considered him a suitable home detention candidate.

But the judge believed the offences were so serious that a prison sentence was needed to deter him and others from illegally making and possessing guns.

"You had a number of firearms accessible to others, including children. You placed not just yourself but others in a significant degree of danger," Judge Davison said, setting a non-parole period of 17 months.

Summary: A man who was caught with a home-made gun and three other weapons has been jailed by an Adelaide judge hoping to deter others from doing the same.


The federal government on Friday approved a sweeping overhaul of the state’s health care program for poor and low-income residents, pushing medical providers to better coordinate the care of nearly 2 million people.

The goals are to improve the health and quality of care for a population of patients that tends to have complex medical needs, while also attempting to control spending in the $15 billion-plus Medicaid program — the single largest expense in the state budget.

The new agreement represents the biggest change to MassHealth in two decades. It will expand the number of hospitals receiving payments for serving large numbers of MassHealth patients, from seven to 15.

The federal approval comes with a massive infusion of funds to help hospitals and other providers shift their operations to a new business model, one that gives them a set amount of money to care for patients and scores them on quality to ensure they aren’t skimping.

Marylou Sudders, the Massachusetts secretary of health and human services, said the federal funding is crucial to making the new care model work.

“If you really want to change a system, you really need to have the right investments so that system can develop the services and structure that it needs,” she said in an interview.

The state’s Medicaid program, called MassHealth, has been rooted in the old fee-for-service model of medicine, in which doctors and hospitals are paid for every service they provide. The administration plans to shift MassHealth to an emerging model called accountable care, which aims to prevent serious medical problems and costly hospital visits by providing more coordinated care that helps members stay healthy.

For the one in four Massachusetts residents on MassHealth, state officials vow that the change will mean closer communication with primary care physicians or care managers, who will help coordinate different medical, mental health, and social services.

But in the near term, the changes also could cause confusion and disruption as consumers learn about the new care models and choose their doctors.

“It’s a really important step toward a MassHealth program that protects consumers’ health in the long term, but I think the big challenge is going to be putting the program into place,” said Matt Selig, executive director of Health Law Advocates, a nonprofit group representing low-income residents. “It’s a huge undertaking — it’s uncharted territory in Massachusetts — and it’s going to be hard.”

State and national health care laws have been pushing the health care industry to move to accountable care models. The private insurance market and Medicare, the government health program for seniors, already have begun adopting such models.

Putting MassHealth on the same path is one of the most significant achievements yet by Governor Charlie Baker, a former health insurance executive. The approval of the so-called Medicaid waiver authorizes $52.4 billion in spending over five years, including $29.2 billion from the federal government.

Without changes, Baker officials say, the growing costs of MassHealth are unsustainable; spending on the program has been rising at an 8 to 12 percent clip over the past few years and is consuming an increasing share of available state funds.

It’s unclear exactly how much money the administration is hoping to save by shifting to accountable care. Other such programs across the country have produced only modest savings so far, according to studies.

The challenges are evident in Massachusetts. A similar but smaller effort to better manage care for a group of poor and disabled residents has proved more complicated than expected, resulting in severe financial losses.

“This kind of reform takes time,” Sudders said.

The state was under a deadline to come up with a new MassHealth plan, as $1 billion in federal funding was scheduled to expire on June 30, 2017.

The new deal includes $4.8 billion in funding for hospitals that serve especially large numbers of MassHealth patients. There is also $1.8 billion in new grants to help health care providers shift to new accountable care models. Some of the money is contingent on Massachusetts meeting certain performance benchmarks set by federal officials.

In some cases, the deal may allow patients to receive additional services that are hard to access under the current system. In response to the ongoing opioid crisis, for example, MassHealth will expand residential rehab treatment for people with a substance abuse disorder, said Daniel Tsai, assistant secretary of MassHealth.

Currently, the program covers shorter-term detox treatment, but not longer-term residential programs.

Massachusetts is one of several states moving to adopt accountable care models for its poor and low-income population, following similar moves by Rhode Island and Vermont, according to federal officials.

“This is a very big deal,” said John E. McDonough, a professor at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. “This puts MassHealth on a transformation path from where it is today.”

Advocates said the planned changes could help improve care for patients by boosting communication and coordination among different entities — primary care doctors, hospitals, therapists, social service agencies — that serve the same person.

“All these different types of services that you used to get from a wide variety of organizations, it’s going to be in their interest . . . to make it much more coordinated and easier for you to access,” said Audrey Shelto, president of the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation, a research and advocacy group. “They’re going to be held very accountable for making sure you have access to all those services.”

Many details of the new MassHealth plan have yet to be worked out. Six organizations that may include some of the state’s major medical providers are set to begin accountable care pilot programs as early as next month. Officials have not identified the organizations yet.

The new federal funding kicks in next July, and full implementation of the new care model is set to begin in December 2017.

Summary: Feds approve overhaul of MassHealth that requires medical providers to better coordinate care to nearly 2 million state residents.


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Depending on when, exactly, your house was built, you can identify the most common problems in older homes -- before they start. The post Busted: Common Problems in Older Homes -- ...

There are some take-home real estate lessons in this sweeping anthology of camp, guts, and gore. But to uncover them, I had to do some binge-watching. I'll never sleep again -- but...

A home inspection is an important safety measure to take before buying a home -- but how much does one cost? The post How Much Does a Home Inspection Cost (and How Much Can It Save...

Summary: Buying a new home or piece of property.


The Cleveland Cavaliers have arrived in New York City, but they are not all staying together.

The team initially booked reservations at the Trump SoHo hotel, a Lower Manhattan 46-story luxury building with the name of President-elect Donald Trump attached. According to ESPN's Dave McMenamin, the Cavs have a contract with the establishment.

But LeBron James and a group of unidentified teammates have been excused from staying at the hotel. James and J.R. Smith attended a rally for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton just two days before she was defeated by Trump on Election Day.

Three NBA teams -- the Bucks, Grizzlies and Mavericks -- reportedly ceased business relationships with Trump-branded hotels earlier this year.

According to McMenamin, the Trump SoHo provides some nostalgia to the Cavs, as it is the location head coach Tyronn Lue gave Kevin Love a pep talk last April, inspiring Love to strive in the postseason.

Cavs general manager David Griffin tells Cleveland.com other accommodations have been made for the players. Griffin estimates half the team will set up camp away from the team hotel.

The Trump SoHo is the only Trump-named hotel the Cavs are scheduled to stay in this season. The Cavs still have the hotel reserved for their Feb. 4 meeting with the Knicks and a potential postseason appearance in Manhattan. The Cavs do not plan on staying at the Trump SoHo for their Jan. 6 trip to Brooklyn.

-- Follow Jeff Eisenband on Twitter @JeffEisenband. Like Jeff Eisenband on Facebook.

Basketball, Brooklyn, Brooklyn Nets, Cleveland Cavaliers, Dallas Mavericks, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Hotels, Iman Shumpert, JR Smith, LeBron James, Madison Square Garden, Manhattan, Memphis Grizzlies, Milwaukee Bucks, NBA, New York, New York Knicks, richard jefferson, Trump Hotels, Trump SoHo

Summary: LeBron James and Cleveland Cavaliers teammates are not staying with the team at a Trump hotel in New York City when they play the Knicks.


A YouTube star who claims he flew from Melbourne to Sydney in a luggage bag has been shut down by TigerAir, saying it would’ve been an impossible feat.

Adam Saleh, a video blogger from the US, posted a video to YouTube on Tuesday, in which he apparently flew across Australian state borders in a suitcase.

“I heard when you check in the luggage, no one is there so you can just chuck it in and go,” Mr Saleh said in a video posted to his YouTube channel, which has since been viewed more than 300,000 times.

In the video, Mr Saleh gets into a suitcase in a Melbourne hotel room and catches a taxi to the airport with two friends.

At the airport, Mr Saleh’s friends are seen putting the suitcase on the baggage weight for check-in but the computerised system tells them the bag is overweight.

The friends then claim they paid a fee for the overweight baggage.

Upon sharing the video on his Twitter account, Mr Saleh was called out by TigerAir who said he was definitely on the flight.

In an open letter, the airline slammed the YouTube star, saying his claims were false.

“Firstly, you wouldn’t have been accepted by our automated bag drop machines at 66kg as a friendly staff member would have stepped in to assist,” the letter said.

“Secondly, some aircraft have heated baggage holds but the aircraft you were on does not and it gets pretty cold at 36,000 feet so by the time you arrived in Sydney you would have been a popsicle.

"Thirdly, we have footage of you boarding the aircraft using your legs.”

The airline said the matter was being investigated and the video was “not genuine”.

© Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2016


Most people will be glad to see the back of 2016. It was a year of shock elections, record-breaking global temperatures, devastating terrorist attacks, ongoing civil wars, and high-profile celebrity deaths.

But don’t let the negative headlines fool you: it wasn’t all bad news. We asked six experts in different areas to share with us their defining moments of 2016, with a particular focus on events that maybe didn’t get as much coverage as they should have. As you’ll see, this past year has given us plenty of cause for celebration.

The declaration of the Ross Sea Marine Protected Area (MPA) in Antarctica is not only a defining moment of 2016, but a monumental moment in the history of conservation.

Twenty-four nations and the EU came together to create the biggest protected area in history (on land or in the sea). To put it in perspective, it’s the size of the U.K., France, Germany, and Italy combined. Its creation is a beacon of hope in a time of increased geopolitical tension. It shows that the Polar Regions continue to be a place for cooperation and bridge-building.

Emperor penguins in the Ross Sea

The MPA protects many iconic species, including Emperor and Adélie penguins, humpback whales and Antarctic toothfish from the type of rampant overfishing that has decimated many parts of our oceans. What makes it so significant is that it is first large MPA in the high seas. It sets a precedent for many more in other parts of the world.

Lewis Pugh is a United Nations Patron of the Oceans and a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader.

Many factors are being blamed for the election of Donald Trump. There was a similar outcry months earlier when Britain voted to remove itself from the European Union. A common theory involves a failure of the media to understand why these events happened – a failure to do its job.

But journalism done well is more important than ever during what appears to be a global shift towards populist authoritarianism, a decline in political transparency and accountability.

In April 2016, more than 100 media outlets from around the world abandoned competition to publish the largest investigation in journalism history: The Panama Papers. The result was a global storm of political and grassroots reaction.

The investigation uncovered the secrets of more than 100 politicians in more than 50 countries – including 12 current or former world leaders. Large protests were seen on the streets of Britain, Iceland, Malta and Pakistan. Authorities in 75 countries launched investigations. High-profile figures – including Iceland’s prime minister – were forced to resign.

We know the journalism industry needs to adapt to a changing world, but 2016 was proof of the powerful role the Fourth Estate still plays.

Gerard Ryle is the director of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

Once again in 2016, extremists across the world attacked women’s educational, social and professional opportunities, rolling back the successes of feminist campaigning.

All too often, these women are painted as victims – or in some cases they are seen as potential perpetrators of violence, as we saw this year with the burkini ban and the furore that surrounded it.

But if there’s anything 2016 taught us, it’s that women’s most valuable role may be in challenging and preventing extremism at the community level. Women are often more engaged within their communities than men, and have strong networks with other members of the community. For that reason, they’re in the best position to organize and challenge the development of extremism and to identify and counter the factors that cause it in the first place.

That’s why my stand-out good news story of the year was when the Women’s Alliance for Security Leadership, led by peace activist Sanam Naraghi, launched the Global Solutions Exchange at the United Nations General Assembly in September. These networks of women are already working against radicalization. With the launch of this platform, they might finally get the support they need.

Deeyah Khan is an award-winning film director and a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader.

In 2016, the private sector continued to redefine its role in generating positive social impact. For some time now, it has no longer been enough to simply publish a glossy corporate social responsibility report or make adjacent philanthropic grants. Customers, shareholders and employees alike expect that leading companies will not only adopt their own unique mission, vision and values, but live them – inside and out.

Over the past year, we have seen more and more corporations step forward to make a difference through values-driven leadership. When our own value of inclusion was put to the test, PayPal made the decision to withdraw plans to expand into North Carolina following the state’s passage of discriminatory legislation against the LGBT community. In other instances, we saw companies such as Salesforce, Target, Starbucks, and AT&T take a stand for equality and validate their values through essential public action.

Collectively, we have the opportunity and obligation to make a positive, lasting impact for the constituencies we serve and for the communities – and in some cases cities and nations – where we live, work and do business. 2016 highlighted that corporations can inspire change by placing social purpose at the core of our business agendas.

Franz Paasche is the SVP of Corporate Affairs at PayPal, an Industry Partner of the World Economic Forum.

For me, the defining moment of 2016 was also one of the least reported pieces of news: the release of the latest AGRA report that confirmed the steady revival of African agriculture. If sustained, the emerging agricultural revolution will play a key role in the economic transformation of the continent.

Why is this such a big deal – my “defining” moment of 2016? Because, aside from helping Africa to feed itself, an agricultural revolution will create jobs, lift people out of poverty and help diffuse new technologies into the wider economy. These changes could happen far sooner than anyone would have predicted. Equally important is the role that African governments have played since the turn of the century in focusing on the strategic role of agriculture.

Given that just five years ago, parts of the continent were in the grips of the worst food crisis in history, this progress is nothing short of remarkable.

Calestous Juma is a professor of the practice of international development at Harvard University.

For me, there was no one defining moment in 2016 but a collection of them throughout the year, when across communities, countries, and continents we demonstrated tolerance, inclusivity, and diversity.

Those moments stand in contrast with the divisive ones that we also witnessed during the year, but I think that they defined it equally. And those positive moments defined us.

We were obviously at our best when our countries opened their borders, our communities, institutions and businesses found strength in diversity, and each of us as individuals brought others into the conversation.

An example of this was the new Sustainable Development Goals, which came into effect in early 2016. Together, the SDGs promote our shared values of tolerance, inclusivity and diversity through goals 16 (peace, justice and strong institutions), 10 (reduced inequalities) and 5 (gender equality), among others, and set a new global agenda.

Renée Maria Tremblay was recently a visiting professional at the International Criminal Court and is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader.

Summary: Donald Trump's presidential win didn't make the list.


Pop fans of the future will look back on 2016 as the year that music died. But while Prince, David Bowie, Leonard Cohen and George Michael (to name but four) passed away, the would-be music legends of the future were making their cases heard with some groundbreaking new material.

VIDEO On a cold Saturday afternoon back in February, Beyoncé took the pop- music high bar to a different level. Funky, fiery, controversial and unapologetic in its blackness, “Formation” slayed in ways that previously seemed unreachable.

The inescapable “Work,” featuring Drake, was the nagging earworm from Rihanna’s “Anti,” but the hypnotic sensuality of “Kiss It Better” made it the better song. It’s the best thing that the Barbadian has released since 2011’s monster smash “We Found Love” featuring Calvin Harris.

Eighties freestyle music updated with a touch of Southern trap by a newcomer from Atlanta. A star of the not-to-distant future is born.

VIDEO A modern gospel opener from the remarkable “The Life of Pablo,” Kanye bought together contributions from Kirk Franklin, The-Dream, Kelly Price, as well as a verse from Chance the Rapper that was as good as anything on his own superb “Coloring Book” album. In the madness of Kanye’s 2016, this was the one true moment of serenity.

After dominating 2015 so completely, the crooning Canadian opted not to rest on his laurels and came straight back with a nimble nugget that edged his brand of R&B forward without losing any of his dark allure.

The Brits have always made defeat and dejection sound so tangible, but with singer Thom Yorke projecting his own relationship breakup into the aching “Daydreaming,” Radiohead quietly produced a ghostly classic.

VIDEO The Swede used the “cool girl” monologue in “Gone Girl” as inspiration to create this ice-cold cut of stylish electro-pop that should have been just as big as her 2014 smash “Habits.”

It’s hard to know what to love most about the Canadian duo’s synth-pop comeback single; the sneaky love triangle with a gender-twist contained in the lyrics or the spectacularly vibrant chorus. Both are undeniably wonderful.

VIDEO Simpson’s Grammy nod in the Best Album category for “A Sailor’s Guide to Earth” came as a surprise only to people who hadn’t heard it, and the finale is a scintillating shout of rage, written from the perspective of a veteran, and blended to a white-hot blend of country and Stax R&B.

The Detroit rapper put together an elite squad of emcees for this track (from the brilliant album “Atrocity Exhibition”) and it certainly paid off. Creepy but thrilling, “Really Doe” was one for the more daring hip-hoppers to crank. Bringing up the rear are the five worst songs of the year by those who just don’t know — and those who should know better.

VIDEO The latest Britney comeback restored some dignity to the singer’s tumultuous career. But her album “Glory” had a couple of total embarrassments, such as this limp, saccharine-sounding attempt to get sexy.

It’s staggering that upon hearing her much-touted return track, no one around the Australian rapper took her to one side and pointed out it sounded virtually the same as all her other big singles — only worse.

Mawkish, sentimental balladry from a group of anonymous Danes that seemed to fill the dour pop hole left by Ed Sheeran’s hiatus.

Let’s be fair: The silly theme song to the original “Ghostbusters” was barely tolerable. But after one listen to Fall Out Boy and Missy Elliott’s atrocious efforts on the 2016 re-recording, Ray Parker Jr.’s first version sounds like Beethoven in comparison.

VIDEO The New Yorker’s much-trumpeted follow up to “Artpop” disappointed, but this track showed something close to desperation. A poor dancehall knockoff with a few lame self-pleasure lyrical references that never should have seen the light of day.

Summary: Pop fans of the future will look back on 2016 as the year that music died. But while Prince, David Bowie, Leonard Cohen and George Michael (to name but four) passed away, the would-be music legends…


A similar pattern is clearly evident in the scandal surrounding the blood bank. When Mr. Wang wrote the articles that gave it renewed nationwide attention in late November, censors barred major online news services from mentioning them.

But the information made its way around China anyway, as Mr. Wang and countless others e-mailed copies of the stories to people with interests in social issues, including the lawyers who eventually took up the matter.

When Ms. Liu first began protesting last fall, the police in Xingtai beat her, her husband and several other relatives in an effort to quiet them, she said. Later, when she formed her own organization, known simply as the Care Group, the local government declared it illegal and threatened to seize its assets, the Chinese media reported. But she persevered, and she was not thrown in jail, as might have happened only a few years ago. In the capital, where she traveled for the last time in early January to attend a meeting with advocates, NGO members and lawyers involved in seeking compensation for the Xingtai AIDS patients, the gathering had to be repeatedly rescheduled.

In some cases, the rescheduling was because hotels and conference halls were warned by the police not to permit the group to use their facilities. In one instance, the police insisted that the group provide in advance a written agenda of the meeting, along with the names of all the participants.

In addition, the Beijing Judicial Department, which accredits and disbars lawyers, warned those attorneys who had pledged to help the Xingtai AIDS patients to stay away from the meeting. But other lawyers took their places.

In the end, to evade the police, the meeting was held with only an hour's notice.

"The idea is not to have a couple of figures leading the way to change," said Jiang Tianyong, a Beijing lawyer who has been involved in the AIDS case. "The idea is to have many, many people playing different roles, each taking his own responsibility. What's different from the past is that once, if you cracked down on someone, there would be a time of quietness. Nowadays, if they knock someone out, another person or several others step forward."

This resilience is as much in evidence among nongovernmental organizations as it is among lawyers. Those organizations have become critical players in driving social change and reform. Officially, there are about 280,000 of them registered in China, an extraordinary number considering there were virtually none as recently as the early 1990's. Some experts estimate there are now two million to eight million such groups, many of them very small and most of them simply ignoring government registration requirements.

"There are many NGO's, and most tend to be nonconfrontational," said Mr. Wan, the director of Aizhixing in Beijing. "We prefer to be critical and nonconfrontational, but sometimes you become confrontational if you have to."

Armed with a wealth of new contacts and information, Ms. Liu returned home from Beijing with a more advanced treatment regimen for her disease and a lawyer who quickly filed suit seeking compensation. Yet, there are few, if any, outright victories in this arena, and the success of her court action is far from assured.

More often, the advocates calculate their progress by inference. While Ms. Liu is still fighting in the courts, at least four other Xingtai AIDS patients have received compensation, either in court awards or negotiated settlements. Recently, the government made a major concession in another case of blood contamination, allowing hemophiliacs to pursue compensation claims in court, and a senior health official stated publicly that nongovernmental organizations are making a significant contribution to the AIDS issue.

Meanwhile, Ms. Liu has decided that the role of simple victim no longer suits her, so she has begun assisting others through her Care Group, which she started this year with two men whose wives were killed by contaminated blood from the Xingtai bank.

"I saw people from a dozen different places in China with these kinds of difficulties," said Ms. Liu, sitting in her barely furnished and freezing cold living room here, her son, Zhu Mengchang, by her side. "I realized that the people in these other places were far better organized than we were. They'd been in contact with the outside world, and had received a lot of assistance."

For Mr. Hu, the small victories that Ms. Liu and others are winning represent the first stirrings of an irresistible tide of change.

"I live in Beijing, and three weeks ago there was almost no green," he said in an interview after his release from detention. "Now it is green every day. You wouldn't notice it if you were living it day to day, but the greenness is blooming everywhere now. It is the same with civil society, or with NGO's. Now there is a citizens' consciousness to participate, a willingness to defend their rights. Call it civic power."

Summary: A once totalitarian system faces growing pressure from a population awakening to the power of organization.


BY BEN WIDDICOMBE Additional reporting by Laura Schreffler and Emma Rathe.

Casting has already begun for the film version of the latest Christie Brinkley (below) divorce saga - at least in the minds of some Hollywood producers.

Hamptons insiders say the family of 19-year-old "other woman" Diana

Bianchi is already being targeted by "book, TV and movie offers."

Bianchi attorney Joseph Tacopina was not available for comment yesterday, although the snitch observes, "It's usually cheaper to go through the family.

"And this is before the civil suit is even filed," adds the source.

Meanwhile, The National Enquirer has dug up a cocaine bust deep in the past of Brinkley's straying hubby, Peter Cook.

"Cook was 23 at the time of his arrest on Nov. 10, 1982,"

reports the tab. "He was busted for attempting to sell cocaine to an

undercover cop ... at a Long Island highway rest stop."

Cook copped only probation after a guilty plea.

All that glitters is ... Silva?

A minor summer mystery is the strange case of Mr. Priyantha Silva, who has been enjoying a recent notoriety in the fashion press for his ability to get into parties.

Although he does not work for CondÃ© Nast, Silva (l.) registered the Internet domain name CondeNastOnline.com and has been attending events claiming to work for Jane and Vogue magazines, according to

Women's Wear Daily. But that seems to be the least of it for a man who claims intimacy with the Bushes, the Bloombergs and the Kerrys.

A source identified him to this column as the Priyantha DeSilva [sic], who appeared before the New York Supreme Court under indictment for will forgery, later dismissed. A man by that name also got into big trouble with the National Association of Security Dealers in 1998 for insurance fraud. And Rikers Island says a Priyantha DeSilva has been through there on eight separate occasions.

Silva, who says he is a former Morgan Stanley and Bear Stearns employee, insisted none of those is him. He denied he is also known as DeSilva, even though The New York Times identified him in a photo caption by that name, and he uses the "De" prefix in his own E-mail address.

Silva did admit to being arrested for urinating in Central Park after a Shakespeare performance three weeks ago. At that time, he was also charged with offering the police officer a bribe, which he denies (although he asked me point-blank if I was seeking money not to write this item).

The Manhattan DA's office, however, confirmed that the Priyantha Silva arrested in the park is the same Priyantha DeSilva who has been charged with a raft of other offenses over the years. The latest was attempted grand larceny; he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a year in jail, according to the prosecutor's office. (Silva described the DA's information as "slander" and again insisted it isn't him.)

And the party crashing? "You can say I am considering suing WWD over their article," he told me.

CondeNastOnline.com was registered in the hope the company would buy it from him, he said. I won't even go into his other Web site, RedWagonFilms.net, an opaque operation that is conveniently confusable with a much-better-known production company, Red Wagon Entertainment.

"You should stop writing this article," he told me in an impassioned phone call yesterday.

"I am very good friends with the mayor's daughter, and the Bush twins have been to my house. You have no idea. Chris Heinz, John Kerry's stepson, is one of my best friends. I will destroy you!"

So if I end up in the East River, folks, check Emma Bloomberg's alibi.

Brooke Shields will host the opening day of the 2006 Mercedes-Benz Polo Challenge in Bridgehampton today, while Lola Schnabel debuts her deejay skills in the T-Mobile Sidekick 3 lounge. ... Damon Dash, along with Irv and Chris Gotti, stormed into the ring after their fighter, Curtis (Showtime) Stevens, lost in the eighth round to Marcos Primera at the Manhattan Center Thursday. ... Stockard Channing (r.) and Eric Stoltz caught "The Lieutenant of Inishmore" last week. ... Kelsey Grammer and Kelly Ripa checked out the artwork of Laurance Rassin at House & Garden's Showhouse on Saturday.

Which pending Hollywood divorce could explode one of L.A.'s top talent shops? Among the claims of the agent's former partner, set to hit court papers, are secret commission deals and a drug- and prostitute-

fueled lifestyle paid for on the company expense account - and covered up by the boss.

Summary: Now it's H'wood's affair C asting has already begun for the film version of the latest Christie Brinkley (below) divorce saga - at least in the minds of some Hollywood producers. Hamptons insiders say the family of 19-year-old "other woman"Diana Bianchi is already being targeted by "book, TV and movie offers."Bianchi attorney Joseph Tacopina was not available for comment yesterday, although the snitch observes, "It's usually cheaper to go through the family. "And this


By HELEN KENNEDY DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Thursday, October 9th 2003, 7:36AM

LOS ANGELES - Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger claimed a mandate to "clean house" in Sacramento yesterday but the movie star is going to need some zippy special effects to keep his campaign promises.

"The legislators have gotten the message that the people want change," he said, riding high on his boffo success in the blockbuster $70 million recall.

But California's new strongman, who will take office sometime before Thanksgiving, faces tougher problems than the cyborgs from the future: a Jan. 10 deadline to submit a balanced budget, a solidly Democratic legislature and a sputtering state economy with a credit rating lower than Mississippi's.

Schwarzenegger's first news conference as an elected official was a subdued affair compared to the blasting music, movie catch phrases and confetti explosions of his rallies. The good-humored governor-elect seemed smaller and less cartoonish.

When he entered the hotel ballroom packed with 500 journalists, only a smattering of staffers clapped. It was not the kind of reception he is used to.

"Don't get too excited with the applause," he quipped.

Schwarzenegger continued to be vague about how he will eliminate the state's $8 billion budget deficit without raising taxes or slashing education, saying he will examine the books and find waste to cut "in the near future."

His No. 1 campaign promise - to repeal the state's car tax - may not be legally possible. He said his lawyers thought it was and were working out how.

One of Schwarzenegger's first gubernatorial acts will be to put the arm on President Bush - who is suddenly no longer the GOP's biggest star - when the President comes to California to fund-raise next week.

"I have a whole bunch of business to talk to him about," said Schwarzenegger.

California political analysts said Schwarzenegger probably will get at least a brief honeymoon from Democratic lawmakers cowed by the extreme level of voter anger he tapped.

Democratic Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson acknowledged that "the electorate has spoken" and vowed conciliation.

Soundly beaten Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, who remains in an office across the hall as Schwarzenegger's No. 2, had a snotty message for California's new strongman: "Arnold, you are very famous for making movies all over the world and I want you to feel free to continue doing that."

For the record, Schwarzenegger said he would not be filming anything while governor. But his wife, NBC correspondent Maria Shriver, will go back to work but "at the same time be first lady and work for the state."

Schwarzenegger said he worked out for an hour and spent the morning taking calls from state and world leaders, including South African President Nelson Mandela and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who had appeared in TV ads warning Californians not to vote for him.

He said he was awakened at 6 a.m. by his 13-year-old daughter, Katherine, whispering, "Mr. Governor, coffee's ready."

Can the Govinator keep his top campaign pledges? n VOW: Kill the recently tripled car tax.

$4 billion to deficit. The car tax money is used to pay cops and firefighters, and most communities would not be happy to lay them off.

VOW: Repeal a new law allowing illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses.

Hitch: A two-thirds majority of the legislature would have to agree, and powerful forces have lined up to keep it.

THE BUDGET MESS AT A GLANCE

$8 billion deficit must be eliminated by Jan. 1.

Schwarzenegger promised not to raise taxes or cut education - which is 50% of state spending.

Much of the rest is off limits because of voter initiatives.

California credit rating worst in nation.

Budget now depending on $13 billion in bond sales that are being challenged in court.

State legislature solidly held by Democrats.

Schwarzenegger has to be on best behavior around capital

Here's how the ballots were cast in the historic Golden State recall election:.

Here's how the ballots were cast in the historic Golden State

There were 134 also-rans whose numbers did not rate a full percentage point. Here's a sampling:.

Summary: LOS ANGELES - Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger claimed a mandate to "clean house"in Sacramento yesterday but the movie star is going to need some zippy special effects to keep his campaign promises. "The legislators have gotten the message that the people want change,"he said, riding high on his boffo success in the blockbuster $70 million recall. But California's new strongman, who will take office sometime before


OpenID support continues to spread throughout the Web ecosystem and new names are added to the list of sites that support OpenID all the time. Since the release of OpenID 2.0, which includes better security features, OpenID has gained major traction as the single sign-on standard. Its biggest benefit being tremendous reduction in the number of login names and passwords that you have to manage. In addition, great time savings when registering at new sites.

Ultimately, all you will ever need is your single OpenID URL or an email address linked to it. Here’s where you can get your own OpenID and all of the sites that support it:

Where Do you Get your own OpenID?

If you have an account at any of the following sites then you might already own an OpenID that you can use anywhere else on the Web that supports it. The format of your OpenID URL will be slightly different from site to site so pick one that’s easiest to remember.

- AOL – openid.aol.com/screenname - Blogger – blogname.blogspot.com - Flickr – www.flickr.com/photos/username - LiveDoor profile.livedoor.com/username - LiveJournal – username.livejournal.com - Orange (France Telecom) – http://openid.orange.fr - SmugMug – username.smugmug.com - Technorati technorati.com/people/technorati/username - Vox – member.vox.com - Yahoo – http://openid.yahoo.com (Every Yahoo ID is now an OpenID 2.0 ID) - Wikitravel provides an identifier to each registered user - WordPress.com – username.wordpress.com

Who are OpenID Identity Providers?

If you don’t have an OpenID yet, you can create a free one at any of these 80 and counting OpenID Identity Providers. Keep in mind that these providers all offer different features when it comes to OpenID. Here’s an excellent Guide for OpenID Identity Providers that compares their diverse feature sets.

Below are just some of the most popular OpenID Identity providers:

- ClaimID – One of the most popular OpenID providers

- myOpenID Another popular provider. Hosted OpenID server by JanRain.

- VeriSign’s Personal Identity Provider – Free OpenID Provider with support for multi-factor authentication.

– myID.net – Free OpenID Provider with support for groups and Korean language.

- myVidoop – Free OpenID Provider that eliminates passwords with security features, customization, and browser integration.

- MyLID – Unique because it’s the only identity aggregator as it supports not only OpenID but also LID and Yadis. Thus, your single sign-on such as mylid.net/Paisano would work on any site that supported any of those three identity services. You can also host it yourself by downloading the code here.

Want to Run Your Own OpenID Identity Server?

For you hardcore geeks there’s always the option to host you own OpenID identity Server. Delegation is the simplest way to get up and running with OpenID because it requires nothing more than an OpenID Provider and some basic HTML. OpenID for Developers provides excellent information. You can find additional valuable information at: Plaxo OpenID Recipe and Sam Ruby’s Intertwingly

The list of sites that support OpenID continues to grow as increasing numbers accept the fact that it’s not going away any time soon and realize that there’s a great demand for it. The good news is that even startups are coming out of the gate supporting OpenID (Blippr, Rejaw, etc.) So, how do you know if a site supports OpenID or not? Just look for the OpenID logo on any sign-up or login page. It’ll always be clearly visible and sometimes even labeled with OpenID. Here’s a sample login screen.

The other thing to check is the MyOpenID OpenID directory that the folks at MyOpenID maintain. There’s also a handy RSS feed that you can subscribe to in Google reader or whatever RSS reader you prefer that’ll let you know whenever a new site has been added to the directory. If you know of a site that is not listed in the OpenID directory then simply send the site’s URL to MyOpenID’s email address for the directory.

Here’s another OpenID directory that also tracks all of the sites that proclaim to support OpenID. This directory is a little different because it allows visitors to vote for their favorite OpenID sites so it’s like digg in that respect. Here are the top voted OpenID Providers.

Here are just some of the sites that support OpenID with many more added all the time:

- Skitch.com – A Web service that gives you 1-click uploading of images for fast image sharing.

- PBWiki – Create a free wiki using your OpenID. It’s as easy as making a peanut butter sandwich.

- LiveJournal – One of the first blogging platforms.

- Drupal – The official website of Drupal, an open source content management platform.

- Mixx – The well-known news site.

- 37Signals – Simple software to help you get organized. Basecamp, Highrise, and Backpack are all OpenID enabled.

- Foodio54 – Has a database of over half a million restaurants with reviews.

- ToodLedo – An easy to use Web-based to-do list.

- WetPaint – A popular wiki host.

- Grou.ps- Allows you to create sharing platforms for your social groups

- Jyte – Allows you to make claims about yourself and your friends, give and receive cred and manage your contacts and groups.

OpenID continues to gain support and acceptance. Even the big boys like Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and AOL have all made the decision to embrace and support it. One of the strongest signs of this acceptance occurred when Microsoft added OpenID support to their own Identity platform called CardSpace. Since OpenID appears to be headed towards becoming the single sign-on standard then it might make sense to give it a look to see what it’s all about.

Summary: Here are over 40 sites where you can get your own OpenID and sites that support it.


Skype for Mac is out of beta, and version 5.0 is now available as a free download. No longer the poor stepchild of the PC, it’s finally catching up, matching most of the features of the PC version 5.0.

Included in the new features are a call control bar, group video calling, the ability to search chat content, integration with the OS X Address Book, and a smaller floating contacts monitor. The only missing feature from the Windows version of Skype is its integration of the Facebook newsfeed.

The beta version of Skype for Mac OS X has been available since last November (and the PC beta version was available in September). In a blog post, Skype says it’s taken the suggestions of beta users and incorporated most of them in this new version.

The centerpiece of version 5.0 is group video calling (GVC), letting 10 users vid-chat with each other. But there’s a catch: You’ll have to pony up for it. Group video calling is free for a week, but after that, a day pass is $4.99, or a monthly subscription is $8.99, and customer support is included.

If you’re not interested in paying for group calling, you can get the rest of Skype 5.0 with a free download. That’ll give you the most-desired Skype features, such as voice chat with other Skype users, one-on-one video chat and instant messaging, as well as the ability to call and text plain old telephone numbers with the purchase of SkypeOut credits. And those credits are dirt cheap compared to conventional telephone rates, especially for international calling.

So what’s changed? As Skype 5.0 moves away from its beta status, its user interface has been cleaned up, with Skype responding to customer complaints about too much white space with a tighter interface. Yes, now you can hide Skype on the corner of your screen until someone calls you, a significant improvement over the beta version.

There’s another catch: Users in various forums and sites are not happy with the non-beta Skype 5.0, complaining about how it still takes up too much space for what it does. Many are just sticking with the old version 2.8. If you’re thinking of upgrading, you might want to keep a copy of version 2.8 handy so you can bail if necessary.

Skype says the minimum system requirement for this new version is a 1GHz Intel processor, and you must be running Mac OS X 10.5.8 with 100 MB of free disk space. The good news about that premium group video calling is that although all users on a call must be running Skype 5.0 for it to work, only one of the callers must be a paying subscriber.

Here’s a Skype-produced video of the new version:

Summary: Skype 5.0 for Mac is out of beta, no longer the poor stepchild of the PC version. It's finally catching up, matching most of the features of the PC version 5.0.


LOS ANGELES – They weren't even alive when he was president, but 18-year-old Jonas brother Nick Jonas and 21-year-old "American Idol" champ Jordin Sparks are big Ronald Reagan fans.

Jonas and Sparks are leading a committee of 35 prominent young people touched by the life of the Gipper, the nation's 40th president who left the White House in 1989.

The group was formed to commemorate Reagan's 100th birthday on Feb. 6.

The National Youth Leadership Committee of the Ronald Reagan Centennial Celebration includes athletes, entertainers and student leaders who are under age 25. They have been inspired in a personal way by Reagan's vision of freedom and his leadership.

"My father and my family were supporters of Reagan," Jonas said. "I'm proud to be a part of this. It's amazing."

Sparks says she also admires the president dubbed the Great Communicator.

"It has been really cool to tell my friends I'm a part of this. A good many of my friends have positive things to say about him," Sparks said.

Together, committee members have 18 Olympic medals, 2 platinum records and a Miss USA crown. There are sailors aboard the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, professional football players and a student from Illinois' Eureka College, where Reagan was a student in 1932.

Reagan died on June 5, 2004, after a decade-long battle with Alzheimer's disease.

Summary: Nick Jonas, Jordin Sparks Named Chairs of Ronald Reagan Youth Committee


In the animal world, an overabundance of males can increase competition and skirmishes among would-be suitors seeking scarce partners. Now, a study finds hints that in the human world, too, a male-female imbalance affects complex mating behaviors, causing men to spend their paychecks faster, take on more debt, and increase the amount they would spend to woo a woman.

Economic behavior is clearly complex; it was not heartsick overspending on diamond rings and dinner dates that triggered the global recession. But the new work, published in the January issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, is part of a growing body of research that examines evolutionary factors that contribute to everyday consumer decisions.

“Different numbers of men and women trigger a competitive motive, a desire to compete,’’ said Joshua Ackerman, an assistant professor of marketing at the MIT Sloan School of Management and a coauthor of the paper. “The core underlying theme, the evolutionary piece to this, is having different numbers of men and women signals different opportunities for romantic partners,’’

Although, he added, “It’s not that people are consciously thinking this stuff.’’

Sex ratios have been extensively examined by biologists, with studies looking at how different proportions of males and females affect behavior in animals that range from the gray mouse lemur to the European bitterling, a freshwater fish.

Human studies have tended to study gender imbalance and its effect on behaviors such as aggression. But in the new study, the researchers gathered data from 134 US cities, including the sex ratios of unmarried people, average consumer debt, and the number of credit cards per person.

The researchers found that in cities that had more unmarried men than women, there tended to be greater average personal debt and more credit cards per person.

This overall trend, however, was just a correlation and did not suggest a male-female imbalance played a causal role - or rule out other explanations for the differences in debt.

The average debt level and number of credit cards were not broken down by sex, making it impossible to know the specific role single men were playing in the trend. So the researchers conducted a set of laboratory experiments to try and pinpoint the possible origins of the financial differences.

They used various means to prime research participants with the sense they were in an environment dominated by either men or women.

In one experiment, participants were led to believe they were participating in a memory task. They read 500-word news stories about the local community being either male- or female-dominated and then were told they would be asked a series of unrelated financial questions, which were supposedly just to pass enough time to cause their memories to fade.

But researchers were most interested in their answers to a few questions: how much money they would spend from a monthly paycheck and how much they would borrow.

The males who had read the article “Fewer Women for Every Man for Today’s Students’’ said they would borrow 84 percent more money each month. They also opted to save 42 percent less per month. Sex ratio did not affect women’s financial behavior in the experiment.

In another experiment, the researchers tested how much people expected men to spend on “mating-related products.’’ They found that in the male-dominated experimental condition, people of both sexes expected men to pay more to woo women. Men were expected to spend $6.01 more on a Valentine’s Day present, $1.51 more for a dinner entrée, and $368 more on an engagement ring.

Jill Sundie, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Texas San Antonio, who was not involved in the research, said the results provided fresh insight into an evolutionary force that influences consumer behavior.

“The effects are not enormous, meaning that if we really want to understand why someone decides to run up credit card debt or not,’’ you can’t just focus on the availability of potential mates, Sundie said.

“Most of the research we do in consumer behavior is not about explaining the whole thing - it’s looking at individual factors that might have an effect on certain kinds of circumstances. . . . It doesn’t tell the whole story, but it tells a novel part of the story, that might get people thinking.’’

The authors, a team that included researchers from five institutions across the country, also hope to study other cultures - specifically in China, where male-biased imbalances are extreme. There are more men than women in China, and there is more overall saving there. However, the authors suggested that is because the tradition of paying a “bride price’’ to the woman’s family is important, and so saving might be more beneficial for a man seeking a partner.

Geoffrey Miller, associate professor of psychology at the University of New Mexico, said the study is innovative and that sex ratios have been largely overlooked when thinking about consumer behavior.

He added that he was glad to see the authors draw attention to the important issue of sex imbalances in China, something that he sees as potentially frightening given what is known about male-dominated populations in the animal world, where aggression and fighting become more common.

“The more worrying thing, to me, is that with too many males per female, you could get more aggression,’’ Miller said.

Summary: In the animal world, an overabundance of males can increase competition and skirmishes as they seek scarce partners. Now, a new study finds hints that in the human world, too, a gender imbalance of too many males affects complex mating behaviors - causing men to spend their paychecks faster, take on more debt, and increase the amount they expect to spend to woo a woman. Published in the January issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the study is part of a growing body of research that examines evolutionary forces that contribute to everyday consumer decisions.


There's a lot of advantages to being Dwyane Wade: You can make someone's prom night, wear insane suits and easily pass it off as fashion and date everyone's favorite Bring It On star.

Here's another: A Gatorade machine at your house.

Wade posted this picture to Instagram earlier this week. "I give it 2weeks b4 we need a refill..#kidsdrinkupeverything," he added.

Most recently, the Heat star has been in the often-played Gatorade commercial featuring him and Kevin Durant.

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Summary: There's a lot of advantages to being Dwyane Wade: You can make someone's prom night, wear insane suits and easily pass it off as fashion and date ever...


Use the scroller on the image above of the original “Pippin” Playbill from 1972 to see it transform to American Repertory Theater’s cover design for the 2012 revival.

By Doug Most | Globe Staff

“An amiable and racy musical, ‘Pippin,’ which arrived at the Imperial Theater last night, has three great things to commend it. It is one of the best musical stagings to be seen on Broadway in years, it is most beautifully designed and it might well do for the actor Ben Vereen what ‘Cabaret’ did for Joel Grey.”

That’s what The New York Times had to say on Oct. 24, 1972, about this new musical that was opening on Broadway, directed by the legendary Bob Fosse. And that’s the original “Pippin” Playbill from 1972, notable for how stark and simple it is, just some artistic black and white lettering and nothing more.

Forty years later, on Jan. 4, 2013, The Boston Globe had this to say about the revival of “Pippin” at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge under the direction of Diane Paulus, added which would soon go on to Broadway:endadd “The ART production melds extraordinary circus acrobatics and magical illusions with ‘ordinary’ virtues like accomplished acting, singing, and dancing plus a refreshing lack of cynicism.”

The two productions now have something else in common — some hardware from the Tony Awards. In 1973, Ben Vereen took home the Tony for best performance by a leading actor in a musical, and Bob Fosse won for best choreography. And in 2013, at last Sunday’s Tonys, Patina Miller won for best performance by a leading actress in a musical and Diane Paulus took the Tony for best direction of a musical.

One thing the original and the revival most definitely do not share is their cover designs. The ART went with a tight close-up of its own “Pippin,” the boyishy handsome, bare-shouldered Matthew James Thomas, nothing like the Playbill black-and-white text cover from 1972.

Two eras of musicals, two cities, two distinct approaches to the marketing of a production, but in the end, just over 40 years apart, “Pippin” shined just as brightly come Tony time.

Doug Most can be reached at dmost@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @Globedougmost.

Summary: “An amiable and racy musical, “Pippin,” which arrived at the Imperial Theater last night, has three great things to commend it. It is one of the best musical stagings to be seen on Broadway in years, it is most beautifully designed and it might well do for the actor Ben Vereen what “Cabaret” did for Joel Grey.” That’s what the New York Times had to say on Oct. 24, 1972, about this new musical that was opening on Broadway, directed by the legendary Bob Fosse. And that’s the original “Pippin” Playbill from 1972 on the left, notable for how stark and simple it is, just some artistic black and white lettering and nothing more. Forty years later, “Pippin” shined again, with the A.R.T.’s revival winning big at the 2013 Tonys.


Meetings, lectures, , in favor of President LINCOLN'S emancipation policy, were of daily occurrence in variou parts of England, and an imposing demonstration was expected at the Amphitheatre at Liverpool, the day the Hibernian sailed. The resolutions and addresses to President LINCOLN, which are to be proposed, emphatically approve of his Anti-Slavery policy. A crowded meeting on the subject was held at St. James Hall, London, on the 18th. The speakers indulged in bitter invectives against the Lord Mayor and Mr. MASON, for the late affair at the Mansion House banquet, and a resolution condemning the Lord Mayor was unanimously carried.

A COMPLAINT FROM THE LONDON TIMES.

It is a matter of very serious import that the grand old cause of the Anti-Slave-trade and Anti-Slavery movement should be thought to have degenerated into a mere cat's-paw to Mr. Seward, and that one of the most glorious bands of disinterested philanthropists which this or any other country has produced, should be thought to have sunk into a few dupes of President LINCOLN, advocating a measure which is not freedom to the blacks, but is, as far as possible, massacre to the women and children of the whites. We ask, therefore, publicly, whether there is the least truth in the suggestion that these people have ever received the authority of Lord BROUGHAM, or the Bishop of Oxford, or Sir F. BUXTON, or any other man of ancient connection with this question, to associate the name of BROUGHAM, WILBERFORCE, or BUXTON with their present doings. If they have, let us have the proofs; it they have not, it is only honest to the public to let it be known that these Northern political demonstrations are but cuckoo eggs, fraudulently laid in the old nest, but utterly repudiated by the old birds. In a case like this the suppressio veri is scarcely a step removed from the suggestio falsi. If they have any letters at all from these men, who are the natural guardians of the cause of the slave, those letters ought to be produced. Perhaps we can jog the memories of these worthies as to some of the protests they have conveniently suppressed. Was there no letter from Lord BROUGHAM upon the subject of the address to Mr. LINCOLN? Did not that venerable patriarch of the cause of negro liberty telegraph to beseech the persona who have now usurped the places of the real friends of liberty not to dishonor the cause by carrying that document up to Mr. Adams! Did he not even ask for a little space of delay in order that time might be given for further reflection; and was not the presentation still persisted in, and rather hurried, to avoid the possibility of a damaging public protest, with the signature of "HENRY BROUGHAM" attached to it? If these gentlemen, who take upon themselves to represent the old Anti-Slavery agitation, have such a letter as this, it would have been only honest in them to publish it; it they have not such a letter, we have been very much misinformed.

Perhaps the very small dogs who have taken possession of the old lions' den, and are making such vain efforts to imitate the roar of the old occupants, will tell us also whether they have taken any means to obtain information as to whether the sons of WILBERFORCE and of BUXTON, who have all teen brought up in the teaching of their fathers, now share the opinions of the present Emancipation Society as to the Proclamation of Mr. LINCOLN. Without pretending to any very exclusive information as to the opinions of the WILBERFORCES and BUXTONS, we are strongly inclined to believe that there is not one of them who would not repudiate the doings of these people as an indignity to the memory of their fathers. Perhaps they will tell us what the Bishop of Oxford may have said on the matter. When they have told the public the whole truth as to their relations with the old apostles of Anti-Slavery, we will then hold further controversy with them, but, at present, we utterly refuse to recognize them as a respectable agitation.

It is stated that between £500,000 and £600,000 of a contemplated advance of £3,000,000 to the Confederate Government, has been negotiated at Paris and Frankfort by Messrs. ERLANGER & Co. The amount is to be secured by cotton at 5d. per pound, which is to be delivered on the cessation of the blockade.

The Bank of Mobile had remitted to London about £40,000 in specie to meet until July, 1864, the interest on the bonds of Alabama.

Summary: Meetings, lectures, , in favor of President LINCOLN'S emancipation policy, were of daily occurrence in variou parts of England, and an imposing demonstration was expected at the Amphitheatre at Liverpool, the day the Hibernian sailed. The resolutions and addresses to President LINCOLN, which are ...