Nick Xenophon will risk a fine to make a point about the census. (AAP)

Worried about divulging personal details in the census? It's nothing your supermarket doesn't already know about you.

That's the message from the federal government, with Small Business Minister Michael McCormack insisting privacy concerns ahead of Tuesday's census are "much ado about nothing".

It comes as independent senator Nick Xenophon vows to withhold his name, regardless of the $180-a-day fine he could cop.

"We're making far too much of this - I can't really see what the big deal is," Mr McCormack told reporters in Canberra on Monday.

"Anybody with a supermarket loyalty card ... anybody who buys things online, they provide more information than indeed probably what is available to the Australian Bureau of Statistics."

Mr McCormack says he finds it funny that some are taking to Facebook and Twitter to complain about the census - websites that can track them more closely than the ABS.

Names and addresses have been provided at every Australian census since 1911 - the only difference in 2016 is that those details will be held for four years instead of 18 months.

Senator Xenophon wants to become a test case, insisting the ABS has failed to make a compelling case for why names are necessary, "trashing" the right to privacy.

"I do not take this step lightly," he told reporters.

"Rather than be a snapshot of the nation, this census will morph into a mobile CCTV that follows every Australian."

Senator Xenophon warned people might lie on census forms because they feared their personal data being misused.

He said it could undermine public trust in the census and raised concerns about data being potentially sold to private companies.

He's also flagged moving a retrospective amendment to the Census and Statistics Act 1905 to stop people being prosecuted for failing to provide their names.

But he's clarified he is not encouraging other people to follow his stand because that would be illegal.

"This is a decision I'm making on my own," he said.

Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young told Sky News she won't be putting her name or her daughter's name on their census form because of privacy concerns.

The senator said she was prepared to risk the fines.

She joked about using the code name "Raven" instead - a name that Wilson Security used for her when guards spied on her during a trip to Nauru in 2013.

Mr McCormack says Senator Xenophon has now been briefed on the importance of filling out the form properly.

The ABS had never had a privacy breach on census data and privacy arrangements were "absolutely sacrosanct", he said.

Independent senator Jacqui Lambie also raised concerns about the safety of people who need their identity protected, like judges, or those in witness protection.

She says she raised the issue with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull last week but hasn't received a response.

"I've had death threats in the past so I am very concerned about putting my name and address," she told ABC radio.

Summary: Independent senator Nick Xenophon has vowed not to put his name on the census form and risk prosecution in order to create a "test case".


Ask people about the biggest financial risk they face, and most of them will start talking about their retirement.

Indeed, it’s scary to consider the risk of not having money to support yourself in retirement. Your options feel limited. You have one life, one income, and one chance to save enough money to fund your living expenses once your traditional source of income stops at retirement. Based on this view of life, you work, work, work, and hope you save enough money to cover your day-to-day costs once you stop working. If you miss the mark, you run out of money. If you run out of money, then you’re forced to beg, borrow… or even worse, go back to work!

This form of risk—what I’ll call retirement risk—is real for most people. As described above, it sounds terrifying. And the worst part is that you don’t actually choose to take on this massive risk. Rather, if you’re a career employee in mainstream society, the risk is placed upon your shoulders.

So for the typical person, avoiding risk means finding a secure job, saving for retirement in a fairly conservative investment portfolio, and retiring around age 65 to relax for the rest of his or her life. Risk reduction comes in the form of saving 15% to 20% of your annual income for retirement and investing that money in a diversified portfolio of stocks and bonds.

Entrepreneurs, on the other hand, have an expanded view of risk. They experience risk from an entirely different angle. In fact, I’d guess that when asked about financial risks they face, most entrepreneurs wouldn’t even put retirement risk in their top 5.

Most people view risk as the chance that something bad will happen. If the likelihood of an unwanted outcome is high, then that situation is viewed as risky. However, risk is not the same for everyone. Risk is not objective, it is perceived. And it’s our perception of risk that has us say yes or no to an opportunity.

This is where entrepreneurial thinking comes into play. Entrepreneurs don’t focus on the risk of losing, but rather on the risk of not gaining. They aren’t scared of losing everything and living in a box. They are more concerned about missing out on living an extraordinary life, or not making a big impact on the world. It’s the risk of lost opportunities.

So entrepreneurs’ perspective on risk is different from that of most people. And their idea of risk mitigation is more broadly defined than simply depositing 15% of their salary into balanced funds in their 401(k) and IRAs.

Here’s what entrepreneurs ask themselves about risk:

These risks are far greater to them than running out of money when they are old. It’s not that their view of risk is warped, it’s just different. Every decision is based on mitigating and diversifying their risk, but in different ways than the typical person does. It’s simply a life choice, and we all make those every day, both actively (doing something) or passively (not doing anything).

When you are faced with these decisions about risk, don’t expect the answer to be clear. It won’t be. You’ll find yourself face-to-face with all of your fears, but despite this, you must choose the path that aligns best with your personal perceived view of risk.

Your path might be the one that allows you to sleep at night knowing you have a stable job with a consistent income. But if your understanding of risk is different, the best option may be the exact opposite. You may choose an option that causes many sleepless nights—but this path might also allow you to live an authentic life, one where you can look back one day and feel fully satisfied because you know you left nothing on the table.

I have chosen this second path, and so have many of my financial planning clients. A healthy dose of fear provides me with the energy I need to take action in my life. I wouldn’t want it any other way, because waking up each day with the ability to create new opportunities is something I would never want to risk missing out on.

Remember, neither choice is wrong. You should align yourself with a plan that gives you peace of mind. My business provides this for me.

Eric Roberge, CFP, is the founder of Beyond Your Hammock, where he works virtually with professionals in their 20s and 30s, helping them use money as a tool to live a life they love. Through personalized coaching, Eric helps clients organize their finances, set goals, and invest for the future.

Summary: How you think about risk holds the answer to that question.


Gap Inc. GPS -0.98 % warned of weak sales across its brands and said it would take steps to streamline its business, including evaluating its Banana Republic and Old Navy operations outside North America.

The apparel retailer Monday said it expects sales at stores open at least a year to fall 5% in the first quarter. The San Francisco company forecast a profit for the quarter that fell well short of Wall Street’s expectations.

In after-hours trading, shares fell 9.9% to $19.65. The stock has fallen 45% in the past 12 months through Monday’s close.

The company blamed a “tepid macro environment for apparel retail” but also acknowledged that changes it has been making to its product designs and selections have been slow to drive sales. “The change in our business trajectory is not happening at the pace we had hoped,” the company said.

Gap is being squeezed by fast-fashion retailers such as Hennes & Mauritz HMB -1.83 % AB and Zara owner Inditex SA, ITX -0.59 % which push low-price items and shift their selections quickly. To combat the sales slump, Gap CEO Art Peck has brought in new executives and promised to source goods more quickly.

The company has also been shrinking its footprint, by closing dozens of locations in its home market. On Monday, the company indicated it would revamp its overseas operations.

“They really need to simplify and focus on their core business,” said John D. Morris, senior analyst at BMO Capital Markets. “For them to be able to expand internationally across multiple brands is a tall order when they need to be simplifying.”

As of Jan. 30, the company had 3,721 stores around the globe, including 480 Gap branded stores outside North America. Banana Republic and Old Navy have just 61 and 65 locations, respectively, located outside North America and the majority of those are in Japan.

“We are committed to growing sales in our global brands, anchored in regaining market share in our largest market, North America, and continued growth in China,” a Gap spokeswoman said.

For the first quarter, the company forecast a per-share profit of 31 cents to 32 cents, below market expectations of 44 cents a share. The company said its Gap brand comparable sales fell 3%, while Banana Republic dropped 11% and Old Navy fell 6%. Total sales for the quarter fell to $3.44 billion from $3.66 billion, below analysts’ expectations of $3.54 billion.

Write to Josh Beckerman at josh.beckerman@wsj.com and Khadeeja Safdar at khadeeja.safdar@wsj.com

Write to Josh Beckerman at josh.beckerman@wsj.com

Corrections & Amplifications: Gap’s forecast for first-quarter earnings is 31 cents to 32 cents. An earlier version of this article misstated the forecast as 31 cents.

Summary: Gap Inc. warned of weak sales across its brands and said it would take steps to streamline its business, including evaluating its Banana Republic and Old Navy operations outside North America.


AFC Bournemouth will not be adding new capacity to its ground in time for the next Premier League season.

The club has taken the decision to delay redevelopment plans following a meeting of its board.

A statement from the Cherries blamed "ongoing negotiations with the club's landlord to purchase the stadium".

The club had previously said improving the stadium's size was needed as "demand for tickets far outweighs our current capacity".

Summary: Premier League Bournemouth will not be adding new capacity to its ground in time for the next season, a board meeting rules.


KALLSTADT, Germany—Folks in this quiet farming town have for ages been known to their neighbors as “the braggarts.”

Unabashed, Kallstadters love to boast. The local pork-stomach delicacy “is famous,” says a waitress in town. “It’s known all over Germany.” So is Kallstadt wine, she adds. The town even calls its youth group “the Braggarts.”

But one thing locals don’t brag about much is their link to a voluble and often boastful American: Donald Trump.

“Kallstadt people were never barons, real-estate magnates and all that,” says Hans-Joachim Bender, a retired winegrower who says he is a distant Trump relative, pulling off rubber boots. “That comes from America.”

In 1885, Mr. Trump’s paternal grandfather, Friedrich, left Kallstadt at age 16. Today there are no casinos or luxury towers in the hamlet of timber-framed farmhouses, cobblestone streets and 17-ounce wine glasses.

Instead, a giant ketchup bottle boasts of the town’s link to another native son who made good in America, Henry J. Heinz, the food magnate, whose father was from Kallstadt.

“People here like Heinz, because they get what he was doing,” says Simone Wendel, a filmmaker from Kallstadt who also claims to be a distant Trump relative. “He was packing things into bottles and selling it, just as the winegrowers do.”

Many locals find Mr. Trump “a little…spooky,” says Ms. Wendel, who in 2014 made a documentary about Kallstadt and Mr. Trump. Knowledge of the connection is so ingrained locally that “it’s almost like something you’d get in your breast milk” but people still care little, she says. “Many don’t get what you’re supposed to do all day with real estate.”

Some Kallstadters take pride, says Mr. Trump.

“Everything I have heard from Kallstadt, Germany, is that they are very proud of the fact that I am doing so well in my campaign for president,” Mr. Trump said by email. “Many people from the area have called and written expressing very deep feelings of pride.”

Ms. Wendel notes a gulf between the easy-living town and its proudly abstemious descendant: “He doesn’t drink wine, he doesn’t party as much.”

Perhaps the surest sign the Big Apple native has fallen far from this tree-shaded town is locals’ lack of interest in profiting from their Trump connection.

“The Trump thing is good,” says Günter Heinz, who says he is a distant relative of the ketchup maker. “But we don’t talk much about it.”

Mr. Trump didn’t always either. In Ms. Wendel’s film, Mr. Trump boasts that he has “great German heritage,” and that he is “very proud of it.”

But in his 1987 autobiography, “The Art of the Deal,” he wrote that his grandfather Friedrich was from Sweden.

“There is no possible way he could not know” his grandparents were German, says Gwenda Blair, an author of several Trump biographies. “His grandmother spoke German.”

Mr. Trump said by email that his grandfather traveled throughout Europe, including through Sweden, and was “highly respected” in Kallstadt.

According to local historian Roland Paul, Friedrich Trump left Germany without seeking official approval from Germany to do so, presumably because he wouldn’t have been allowed to leave before serving in the army.

Like many arriving in the U.S. in the late 1800s, Friedrich Trump didn’t have a passport. At the time of his arrival, U.S. immigration regulations were quite limited, and as long as you could take care of yourself, you could legally enter, according to Patrick Connelly, an archivist at The National Archives in New York City.

Kallstadters who know Mr. Paul’s account are confused by Mr. Trump’s calls to restrict U.S. immigration.

“If his grandfather had been treated the way Trump wants to treat immigrants, he would never have made it,” says innkeeper Veronika Schramm.

Mr. Trump didn’t respond to requests for comment on the issue.

One thing Friedrich Trump took from Kallstadt—and imparted to his grandson—was drive, says Ms. Blair, the biographer.

“There has always been a classical, almost cartoonish, heavily underscored work ethic in the family,” she says. “This is of course enormously stereotyping of Germans, but it’s not totally wrong.”

After Friedrich Trump arrived in New York, he worked at a hairdresser and opened restaurants before joining the Alaska Gold Rush, according to Mr. Paul.

Ms. Blair says that, like many in the Yukon, Friedrich Trump prospered. Unlike many, he saved his earnings.

He became a U.S. citizen in Seattle in 1892, according to Ms. Blair. But he eventually returned to Kallstadt and married Elisabeth Christ, who lived across the street from Friedrich’s childhood home.

The couple moved to the U.S. but got homesick and tried to return to Germany, according to Ms. Blair. But Friedrich’s unsanctioned 1885 departure became an impediment and the couple instead returned to America, she said. Frederick Christ Trump, Donald’s father, was born in New York in 1905, the same year Friedrich and Elisabeth arrived in the U.S. to stay.

“Had his family stayed in Germany, who knows? I don’t think it would have played out the same way,” says Ms. Blair. “He might have been growing wine. Without the suit.”

Today Mr. Trump’s son Eric is the vintner, running a 1,300-acre winery in Virginia that Donald bought in 2011 from an overleveraged businessman for a fraction of its original cost.

Mr. Bender, the Trumps’ Kallstadt relative, says he is partial to the Heinzes, to whom he says he is also distantly related.

“I’m proud to be a Heinz,” says Günter Heinz, a Kallstadt vintner whose winery is marked by the giant roadside ketchup bottle. He shows off ketchup bottles that his family received from the company.

A Trump win in the presidential election could sway Kallstadt residents, says Mr. Heinz. And the New Yorker would be the toast of his ancestral home, should he visit.

“It would be a good advertisement, you know,” says Mr. Heinz, with a Trump-like eye to marketing. “For Kallstadt.”

—Heather Haddon contributed to this article.

Write to Ellen Emmerentze Jervell at ellen.jervell@wsj.com

Summary: Folks in Kallstadt, Germany, like to boast about many things, but they don’t often brag about their link to a voluble and often boastful American: Donald Trump.


WASHINGTON — Aetna, the nation’s third-largest health insurer, announced Monday night that it will dramatically pull back from the marketplaces set up by the Affordable Care Act, cutting participation from 15 states to four next year.

Aetna’s announcement is the latest signal by large insurers that they are struggling to make money in the marketplaces. Chief executive Mark Bertolini said in a statement that there are not enough healthy people to financially offset those with major health problems who require high-cost care.

‘‘As a strong supporter of public exchanges as a means to meet the needs of the uninsured, we regret having to make this decision,’’ Aetna chief executive Mark Bertolini said in a statement. ‘‘The vast majority of payers have experienced continued financial stress within their individual public exchange business due to these forces.’’

Aetna’s announcement comes on the heels of an announcement by Anthem that, in a reversal of expectations, it was now projecting mid-single-digit losses on the individual plans it sells on the exchanges. Humana said it would dial back its participation on the exchanges from 15 states to 11 earlier this month. UnitedHealth Group plans to remain on ‘‘three or fewer exchange markets,’’ its chief executive Stephen Hemsley said on an earnings call in July. Cigna has said that it expects a loss on the exchanges, but the insurer is planning to expand its marketplace presence to three new states in 2017.

Katherine Hempstead, a senior adviser at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, said that these national carriers haven’t traditionally been the biggest part of the exchanges and said that while choices and competition will diminish in certain parts of the country — she pointed to South Carolina and Arizona — she didn’t see this as a death knell for the exchanges.

‘‘I think the market could survive without these guys,’’ Hempstead said. ‘‘Obviously, it would be better to see lots of people seeing a lot of opportunity in this space.’’

The announcements also come as four of the major insurers are in a battle with the Obama administration. The Justice Department has blocked two proposed mergers between Aetna and Humana and Anthem and Cigna; the companies are fighting the decision. Anthem has said that if its proposed deal with Cigna is allowed to go through, it will increase its exchange offerings to nine additional states.

Caroline Pearson, a senior vice president at Avalere, a health care consulting firm, said that the lawsuit may have affected the timing of Aetna’s announcement, but not the underlying facts about the viability of the marketplaces.

‘‘Aetna may have been holding tight and keeping their mouth shut about how problematic the market is because they were sort of involved in the merger and waiting to hear’’ from the Justice Department, Pearson said. ‘‘But I think the facts in the exchanges are sufficiently dire that all the major carriers need to be assessing how they can be profitable or whether they can continue to participate.’’

One major issue is the risk pool — the balance of healthy people and sick people who incur major medical costs. An analysis by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released last week showed that the per-month medical costs of members on the exchanges each month had barely budged between 2014 and 2015, suggesting that the risk pool was not getting worse.

But Pearson pointed out that this was counter to what everyone expected; the people with the most medical issues were expected to sign up for insurance first. The idea was that the pool would become more balanced over the years as more healthy people signed up. That did not appear to happen.

‘‘This is an overly optimistic assessment of a market that continues to undergo significant changes for both consumers and health plans,’’ said Marilyn Tavenner, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans.

Summary: Aetna, the nation’s third largest health insurer will dramatically pull back from the marketplaces set up by the Affordable Care Act


The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration on Thursday denied requests to stop classifying marijuana as a dangerous drug with no medical use, leaving users and businesses in limbo after many states have legalized it for medical or recreational purposes.

The DEA though did relax certain restrictions on growing marijuana for research purposes.

For decades, marijuana has been listed as a “Schedule I” drug, placing it on par with heroin. The government has repeatedly rejected appeals for reclassification.

“Marijuana shouldn’t be listed as Schedule I,” U.S. Representative Earl Blumenauer, a Democrat from Oregon, said in a statement. He said the decision left “patients and marijuana businesses trapped between state and federal laws.”

Thursday’s DEA decision was a response to a 2011 petition by two former state governors who had urged federal agencies to re-classify marijuana as a drug with accepted medical uses.

See also: Report: The Government Is About to Open Up Research on Marijuana

In a letter to the petitioners, the DEA said it had asked the Department of Health and Human Services for a scientific and medical evaluation.

“HHS concluded that marijuana has a high potential for abuse, has no accepted medical use in the United States, and lacks an acceptable level of safety for use even under medical supervision,” the letter said.

That assessment comes amid statistics showing zero overdose deaths due to marijuana each year at a time of an alarming rise of heroin-related deaths in the United States as politicians debate remedies for exploding opioid abuse.

Twenty-five states have sanctioned some forms of marijuana use for medical purposes. Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Colorado and the District of Columbia now allow recreational use for adults, while California and eight other states have recreational or medical marijuana proposals headed for their 2016 ballots.

On Thursday, Arizona became the latest state to certify a ballot initiative to legalize recreational marijuana for its November ballot.

The position of the U.S. government on marijuana has impacts for states that have legalized its recreational or medical use. Doctors and businesses growing, selling or prescribing cannabis may be operating legally within a given state but still acting in opposition to federal law, risking arrest and sanctions.

See also: How Legalized Marijuana Is Sweeping the U.S.—in One Map

Legal marijuana businesses have difficulty finding banks that will work with them, also due to concerns about breaking federal law.

Some experts have argued that medical marijuana could help cut opioid use.

Taylor West, deputy director of the National Cannabis Industry Association, said the DEA’s decision would curtail research since marijuana would remain a criminal product.

“Research institutions are going to be somewhat hesitant if they think they will potentially jeopardize other research funding,” she said. “This decision by the DEA really flies in the face of objective science.”

Smart Approaches to Marijuana, an alliance of doctors, policy makers and treatment professionals who oppose legalization, took a different view.

“I think it was a balanced decision and isn’t surprising to the scientific community,” said President Kevin Sabat.

Meanwhile, the DEA will allow more growers to apply for certification by the agency to help supply researchers “with a more varied and robust supply of marijuana.” Now the University of Mississippi is the lone such supplier.

Britain’s GW Pharmaceuticals <GWP.L>, which is developing a promising cannabis-derived epilepsy treatment, has said it will take longer to reach the U.S. market even with Food and Drug Administration approval because it would then have to be separately rescheduled by the DEA.

Summary: For decades, marijuana has been listed as a "Schedule I" drug—on par with heroin.


One of Colin Kaepernick’s biggest cheerleaders is putting way the pom-poms when it comes to the quarterback’s refusal to stand for the national anthem.

Today, Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh was asked about Kaepernick’s decision to sit for the anthem during the 49ers’ first three preseason games.

“I acknowledge his right to do that,” Harbaugh told reporters. “But I don't respect the motivation or the action.”

(UPDATE: Harbaugh took to Twitter to clarify his comment: “I apologize for misspeaking my true sentiments. To clarify, I support Colin's motivation. It's his method of action that I take exception to.”

Photo: Ben Margot, Associated Press

Jim Harbaugh and Colin Kaepernick.

Jim Harbaugh and Colin Kaepernick.

Quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) of the San Francisco 49ers is on the field after an incomplete pass during the second quarter of his NFL preseason game against the Green Bay Packers at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. on Friday, Aug. 26, 2016.

Quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) of the San Francisco 49ers is on the field after an incomplete pass during the second quarter of his NFL preseason game against the Green Bay Packers at Levi's Stadium in Santa

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick answers questions at a news conference after an NFL preseason football game against the Green Bay Packers Friday, Aug. 26, 2016, in Santa Clara, Calif. Green Bay won the game 21-10. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick answers questions at a news conference after an NFL preseason football game against the Green Bay Packers Friday, Aug. 26, 2016, in Santa Clara, Calif. Green Bay

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick holds a tablet computer as he stands on the sideline during the first half of a preseason NFL football game against the Denver Broncos, Saturday, Aug. 20, 2016, in Denver. (AP Photo/Joe Mahoney)

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick holds a tablet computer as he stands on the sideline during the first half of a preseason NFL football game against the Denver Broncos, Saturday, Aug. 20, 2016,

Quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) of the San Francisco 49ers is seen on the sideline during the second quarter of his NFL preseason game against the Green Bay Packers at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. on Friday, Aug. 26, 2016.

Quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) of the San Francisco 49ers is seen on the sideline during the second quarter of his NFL preseason game against the Green Bay Packers at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. on

Quarterback Colin Kaepernick meets with sports reporters after participating in a three-day mini camp at the 49ers practice facility in Santa Clara, Calif. on Thursday, June 9, 2016.

Quarterback Colin Kaepernick meets with sports reporters after participating in a three-day mini camp at the 49ers practice facility in Santa Clara, Calif. on Thursday, June 9, 2016.

Quarterbacks Colin Kaepernick (7) and Christian Ponder (5) of the San Francisco 49ers are seen on the sideline during the second quarter of his NFL preseason game against the Green Bay Packers at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. on Friday, Aug. 26, 2016.

Quarterbacks Colin Kaepernick (7) and Christian Ponder (5) of the San Francisco 49ers are seen on the sideline during the second quarter of his NFL preseason game against the Green Bay Packers at Levi's Stadium

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, left, runs with the ball as Green Bay Packers defensive end Datone Jones pursues during the first half of an NFL preseason football game Friday, Aug. 26, 2016, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar)

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, left, runs with the ball as Green Bay Packers defensive end Datone Jones pursues during the first half of an NFL preseason football game Friday, Aug. 26, 2016,

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick throws during the first half of an NFL preseason football game against the Green Bay Packers Friday, Aug. 26, 2016, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar)

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick throws during the first half of an NFL preseason football game against the Green Bay Packers Friday, Aug. 26, 2016, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar)

Quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) of the San Francisco 49ers is on the field after an incomplete pass during the second quarter of his NFL preseason game against the Green Bay Packers at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. on Friday, Aug. 26, 2016.

Quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) of the San Francisco 49ers is on the field after an incomplete pass during the second quarter of his NFL preseason game against the Green Bay Packers at Levi's Stadium in Santa

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick runs with the ball during the first half of an NFL preseason football game against the Green Bay Packers Friday, Aug. 26, 2016, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar)

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick runs with the ball during the first half of an NFL preseason football game against the Green Bay Packers Friday, Aug. 26, 2016, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick runs with the ball during the first half of an NFL preseason football game against the Green Bay Packers Friday, Aug. 26, 2016, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick runs with the ball during the first half of an NFL preseason football game against the Green Bay Packers Friday, Aug. 26, 2016, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP

San Francisco 49ers quarterbacks Colin Kaepernick, left, and Blaine Gabbert stand on the sideline during the second half of an NFL preseason football game against the Green Bay Packers on Friday, Aug. 26, 2016, in Santa Clara, Calif. Green Bay won 21-10. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar)

San Francisco 49ers quarterbacks Colin Kaepernick, left, and Blaine Gabbert stand on the sideline during the second half of an NFL preseason football game against the Green Bay Packers on Friday, Aug. 26, 2016,

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick during the first half of an NFL preseason football game against the Green Bay Packers Friday, Aug. 26, 2016, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar)

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick during the first half of an NFL preseason football game against the Green Bay Packers Friday, Aug. 26, 2016, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar)

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, left, greets Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers at the end of an NFL preseason football game Friday, Aug. 26, 2016, in Santa Clara, Calif. Green Bay won 21-10. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar)

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, left, greets Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers at the end of an NFL preseason football game Friday, Aug. 26, 2016, in Santa Clara, Calif. Green Bay

Harbaugh on Kaepernick: ‘I don’t respect the motivation or the action’

Harbaugh, of course, made Kaepernick the 49ers’ starter in the middle of the 2012 season and was unwavering in his support until his final season in 2014. In February, after Kaepernick was benched after eight starts in 2015, Harbaugh predicted Kaepernick would “flourish” this season.

On Sunday, Vikings guard Alex Boone, another former member of the 49ers’ organization, was sharply critical of Kaepernick.

“That flag obviously gives (Kaepernick) the right to do whatever he wants,” Boone said. “I understand it. At the same time, you should have some (expletive) respect for people who served, especially people that lost their life to protect our freedom.

“We’re out here playing a game, making millions of dollars. People are losing their life, and you don’t have the common courtesy to do that. That just drove me nuts.”

However, Kaepernick has received support from the NFL community. On Sunday, his teammates rallied behind him, while many acknowledged they didn’t necessarily agree with his actions following a meeting in which Kaepernick addressed the team.

“It takes a strong individual to stand up for what they believe in like that,” wide receiver Torrey Smith said. “And that’s a right that we have, so you have to respect it.”

Today, Eagles linebacker Myke Tavaress, an undrafted rookie from Incarnate Word, said he also plans to sit during the national anthem when the Eagles host the Jets on Thursday.

"In this situation, I've really got nothing to lose," Tavaress said. “I'm a rookie free agent, haven't signed any major contract, so there's not a lot of money on the line, I don't have any big endorsement deals on the line. Really what's at stake is my pride and what kind of man would I be and what kind of African-American would I be if I didn't stand my ground on this issue we have today?

“(It) needs to be done. Will there be backlash? Probably. I don't think anyone has bought my jersey yet, so I don't know if it's going to be burned, but it's a major issue and I'm definitely going to stand my ground for this one.”

Summary: Today, Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh was asked about Kaepernick’s decision to sit for the anthem during the 49ers’ first three preseason games.  Harbaugh, of course, made Kaepernick the 49ers’ starter in the middle of the 2012 season and was unwavering in his support until his final season in 2014.  In February, after Kaepernick was benched after eight starts in 2015, Harbaugh predicted Kaepernick would “flourish” this season.  On Sunday, Vikings guard Alex Boone, another former member of the 49ers’ organization, was sharply critical of Kaepernick.  [...] you should have some (expletive) respect for people who served, especially people that lost their life to protect our freedom.  On Sunday, his teammates rallied behind him, while many acknowledged they didn’t necessarily agree with his actions following a meeting in which Kaepernick addressed the team.  Today, Eagles linebacker Myke Tavaress, an undrafted rookie from Incarnate Word, said he also plans to sit during the national anthem when the Eagles host the Jets on Thursday.  Really what's at stake is my pride and what kind of man would I be and what kind of African-American would I be if I didn't stand my ground on this issue we have today?


James Rhee is in the hot spot of the Ashley Stewart store in Roxbury, the flashy front section of the shop that lures customers in off the street. Standing amid the racks, he pauses to fawn over the tight tie-dyed jeans, slinky halter tops, and purple- and white-striped neoprene skirts. He waves hello as a curvy 30-ish woman in a slouchy off-the-shoulder top wanders in, then turns to the older, buttoned-up Avon consultant who set up her table by the front door.

“How long have you known Ashley Stewart?” he asks.

“A looong time,” she says with a grin.

The Ashley Stewart chain has found an unlikely champion in Rhee, a 45-year-old Korean-American father of three who is the company’s chief executive. Within three years of taking over, the Newton-based Harvard law grad has transformed a brand that is especially popular with black women from a bankrupt and oft-ignored company to a booming apparel chain. In a retail environment reeling from online competition, Ashley Stewart is a bright spot, one that’s making over $20 million in profit and predicting over $180 million in annual sales this year.

Since 1991, Ashley Stewart clothing stores have been de facto social hubs in urban African-American neighborhoods. The fashion-forward brand, which sells clothing in sizes 12 and larger, has developed a fierce following among its plus-size customers.

Under Rhee, this year in particular has been impressive for the chain.

In June, the Invus Group, a private equity firm that owns Weight Watchers, took a majority ownership stake in Ashley Stewart, a vote of confidence in the Secaucus, N.J.-based brand. The company’s Rock the Block fashion event in Brooklyn in July garnered more than 15 million social mediaimpressions. And in a sign of plus-sized fashion moving more into the mainstream, size 16 supermodel Ashley Graham seduced readers from Cosmopolitan magazine’s cover this month while wearing a bodysuit by the brand.

In many ways, Ashley Stewart is at the crest of a much bigger trend. US sales of women’s plus-size apparel increased 17 percent over the past three years to $20.4 billion, according to NPD Group, thanks in part to new lines at Target and JCPenney and the success of such online upstarts as Eloquii and Gwynnie Bee.

As an established player, Ashley Stewart has an edge in an industry that’s just beginning to acknowledge the fashion concerns of the plus-size woman, NPD research analyst Marshal Cohen said. “Everyone else is kind of playing catch up.”

But that higher profile also brings challenges. “How do you compete against the Lane Bryants of the world?” Cohen said, referring to the country’s largest plus-size retailer for women.

Rhee has been known to engage shoppers in heart-felt chats.

And more exposure may change the unique relationship the Ashley Stewart brand has cultivated with its traditional audience. “At what point do you expand your customer base in favor of growth?” said Ellen Davis, executive director of the National Retail Federation. “How much can you grow and do you want to grow?”

For years, debating how fast to grow hadn’t been an issue for the company. From 2007 to 2013, Ashley Stewart was hemorrhaging over $5 million a year and was on the cusp of its second bankruptcy proceeding when it found a savior in Rhee, who left his private equity job to rescue the company. Today, Rhee sees the brand and its customers as his life’s mission.

“There’s a genuine passion about the consumer that he has. He’s like ‘Hey, hi, we are in this together,’” said Marie Denee, who chronicles trends on her blog, The Curvy Fashionista.

“He may be a plus-size black woman on the inside. He gets it,” she said.

Rhee is, in fact, a first-generation Korean-American, whose father immigrated to the United States in 1967 and started a pediatric practice on Long Island. Rhee attended Harvard for both undergrad and law school and was a high school teacher before landing in private equity, where he reorganized such distressed brands as Meow Mix and Murray’s Discount Auto Stores. He had launched his own firm, FirePine Group, then another local investment group, Gordon Brothers, approached him seeking help managing its troubled companies.

Ashley Stewart became part of Gordon Brothers’ portfolio in 2010, and they asked Rhee to join the retailer’s board. He quickly became fascinated with the store and the unique role it plays in its customers’ lives. Like Rhee, its founder was no fashion mogul — Joe Sitt was a New York real estate developer who had struggled to find suitable retail tenants while developing urban neighborhoods.

“There was no place for a working woman to get a nice suit, a nice blouse to go out in,” Sitt told Inc. magazine in 2006. Noticing that some African-American women were “fullerfigured,” he conceived of a store to serve them, getting the Ashley from Laura Ashley and the Stewart from Martha Stewart. “[W]e wanted to bring that upscale shopping experience — the antithesis of what you’ve seen in the inner city,” he said.

Over time, the brand took on a life of its own. Rhee learned store managers are often known as “Miss Ashley” in their neighborhoods. He watched women walk in and ask anyone within earshot: “I’ve got a date tonight, who’s helping me?” Customers come in two or three times a week to hang out and feel comfortable trying on clothes in the aisles.

“You can’t fake the emotion that’s in these stores,” he said. “It was the most loyal customer I encountered in my entire investment career.”

Rhee quit his job in private equity before joining Ashley Stewart.

But it had been losing money by the millions. “It was a bit of a laughingstock business. We all knew about it as investors,” admitted Rhee, who plans to open a corporate outpost in Boston next month to be closer to its technology partners.

The chain was on the verge of its second bankruptcy proceeding, a state from which few companies recover, when Rhee stepped in as chief executive. He arrived at its headquarters and found the books in disarray. Some of its 180 stores failed to clear a profit. E-commerce was nascent at best and the company’s office didn’t even have Wi-Fi.

“The company was on a fast track to get liquidated,” said Stephen Warren, an attorney representing Clearlake Capital, which bought Ashley Stewart during the 2014 bankruptcy proceedings. But Warren says Rhee’s passion for the brand and its customers swayed a roomful of cutthroat investors to allow the company to reorganize. “He was so disarmingly honest. . . . And it was the only way the deal would get done,” he said.

Rhee effuses an Oprah-ish enthusiasm and tends to discuss Ashley Stewart not as a company but a person, referring to it as “she.” Wandering through the Roxbury store, he ticked off “her” ideals — kindness, friendship, and community — and engaged shoppers in heart-to-hearts on the fit of its patented Butterfly Bra and the shopping dilemmas that larger women often face.

“I remember it being really hard to find stuff to wear for a woman with curves,” Alexis Major divulged to Rhee. The 34-year-old from Dorchester had been a size 24 when she discovered the brand. “It definitely changed the way I thought about picking clothes and the way I saw myself,” she said.

Major’s a size 12 now, but told Rhee she doesn’t want to lose more weight.

“I want to stay here,” she said.

Rhee says these moments remind him it wasn’t a company he was saving, but the woman it served. “This brand and this company, and sometimes one could argue this woman, has never gotten 100 percent of anyone’s focus,” he said.

Rhee has streamlined the business by closing nearly 100 stores and implementing a data-driven approach to sales that he said helps him understand his customers in ways that go far beyond feelings.

Moving into e-commerce has infused new life into the business as well — online shoppers are on track to account for over 40 percent of total net sales in 2016 — and has pushed it into new markets. Rhee plans to add stores this year, saying his newest customers are white and Latina women who are responding to the company’s underlying message that clothing and the women who wear it can be sexy, regardless of size.

Kristen Gaskins, the company’s president, says Rhee’s message of inclusiveness can translate to anyone who’s felt marginalized by retailers — and that number may be on the rise, as the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found the average American woman is 166 pounds and a size 14.

“Have you ever felt like you weren’t accepted everywhere?” she asked. “Then you’re automatically Ashley.”

Summary: What does a Korean-American father of two have to do with a plus-size fashion brand that targets black women? Everything.


The death of a five-year-old boy critically injured after falling on stairs at his Victorian primary school is not suspicious, police say.

The incident happened on the external steps of Wodonga South Primary School about 4.30pm on Tuesday.

The boy was taken to Albury Base Hospital in NSW, but died shortly afterwards, reportedly of a head injury.

Detective Sergeant Graeme Simfendorfer said police were still investigating, but had deemed the death as not suspicious.

"The exact circumstances of what he was doing before and during the incident that led to his death are still under investigation," he told the Seven Network.

He said the boy was from a large family that had been left "extremely devastated".

Principal Clint Eckhardt described the incident as a "tragic accident".

"This news has had a profound impact ... and I know that our community will band together and support each other throughout this time," he said in a statement on Wednesday.

He said the school would offer support to anyone needing it over coming days.

Police will prepare a report for the coroner.

Summary: A boy has died after falling down stairs at a Victorian primary school


A human rights group has joined the calls for an independent inquiry into the death of an indigenous man involved in a violent altercation with prison guards in Adelaide.

Australian Lawyers for Human Rights (ALHR) says questions remain over the death of 29-year-old Mr Morrison in hospital on Monday, three days after the incident in the Yatala Labour Prison in which five guards were also injured.

"There appear to be questions about the time it took for the inmate to receive medical attention as well as the time it took to notify his family members of the events surrounding his injuries," ALHR chair Dr Amy Maguire said.

"An independent inquiry is needed to shed light on all of the events that took place following the deceased being taken into custody on remand."

South Australian Correctional Services Minister Peter Malinauskas said Mr Morrison was alleged to have started a violent tussle with the guards while on remand and waiting for a scheduled Magistrates Court video link appearance.

He said the man's death was now being investigated by police and the coroner would also conduct an inquest.

But the man's family has called for an independent investigation with the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement suggesting it be conducted by the Office of Public Integrity.

The Greens have also called for an independent inquiry with SA senator Sarah Hanson-Young adamant a police investigation was insufficient.

Dr Maguire said Mr Morrison's case also highlighted the continuing problem of Aboriginal deaths in custody, 25 years after a royal commission investigated the issue.

"When the royal commission report was released in 1991, 14 per cent of prison inmates were indigenous. Today, the percentage of indigenous inmates is 27 per cent," she said.

"In 1991-1992, there were nine indigenous deaths in custody. In all but one of the 25 years since, there have been at least that many deaths or more."

Summary: Calls continue for an independent inquiry into the death of an Aboriginal man after an altercation in jail with prison officers.


California Governor Jerry Brown has signed legislation to broaden the state's legal definition of rape to include other forms of sexual assault and mandate prison for rape of an unconscious victim, following a furore over a Stanford University sexual assault case.

One bill signed by Brown, a Democrat, changed California law to say prosecutors and juries may consider any sexual assault to be rape, including penetration with a foreign object.

State law had previously defined rape more narrowly, as non-consensual sexual intercourse.

Brown also signed a separate bill to place assault of an unconscious person on a list of sexual crimes for which judges are forbidden to grant probation or parole.

The governor in a signing statement said he usually opposes expanding the number of crimes with mandatory minimum statement.

But the legislation "brings a measure of parity to sentencing for criminal acts that are substantially similar", Brown wrote.

The two bills signed by the governor were passed by the state legislature following the uproar over the case of former Stanford University student Brock Turner.

This year, Turner was convicted of sexually assaulting a woman outside of a fraternity party in 2015, but received a six-month jail sentence instead of a lengthier prison term requested by prosecutors.

Summary: California has beefed up its sexual assault laws following the uproar over the case of former Stanford University student Brock Turner.


"The real question is if we reach the same conversation around the debt ceiling. America defaulting [would have] a greater impact than the short-term impact on markets from the [budget] conversation we're having right now," Ford told CNBC on Wednesday when asked whether a government shutdown was a realistic prospect.

(Read more: Congressional shutdown fight is nothing. Stay tuned)

The Treasury has said the U.S. debt limit of $16.7 trillion will be hit in mid-October, with Treasury Secretary Jack Lew saying there is no plan in place to pay all of the government's bills once that threshold has been hit.

"The subdued tone to the markets right now is probably because of the debt ceiling, but I don't think we'll get such severe downward pressure that we got in 2011 with the downgrades to the U.S. credit rating," Geoff Lewis, global market strategist, at JPMorgan Asset Management told CNBC Asia's "Cash Flow" on Thursday.

"At the moment, it is all theatrics. I think the Republicans realize that if they disrupt government for no good reason, it could come back to haunt them in the next mid-term elections," he added.

On Friday, House Republicans passed a resolution that would fund the government until mid-December but not Obamacare – President Barack Obama's healthcare reform law.

"In the near term, the debt ceiling debate and the continuing [budget] debate is going to cast a cloud over markets and in this environment it is safe havens such as the yen and the Swiss franc that do okay," said Nick Verdi, director of foreign exchange strategy for Asia-Pacific ex-Japan at Barclays.

According to Chris Weston, chief market strategist at trading firm IG, there's one reason why investors should worry about a potential U.S. government shutdown.

"If we do see a shutdown, then subsequently government produced data will be held back from release, and thus we won't get the October 4 non-farm payrolls, which is so important to the taper jigsaw; clarity and uncertainty would get that little bit hazier," Weston said in a note.

(Read more: Taper tantrum to ruffle Asian bond markets, ADB warns)

The Federal Reserve last week took markets by surprise by not delivering a widely anticipated scaling back of its asset purchase program, leaving markets speculating once more about just when Fed tapering will begin.

Summary: U.S. lawmakers are bickering over federal spending but for global markets, the impending battle over the U.S. debt ceiling is more significant.


Long-term federal employees can position themselves for a more secure retirement by employing a little-known feature of their benefits known as a voluntary contribution plan, or VCP. Workers put after-tax dollars into the plan, and can then roll those funds into a Roth individual retirement account.

Most individuals who have been employed by the federal government since before 1984 are covered by the Civil Service Retirement System, which grants enrollees a pension, along with a VCP. Employees can put up to 10% of their lifetime earnings on an after-tax basis into a VCP account, where tax on earnings is deferred.

VCPs aren’t widely used, due in part to the modest investment returns they tend to generate (2% this year). But they are useful for those nearing retirement who wish to reduce their projected tax burden. That’s because the entire balance in a VCP can be transferred to a Roth IRA, effectively bypassing the annual contribution limit for Roths of $5,500—or $6,500 for those over age 50.

Say federal employee John has earned $1.5 million during his decades working for the government and wants to earmark more of his savings for retirement. John is allowed to put up to 10% ($150,000) into his VCP. He can then immediately roll that $150,000 over to a Roth, where it will grow tax-free. With this transaction, John designates a large sum for retirement and will enjoy the tax advantages afforded by a Roth.

There are a few caveats to keep in mind. Individuals can open a VCP only if they have paid fully into the pension system, so if you have taken any withdrawals from the Civil Service Retirement System, you will have to repay that amount to qualify for a VCP.

Also, because VCP earnings are tax-deferred, they will count as taxable income when the balance is transferred. So anyone who has been keeping assets in a VCP should factor that in.

Those interested in a VCP transfer should act quickly. A budget proposal by President Barack Obama would eliminate after-tax rollovers to Roths at the end of the year. The VCP must be opened and funded before retirement, while the rollover request must occur shortly after retirement to keep you from having to annuitize or take a distribution.

Ms. Schmidlin is president of Franklin Planning and founder of FedSavvy Educational Solutions in Sewell, N.J. She can be reached at reports@wsj.com.

Summary: Voluntary contribution plans, or VCPs, provide a fast way to move a large sum into a Roth IRA, says Franklin Planning’s Carol Schmidlin


Treasurer Scott Morrison is alarmed to hear almost one in three workers aren't being paid part or all of their compulsory superannuation guarantee.

The joint report by Industry Super Australia and Cbus found employers had withheld at least $3.6 billion in superannuation payments to 2.4 million workers in 2013/14.

Treasury and the Australian Taxation Office are now investigating how the figures were arrived at.

"Those reports are alarming," Mr Morrison told Sydney radio 2GB on Monday.

The government has already had put resources into cases where people weren't paying their fair share of tax, chasing down multinational tax avoidance and setting up a financial crime task force.

'We're on to this one as well," Mr Morrison said.

Trade unions label the practice wage theft and have called on Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to close legal loopholes and toughen the penalty system.

"It should not be up to individual employees to chase their employer for entitlements owed," ACTU president Ged Kearney said.

Under the compulsory superannuation guarantee, employers are required to contribute at least 9.5 per cent to the accounts of every worker earning more than $450 a month.

Industry Super director of public affairs Matthew Linden said workers risked poorer retirements without it.

As well, while there are employers directly flouting the law, a loophole means some bosses can also count salary sacrificed contributions by workers toward the total guarantee payment.

"It appears as if employers - some employers - are reducing their compulsory obligations, and the law currently allows it," Mr Linden told ABC television.

The tax office should also be given extra resources to recoup unpaid super, he added.

Last week the Senate agreed to investigate the non-payment of compulsory super and a committee is due to report in March.

Opposition spokeswoman for financial services Katy Gallagher predicted lost super earnings could reach $66 billion by 2024 if the practice continued.

"This would not only put significant further demand on the age pension, but it would also deny hard working Australians the superannuation payments they are legally entitled to," she said.

Summary: New research by Industry Super Australia and Cbus shows about a third of workers have not been paid part or all of their compulsory superannuation.


"I perceive the world through the medium of human voices," Svetlana Alexievich declares near the end of "Zinky Boys: Soviet Voices from the Afghanistan War," explaining both her method and her point of view. For Alexievich — who in October became just the third nonfiction writer and 14th woman to receive the Nobel Prize in literature — testimony may be as close as one can get to faith.

"We've worshipped many gods," she writes in this slender but vivid account, told in the voices of survivors of the Soviet Afghan war. "Some have been consigned to the scrapheap, others to museums. Let us make Truth into a god! A god before whom each of us shall answer according to his own conscience, and not as a class, or a university year, or a collective, or a people...."

Truth of course is a relative concept, especially when it comes to war. This is especially the case with the Soviet disaster in Afghanistan, a nine-year incursion so steeped in secrecy that until 1985 (the fighting began in December 1979), Soviet citizens were told that troops had been sent to Afghanistan to work on humanitarian and infrastructure projects, fulfilling what was euphemistically called "international duty."

Even the bodies of those who died in the fighting were kept under wraps, returned home in zinc coffins (hence the title of this book) that were not allowed to be opened, buried in the dead of night. Once the story of the war began to be told, the narrative became one of national embarrassment.

"In the last war everyone was in mourning," a young widow tells Alexievich, "there wasn't a family in the land that hadn't lost some loved one. Women wept together then. There's a staff of 100 in the catering college where I work, and I'm the only one who had a husband killed in a war which all the rest have only read about in the papers. I wanted to smash the screen the first time I heard someone on television say that Afghanistan was our shame. That was the day I buried my husband a second time."

"Zinky Boys" is not a new piece of work; it was first published in the United States in 1992 and has been reissued in the wake of its author's Nobel win. Even so, the power of the book remains these voices: widows, mothers, veterans, all lost in a society that finds them of little utility.

They are reminders of a period that official culture would rather be forgotten, which is precisely what makes them of such interest to Alexievich. It is in their small stories, after all, individual and particular, that the larger story of the war begins to emerge. Not only that, but the voices here become the tools by which the broader social fiction may be broken down.

To get at this, Alexievich lets her subjects speak in their own words, one after the other, until the act of reading becomes a kind of slow immersion, and the sheer scope of the loss and the corruption reveals itself. This is only heightened by the decision not to name her sources; they are identified here only in the most generic terms. The effect is of confronting a series of everymen and everywomen, archetypal and yet wholly specific — or perhaps more accurately, interchangeable: What happened to them could happen to anyone.

"We didn't betray our Motherland," argues an artillery private. "I did my duty as a soldier as honestly as I could. Nowadays it's called a 'dirty war,' but how does that fit in with ideas like Patriotism, the People and Duty? Is the word 'Motherland' just a meaningless term to you? We did what the Motherland asked of us."

Such a statement highlights the key tension of "Zinky Boys," and, indeed, of Alexievich's entire body of work: that between rhetoric and reality. Her best-known books, "War's Unwomanly Face," which recalls the Second World War through the experiences of women, and "Voices of Chernobyl," which won a 2005 National Book Critics Circle Award for its unsparing portrayal of the nuclear meltdown and its aftermath, operate according to a similar principle: that the most effective role for a journalist is to let people tell their own stories in their own ways.

Call it oral history, call it, as the Swedish Academy did, "a history of emotions, … a history of the soul" — what it amounts to a devastating set of truths. "You soon got used to it," a reconnaissance operative observes of hand-to-hand killing. "It was less a psychological problem than the technical challenge of actually finding the upper vertebrae, heart or liver." Judge his comment however you wish, but what is undeniable is the sense of his perspective, his experience, the dehumanization war exerts on even those who survive.

In that regard, what Alexievich is doing is giving voice to the voiceless, exposing not only stories we wouldn't otherwise hear but individuals as well. Read through such a filter, her work becomes essentially democratic, with its insistence that by speaking for ourselves, we speak out for everyone.

Things have changed a lot since the original publication of "Zinky Boys"; once considered a parallel for Vietnam, Russia's experience in Afghanistan now seems to mirror our own misbegotten involvement there. The more we know, the more we know, I suppose, although just listen to the current hate speech, the demonization, public and private, of refugees, and it seems we haven't learned anything at all.

Either way, Alexievich wants us to understand, all we have in the end are our stories, and what they have to tell us about how we live. "Sometimes I feel I've been alive for ever," a young widow confides, "and yet my memories are so few."

Zinky Boys: Soviet Voices from the Afghanistan War

Svetlana AlexievichTranslated by Julia and Robin WhitbyIntroduction by Larry HeinemannW.W. Norton: 198 pp., $15.95 paper


Yankee Candle is recalling around 31,000 of its "Luminous Collection" candles, saying a square glass jar containing the fragrant wax is a laceration hazard.

The company has received 16 reports of the glass cracking once the candle is lit.

Customers who purchased one of the affected candles should stop using the product immediately and contact the company at 877-803-6890 for a full refund.

The candles were sold on the company's website and in its stores from September to November 2016 for about $35.

The following fragrances are affected: Sea Salt & Coral, Blackberry & Sage, Apple Blossom & Melon, Sugarcane & Honey, Pine & Sandalwood, and Cinnamon & Cedar.

No injuries have been reported.

More information is available on the Consumer Product Safety Commission website.

Summary: Yankee Candle is recalling around 31,000 of its "Luminous Collection" candles, saying a square glass jar containing the wax is a laceration hazard.


Hannah Overton, 32, a devout Christian and mother of five kids, is serving a life sentence in a Texas prison for killing her 4-year-old adopted son, Andrew Burd. Her husband, pastor and scores of fellow parishioners have argued her innocence for years despite her conviction.

Exclusive: Was a child a victim of his own mother? Or was it a medical mystery?

Now, after nearly two years behind bars, her appeal to the 13th District Court of Appeals has been denied.

In its decision, the court concluded that "a rational jury could have found beyond a reasonable doubt that Overton intentionally caused A.B.'s [Andrew Burd's] death by either of the theories alleged by the state, and that Overton was aware that her conduct of failing to provide or seek medical care was reasonably certain to cause A.B.'s death. Therefore, we conclude that the evidence was legally sufficient to support a finding that Overton either intentionally or knowingly caused A.B.'s death."

When 4-year-old Andrew Burd arrived at a hospital in critical condition in the fall of 2006, doctors didn't have a clue what was wrong with him. Blood tests soon revealed that he had salt poisoning, or hypernatremia. Andrew's levels were off the charts -- almost double the norm and among the highest ever recorded.

Doctors turned to Hannah Overton, then a 29-year-old pregnant mother of four, who was in the process of adopting Andrew. She told them Andrew had thrown a fit that afternoon after he'd been fed a full lunch. Instead of giving him more food, she said she put a few dashes of creole seasoning in a sippy cup of water.

But that didn't calm him, she said, and a few moments later he fell to the floor, vomited and complained of being cold. Overton said she suspected the flu, but after an hour and a half, Andrew's condition failed to improve. That's when she and her husband, Larry, took Andrew to the hospital.

The Overtons' story aroused the suspicions of doctors and investigators. The next day Andrew died and the devout Christian couple, who had no criminal history, became murder suspects. As the investigation continued, authorities developed a theory that Andrew's death was an intentional poisoning.

"We were just waiting for someone to look at it and say, 'This is just an accident,'" Larry Overton told "20/20." "Instead, we were arrested."

To investigators, Andrew's sudden and bizarre death was no accident. Within days, the authorities had begun weaving a sinister tale of murder. They painted Hannah Overton as a pregnant mother of four young children who became overwhelmed with the arrival of a foster child.

The arrest warrants painted the Overton home as a house of horrors, where Andrew was monitored by a camera and was punished with spicy seasoning. Detectives even used the Overtons' children to build a case against them, saying unusual forms of punishment had been previously used.

"This case boils down to a woman who, basically, tortured a child," said prosecutor Sandra Eastwood, "becoming so enraged she forced him to have 23 teaspoons of hot pepper and then watching him die in agony."

A grand jury returned an indictment on capital murder. In the state of Texas, if a child younger than 6 dies at the hands of another person, it's considered a capital case. The charge carries a minimum life sentence.

Summary: Hannah and Larry Overton became suspects in the death of their adopted son, Andrew Burd, after he died from salt poisoning.


Monday, January 11th 1999, 2:05AM

Forget the Year of the Grammy Women try the Millennium of Lauryn Hill.

The edgy, dreadlocked singer nabbed 10 Grammy nominations last week including nods for Album of the Year, Best New Artist and Producer of the Year for her critically acclaimed solo debut, "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill," solidifying her status as America's premier rap songstress.

And now, as the South Orange, N.J., native rears two young children, prepares for a worldwide tour it comes to Madison Square Garden in March and nurses her husband, Rohan Marley, after a potentially deadly car fire, Hill is counting her Grammy approbation as the latest in a long line of successes. Already, she has won two Grammys with her rap trio, the Fugees, for their 1996 album "The Score."

More recently, she broke the record for first-week sales by a female artist when "Miseducation" sold 422,624 copies in the seven days after it was released in August. The album has since sold more than 3 million copies.

Her solo album is a hip-hop/gospel/soul/reggae-infused reflection of Hill the woman, the daughter, the mother, the lover, the wife, the pretty girl, the artist.

"It comes directly from the heart straight, no chaser, no editing," said Vibe magazine editor Danyel Smith. "It just reverberates with pure emotion."

As always, Hill was gracious when praised for her accomplishment, but elusive nonetheless. While the world was taking note of her Grammy nominations, she was home tending to her family son Zion, 2, daugther Selah Louise, born in November, her husband and her parents, Valerie and Mal Hill.

"I think it is a strong statement, in these days, that I can make an album completey from my soul and, without compromise, be acknowledged for it," she said simply through her publicist. "Praise God."

Everyone expected this. Not just the people who thought Lauryn was the Fugees, and encouraged her to step out on her own; folks knew from way back, according to Lu Ellen Peniston, a guidance counselor at Hill's Maplewood, N.J., high school, that this girl would make it big.

"Is this a surprise?" Peniston asks rhetorically about her former student's success. She follows up quickly with a resounding, "No."

Hill made her mark as early as her junior year, when she roped a steady gig on the soap "As the World Turns."

"She would leave here, oh, around 1 p.m. to go into New York," Peniston says. Still, Hill managed to keep up membership on the cheerleading squad and track-and-field team, the gospel chorus, the school's Martin Luther King Association, the principal's student advisory committee and the drama club.

"That shows you how talented she is," Peniston says. "She has a tremendous creative power."

Indeed, that power filtered into her music. She joined school mates Wyclef Jean and Prakazrel Michel to form the Refugees or Fugees when she was just 13.

While their first album, 1994's "Blunted on Reality," made virtually no noise, "The Score," buoyed by the crossover pop stylings of Hill's Roberta Flack remake, "Killing Me Softly," turned the trio into a sensation.

Hill was feted for her lyrical skill unmistakably feminine, but as brassy as her male counterparts'. Her tongue-lashing in "How Many Mics" earned her a spot in The Source magazine's "Hip Hop Quotable of the Month" column, which features the lyrics of emcees deemed especially skillful by the editors. It was a first for a female rapper.

Hill told the Daily News then that she felt like the group's "secret weapon" the girl the all-guys group would pull out in the end to "improve the battle." Still, it was important for her to speak up for women in her lyrics, she said.

"I definitely throw things into my lyrics that they wouldn't have thought about," Hill said. "It's important that we speak for ourselves, instead of being just the pretty faces."

Anyone can tell you that Lauryn Hill isn't just a pretty face.

She used her high grades in advanced and honors high-school classes to get accepted into Columbia. She dropped out after two years, though, when the Fugees became an international success.

Things quickly went downhill, though, when Hill got pregnant by Marley, son of the legendary reggae artist Bob Marley. Soon after, Jean assumed a high-profile solo career with his album "The Carnival" simply to prove, some insiders argued, that he was the creative force of the Fugees, not Hill, as critics suspected. Rumors quickly abounded that ajealous rift between Hill and Jean had broken up the trio although they insisted they were simply taking a much-needed hiatus. Meanwhile, Hill became a lightning rod for criticism when she decided to have a child at the tender age of 21. She was young. She wasn't married. She had an awesome career that was about to be sidelined by a baby.

Music insiders, friends and fans alike criticized her implored her not to have the child saying it would ruin her career and for

ever taint her legacy as a role model.

But she knew what she was doing and if anyone could handle a career and a baby, it is Lauryn Hill, says Chris Schwartz, founder and CEO of RuffHouse Records, Hill's label. She is, Schwartz says, "a quick study very together."

Hill answered the criticism in her own way, with a song titled "To Zion":

I knew his life deserved a chance

But everybody told me to be smart

"Look at your career," they said

Lauryn, baby, use your head

But instead I chose to use my heart

Now the joy of my world is in Zion.

In Vibe last year, Hill credited her son as her "inspiration." And she explained her need to do things her way.

"I was not raised to be beautiful and not say it. I was not raised to have grievance and not cry out. Some people would prefer to say, 'Be pretty and don't talk too much.' But you gotta keep talking, or people forget about you and your agenda. My agenda is to make sure that we're taken care of, and educated and healthy and happy.

"I'm very happy," she added. "With a foundation, with a good man and a child, and a family and I don't have the fear of losing my job. You know how in the office space, people are sometimes hesitant to be vocal, 'cause they could be fired for what they say? The only person who can fire me is God."

Summary: Forget the Year of the Grammy Women try the Millennium of Lauryn Hill. The edgy, dreadlocked singer nabbed 10 Grammy nominations last week including nods for Album of the Year, Best New Artist and Producer of the Year for her critically acclaimed solo debut, "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill,"solidifying her status as America's premier rap songstress. And now, as the South Orange, N.J., native rears two young children, prepares for a worldwide tour it


Vampires, werewolves and airbenders lead the pack at the Razzies, an Academy Awards spoof that hands out prizes for the year's worst films.

The blockbuster supernatural tale "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse" and the action fantasy "The Last Airbender" tied for the most nominations Monday with nine each, including worst picture.

Also nominated for worst picture are Jennifer Aniston's action comedy "The Bounty Hunter," Sarah Jessica Parker's romantic romp "Sex and the City 2" and the "Twilight" parody "Vampires Suck."

"Twilight" star Kristen Stewart had a worst-actress nomination for her role as a teen caught in a love triangle involving her vampire boyfriend (Robert Pattinson) and werewolf pal (Taylor Lautner). Pattinson and Lautner both were nominated for worst actor.

Razzies founder John Wilson said that though "Vampires Suck" was a "Twilight" spoof, "Eclipse" actually was funnier to watch.

"I know people who are into `Twilight' who take it totally seriously and they're very vociferous," Wilson said. "Those of us who are not `Twi-hards', we don't get it. I don't actually know any teenage girls who have had to make the choice between a werewolf and a vampire."

"The Last Airbender" was adapted from the animated TV series about a young hero with the power to reunite feuding nations of people who can control air, water, fire and earth. "Last Airbender" filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan received Razzie nominations for worst director and screenplay.

"All of this gobbledygook language about airbenders and fire benders and water benders," Wilson said. "You feel like you're on a bender watching the movie. It's completely illogical."

The Razzies lineup was announced a day before Oscar nominations come out. Razzie winners, chosen by the group's roughly 600 voters, will be announced Feb. 26, the night before the Oscars.

Three Oscar-winning divas are among nominees for worst supporting actress -- Cher for the song-and-dance tale "Burlesque," Liza Minnelli for "Sex and the City 2" and Barbra Streisand for the comedy sequel "Little Fockers."

Jackson Rathbone had a supporting-actor nomination for roles in both "The Last Airbender" and "Eclipse." Dev Patel and Nicola Peltz also had supporting nominations for "Last Airbender."

The entire casts of "Eclipse" and "Last Airbender" were among nominees for worst screen couple or ensemble.

"Last Airbender" also was chosen for worst eye-gouging misuse of 3-D, a special category to mark Hollywood's current craze for shooting in three dimensions or converting 2-D movies to 3-D. The other 3-D nominees are "Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore," "Clash of the Titans," "The Nutcracker in 3-D" and "Saw 3D."

Along with worst-actress contenders Stewart and Aniston, the four "gal pals" in "Sex and the City 2" -- Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon -- shared a nomination. Also up for worst-actress are Miley Cyrus for the teen drama "The Last Song" and Megan Fox for the action flop "Jonah Hex."

Cyrus' father, Billy Ray Cyrus, had a supporting-actor nomination for ""The Spy Next Door."

Joining Pattinson and Lautner in the worst-actor category are Jack Black for the fantasy comedy "Gulliver's Travels," Gerard Butler for "The Bounty Hunter" and Ashton Kutcher for the action comedy "Killers" and the romance "Valentine's Day."

Summary: Jennifer Aniston's 'Bounty Hunter,' 'Twilight: Eclipse' Up for Razzies


Super Tuesday good for Romney, but not a knockout

Mitt Romney won six out of the 10 primaries and caucuses of Super Tuesday, including the important state of Ohio, but he didn't knock out his main challenger, Rick Santorum, who won three states, including the key Southern state of Tennessee. CBS News national correspondent Chip Reid reports.

Summary: The National Journal's Major Garrett speaks about the state of the GOP race with the "CBS This Morning" co-hosts -- and about a poll showing high gas prices hurting President Obama.


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Summary: Our regularly updated troubleshooting guide for the Telegraph iPad App.   Solutions provided for common problems users are reporting.


Veeco Instruments Inc. said it won’t file its latest quarterly report on time, Dow Jones reported. The company, which makes tools used to manufacture LED and solar products, is evaluating the timing of revenue recognition for the sale of certain products. “The systems which are the subject of these transactions were delivered, accepted, and paid for in full by our customers,” chief executive John Peeler said. The review focuses on determining if revenue was recognized in “the appropriate accounting periods.”

This is an article preview. The full story is available to BostonGlobe.com subscribers.

Summary: Veeco Instruments Inc. said it won’t file its latest quarterly report on time, Dow Jones reported.  The company, which makes tools used to manufacture LED and solar products is evaluating the timing of revenue recognition for the sale of certain products. “The systems which are the subject of these transactions were delivered, accepted and paid for in full by our customers,” chief executive John Peeler said. “Our review focuses on determining whether revenue was recognized in the appropriate accounting periods.”


An inscription carved into theg rey floorstones reads upside down, and a grey box like a minimalist sculpture stands beneath paintings hung at an angle that make you think of lozenge-shaped works by the modernist de Stijl movement. Saenredam specialised in such scenes. His meticulous analysis of light falling on whitewashed stone and evocation of the cool atmosphere of large, mostly empty buildings ponders, in a Protestant culture, the meaning of the sacred. (Jonathan Jones)

The Colombian sculptor takes art extremely seriously and is a seriously talented artist. She is best known for putting a huge crack in Tate Modern's Turbine Hall, a reflection on racial hatred. In this work she has conjoined two fragmented tables. They've been forced together. It feels wrong. (Mark Brown)

The rooms of the Tenkyuin in the Myoshinji Temple complex in Kyoto painted by Sanraku and his pupil Sansetsu are thought to be the most sophisticated of Japan's early Edo period. Kano Sanraku is credited with establishing the Kano School, distinguished by its elegant design and studied restraint. (Jessica Lack)

American artist John Singer Sargent produced one of the most potent images of the first world war, in which a line of blindfolded soldiers are being led along a duckboard by a medical orderly. The scene documents the aftermath of a mustard gas attack on the western front. Before the war, however, Sargent was renowned as a portrait painter. His most scandalous picture, the sexually suggestive Madame X, shocked French society. (JL)

Japanese artist Hiraki Sawa has invented plane-spotting for the agoraphobic: this wonderful film depicts Sawa's home transformed into a miniature airport in which corridors, beds and bookshelves become navigational nightmares for the model plane. (JL)

The empty eyes of the king's helmet gaze on ornate treasures whose fine work and pagan luxury evoke the primitive world of the Saxon poem Beowulf. (JJ)

No artist has ever communicated the rage and desire and self-pity of youth quite as forcefully as Schiele, who never got to lose his intensity in dull middle age, because he died in the world influenza pandemic in 1919 at the age of 28. His painting The Family is desperate, primitive in its need for love. Schiele's portraits are at once expressive and influenced by Byzantine art in their iconic isolation of stylised figures. His landscapes — closed-off views of walls of windows, sunsets like stained glass — are moving and atmospheric.

But, if you want to be fascinated, awed and perhaps shocked by the art of this Viennese hero, start with his drawings and watercolours. In his dauntingly brilliant works on paper Schiele drops the tragic rhetoric of the paintings to concentrate on what it is no exaggeration to call the most dazzling erotica ever created by a great artist. (JJ)

The students, bodies balanced like dancers', walk up a cleanlined, light-filled staircase, in Schlemmer's monument to a doomed temple of reason. The Bauhaus school of modern art and architecture, founded in 1919, was shortly to be closed by the Nazis; this painting is a monument to its calm, humane values. (JJ)

Conceived by the artist as "an erotic rite and a celebration of flesh as material", this orgiastic performance piece saw the feminist icon and seven scantily clad collaborators cavorting with sausages and raw chickens in gleeful disregard of the critical establishment, political correctness or salmonella. (Alfred Hickling)

German artist Gregor Schneider has spent over a decade dismantling and rebuilding a town house in Rheydt, Mönchengladbach. His exhibitions are reconstructions of the rooms he is working on, a collection of claustrophobic cellars and ratty hideouts that is deeply disturbing. (JL)

The stuff of life hangs movingly suspended in a personal cosmos of painted geometries in this marvellous assemblage of the real and imagined - photographs, scraps of photographs, cut-up bits of coloured paper, rags and an illustration of cherries from a child's primer. Schwitters's greatness is evident from such works in spite of the destruction of his wondrous Merzbau, a utopian architectural fantasy constructed inside his home, in an air raid in 1943. (JJ)

Nobuo Sekine was a founder member of the post-war Japanese conceptual group Mono-ha, which rejected traditional methods of representation. Phase - Mother Earth, in which Sekine excavated a 7ft cylinder of earth from the ground, was seen to be the birth of the movement. (JL)

Like a sublime city of steel, Serra's sequence of coiled corridors invites you to walk into its depths, surrounded by leaning rust-coloured walls whose incline tricks you into arching your own body sideways. Seen from above it is a calligram of coils and lines, then you go back inside one of the enclosures and lose track of anywhere but the place you are, in the most sustained, serious, original work of our time. (JJ)

The most notorious urine sample in the world. Serrano's photograph of a crucifix pickled in pee caused questions tobe asked in the US Senate.Surprisingly, Catholic art criticSister Wendy Beckett stood upfor it. (AH)

It took the Zen monk and monochrome-ink painter Sesshu just a few rough brushstrokes to create this expressionistic landscape of a misty mountain. Yet the painting has had an impact on artists for centuries. (JL)

In Seurat's two monumental modern histories, painted as clouds of coloured dots whose separated colours are composed into a picture within the perceiving eye, constrasting assemblies of bourgeois families and working-class men and boys spend their leisure hours by the river. Seurat's view of human life is at once encompassing and ironic, as if these scenes were being described by Joseph Conrad or Henry James. (JJ)

The nature of flight is analysed in this painting whose Italian futurist propaganda for speed and energy is indebted to Leonardo da Vinci's notebook On the Flight of Birds. (JJ)

In 1960s America, film still adverts were often more artfully alluring than the films. With this self-portrait series, Sherman, in her early twenties, launched her photographic project of self-disguise or selfinvention. Such is the attention to detail of pose and dress, her 69 dolled-up sirens come across with déjà-vu familiarity even to those who were not yet born at the time. (Robert Clark)

Watanabe Shiko was a member of the Rimpa school, famed for its highly decorative style. Capable of the most brilliant passages of brushwork, he holds an important place in the development of Japanese painting. His joyous multiflower screens Flowers and Trees of the Four Seasons are a riot of spring. In contrast, the gold leaf of Irises is a restrained panorama of a marsh blooming in flower. (JL)

The brilliant interior of this chapel built by Sicily's Norman rulers, glittering with Islamic tiles and stucco and Byzantine mosaics, reveals the cultural mix of Mediterranean life at the time of the Crusades. (JJ)

Sickert's depiction of the popular singer in a red dress is one of his most haunting music hall scenes. Persistent rumours that the artist was actually Jack the Ripper may be aided by the fact that she looks like a seeping bloodstain in the fog. (AH)

In Signorelli's daunting scenes from the career of the Antichrist, devils fire flame from the air like dive-bombing UFOs. In his climactic Judgment the risen stand naked listening to the angelic trumpets. Signorelli portrays himself witnessing an apocalypse that many in 1500 thought imminent. (JJ)

Far from the impulsive simpleton painter he's often assumed to have been, Soutine was one of the most sophisticated and painterly artists of the 20th century. Arriving from Minsk into a Paris buzzing with the excesses of the avant-garde and bohemian experiment, Soutine outdid his contemporaries with the rawness of his artistic passion, his daring in tearing apart the sober façade of appearance.

Yet take a close look at this gorgeous portrait and landscape and you recognise what degree of painstakingly rehearsed technical skill was needed to choreograph all that apparent abandon. (RC)

Built of mud, salt crystals, basalt rocks and earth, Spiral Jetty is an imperious coil that extends from the limpid shore of the Great Salt Lake. It is the one of the most epic examples of land art, yet for all its grandeur it was hidden underwater for almost three decades until 1999, when it reemerged due to drought. (JL)

The matted surfaces and jagged patches of colour in Still's abstract expressionist paintings resemble decaying walls, with torn wallpaper and melancholy stains, in a condemned downtown building. (JJ)

The disturbed, grieving, yet rhapsodic and hopeful faces of the disciples witnessing the death and assumption into heaven of Mary are portrayed with exquisite humanity in this staggering carved wooden tableau. (JJ)

An artist revered for his frozen images of glossy thoroughbreds departs from his regular stamping ground on the English turf to portray a horse with stripes — a zebra in the royal menagerie, lonely in its exotic beauty. (JJ)

Master of the frozen image, Hiroshi Sugimoto can imbue the most pedestrian of places with supernatural possibilities. This image is from his cinema series, in which he opened the shutter on his camera for the entire duration of the film. The result is a ghostly impression of an empty space bathed in an eerie white light. (JL)

Do-Ho Suh's labour-intensive sculptural installation Some/One is fabricated from thousands of military dog tags that sweep up dramatically to create a hollow, ghost-like suit of armour. Glistening like metallic fish scales, the sculpture challenges the might of the individual when confronted with so many identities. (JL)

Summary: From Pieter Saenredam to Do-Ho Suh


05/06/2014 at 07:20 AM EDT

Petra Nemcova and Laurent Lamothe

has found love and happiness.

The model and philanthropist, 34 – who survived the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami but tragically

Simon Atlee in the disaster – tells PEOPLE she is now romancing handsome Haitian prime minister Laurent Lamothe, 41.

"Yes, we are involved, and I am very happy," Nemcova told PEOPLE on Saturday while promoting her line of internationally themed candles, Be the Light New York, at Bloomingdale's Aventura in Miami. "Even though I have to travel a great deal for all of my work, Laurent is very supportive of what I do."

The Czech-born, multilingual Nemcova lives in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and is the founder and chairwoman of

, whose mission is to rebuild schools and restore hope and opportunity to the lives of children after natural disasters.

In November 2007, she visited Haiti with musician Wyclef Jean as part of a charity event and became interested in helping improve the island nation. With Jean, she co-founded a computer lab and restaurant where she lives.

Her Happy Hearts Fund has also helped rebuild Haiti after the country suffered

to actor Jamie Belman in 2012, Nemcova has been an ambassador at large for Haiti, bringing international awareness to its culture, development and opportunities.

Nemcova, who is also a brand ambassador for Clinique and Chopard, said, "My goal is to uplift the people of Haiti through job creation and empowerment."

Summary: "Laurent is very supportive of what I do," the model and philanthropist tells PEOPLE


Is there an adjective to describe a simultaneous sensation of sheer joy and crushing melancholy? That was the word needed to represent Barry Gibb’s Boston show. There were moments that Gibb appeared near tears, and others when his mega-watt Gibb smile glowed like a moonbeam through the Garden as he sang “Nights on Broadway.”

Through the elation and glorious memories — and what incredible memories there are — it was hard to not feel the presence of Gibb’s deceased brothers. He released solo songs and worked on projects without brothers Robin and Maurice, but it was the Bee Gees that created a sizeable crater on pop culture, particularly through the 1960s and 1970s. Maurice passed away in 2003, Robin in 2012. Gibb dedicated songs to his brothers, and even sang the mournful “I Started a Joke” with a video of Robin in concert. Through the tears, it felt like therapy for both Gibb and the audience.

His luscious mane of hair has been tamed by time, and he can no longer fit into those snug poly-blend suits, but the one thing that has not changed about Gibb is his buttery falsetto. He employed it beautifully on “Stayin’ Alive,” “Night Fever,” and “Grease.” These songs were the indulgent, glittering frosting that was spread smoothly over a 2½-hour, career-spanning retrospective. Gibb executed it all flawlessly. From “Tragedy” to “I Started a Joke,” he curated a set list to satisfy purists.

While the “Saturday Night Fever”-era hits turned the Garden into a 7,000-person disco, it was the 1960s songs that grounded the night and give the show its emotional gravitas. “New York Mining Disaster 1941” and “Words” have held up as well as Gibb’s voice. The audience applauded for nearly five minutes after “Mining Disaster,” and Gibb was visibly moved, as if surprised there was still such affection for his work.

There was sheer excitement in just hearing these chestnuts performed live. It was an endless stream of familiar titles: “Guilty,” “You Win Again,” “How Deep is Your Love.” This was not a 1970s dance party of camp and excess. It was a stunning celebration of 50 years of astute song writing and three brothers who once ruled the charts.

Summary: There were moments that Barry Gibb appeared near tears, and others when his mega-watt Gibb smile glowed like a moonbeam through the Garden as he sang “Nights on Broadway.”


There’s no love lost between Google and Microsoft, but that hasn’t stopped the tech giants from getting into each other’s turf. Microsoft has spent billions to compete with the search giant in online advertising. Now Google’s moving into Microsoft territory by stepping aggressively into the office software market.

On Monday, Google GOOG launched its latest attack on the king of software with a product that will compete directly with Microsoft Word.

Google Docs, a web-based application to write, edit and store word-processing documents, can now be used as a desktop tool when there’s no Internet connection. Google launched the free service in late 2006, but until now, consumers could only use the program when they were online. Ken Norton, a Google product manager, says the new release, which is enabled by a plug-in browser called Gears, is for those times when you lose your Internet connection “on the airplane” or “in India.”

Google and Microsoft are fundamentally at odds on the way consumers want to use office software. Google says consumers want to use Web-based office tools so that they can collaborate. “One thing people do all the time is e-mail lots of documents. They send out a spreadsheet attachment, and everyone sends multiple e-mails to give their input,” Norton said. “People are feeling the pain and looking for easier ways to share and work together.”

Microsoft product management director Alex Payne says that’s not enough reason to simply switch from desktop to Web-based software. “It’s a little naive to use this one example and say that’s where all the customers are going. We see a little bit of everything with 500-plus millions users,” he said. “Whether it’s working on the desktop or browser, it’s about delivering rich functionality and choice.”

Norton argues that Google Docs is less about competing with Microsoft than it is about addressing what customers want. Norton says consumers are shifting towards “cloud computing,” the idea of working within a web browser. More and more, users want to power the Internet to collaborate on a document at the same time. But until everyone, including people on planes and in India, have reliable connections, Google is bringing offline options. Google says it eventually plans to make all its online software services like e-mail, calendar, spreadsheets, and presentations, available in an offline mode.

“This is the direction that software is going,” Norton said. “Increasingly, people are doing more and more essential work on Web sites and Web applications.”

Microsoft MSFT says when it comes to office productivity software, it has a better idea of what consumers and corporations want. Microsoft’s share in the office software market is more than 90%. Multiple times during a phone interview with Fortune, a Microsoft manager mentioned that Office has more than 500 million users.

“Google keeps saying how everything’s going to be in this cloud. Then they build this offline thing. So maybe [they] don’t buy into that,” said Microsoft’s Payne. “We’re not saying it must be the desktop. Or it must be the Web. We’re investing heavily in both.”

Microsoft prefers to tie the Web back to its desktop applications. Last month Microsoft launched Office Workspace Live, which allows consumers to share Word documents and make comments on the Web. However, to avoid cutting into its profitable desktop business, Microsoft’s Internet offerings have more limited functionality than Google Docs, which can be edited and changed within a Web browser.

Neither admits to competing against one another in the office tools market. A clash, though, is inevitable. “Microsoft clearly realizes that Google is encroaching on some of their businesses,” said Aaron Levie, the CEO of Box.net, an online storage company. “You will see this interesting pushback when both these products end up meeting in the middle.”

Summary: By Yi-Wyn Yen There's no love lost between Google and Microsoft, but that hasn't stopped the tech giants from getting into each other's turf. Microsoft has spent billions to compete with the search giant in online advertising. Now Google's moving into Microsoft territory by stepping aggressively into the office software market. On Monday, Google launched…