Most of the pharmacies in China that dispense Western-style medicines have an antiquated, if reassuring, air about them. There are no posters on the walls for brand-name drugs. Candy is not for sale. Photo processing is not available. Druggists work in long white lab coats and surgical hats that could have been salvaged from a World War II hospital ship. Some pharmacies require prescriptions for the most potent drugs, others only an earnest chat with a druggist. Drug orders create paperwork that passes through three or four bureaucratic layers before reaching the solemn cashier, who issues a handwritten receipt.

Such an old-fashioned scene might argue for just how far China trails the United States and other advanced economies, where both science and marketing are seemingly years ahead. Yet these pharmacies also represent a current and urgent battleground in one of the most important struggles between the developed world and China's surging economic power. This is the fight over intellectual property and the related investments essential to the knowledge economy, that amorphously defined new world in which better ideas, not faster, cheaper hands create jobs and wealth. Despite their appearances, Chinese pharmacies are stocked with expertly copied versions of some of the world's most profitable medicines, patented products that generate hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of business in the United States, Europe and Japan. Even the very latest miracle drugs sell in China for a fraction, often one-tenth or less, of what their authorized equivalents in the United States cost.

Foreign companies lose control of their goods in two related ways: to counterfeiters who copy products and then sell them under different or altered brand names, and to pirates who make look-alikes and try to pass them off as the real thing. Using a lost-sales calculus, which measures the losses to foreign companies by determining the value of the dubious goods sold, the U.S. Department of Commerce estimates that American companies, as a result of counterfeiting and piracy, lose between $20 billion and $24 billion annually. The Japanese sacrifice even more: $34 billion. Throw in the sales lost by the European Union, and the cumulative losses for the three economic blocs approach $80 billion.

While losses to American and other advanced economies are high, China's appropriation and dissemination of the world's most valuable products and technologies, if they continue unabated, will ultimately mean a lot more than dollars lost. China's pirating and counterfeiting could radically change the way entertainment, fashion, medicine and services are created and sold. The companies, big and small, that Americans work for could be weakened. Chinese practices might reduce the prices of what we buy, by undermining the powerful companies that now control essential but expensive goods like drugs and computer software -- or these practices might, should China's unwillingness to accede to American copyright demands ignite trade wars, drive prices up. A U.S. consular official in China who requested anonymity -- few American officials are willing to speak openly about sensitive issues relating to China -- told me: "Nothing has a higher priority in our trade policy than the fight to protect American intellectual property. It is every bit as important an effort for us as the war against weapons of mass destruction."

The analogy has some merit. As with stolen bombs, the chief worry about losing control over intellectual property is not that American manufacturers will forego sales opportunities; the fear is that its new "owners" will turn our own innovations back on us and inflict much broader economic damage. For the United States, the world's most formidable producer and exporter of invention, entertainment and trademarked brands, the stakes are highest. William H. Lash III, the Commerce Department official who is leading a new initiative to change China's practices, vows that the Bush administration will take "whatever means are necessary" to force a change.

What makes China so troubling for American and other foreign companies is that the country is both a potential rival, with an alternative legal approach to intellectual property that limits their prospects in China and weakens their competitive strength globally, and a haven for pirates and counterfeiters. Start with the damage that fake drugs, for example, can do. Whether well made or poorly, they knock the genuine thing out of the market. According to the Chinese government-run press, hundreds of thousands of people in China have died from fake drugs that are either toxic or do not contain the active ingredients that users need. Drug companies report an increased threat from counterfeits entering the legitimate supply chains around the world. John Theriault, a 26-year veteran of the F.B.I. who now helps orchestrate anticounterfeiting efforts on behalf of Pfizer, says the company, working with Chinese authorities, has "seized millions of units of counterfeit pharmaceuticals and thousands of kilos of compounds" used to make them. In the worst cases, the fakes are commingled with legitimate products. "You might have 2 bad pills mixed in with 28 good ones," he says. (In May 2003, 200,000 bottles that had been sold in U.S. pharmacies and that contained counterfeits of Lipitor, Pfizer's cholesterol-lowering pill, were recalled.) Fakes "can ruin a brand and ruin a company," Theriault says.

But if bad imitations are a big problem, good imitations may be a bigger one. Pfizer happens also to be a prime example of what is arguably the most serious threat to U.S. knowledge-based companies in China: its intellectual-property rules. In the case of drugs manufactured before China agreed (in order to join the World Trade Organization) to adopt patent standards closer to the international norm, production continues as before -- that is, without any licensing fees paid to Western companies. Even today, however, Chinese companies, many of them government-run, simply continue to "reverse engineer" -- that is, take the known ingredients and work backward to figure out a process that produces accurate copies of -- the drugs (including recent blockbusters) and pay the foreign patent holders nothing. Increasingly, China's pharmaceutical companies are rushing to claim patents for their copies before foreign patent owners can assert their rights. This is what happened with Pfizer's Viagra, which has multiple Chinese imitators: the Chinese authorities denied patent protection for Pfizer and opened the market to Chinese knockoffs instead. (Pfizer is appealing.)

Press coverage in China of the Viagra decision made a point of noting that one Viagra pill costs 1 yuan to make, or around 12 cents, yet it sells for 98 yuan, or about $12. That sort of difference is sure to pique the attention of margin-squeezing Chinese manufacturers -- and perhaps encourage more copycats to rush into the market. Selling Chinese-made Viagra could turn a company into a future pharmaceutical Goliath, which would please China's rulers.

Certainly China also has a public health incentive to see that drug prices are affordable for its people, who earn on average one-fortieth of what Americans do and who rarely have health insurance. China's strategy often works: the fear of knockoffs entering the market drives the price of the patented drug down, and many important drugs cost less there than they do nearly everywhere else in the world. (Historically, medicines lacking patent protection, either because a time limit has expired or because countries like India or China simply offer no such protection, can experience price drops of more than 90 percent.) The threat to American interests is not hard to identify. According to the Milken Institute, Big Pharma employs 400,000 Americans directly, creates another 2.7 million jobs and contributes $172 billion to the U.S. economy. It is one of the most important engines of the knowledge economy; in 2003 the pharmaceutical industry invested $33.2 billion in drug research. That does not include the nearly $30 billion spent on life sciences by the publicly financed National Institutes of Health, which pays for research that leads to commercial drugs. Weaken the drug industry and you weaken one pillar of the U.S. economy. And Pfizer's trouble with Viagra in China demonstrates just how vulnerable the American knowledge economy is in a world where ideas "protected" by our laws trade freely nonetheless. Behind almost every blockbuster drug, killer software application or computer-chip design is a public infrastructure that has steered uncountable sums and the country's best talents toward their creation.

Consider what an advanced economy like ours does best: make movies, produce television shows watched from Helsinki to Cape Town, turn out global pop stars. We design the software and processes that streamline the operations of giant retail chains and global high-tech manufacturers. We engineer advanced engines and the guts of the world's computers. We devise brands, durable corporate identities and fashions. We conjure new ways to move money and put it to work. We turn the most basic tasks into knowledge work. Modern printers, to note one example, rely heavily on the most advanced automated presses, computerized design tools and management and shipping for delivering materials efficiently to consumers and are as dependent on the latest software and technological innovations as a biotech lab. And those 2.8 million American workers who in recent years have lost their factory jobs? They don't learn new ways to use power tools. They are retrained in front of a computer; they learn to run the robots that do the jobs they used to do.

The trouble with this apparently successful state of affairs is that the stuff we do best exists nowhere and everywhere at the same time. Some of our most valuable things -- software codes, pharmaceutical processes, car designs, digital movie files -- weigh nothing and, as e-mail attachments, can move at the speed of light. To learn American ideas and procedures is all but the same as owning them. (Unless, of course, laws successfully prohibit their co-option.) In contrast, most of what China makes that finds its way into the world market is physical. The Chinese can borrow and steal the designs to our best products all they want. For instance, 90 percent of all software running on Chinese computers has been pirated and bought openly in stores for around $3 a copy. But if Americans wanted to borrow and steal what China makes, we would have to march in with an army and commandeer Chinese factories and workers. Western powers and the Japanese tried that in the mid-19th and -20th centuries, respectively, and will not repeat the experiment. China, however, can in a sense colonize the developed world simply through careful study and a willingness to go its own way on intellectual-property protection. If China's commitment to wipe out commercial piracy and counterfeiting were judged by the laws that the country has on its books, the Chinese government would seem to be as strict as any. China has made a great show of cracking down in the past few years. Newspapers and television news programs regularly feature stories about government raids on massive counterfeiting operations. Hundreds of thousands of DVD's and dozens of duplicating machines seized here, a warehouse of CD's there and trucks full of sham designer handbags somewhere else. In December, China passed a much-awaited national law that criminalizes piracy and counterfeiting, allowing courts to jail violators for up to seven years; before, only civil penalties applied. The new law is unlikely to spur enforcement, however. And even if it does send people to prison, that may only prove a boon to the copycat economy. For example, just before Christmas, Sony announced the results of an investigation into Chinese operations that were daily turning out 50,000 fake PlayStation 2 game consoles and accessories: a container loaded with fake parts was found to have visited a prison in Shenzhen just long enough for inmates to assemble the parts. The Chinese themselves take it as given that powerful government interests stand behind the trade in counterfeit or pirated goods. What to foreigners may seem to be an aggressive action against a big piracy ring can look to the Chinese like a sort of St. Valentine's Day Massacre, where one powerful manufacturer uses police cover to eliminate a weaker one.

As the legal code grows fatter, so, too, do the supply and sophistication of fake goods. The places they are sold no longer look like back-alley stalls but like Main Street retailers. Near Beijing's diplomatic row, two outdoor markets once famous for knockoff fashions have been combined into a large, bright department store-like building with escalators, tailors on site and merchants with business cards, international shipping accounts and full stocks of fake fashions, designer tableware, brand-name musical instruments and, of course, thousands upon thousands of fake Swiss watches. The most common punishment counterfeiters face is the confiscation of whatever products they have in stock. Sometimes a pitiful fine is levied. China's National Copyright Administration cites with much fanfare 52 raids on video shops in 2003, but the total fines amounted to $6,900, or an average of $132 for each offender.

China's lax policies on copyright protection offer the country the advantages of both bread and circuses. Andrew Mertha, a political scientist at Washington University who has worked with Chinese and American officials on Chinese intellectual-property law, summarizes the circus side of things: "If you're the Chinese leadership, do you want people idling around in the street, complaining about how unhappy they are, or do you want them home watching Hollywood movies?" In other words, the government is slow to crack down on the piracy of entertainment products because these serve its social agenda. But is there any doubt that if vendors suddenly found a brisk market for DVD's promoting Tibetan independence or the virtues of Falun Gong, the outlawed religious sect, the DVD business would shrivel up overnight and all those anticounterfeiting laws on the books would find ready application? Indeed, when Sega's new online fantasy sports game "Football Manager 2005" had the gall to suggest that imaginary soccer leagues in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Tibet could be governed locally, rather than by the central government, China's Ministry of Culture banned the game on the grounds that it posed "harm to the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity." Fines reached $3,600.

Because the overwhelming majority of products pirated and counterfeited in China are, for now, sold mainly in China, they provide the Chinese people with "bread" insofar as they make all sorts of other goods affordable. Often, as in the case of medicines and medical devices, some foods, school textbooks and clothing, these counterfeit products are essential goods. Thus, any government crackdown is essentially a tax on China's needy consumers.

Counterfeiters and pirates also serve the country by usurping the foreign technology that China needs to meet its ambitious industrial goals. In 2005, China will most likely be the world's third-largest trading nation, and counterfeiters give the country's increasing number of globally competitive companies the means to compete against powerful foreign rivals that pay for their use of proprietary technologies. In a broader geopolitical context, China's counterfeiters deny the world's advanced economies, especially in the U.S. and Japan, the opportunity to sell to China the valuable designs, trademarked goods, advanced technology and popular entertainment that the Chinese urgently desire but cannot yet produce on their own.

Put another way, China's failure to police industry and to protect intellectual-property acts, in effect, like one of the greatest industrial subsidies in the world. Chinese manufacturers and industries freely exploit foreign ideas and technologies. "China helps distribute technology that has already been paid for by the developed world, often by companies, but also by taxpayers who support the government labs where much of the most important industrial technology begins," says Oded Shenkar, a professor of business at Ohio State University and the author of the recent book "The Chinese Century." "And, seen as a subsidy, this one is a particularly good deal for the Chinese government because it doesn't have to pay for it."

For the most part, China fears no repercussions from its actions because the size and potential of its markets give China an undiminished (for now) power to lure the world's most advanced technology to its shores. For example, China for years has tendered the prospect of large, advanced transportation projects to foreign governments as a way to coax largess and technology from outsiders. When the Chinese government announced that is was considering high-speed magnetic levitation ("maglev") cross-country train routes, Germany and Japan each put together government and business alliances to win future contracts there. The German industrial giants ThyssenKrupp and Siemens formed a partnership to build a nearly 20-mile maglev line in Shanghai to prove that they were up to the job. The line began operating last year while China was said to be considering which of several technologies to use. In December, workers for the German operation videotaped Chinese engineers poking around the maglev train's maintenance building in Shanghai at 3 a.m. one Saturday, apparently in search of confidential information. The manager of the Chinese operation that was a partner of the Germans clumsily excused the prowlers by saying they were merely taking part in a "research and development" exercise. Later that month, the government said that to save money it would eschew foreign designs for Chinese trains and, instead, employ newly developed indigenous maglev technology. Soon China could be exporting maglev trains for half the price Germany or Japan demand. The generous and optimistic view of China's behavior is that it is a passing phase, and one not all that unusual for countries on the make. European powers once struggled to steal (and even transplant) one another's prime proprietary assets, like Mesoamerican gold, Brazilian rubber and Indonesian cloves. Blue-and-white Delftware was a Dutch attempt to copy China's porcelain works. At the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, American companies paid industrial spies to steal the designs of British machines. American theatrical producers routinely staged foreign operas and plays without permission; publishers sold dubious editions of English novels. More recently, Taiwan circumvented foreign patents and copyrights early in its post-World War II industrialization drive. And countries in Southeast Asia, Latin America, Africa and the former Soviet Union still operate well outside the developed world's norm for intellectual-property protection. Yet no other violators, past or present, match China's potential to change the rules of the world economy through piracy and counterfeiting.

Countries like Brazil or Vietnam may be as lax about copying as China is, but they do not have the industrial infrastructure or the ranks of skilled scientists and engineers to pull off the more ambitious copies of, say, drugs and automotive vehicles. China, however, has the expertise and infrastructure to reverse-engineer and produce nearly anything. And it has a market large enough to support the enterprise. The Chinese motorcycle industry provides a good example. Honda entered China in the 1980's and soon captured one-fifth of the motorcycle marketplace. But cheaper Chinese imitations appeared, and Honda's market share quickly halved. The company found that staying in China required that it enter into partnerships with some of the very companies copying its bikes. Now, with as many as 100 motorcycle makers in China, the country is the largest such manufacturer in the world, producing 15 million motorcycles a year (half of all new vehicles sold worldwide). Still the copying persists. The Japanese government estimates that of the 11 million motorcycles made in China in 2002, 9 million were imitations of Japanese products.

Summary: Ted C Fishman article on impact of China's appropriation and dissemination of world's most valuable products and technologies through counterfeiting; if continued unabated, it will ultimately mean more than lost dollars and could radically change how goods and services are created and sold; some American officials says fight to protect American intellectual property has highest priority in trade policy; major concern is that fake items will knock genuine items out of market, which could ruin brand or company; of greater concern is that failure to police industry and protect intellectual property acts like industrial subsidy (M)


Coca-Cola has acquired a minority stake in an organic aloe water beverage startup, one of several investments the soda maker has recently made beyond its core business as soda sales soften in the United States.

On Wednesday, Coca-Cola ko said it bought a stake in a California-based startup called L.A. Aloe, which is known for the company’s Aloe Gloe brand. The deal adds to Coke’s Venturing & Emerging Brands unit. That unit – which has already added Honest Tea, Zico coconut water, and Suja juices into the Coke fold – was originally created in 2007 as a way for the beverage maker to identify brands it believes could be worth a billion dollars or more in North America.

“Our minority investment in Aloe Gloe gives VEB a further entry in the emerging market segment for plant-based beverages,” said VEB President Scott Uzzell. Aloe Gloe says it has posted a two-year growth rate of 64%, citing research by industry tracker Nielsen.

Aloe Gloe, which claims to be low in sugar and calories, comes in four flavors, including coconut and lemonade. Coke already worked closely with the brand as a distributor partner, getting Aloe Gloe into 20,000 stores across the nation, including at Kroger kr and Safeway swy . The minority investment Coke announced is meant to deepen that existing relationship.

Coke has made a handful of sizable bolt-on acquisitions recently, including a $575 million deal for soy-based beverage maker AdeS from Unilever earlier this month and a $400.5 million acquisition of China Culiangwang Beverages.

Some of the deals are meant to bolster growth in markets abroad, while other investments – like this investment for Aloe Gloe – gives Coke an opportunity to get on board with new trends in the beverage aisle, where sales of soda have been weak for years as consumers look for alternatives that they believe are healthier.

Plant-based foods and beverages, in particular, have gotten a lot of attention from Big Food. Part of that is because in many key categories, like yogurt and other traditional dairy products, plant-based foods are vastly outperforming the broader category.

The largest firms in the food and beverage space have accelerated their invest in startups, either acquiring them outright or scooping up minority investments to help them grow (and potentially acquire the brands fully if demand looks promising). General Mills gis , Kellogg k and Campbell Soup cpb are among the Big Food companies that have recently set up varying venture capital models to hunt for ideal startup brands that they can buy a stake in.

Summary: California-based startup is growing fast.


WASHINGTON, June 23— The Supreme Court preserved affirmative action in university admissions today by a one-vote margin but with a forceful endorsement of the role of racial diversity on campus in achieving a more equal society.

''In order to cultivate a set of leaders with legitimacy in the eyes of the citizenry, it is necessary that the path to leadership be visibly open to talented and qualified individuals of every race and ethnicity,'' Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote in her 5-to-4 majority opinion upholding the University of Michigan's consideration of race for admission to its law school. [Excerpts, Page A24.]

At the same time, by a vote of 6 to 3, and with Justice O'Connor in the majority as well, the court invalidated the same university's affirmative action program for admission to its undergraduate college. The difference was in the details: the undergraduate school uses a point system based in part on race.

As a result, the pair of decisions -- the court's first in a generation to address race in university admissions -- provided a blueprint for taking race into account without running afoul of the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection.

The law school engages in a ''highly individualized, holistic review of each applicant's file'' in which race counts as a factor but is not used in a ''mechanical way,'' Justice O'Connor said. For that reason, she said, it was consistent with Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr.'s controlling opinion in the Bakke case in 1978, which permitted the use of race as one ''plus factor.''

The result of today's rulings was that Justice Powell's solitary view that there was a ''compelling state interest'' in racial diversity, a position that had appeared undermined by the court's subsequent equal protection rulings in other contexts and that some lower federal courts had boldly repudiated, has now been endorsed by five justices and placed on a stronger footing than ever before.

President Bush had asked the court to declare the universities' policies unconstitutional.

Although the four dissenters in the law school case did not directly confront the continued validity of the Bakke precedent, it was clear that both Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia would have overturned it if they could. ''Every time the government places citizens on racial registers and makes race relevant to the provision of burdens or benefits, it demeans us all,'' Justice Thomas said in a dissenting opinion that Justice Scalia also signed.

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote the principal dissenting opinion that spoke for all four, including Justice Anthony M. Kennedy. He took a more oblique approach that attacked the law school program not so much for its premise as for how it works in practice, dismissing it as ''a carefully managed program designed to ensure proportionate representation of applicants from selected minority groups.''

Justice Kennedy, writing separately, said that Justice Powell's opinion in the Bakke case ''states the correct rule for resolving this case,'' but that the court had not applied the ''meaningful strict scrutiny'' under which the program should have been found unconstitutional.

Joining Justice O'Connor's majority opinion in Grutter v. Bollinger, No. 02-241, were Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who wrote a brief concurring opinion, and Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter and Stephen G. Breyer.

By contrast with the law school, the admissions program for Michigan's College of Literature, Science, and the Arts awards 20 points on a scale of 150 for membership in an underrepresented minority group -- blacks, Hispanics, and American Indians -- with 100 points guaranteeing admission to the university's main undergraduate school. Fixed numbers of points are also awarded for other factors, including alumni connections, geography and athletics.

The inclusion of race on the scale, with the result that nearly all qualified minority applicants are admitted to the competitive program while many qualified white students are turned away, demonstrates the absence of the ''individualized consideration'' that the Bakke decision required, Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote. Justice O'Connor echoed that conclusion, describing the undergraduate program as a ''nonindividualized, mechanical one.''

Justice Breyer, concurring separately, did not sign the Rehnquist opinion. The dissenters were Justices Ginsburg and Souter, who said the majority opinion was incorrect on the merits, and Justice Stevens. He said the case should have been dismissed because the plaintiffs, two white students who had failed to win admission under an earlier version of the undergraduate admissions policy, lacked standing to challenge the current policy that the university adopted in 1998.

The rulings today came as an enormous relief to the civil rights community, as well as to public and private colleges and universities around the country, dozens of which had joined briefs supporting Michigan. Although the constitutional issue applied directly only to public institutions, federal law has given private colleges an equal stake in the outcome by forbidding racial discrimination by educational institutions that receive federal money.


Texas is the only state among the 10 with the worst credit scores with a median income ($53,875) that exceeds the national benchmark ($53,657). Despite this, Texas still has one of the worst average credit scores in the nation.

The saying that everything's bigger in Texas holds true for auto loan balances -- Texas borrowers carry the highest balances on their car loans at $22,989, just under $5,000 more than the national average of $17,999, according to TransUnion. With higher loan balances, the risk of missed payments rises as well.

Texas also has a high percentage of borrowers with debts past due or in collections at 52.3 percent, according to Urban Institute data. This state has the highest delinquency rate for personal loans as well, with 6.92 percent of borrowers with these types of loans being 60 days or more past due.

Summary: Peer beneath the hood of the U.S. economy and you soon detect important regional differences in people's credit rating


has become a Halloween nightmare for 2 big nightclubs that now have anger issues of their own ... because Brown has bailed on them.

Chris was booked to host a party at the

in L.A. tomorrow night, followed by another hosting gig Friday with GF

We've learned both clubs just got word Chris will be a no-show. As TMZ first reported, the singer will stay put in a Malibu rehab joint for up to 3 months so he can deal with his anger issues.

But here's the thing. Even Karrueche bailed.

The show at Haze will go on. As for the Conga gig, the event has been cancelled.

Summary: Chris Brown has become a Halloween nightmare for 2 big nightclubs that now have anger issues of their own ... because Brown has bailed on them.Chris was…


Political dork that I am, I like to make lists for myself during an election season, ranking the five issues most important to me at the time. I started doing this years ago (though I skipped 2012). While certain issues appear on each list, the most surprising development is that the list changes a lot over time.

And yet support for Israel has never made the list before — until now.

It’s not because supporting Israel was never important to me. On the contrary, it was — it’s just that I never expected either major party to nominate someone who wouldn’t pass muster as a friend to Israel. Considering the Democratic Party’s turn during the Obama years, that can no longer be taken for granted.

Until President Obama, I never expected the American president to snub the Israeli prime minister, as Obama has done time and again with Benjamin Netanyahu. I wouldn’t have thought our president would be mealy-mouthed while innocent Jews were being stabbed in the streets. Yet, here we are, seven years into the Obama presidency and that’s exactly what we’ve gotten.

In 2008, anyone who said Obama would be terrible on Israel was considered a lunatic. Only birthers or people who believed Obama was secretly a Muslim would say that. We hadn’t had a president be “anti-Israel” in my lifetime. Even Jimmy Carter wasn’t considered anti-Israel while he was president. That the friendship and alliance between America and the only free country in the Middle East must be maintained has long been understood.

It’s never been about the 2 percent of Americans who are Jewish, though the popular canard remains that American Jews raise enough money to effectively buy such influence. Of course, American Jews also overwhelmingly vote Democratic, and still Obama has been downright hostile to Israel and its leadership. Maybe there’s a lesson there.

It’s easy to dismiss the fractured relationship between America and Israel during the Obama years as merely a personality clash between leaders. But that doesn’t really hold water. Like America, Israel’s a democracy. Benjamin Netanyahu is in the prime minister’s office because the Israeli people put him there.

Plus, Obama’s perfectly warm treatment of the Saudi king or the Chinese president — neither one elected democratically and neither an obvious personality match with an American president — shows that he is capable of behaving diplomatically when he wants to. When it comes to Israel, he just doesn’t want to.

When Netanyahu was invited to speak to the liberal Center for American Progress, staffers there complained to the press. Former CAP employees were furious. Matt Duss, a former CAP staffer who now heads the Foundation for Middle East Peace, thundered that the Israeli never should have been invited, because he “is an enemy of the progressive agenda.”

It’s clear Duss is far from alone on the left in seeing the Israeli government as an enemy.

During the second Republican primary debate, Ann Coulter tweeted that the candidates were talking about Israel far too much. I disagreed. For many Americans, Jewish or not, Israel carries both significance and symbolism.

It’s not like other allies. First of all, it’s constantly besieged, fighting for its life and legitimacy. No one argues whether Britain or France has a “right to exist,” but Israel must constantly justify itself.

Second, the terrorism Israel has experienced for decades has spread; it’s no longer just their fight. It’s ours.

Third, the security of Jews worldwide continues to deteriorate — sharply. As anti-Semitic attacks have skyrocketed, a Jewish homeland is more important than ever.

So, no, I can’t consider a candidate who doesn’t take the American relationship with Israel seriously and talk about it openly. It wasn’t a coincidence that Israel barely got a mention during the

Democratic debate. A poll in February showed Democratic support for Israel dropping.

It’s not just Democrats, either. In another time, I would likely be a Rand Paul supporter. His straightforward limited-government policies appeal to me. I might oppose cutting defense spending as much as he wants to, but not all his foreign-policy positions should be dismissed — reforming the National Security Agency, for example, deserves a hearing.

But when the subject of aid to Israel comes up, it’s clear Paul — who wants to cut US aid to the Jewish state — takes Israel’s continued strength for granted. After seven years of Barack Obama, benign neglect is clearly not so benign. Nor should Israel be treated like, say, Pakistan when it comes to foreign aid.

So, yes, Israel is different. The American people by and large believe this. It’s important that the next president does too, especially since the current one does not.

Summary: Political dork that I am, I like to make lists for myself during an election season, ranking the five issues most important to me at the time. I started doing this years ago (though I skipped 2012)…


Matt Damon and Ben Affleck have long been the stars of what may be Hollywood’s best bromance, and now they have the hardware to prove it. The Cambridge-raised actors, who have been close pals since childhood, were honored at the 10th annual Spike Guys’ Choice Awards on Saturday night as joint recipients of the Guys of the Decade award. Robert DeNiro presented the duo with the award. Upon accepting their trophies, Affleck joked about some of their more questionable roles. “I think it goes without saying that this is an award Matt and I have been dreaming about since we were little boys,” he quipped. “I did ‘Gigli’ and Matt did that Liberace movie and all of a sudden it all seemed out of reach. Then I did ‘Batman’ and all of a sudden, it was back in reach again.” The pair gave shoutouts to other notable bromance partners, or, as Damon put it, “some of the dudes who weren’t quite as decade-worthy,” such as George Clooney and Brad Pitt, James Franco and Jonah Hill, Justin Bieber and Jaden Smith, Ben and Jerry, and Hall and Oates. Affleck and Damon, who have collaborated a number of times since their Oscar-winning film “Good Will Hunting” in 1997, are currently working together on an HBO movie, titled “Thirst,” about the global water crisis.

Summary: The Cambridge-raised actors were honored at the 10th annual Spike Guys’ Choice Awards .


Hollywood is no stranger to stereotype casting. "Scandal's" Kerry Washington and "Master of None" star and executive producer Aziz Ansari have come face to face with this reality on multiple occasions throughout their careers. The actors swapped nightmare stories during a sit-down for Variety's fourth season of "Actors on Actors."

"Before 'Scandal,' I was actually cast in two other pilots. Both went to series, but I was fired and recast," Washington said. "For both, it was because they wanted me to sound more 'girlfriend,' more like 'hood,' more 'urban.'"

While Washington experienced the repercussions of not fitting a certain stereotype, she soon discovered that it wasn't exclusive to racial cliches.

"I've had friends of mine say like they're tired of 'gayface' and I was like, 'What's gayface?' They were like, 'It's the gay version of blackface, like come in and be more effeminate,"' Washington said, recounting past conversations.

"It's interesting; like every person that's not a straight, white guy has their version of this," Ansari said.

See photos of the actress:

Kerry Washington was fired from two TV pilots for not being 'hood' enough

BEVERLY HILLS, CA - MARCH 21: Actress Kerry Washington arrives at the 26th Annual GLAAD Media Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on March 21, 2015 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Gregg DeGuire/WireImage)

BEVERLY HILLS, CA - MARCH 21: Actress Kerry Washington attends the 26th annual GLAAD Media Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on March 21, 2015 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic)

Kerry Washington arrives at the 26th Annual GLAAD Media Awards held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Saturday, March 21, 2015, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)

BEVERLY HILLS, CA - MARCH 21: (L-R) Producer Shonda Rhimes and actress Kerry Washington arrive at the 26th Annual GLAAD Media Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Barry King/Getty Images)

BEVERLY HILLS, CA - MARCH 21: Actress Kerry Washington accepts the Vanguard Award onstage during the 26th Annual GLAAD Media Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on March 21, 2015 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Charley Gallay/Getty Images for GLAAD)

BEVERLY HILLS, CA - MARCH 21: Actress Kerry Washington speaks onstage during the 26th Annual GLAAD Media Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on March 21, 2015 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for GLAAD)

BEVERLY HILLS, CA - MARCH 21: (L-R) Actress Portia de Rossi, tv personality Ellen DeGeneres, actress Kerry Washington and writer-producer Shonda Rhimes attend the 26th Annual GLAAD Media Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on March 21, 2015 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Charley Gallay/Getty Images for GLAAD)

BEVERLY HILLS, CA - MARCH 21: Actress Kerry Washington attends the 26th Annual GLAAD Media Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on March 21, 2015 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images for GLAAD)

BEVERLY HILLS, CA - MARCH 21: Actress Kerry Washington attends the 26th Annual GLAAD Media Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on March 21, 2015 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images for GLAAD)

WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA - SEPTEMBER 20: Actress Kerry Washington arrives at the #TGIT Premiere Event hosted by Twitter at Palihouse Holloway on September 20, 2014 in West Hollywood, California. (Photo by Amanda Edwards/WireImage)

NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 23: Actress Kerry Washington is seen during 'Good Morning America' taping at the ABC Times Square Studios on September 23, 2014 in New York City. (Photo by Gilbert Carrasquillo/GC Images)

U.S. actress Kerry Washington arrives for the German premiere of the movie "Django Unchained" in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2013. (AP Photo/Gero Breloer)

NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 23: Kerry Washington is seen in Midtown on September 23, 2014 in New York City. (Photo by Alo Ceballos/GC Images)

Actress Kerry Washington attends the premiere of "The Details" at the Arclight in Los Angeles on Monday Oct. 29, 2012. (Photo by John Shearer/Invision/AP)

NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 23: Actress Kerry Washington seen on the streets of Manhattan on September 23, 2014 in New York City. (Photo by Michael Stewart/GC Images)

THE TONIGHT SHOW STARRING JIMMY FALLON -- Episode 0130 -- Pictured: (l-r) Actress Kerry Washington during an interview with host Jimmy Fallon on September 23, 2014 -- (Photo by: Douglas Gorenstein/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)

NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 23: Actress Kerry Washington is seen arriving at 'Good Morning America''on September 23, 2014 in New York City. (Photo by Raymond Hall/GC Images)

NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 22: Actress Kerry Washington is seen outside 'Good Morning America' on on September 22, 2014 in New York City. (Photo by Raymond Hall/GC Images)

NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 22: Actress Kerry Washington is seen outside 'Good Morning America' on on September 22, 2014 in New York City. (Photo by Raymond Hall/GC Images)

NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 22: Lyn Paolo and Kerry Washington at The Limited Collection Inspired by Scandal Launch Event at IAC Building on September 22, 2014 in New York City. (Photo by Nomi Ellenson/WireImage)

NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 22: Actress Kerry Washington (L) and CEO at The Limited Diane Ellis attend The Limited Scandal Collection Launch Event at IAC Building on September 22, 2014 in New York City. (Photo by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for The Limited Scandal Collection)

WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA - SEPTEMBER 20: Actress Kerry Washington attends the #TGIT premiere event hosted by Twitter at Palihouse Holloway on September 20, 2014 in West Hollywood, California. (Photo by Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic)

WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA - SEPTEMBER 20: Ellen DeGeneres and Kerry Washington attend the #TGIT premiere event hosted by Twitter at Palihouse Holloway on September 20, 2014 in West Hollywood, California. (Photo by Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic)

Kerry Washington attends The Limited Collection Inspired by Scandal launch party on Monday, Sept. 22, 2014 in New York. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)

In this Sunday, Sept. 7, 2014 photo, actress Kerry Washington poses for a portrait in Los Angeles. Washington was asked to do the domestic abuse public service announcement by The Allstate Foundation, which had already put into motion an initiative called âPurple Purse,â to raise awareness of domestic-abuse money matters. Washington said the facts and figures were such eye openers, she immediately agreed to serve as the campaign's spokesperson. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision/AP)

Actress Kerry Washington arrives at the 65th Emmy Awards Nomination Celebration at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences on Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2013 in North Hollywood, California. (Photo by Paul A. Hebert/Invision/AP)

Kerry Washington, left, and Liev Schreiber present the award for outstanding lead actress in a miniseries or a movie on stage at the 66th Primetime Emmy Awards at the Nokia Theatre L.A. Live on Monday, Aug. 25, 2014, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Vince Bucci/Invision for the Television Academy/AP Images)

Actress Kerry Washington arrives at Variety and Women in Film's pre-Emmy celebration at Gracias Madre on Saturday, Aug. 23, 2014 in West Hollywood, Calif. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

Actress Kerry Washington attends the 2014 Vanity Fair Oscar Party, on Sunday, March 2, 2014, in West Hollywood, Calif. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

Kerry Washington poses in the press room with the award for outstanding actress in a drama series for "Scandal" at the 45th NAACP Image Awards at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium on Saturday, Feb. 22, 2014, in Pasadena, Calif. (Photo by Arnold Turner/Invision/AP)

Actress Kerry Washington attends the Disney/ABC Winter 2014 TCA All Star Reception on Friday, Jan. 17, 2014 in Pasadena, Calif. (Photo by Paul A. Hebert/Invision/AP)

Actress Kerry Washington arrives at unite4: good featured at Variety's Power of Women luncheon, on Friday, Oct. 4, 2013 in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision for unite4: good/AP Images)

Actress Kerry Washington attends the "She's Making Media: Kerry Washington" panel discussion about her career at The Paley Center for Media on Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2013 in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

Actress Kerry Washington arrives at the HBO Primetime Emmy's After Party at The Plaza at the Pacific Design Center on Sunday, Sept. 22, 2013 in Los Angeles . (Photo by Paul A. Hebert/Invision/AP)

Actress Kerry Washington arrives at the 65th Emmy Awards Nomination Celebration at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences on Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2013 in North Hollywood, California. (Photo by Paul A. Hebert/Invision/AP)

Actress Kerry Washington arrives at the BAFTA's Los Angeles TV Tea party at the SLS Hotel on Saturday, Sept. 21, 2013 in Los Angeles. (Photo by Dan Steinberg/Invision/AP)

Actress Kerry Washington arrives at the BAFTA's Los Angeles TV Tea party at the SLS Hotel on Saturday, Sept. 21, 2013 in Los Angeles. (Photo by Dan Steinberg/Invision/AP)

Actress Kerry Washington arrives at the Disney/ABC 2013 Summer TCA Party at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Sunday, August 4, 2013 in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Dan Steinberg/Invision/AP)

Actress Kerry Washington arrives at the Disney/ABC 2013 Summer TCA Party at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Sunday, August 4, 2013 in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Dan Steinberg/Invision/AP)

Actress Kerry Washington on stage at the 2013 CFDA Fashion Awards at Alice Tully Hall on Monday, June 3, 2013 in New York. (Photo by Brad Barket/Invision/AP)

FILE - In this June 3, 2013 file photo, actress Kerry Washington attends the 2013 CFDA Fashion Awards at Alice Tully Hall, in New York. Washington married professional football player Nnamdi Asomugha last week in Idaho. E! was the first to report the nuptials Wednesday, July 3, and posted a copy of the coupleâs marriage license online. The 36-year-old actress and 31-year-old athlete were married on June 24 in Hailey, Idaho. (Photo by Brad Barket/Invision/AP, File)

FILE - This May 16, 2013 photo shows actress Kerry Washington at the Academy of Television Art and Sciences' event in North Hollywood, Calif. Washington married professional football player Nnamdi Asomugha last week in Idaho. E! was the first to report the nuptials Wednesday, July 3, and posted a copy of the coupleâs marriage license online. The 36-year-old actress and 31-year-old athlete were married on June 24 in Hailey, Idaho. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)

Actress Kerry Washington attends the White House Correspondents' Dinner at the Washington Hilton on Saturday April 27, 2013 in Washington. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

FILE - This May 6, 2013 file photo shows actress Kerry Washington, left, and fashion designer Vera Wang at The Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute gala benefit, "Punk: Chaos to Couture", in New York. Wang, 63, was honored for her lifetime achievement by the Council of Fashion Designers at its star-studded awards show Monday night. She received the award from her former employer and mentor Ralph Lauren, and she received a standing ovation from her peers. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, file)

In this Sunday, April 21, 2013 photo, actress Kerry Washington poses for a portrait at the Four Seasons in Los Angeles. Washington stars in the film, "Peeples," releasing on May 10, 2013. (Photo by Eric Charbonneau/Invision/AP)

Actress Kerry Washington presents the MTV generation award to Jamie Foxx at the MTV Movie Awards in Sony Pictures Studio Lot in Culver City, Calif., on Sunday April 14, 2013. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision for MTV/AP Images)

Actress Kerry Washington arrives at the Human Rights Campaign dinner at the JW Marriott L.A. Live Hotel on Saturday, March 23, 2013 in Los Angeles. (Photo by Dan Steinberg/Invision/AP)

Actress Kerry Washington arrives at the Human Rights Campaign dinner at the JW Marriott L.A. Live Hotel on Saturday, March 23, 2013 in Los Angeles. (Photo by Dan Steinberg/Invision/AP)

Actress Kerry Washington arrives at the 2013 Vanity Fair Oscars Viewing and After Party on Sunday, Feb. 24 2013 at the Sunset Plaza Hotel in West Hollywood, Calif. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Actress Kerry Washington arrives at the 2013 Vanity Fair Oscars Viewing and After Party on Sunday, Feb. 24 2013 at the Sunset Plaza Hotel in West Hollywood, Calif. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Actress Kerry Washington arrives at the Oscars at the Dolby Theatre on Sunday Feb. 24, 2013, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Todd Williamson/Invision/AP)

Actress Kerry Washington arrives at the Oscars at the Dolby Theatre on Sunday Feb. 24, 2013, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Todd Williamson/Invision/AP)

Actress Kerry Washington arrives at the Independent Spirit Awards on Saturday, Feb. 23, 2013, in Santa Monica, Calif. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Actress Kerry Washington arrives at the Independent Spirit Awards on Saturday, Feb. 23, 2013, in Santa Monica, Calif. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Actress Kerry Washington poses backstage at the 24th Annual Producers Guild (PGA) Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Saturday Jan. 26, 2013, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision for Producers Guild/AP Images)

Actress Kerry Washington attends the premiere of "The Details" at the Arclight in Los Angeles on Monday Oct. 29, 2012. (Photo by John Shearer/Invision/AP)

Actress Kerry Washington poses backstage at the 24th Annual Producers Guild (PGA) Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Saturday Jan. 26, 2013, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision for Producers Guild/AP Images)

Actress Kerry Washington arrives at the 70th Annual Golden Globe Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Sunday Jan. 13, 2013, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by John Shearer/Invision/AP)

Actress Kerry Washington arrives at the 70th Annual Golden Globe Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Sunday Jan. 13, 2013, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Actress Kerry Washington arrives for the premiere of the movie "Django unchained" in Rome, Friday, Jan. 4, 2013.(AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

US actress Kerry Washington uses her cell phone to take a picture of photographers during the premiere of the movie "Django unchained" Monday Jan. 7, 2013. in Paris.(AP Photo/Jacques Brinon)

Actress Kerry Washington pose during a photo-call to present their movie "Django unchained" Monday Jan. 07, 2013. in Paris.(AP Photo/Jacques Brinon)

U.S. actor Samuel L. Jackson, U.S. director Quentin Tarantino, U.S. actress Kerry Washington, U.S. actor Jamie Foxx and Austrian actor Christoph Waltz, from left, arrive for the German premiere of the movie "Django Unchained" in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2013. (AP Photo/Gero Breloer)

Actresses Diane Keaton, left, and Kerry Washington greet each other at The Hollywood Reporter's 21st Annual Women in Entertainment Power 100 breakfast presented by Lifetime on Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2012 in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by John Shearer/Invision for The Hollywood Reporter/AP Images)

IMAGE DISTRIBUTED FOR THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER - Actresses Lisa Kudrow, left, and Kerry Washington pose for a photo at The Hollywood Reporter's 21st Annual Women in Entertainment Power 100 breakfast presented by Lifetime on Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2012 in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by John Shearer/Invision for The Hollywood Reporter/AP Images)

Actress Kerry Washington poses at the BAFTA Los Angeles 2012 Britannia Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2012, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

This Sept. 20, 2012 photo shows American actress Kerry Washington posing for a portrait in New York. Washington stars in the series, "Scandal," airing Thursdays at 10 p.m. EST on ABC. (Photo by Victoria Will/Invision/AP)

American actress Kerry Washington poses for a portrait on Thursday, Sept. 20, 2012 in New York. (Photo by Victoria Will/Invision/AP Images)

Actress Kerry Washington onstage at the 64th Primetime Emmy Awards at the Nokia Theatre on Sunday, Sept. 23, 2012, in Los Angeles. (Photo by John Shearer/Invision/AP)

Actress Kerry Washington arrives at the 64th Primetime Emmy Awards at the Nokia Theatre on Sunday, Sept. 23, 2012, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision/AP)

Actress Kerry Washington the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., on Thursday, Sept. 6, 2012. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Actress Kerry Washington speaks to delegates at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., on Thursday, Sept. 6, 2012. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

US actress Kerry Washington, poses for photos promoting her upcoming film,"Django Unchained" at the Summer of Sony 4 Spring Edition photo call in Cancun, Mexico, Sunday April 15, 2012. (AP Photo/Alexandre Meneghini)

Actress Kerry Washington poses for photos promoting her upcoming film, "Django Unchained" at the Summer of Sony 4 Spring Edition photo call in Cancun, Mexico, Sunday April 15, 2012. (AP Photo/Alexandre Meneghini)

Actress Kerry Washington attends "Lincoln Center Presents: An Evening With Ralph Lauren" at Alice Tully Hall on Monday, Oct. 24, 2011 in New York. (AP Photo/Evan Agostini)

Ansari said he's shown up to auditions only to find he got booked because the project was trying to cast a certain look.

"A lot of other minority actors have told me, 'Oh, this so rings a bell' when you go into an audition room and you see a bunch of people that look like you and you just start feeling like, 'Oh I'm not here [for me], I'm here because I fit what looks like the person they want in here,"' Ansari said, referencing a "Master of None" episode — "Indians on TV" — where he addresses auditioning.

Ansari said as executive producer of "Master of None," he has tried to bring authenticity to the characters he features on the Netflix show, allowing them to keep their own clothing styles and be themselves instead of becoming a character on a page.

"I feel like a lot of times people don't do that and then you end up with other people's perception of what certain people are like," Ansari said.

"I definitely feel like I'm at that point where it's nice to not have to sit at home and wait to be invited to the party, but to be creating work for yourself," Washington added.

Watch the entire interview when the two-part fourth season premiere of "Variety Studio: Actors on Actors" airs June 12 and June 19 on PBS SoCal. Presented by Shopbop/East Dane, the episodes will also be available to stream on Variety.com.

More from Variety: Variety and PBS SoCal’s ‘Actors on Actors’ featuring Lady Gaga premieres June 12 ‘The Flash’ movie finds ‘dope’ new director 2016 Emmy contenders: Outstanding lead actress in a drama

Summary: Hollywood is no stranger to stereotype casting, Kerry Washington has come face to face with this reality on multiple occasions.


Mr Bell said that Mrs Leadsom could have the same impact on the party as David Cameron, who was a relative unknown when he beat his rival David Davis, the favourite for the leadership, in 2005.

Mr Bell disclosed that more than 10,000 party members had paid at least £25 to join the party – however none of them will have a vote in the leadership election.

He said: “You have got to be a member for three months so that will mean that anyone who was not a member on June 9 will not be eligible to vote.”

Summary: Conservative MPs will get a “


Follow along with our coverage of the Democratic National Convention.

Michael R. Bloomberg, who bypassed his own run for the presidency this election cycle, will endorse Hillary Clinton in a prime-time address at the Democratic National Convention and make the case for Mrs. Clinton as the best choice for moderate voters in 2016, an adviser to Mr. Bloomberg said.

The news is an unexpected move from Mr. Bloomberg, who has not been a member of the Democratic Party since 2000; was elected the mayor of New York City as a Republican; and later became an independent.

But it reflects Mr. Bloomberg’s increasing dismay about the rise of Donald J. Trump and a determination to see that the Republican nominee is defeated.

Mrs. Clinton is seeking to reach out to middle-of-the-road swing voters and even moderate Republicans uneasy about Mr. Trump. Polls show that significant numbers of Republicans remain wary of Mr. Trump, and question his fitness for the presidency.

Mr. Bloomberg will vouch for Mrs. Clinton “from the perspective of a business leader and an independent,” said Howard Wolfson, a senior adviser to Mr. Bloomberg.

“As the nation’s leading independent and a pragmatic business leader, Mike has supported candidates from both sides of the aisle,” Mr. Wolfson said. “This week in Philadelphia, he will make a strong case that the clear choice in this election is Hillary Clinton.”

Mr. Bloomberg, who has been sharply critical of Mr. Trump’s views on immigration and the economy, may fortify Mrs. Clinton’s appeal to the political center.

And with the Republican nominee basing his campaign on his background as a businessman, Mr. Bloomberg, a billionaire media executive and philanthropist, may help counter the Trump sales pitch.

It is unusual, but not unheard-of, for a speaker who is not a member of a political party to address that party’s convention. Mr. Bloomberg is expected to speak on Wednesday, the same evening as President Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Mr. Bloomberg and Mrs. Clinton are not personally close but had a positive working relationship when he served as mayor and she as a senator from New York.

Mr. Wolfson said the Clinton campaign had contacted Mr. Bloomberg several weeks ago to ask if he would be willing to address the convention. Mr. Bloomberg, he said, mulled over the idea and ultimately agreed to speak, after drafting a speech that reflected his distinctive set of political views rather than a boilerplate Democratic message.

Mr. Wolfson also said Mr. Bloomberg was pleased by the selection of Senator Tim Kaine, a former governor of Virginia and a strong supporter of gun control, as Mrs. Clinton’s running mate.

Mr. Bloomberg is not an entirely natural fit for the Democratic Party of 2016: Though he has been an energetic advocate on issues related to guns, immigration and climate change, he has also been a vocal ally of the financial services industry and has defended the strict policing tactics his administration employed in New York.

Jennifer Palmieri, Mrs. Clinton’s communications director, said Mr. Bloomberg would bring to the convention “a unique and important voice that lays out the choice in this election.”

“As a business leader and philanthropist, Michael Bloomberg has lived his values and fought to make a difference for others,” Ms. Palmieri said.

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In the past, Mr. Bloomberg has rebuked Democrats for attacking Wall Street — a part of his record that may sit uneasily with liberal Democrats, and especially with the supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont who are already smarting from his defeat.

Mr. Bloomberg has been quiet in recent months about the presidential race. But in the past, he has criticized Mr. Trump in stark terms, describing him as a threat to American security.

When he decided late last winter not to run for the White House, Mr. Bloomberg explained that he could not take the risk of running an independent campaign that might inadvertently ease Mr. Trump’s path to power.

Mr. Bloomberg castigated Mr. Trump at the time for his proposals to ban Muslim immigration and deport millions of undocumented immigrants, as well as his pledge to launch trade wars with China and Japan.

“These moves would divide us at home and compromise our moral leadership around the world,” Mr. Bloomberg wrote. “The end result would be to embolden our enemies, threaten the security of our allies, and put our own men and women in uniform at greater risk.”

In April, he warned in a commencement address at the University of Michigan that the country faced an unprecedented political threat from “demagogues” in both parties.

Mr. Bloomberg, who served for 12 years as the mayor of New York, has never addressed a political convention in a partisan capacity. He appeared at the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York in his role as mayor of the host city.

He endorsed Mr. Obama for re-election in 2012, writing in a column that his views on climate change had been the decisive factor.

Michael Nutter, a former Philadelphia mayor, said he expected Mr. Bloomberg to receive a “warm and positive welcome” from delegates, even though he is not a Democrat. Mr. Nutter said it made political sense to go after voters outside the party: Mr. Bloomberg, he said, could help persuade other business leaders to back Mrs. Clinton, “in some cases Republican business people.”

“I think Mike Bloomberg gives validation to Hillary Clinton and the campaign,” said Mr. Nutter, a Democrat. “We want to win, and everybody has a role to play.”

Summary: The former mayor of New York City, who chose not to run for president this year, will back Mrs. Clinton in a speech at the Democratic convention.


This article originally appeared on money.com.

As of Monday, the national average for a gallon of regular gasoline stood at $2.16, according to AAA. It’s been more than 12 years since prices were this cheap at this time of year—a peak period for driving, what with summer vacations and road trips.

Yet all indications show that prices at the pump will drop further still. As Bloomberg and others have reported, analysts say that there is an oversupply in the global oil market right now. Oil refineries have been producing gasoline in quantities that exceed driver demand, and the result is an oil glut, as well as downward pressure on pricing.

“U.S. crude oil supplies are at their highest level for this time of year in 86 years,” AAA noted in its weekly report on Monday. As a result, “Gas prices are likely to remain low for the remainder of the summer compared to recent years.”

Oil and gas prices generally have a symbiotic relationship, in which the latter generally follows the lead of the former. Though gas price cuts sometimes occur more slowly than drivers might wish, cheaper oil generally equates to cheaper fill-ups at the gas station. Oil prices hit historic lows in early 2016, and even though gas prices rose through the first half of the year, they remain phenomenally cheap in the grand scheme. At last check 11 states are already averaging under $2 a gallon.

The price of a barrel of oil fell to under $45 on Monday, the lowest it’s been since early May. Forecasts had previously called for gas prices to decline toward the end of summer and fall, with predictions that the national average would be below $2 a gallon by November.

Now it appears as if we’ll dip below that $2 mark nationally even sooner than earlier expected, given how inexpensive gas is already. As a GasBuddy post noted on Monday, “Today’s gas price climate in the U.S. finds nearly 40% of the nation’s approximately 135,000 gas stations selling a gallon at under $2 per gallon while a year ago, 0% of stations were at such low prices.”

Summary: Thanks to record-low oil prices


And the effect it had on Kaddy, my six-year-old mare, was astonishing. A horse that can spook at a blackbird 50 yards away was transformed.

Alert and obedient, she was unfazed by the squawk of pheasants shooting through her legs, startled rabbits darting into the hedgerows and a farmyard reeking of pigs. Riding 25 miles a day takes the edge off cocky horses and she did a lot of growing up.

This came as no surprise to Jan Pritchard, one of those wonderful British Horse Society stalwarts who campaign tirelessly, without remuneration or, at times, much thanks to keep bridleways open.

"All your horse needed was to get away from home and see something new," she said. "Riders don't understand how bored horses can become."

For the best part of a year, Jan has been researching maps, negotiating with farmers and seeking route modification orders from local councils to push through the Sabrina Way.

Around the country, there is a patchwork of bridleway routes. The hope is that the growing trend for riders to take holidays with their horses will become widespread and cash will sprinkle down to the forest floor of the rural economy. Great gaps in the network remain, however, and the idea for the Sabrina Way, which formally opens next year - although there is nothing to stop anyone riding it now - came from Brenda Wickham, a towering figure in bridleways activism.

Brenda mapped out a rough route, linking the Pennine Way to the Ridgeway in Oxfordshire, leaving it to Jan and other local bridleway experts to fill in the details. Shropshire was always going to be one of the highlights and its network of tracks is superb.

Our route began at Ironbridge, where seven riders gathered. They had come to hack along the old towpath beside the river, where horses once pulled the barges filled with Wilkinson's iron or Coalport china down to Bristol.

Elaine Newton, who owns a local livery and offers equine b & bs, was going to pilot me all the way to Billingsley, riding a pretty but hard-as-nails little trotting pony that she had bought from a gipsy dealer. After an hour or so, we left our companions and began to quicken our pace to reach our destination before dark. For five miles or so, we kept to the towpath and then up through thick woods emerging from the steep chasm of the Severn.

In places, the woods were pitted with traces of coal workings and kilns, for this valley used to be the cradle of the iron industry. On the higher ground, Shropshire revealed itself with endless fields of deep green grass, a delightful contrast to the agro-business landscape of Hampshire. It was empty, too - Elaine and I saw no one for 20-odd miles.

The light was fading fast at 4.30 when we reached Billingsley Hall Farm, to be greeted by Helen and Russell Sedgley. The horses hesitated and pricked their ears when they smelt pigs, but nothing was going to keep them from their feed and rest. We left them together for the night, rugged up and loose in an empty stone barn.

If the Government needs a model example of agricultural diversification, Billingsley Hall Farm might be a candidate. As well as keeping pigs, dairy cows, sheep and some arable land over 260 acres, the Sedgleys offer equestrian and human b & b and a holiday let with views over the paddock. "It's holidaymakers in summer, but one half of divorcing couples in winter," explained Helen.

Until lambing, that is, when the cottage is occupied by families who book specially to take on the out-of-hours shepherding duties, paying for the privilege of doing so.

Normally, the next day, riders would press on through the Wyre Forest into Worcestershire, but instead I boxed to Malvern, where I met Sherry Round, the BHS county bridleways officer. From the big open vistas of Shropshire, the countryside becomes smaller, more intimate and wooded. The Malvern Hills emerge from the landscape in little folds and on their crests are bridleways that have been routes for animals and man since the Stone Age.

From the heights of Little Malvern, I looked back towards Shropshire and the distance I had ridden, realising with astonishment that hardly any of it had been over tarmac.

I had ridden over the redundant roads and tracks that have somehow survived into the modern age. Slowly, people are beginning to realise what a wonderful resource bridleways are. Anyone with an interest in horses should cherish and defend them.

The Sabrina Way is the latest addition to the Ride UK initiative of the British Horse Society, which aims to create a national bridleway network as a tourism resource.

The main threat to bridleways is the Countryside and Rights of Way Act, which ruled that the definitive map of 1949 should be closed to historical claims in 2026. This means that bridleways and historic rights of way not on the map will be lost for ever. Funds and local activism are urgently needed to make councils research and register these routes.

The Countryside Agency has given £2.75 million to help the bridleway cause, but this compares unfavourably with the £47 million National Lottery grant to the Sustrans national cycle route project.

No one thought about bridleways in 1949 when the definitive map was drawn up, because there were few leisure horses after the war. As a result, riders enjoy only a fraction of the rights of way that they ought to.

"Many riders do not have a clue about bridleways, even in their own area," says Nicola Gregory of the BHS. "Many don't know what type of path they exercise their horse on."

I am guilty here. I have now discovered I ride on farm tracks that are all officially footpaths. Yet bridleways are desperately needed. To July this year, eight riders have been killed on the roads.

According to a survey last week in Horse & Hound, a third of riders have no access to bridleway or off-road riding and 45 per cent ride on roads on a daily basis. One in three reports "near-miss" accidents on the road.

Summary: The Sabrina Way offers riders a delightful glimpse of bygone Britain, says Sebastian O'Kelly


United Auto Workers President Dennis Williams said on Tuesday that Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has assured him she would renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement if she is elected president.

Williams’ comments come as Clinton is under pressure on international trade deals from Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and supporters of her former Democratic rival Bernie Sanders.

Clinton has previously said she wanted to rework NAFTA. Her campaign on Tuesday declined to comment on the meeting with Williams.

Williams said he met with Clinton one-on-one prior to the union’s endorsement of her in May, when Sanders was still in the race to be the Democratic party’s nominee. The UAW has more than 400,000 members.

“She’s committed to me that not only would (she) dig into NAFTA but she made every indication that she would sit down and try to redo NAFTA,” Williams told reporters during a telephone press conference from Philadelphia, where he is attending the Democratic National Convention.

Williams said Clinton “recognizes that NAFTA was not the success that it was supposed to be,” when her husband, Bill Clinton, pushed for it as president two decades ago.

Stephen Miller, senior policy adviser to the Trump campaign, said Hillary Clinton “will never renegotiate Bill Clinton’s NAFTA.”

The Trump campaign adviser said, “You can be certain when she was personally getting paid millions and millions by Wall Street and big banks to deliver secret speeches she wasn’t breathing a word against globalist trade pacts.”

NAFTA, which eliminated most tariffs on trade between the United States, Mexico and Canada, was promoted as a way to support economic growth by eliminating barriers to trade. Opponents say it has robbed Americans of jobs because it makes it easy for U.S. companies to move operations to Mexico where wages are much lower.

Williams said he hopes that an updated treaty would help foster stronger worker unions in Mexico, where many auto manufacturers have factories.

“She told us all that,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in an interview, referring to Clinton’s assurances to labor unions that she would rework NAFTA.

The AFL-CIO, a federation of unions which includes the UAW, stayed neutral during the Democratic primary but endorsed Clinton in June once it was clear she would become the party’s nominee. The UAW endorsed Clinton in May.

Williams said that support among UAW members for a Trump presidency has fallen to about 19% from 28% last year, before Trump said that new automotive industry jobs could be placed in states without strong union support at lower wages than those earned by UAW members.

Summary: He met with Clinton one-on-one prior to his union's endorsement of her in May.


Golfâs four majors were each captured this season by a player who earned his first major title, including Jimmy Walker, above, at the P.G.A. Championship.

Four first-time major champions last combined to capture golfâs top titles in 2011, perhaps the start of the post-Tiger Woods era. But all the fresh faces have failed to command the sport.

Summary: Find breaking news, multimedia and golf news on the players, PGA and LPGA, results, schedules, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the British Open, money leaders and statistics.


WASHINGTON, July 28— The months since the Senate Ethics Committee opened investigations into five Senators' intervention with Federal regulators on behalf of a savings and loan executive have created a climate of caution, very nervous caution, in Congress.

The allegations of influence peddling on the part of the four Democrats and one Republican, known as the Keating Five, have left lawmakers so worried about how their motives will be perceived that many are afraid to respond to even routine requests from constituents. Such requests include contacting the Internal Revenue Service with a question on why a case was not resolved, or writing to the Small Business Administration to promote the merits of a loan guarantee to a local enterprise.

The House and Senate ethics manuals now rival the guide to Washington lobbyists as the hottest paperbacks in the Congressional stationery offices; the staffs of the ethics committees and outside lawyers are inundated with requests for opinions on matters like whether they can safely meet face to face with Federal regulators they have known for years.

In recent days, many lawmakers have been weighing whether to return campaign contributions from donors who might be considered problematic. For example, Senator Tim Wirth is a Democrat from Colorado, where the bankrupt Silverado Banking, Savings and Loan Association - which included Neil Bush, the President's son, among its directors - was based. Mr. Wirth, who is not under investigation, is returning $98,950 he has accepted from savings and loan interests in the last 10 years.

In the separate deliberations this week in the House and Senate to rebuke Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Senator Dave Durenberger, Republican of Minnesota, for very different kinds of ethical misconduct, more than one lawmaker observed that the chambers had been under closer scrutiny in recent months.

But despite the anxious behavior, it is far from clear that politicians have changed the way they do business in any fundamental way. Senators and representatives are more reliant than ever on contributors to their re-election drives; most still accept speaking fees and are as accessible as always to lobbyists.

Some argue that what appears to be a new sensitivity in Congress over ethical matters is nothing more than an overreaction - and one that works to the detriment of what public officials were elected to do: help constituents.

''I think members are intimidated and afraid to chat with members of the bureaucracy for fear that they'll be criticized in the press,'' Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, said recently. Some of his colleagues, he said, are ''scared to death'' to make simple inquiries with Federal agencies for their constituents, and one confided to him, ''I'm not going to put myself on the line knowing that they're going to blast me.''

Congressional ethics rules provide no clear distinction between legitimate service for constituents and improper meddling, and this has led to serious soul-searching.

''I've been advising members, at a more accelerated rate, about how they ought to conduct themselves,'' said Robert H. Michel, the House Republican leader. ''I've said: 'I don't know how many more pictures I've got to paint for you. We've got rules and we've got rules. If you want to protect yourself, keep yourself well inside the parameters.'

''There's a real fine line between being an ombudsman for your district with some Federal agency and really leaning on them. Where is that doggone fine line?'' Emphasizing his last point, Mr. Michel grabbed his questioner tightly by the collar.

Katherine A. Corigliano, assistant executive secretary for ethics at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, says her office is getting many more calls and letters from Congressional offices about what were once considered routine actions. ''Some of the correspondence may be a little too picky,'' she said, ''but I don't think it's overkill.''

Stephen J. Verdier, a lobbyist for the Independent Bankers Association of America, described as ''a self-defense mechanism'' the logs that Federal agencies that supervise savings and loans were directed to keep on their contacts from Capitol Hill. The directive was made last August by the chairmen of the House and Senate Banking Committees, Representative Henry B. Gonzalez, a Texas Democrat, and Senator Donald W. Riegle Jr., a Michigan Democrat who is one of the Keating Five.

But, Mr. Verdier said, there is little chance the logs would turn up the sort of behavior found in the Keating Five case.

''There's a hell of a difference,'' he said, ''between a staff person calling up a regulatory agency as against five Senators sitting down in a room and calling in the head of an agency and asking him what's going on.''

Mr. Riegle and four other Senators -John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and Alan Cranston of California, Dennis DeConcini of Arizona and John Glenn of Ohio, all Democrats - were involved in two meetings with regulators of the savings and loan industry on behalf of Charles H. Keating Jr., the owner of the failed Lincoln Savings and Loan Association of Irvine, Calif. and a heavy campaign contributor.

Summary: LEAD: The months since the Senate Ethics Committee opened investigations into five Senators' intervention with Federal regulators on behalf of a savings and loan executive have created a climate of caution, very nervous caution, in Congress.


A graduate school application can go sour in as many ways as a blind date. The personal essay might seem too eager, the references too casual. The admissions officer on duty might be nursing a grudge. Or a hangover.

Rachel Riskind of Austin, Tex., nonetheless has a good feeling about her chances for admittance to the University of Michigan’s exclusive graduate program in psychology, and it’s not just a matter of her qualifications.

On a recent afternoon, as she was working on the admissions application, she went out for lunch with co-workers. Walking from the car to the restaurant in a misting rain, she saw a woman stroll by with a Michigan umbrella.

“I felt it was a sign; you almost never see Michigan stuff here,” said Ms. Riskind, 22. “And I guess I think that has given me a kind of confidence. Even if it’s a false confidence, I know that that in itself can help people do well.”

Psychologists and anthropologists have typically turned to faith healers, tribal cultures or New Age spiritualists to study the underpinnings of belief in superstition or magical powers. Yet they could just as well have examined their own neighbors, lab assistants or even some fellow scientists. New research demonstrates that habits of so-called magical thinking — the belief, for instance, that wishing harm on a loathed colleague or relative might make him sick — are far more common than people acknowledge.

These habits have little to do with religious faith, which is much more complex because it involves large questions of morality, community and history. But magical thinking underlies a vast, often unseen universe of small rituals that accompany people through every waking hour of a day.

The appetite for such beliefs appears to be rooted in the circuitry of the brain, and for good reason. The sense of having special powers buoys people in threatening situations, and helps soothe everyday fears and ward off mental distress. In excess, it can lead to compulsive or delusional behavior. This emerging portrait of magical thinking helps explain why people who fashion themselves skeptics cling to odd rituals that seem to make no sense, and how apparently harmless superstition may become disabling.

The brain seems to have networks that are specialized to produce an explicit, magical explanation in some circumstances, said Pascal Boyer, a professor of psychology and anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis. In an e-mail message, he said such thinking was “only one domain where a relevant interpretation that connects all the dots, so to speak, is preferred to a rational one.”

Children exhibit a form of magical thinking by about 18 months, when they begin to create imaginary worlds while playing. By age 3, most know the difference between fantasy and reality, though they usually still believe (with adult encouragement) in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. By age 8, and sometimes earlier, they have mostly pruned away these beliefs, and the line between magic and reality is about as clear to them as it is for adults.

It is no coincidence, some social scientists believe, that youngsters begin learning about faith around the time they begin to give up on wishing. “The point at which the culture withdraws support for belief in Santa and the Tooth Fairy is about the same time it introduces children to prayer,” said Jacqueline Woolley, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas. “The mechanism is already there, kids have already spent time believing that wishing can make things come true, and they’re just losing faith in the efficacy of that.”

If the tendency to think magically were no more than self-defeating superstition, then over the pitiless history of human evolution it should have all but disappeared in intellectually mature adults.

Yet in a series of experiments published last summer, psychologists at Princeton and Harvard showed how easy it was to elicit magical thinking in well-educated young adults. In one instance, the researchers had participants watch a blindfolded person play an arcade basketball game, and visualize success for the player. The game, unknown to the subjects, was rigged: the shooter could see through the blindfold, had practiced extensively and made most of the shots.

On questionnaires, the spectators said later that they had probably had some role in the shooter’s success. A comparison group of participants, who had been instructed to visualize the player lifting dumbbells, was far less likely to claim such credit.

In another experiment, the researchers demonstrated that young men and women instructed on how to use a voodoo doll suspected that they might have put a curse on a study partner who feigned a headache. And they found, similarly, that devoted fans who watched the 2005 Super Bowl felt somewhat responsible for the outcome, whether their team won or lost. Millions in Chicago and Indianapolis are currently trying to channel the winning magic.

“The question is why do people create this illusion of magical power?” said the lead author, Emily Pronin, an assistant professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton. “I think in part it’s because we are constantly exposed to our own thoughts, they are most salient to us” — and thus we are likely to overestimate their connection to outside events.

The brain, moreover, has evolved to make snap judgments about causation, and will leap to conclusions well before logic can be applied. In an experiment presented last fall at the Society for Neuroscience meeting, Ben Parris of the University of Exeter in England presented magnetic resonance imaging scans taken from the brains of people watching magic tricks. In one, the magician performed a simple sleight of hand: he placed a coin in his palm, closed his fingers over it, then opened his hand to reveal that the coin was gone.

Dr. Parris and his colleagues found spikes of activity in regions of the left hemisphere of the brain that usually become engaged when people form hypotheses in uncertain situations.

These activations occur so quickly, other researchers say, that they often link two events based on nothing more than coincidence: “I was just thinking about looking up my high school girlfriend when out of the blue she called me,” or, “The day after I began praying for a quick recovery, she emerged from the coma.”

Summary: Scientists are trying to figure out why even the skeptics among us cling to lucky numbers, special game-day clothing and other odd rituals.


Nasa has revealed that there are oases of water-rich soil that could possiblyÂ sustain astronauts living in an outpostÂ on the Moon.

Scientists from the US space agency found 155 litres of water afterÂ analysingÂ a plume of debris that was created when they deliberately crashed a rocket into the lunar surface last year.

Reports published in Science magazine on Friday show that a large amount of water in the form of ice, as well asÂ carbon monoxide, ammonia and silvery metals, were found near the south pole of the Moon following the crash on October 9, 2009.

The estimate represents only what scientists can see from the debris plume and it isÂ almost twice as much as researchers had initially measured.

Morris Jones, a space analyst based in Australia, told Al Jazeera that the amount of water found is more thanÂ scientists ever expected.

"It's beyond our wildest expectations," he said.

"There is so much water that we feel pretty confident that we can go there, live there, build bases there and help the Moon become a permanent outpost for humanity."'Treasure chest'

Proof that the Moon is not a dry, desolate world offers hope for a possible future astronaut outpost where water on site could be used for drinking or making rocket fuel.

"This place looks like it's a treasure chest of elements, of compounds that have been released all over the Moon and they've been put in this bucket in the permanent shadows," Peter Schultz, a planetary geologistÂ at Brown University, said in a statement.

Mission chief scientist Anthony Colaprete, of the Nasa Ames Research Center, calculates there could beÂ one billion gallons of water in the CabeusÂ crater, the area that the spacecraft hit,Â enough to fill 1,500 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

"The resources are there and potentially useable for future missions,'' he said,Â adding there could be more such craters at both the Moon's poles.

However, Mission scientist Kurt Retherford of the Southwest Research Institute in Texas, thinks the discovery of mercury could pose a challenge for any human settlers because of its toxicity.

But Colaprete said there were ways around the mercury dilemma.

"Just like we use filters on Earth to make sure our drinking water is clean, we will do the same on the moon. We can distill or purify it," he said.

How the compounds became trapped in the crater, among the coldest places in the solar system, is unclear.

One theory is that they came from comets and asteroids, which pounded the lunar surface billions of years ago, and later drifted to the poles.

Apollo astronauts previously found traces of silver and gold in lunar samples facing the Earth. Specks of silver in the frigid polar crater are "not going to start the next 'silver rush' to the moon,"Â Schultz said.

But the scientists' excitement is tempered by the political reality that there's no plan by the United States to land on the moon anytime soon.

LCROSS, the mission that sent the rocket to crash into the moon,Â was originally hatched as a robotic mission before a future human trip. That was before Congress approved a blueprint last month for Nasa that shifts the focus from a manned moon landing, as outlined under George Bush, the former president, in favour of sending astronauts to near-Earth asteroids and eventually Mars.

A return to the Moon could potentially be a way-station, something still to be decided, but the Moon will not be an overall goal.

Source:Â Al Jazeera and agencies

Summary: Ice found in debris created after spacecraft collided with Moon could sustain an outpost for astronauts on the surface.


A week after a Brooklyn Heights apartment building went on the market pitching itself as a $22 million single-family home, another former rental building in the neighborhood is listing as an $18 million mansion.

Previously divided into seven units, the approximately 7,750-square-foot Willow Street townhouse is being converted into a single-family home, according to listing agent Terry Naini of Town Residential. Developer Shahrzad Khayami of AscentSeven purchased the house, located in the Brooklyn Heights Historic...

Summary: Previously a seven-unit building, the Willow Street townhouse in Brooklyn Heights is being converted by developer Shahrzad Khayami into a seven-bedroom home with wine room and meditation room.


Its three-course Thanksgiving offering includes a range of American-themed bites: Maryland crab cakes and Missouri-rubbed rack of lamb and a slow cooked organic turkey. There will also be Thanksgiving-themed cocktails on offer including warm Pumpkin Rum Fun, Wild Turkey (made with bourbon and champagne) and the non-alcoholic Sweet Home Caramella.

Christopher's in London Photo: christophersgrill.com

The Shoreditch bar restaurant is offering an “East London take on the traditional Thanksgiving grub”, with dishes including turkey schnitzel bashed sweet potato, chili brisket bowl with cornbread, corn fritters, candied beets and collard greens.

Enjoy live retro soul and blues tunes along with a traditional Thanksgiving meal at the Camden branch of the American-themed barbecue and burger restaurant.

The original New York branch of this French brasserie and bakery is set in Manhattan's upscale SoHo neighbourhood. The celebrity favourite was one of the hardest places to get a reservation for after opening. Its London branch is offering a Thanksgiving-themed menu which includes spiced butternut squash soup, traditional roast turkey and pumpkin cheesecake along with a gingerbread fizz cocktail.

Balthazar in London Photo: balthazarlondon.com

Run by the former chef at the Ivy, the Camden venue is serving a one-off Thanksgiving menu featuring roasted pumpkin soup, spiced corn bread, roast turkey with truffled macaroni and cheese and chocolate, pumpkin and pecan tart.

The London branch of the US steakhouse will be serving classic Thanksgiving dishes from squash soup to turkey as well as duck fat roasted root vegetables, plus pumpkin, apple or pecan pie served with vanilla ice cream for pudding.

• US ski resorts that are open for Thanksgiving

The diner style restaurant serving American comfort food and cocktails are offering a four-day long Thanksgiving-themed menu from November 26 at both its Kensington and Soho locations. Dishes include fried chicken with “all the dirty trimmings” such as jalapeno corn bread muffins, creamy macaroni and cheese, collard greens and rosemary fries with sage gravy.

Last chance to enter our Thanksgiving #Competition // Hit the link to enter https://t.co/N7NV2Bxq4K // #DirtyFeast pic.twitter.com/tegSNwbhPI

The city’s “definitive barbecue and lobster shack” , inspired by those seen along the Gulf Coast of America in the 19th century, has been serving “good ol’ home style food" for 22 years since its first branched opened on Kings Road. Its Canary Wharf branch is offering Thanksgiving –themed dishes including butternut squash soup, pit smoked turkey with “Grandma Emma’s spirited apple cranberry chutney” and “the best green bean casserole ever”, as well as a "Lobster Feast" option.

The Lobster Feast offering at the Big Easy in Canary Wharf Photo: The Big Easy

This New Orleans-inspired supper club serving “ lip smackin’ soul food” is offering a Louisiana-style "Big Easy Thanksgiving" menu including deep fried turkey, glazed roast ham with cornbread stuffing and truffled brussel sprouts and “fancy green beans” along side festive cocktails, hot toddies and “the best darn live Dixieland music this side of the Mississippi”.

• Top 10: The best New York hotels for Thanksgiving

The favourite of Hackney locals, Verden and Rita’s, is presenting a pop-up “All-American three course feast” featuring roast and confit turkey, brown butter sweet potato greens and pumpkin pie, along with some of the best US craft beer and wine.

Soho Ski Terrace Photo: courthouse-hotel.com

Enjoy a Thanksgiving-themed menu, including turkey sliders with cranberry relish and sweet potato fries with spicy buffalo sauce, at the Soho Ski Terrace rooftop venue at the Courthouse Hotel. The pop-up venue features a retro vibe inspired by ski chalets of the Fifties, with candle-lit lanterns, and retro ski posters, and is open until March.

Summary: The best London restaurants for Thanksgiving 2015, in Covent Garden, Shoreditch and Soho - plus the dishes that make up the traditional menu


By contrast, HMRC's most recent figures for a busy period suggested in March the average waiting time was 14 minutes 22 seconds.

The delays could cause problems for those preparing to file tax returns ahead of the online January 31 deadline.

Experts predicted chaos this week after The Daily Telegraph revealed that more than a million wealthier individuals will be asked to use a new "digital accounts", as opposed to the normal forms.

Richard Lloyd, executive director of Which, said: "Our findings show how difficult it is to get through to HMRC's helplines. With many people soon to be seeking advice on their self-assessment tax return, HMRC must continue to work hard to improve."

HMRC claimed Which?'s figures were "out of date". It said service levels had "significantly improved in recent months", reducing average queue times to six minutes ahead of the January rush.

Nearly one in five of the calls put in by Which? were not answered within an hour. Not one call made by the consumer group was answered within 15 minutes.

Before 2pm, the average wait was 28 minutes, between 2pm and 6pm it was 49 minutes and after 6pm the average wait was 61 minutes. The longest wait was an hour and 16 minutes.

MPs have warned that millions of people may be filling in tax returns incorrectly because cannot speak to an adviser.

Around 12 million calls went unanswered in the first six months of the year - around half the total.

Citizens Advice analysed social media platform Twitter - a popular place to vent gripes - and found 11,500 posts in a year, complaining of an 47 minutes wait on average.

Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice, said people were "paying the price" for not getting through, suffering fines for late tax returns or under-payinng.

"In the future there will be less need to call as people will be able to do much more online through digital accounts, just as they do with online banking"

HMRC has recruited 3,000 new customer service staff and said it would be "putting even more people on our phone lines over the next few weeks" ahead of the self-assessment deadline.

Under plans to phase out annual tax returns, people will be able to see an online account showing their tax record, which they can update at any time.

"In the future there will be less need to call as people will be able to do much more online through digital accounts, just as they do with online banking," HMRC said.

Separately, the tax office has estimated that £16 billion a year of tax fraud is lost in cyber attacks and smuggling every year.

The figure, contained in a report by spending watchdog the National Audit Office, makes up almost half of the total £34 billion tax gap - the difference between the revenue that should be collected each year and the amount actually received.

Meg Hillier, chairman of the public accounts committee, said: "HMRC clearly needs to think harder about how it tackles tax evasion, the hidden economy and criminal attacks."

Summary: Delay is twice as long as last year and almost three times official estimates


Can U.S. banks lend their way out of trouble?

Investors can only hope. Second-quarter bank-earnings season kicks off with J.P. Morgan Chase reporting Thursday, followed by Wells Fargo and Citigroup on Friday. In the wake of the U.K.’s Brexit vote, investors aren’t focused so much on the three-month period ended in June, but what comes after.

And the backdrop isn’t good. Expectations of another interest-rate increase by the...

Summary: Strong loan growth will help U.S. banks get through tough times.