It is well, nay, essential for the progress of the race, that the houses of some should be homes for all that is highest and best in literature and the arts, rather than that none should be so. Much better this great irregularity than universal squalor.

Andrew Carnegie, Wealth, 1889 PEOPLE magazine immortalized his Massachusetts homestead. Money is doing his finances. He has peered out of the pages of both Time and Newsweek, been profiled by the Washington Post, and cross-examined by both Bill Buckley and 60 Minutes. When the restless eye of the media decides to focus, there is no fooling around.

The object of all this publicity is a 41-year-old writer named George Gilder, an unlikely literary lion whose new book, ''Wealth and Poverty,'' has been embraced by Washington with a warmth not seen since the Kennedys adopted John Kenneth Galbraith.

This latest marriage of power and the pen has been blessed by President Reagan, who has given copies of the book to friends. William J. Casey, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, said the book would ''serve as an inspiration and guide for the new Administration.'' And David A. Stockman, the President's budget adviser, proclaimed the book ''Promethean'' in power and insight.

''Wealth and Poverty'' has already sold some 135,000 copies, making it one of Basic Books's hottest items ever. Mr. Gilder attributes its success to Mr. Stockman, ''for editing and selling it.'' The young head of the Office of Management and Budget planned to give a copy to each of the 15 members of the new Reagan Cabinet before the press conference introducing them. (The writer's promotional dream turned nightmare when Basic Books failed to deliver the books in time. The publisher did manage to bill Mr. Gilder later for the copies and for mailing.)

Not everyone, of course, is so excited about the new prophet of the New Right. Liberal critics tend to use words like ''loopy,'' ''crackpot,'' and ''nut'' when describing Mr. Gilder and his theories, and even among Washington Republicans not all is adulation.

In 1976, a brief fling at speech-writing for Vice Presidential candidate Robert J. Dole ended abruptly when Mr. Gilder walked into Mr. Dole's hotel suite to find his first speech scattered all over the floor and the candidate muttering ''Bad, bad, bad.''

And early this year, when Mr. Gilder was asked to help write President Reagan's economic message to Congress, some of his prose found its way into the first draft, but was quickly excised by top aides who thought it overwrought.

Most critics have described ''Wealth and Poverty'' as an emotional, though often eloquent, rehash of the supply-side economic theories originated by Arthur Laffer, the economist, and Jude Wanniski, an economic consultant. (The Gilders' Norwegian elkhound is named ''Laffer,'' and his tail is ''the Laffer curve.'') But the economics comes in an ideological fruitcake that many find hard to swallow.

The book's success has startled even its publisher. (Mr. Gilder's previous book, ''Visible Man,'' a two-year study of poverty, sold little more than 500 copies.) For better or worse, ''Wealth and Poverty'' has struck a chord.

Not since the Gilded Age of the late 1800's has anyone advanced so enthusiastic an endorsement of capitalism and capitalists. At a time when even free enterprise's champions limit themselves to two cheers for capitalism, George Gilder has written an unabashed prose hymn to making money.

Like Andrew Carnegie and the Horatio Alger heroes, Mr. Gilder believes that the finest thing a man can do for society is to accumulate wealth. Fortunes, in his view, are acquired by providing desired goods and services, and are spent on new entrepreneurial ventures, the engines that generate growth and general prosperity in the future. Pursuit of one's own material self-interest is a force for social good.

The capitalist instinct is itself a moral one, Mr. Gilder writes. The entrepreneurial act rests on faith, courageous risk-taking, and an ''altruism'' that calls forth investments, or ''gifts,'' without an assured return.

Mr. Gilder is out to refute not only capitalism's critics, but such ''prophets of ambivalent capitalism'' as Daniel Bell, Irving Kristol, and Aleksander Solzhenitsyn.

IN the National Review a week or two ago, Mr. Kristol fired back, denouncing the ''pseudo-anthropological analysis'' underlying Mr. Gilder's economic theories. ''Successful commercial activity is often connected to such virtues as diligence, trustworthiness, prudence,'' Mr. Kristol acknowledged, but such virtues as charity or patriotic self-sacrifice are ignored. ''A purely commercial code of ethics does not enable us to cope with those all too many instances when circumstances conspire to ruin us, regardless of our virtuous practices. Life is unfair.''

Liberal economists, like Lester Thurow of M.I.T., are blunter. ''This thing about becoming wealthy and you'll serve the public good is crazy and naive,'' he said. Most people become rich not because they provide goods and services, but because they own oil or land, ''or because they are lucky,'' he said.


The editor of The Stamford (Conn.) Advocate says that an off-therecord conversation he had with a reporter he dismissed last week had ''confirmed for me that the information we had published'' about the reporter's relationship with a suspect in the Oct. 20 Brink's armored-car holdup ''was inaccurate.''

The newspaper had quoted the reporter, Rita Jensen, as having said she did not know the true identity of her roommate, Katherine Boudin, before Miss Boudin, a member of the Weather Underground, was arrested in the $1.6 million robbery at the Nanuet Mall in Rockland County, N.Y., in which two Nyack police officers and a Brink's guard were slain.

Kenneth H. Brief, the executive editor of The Advocate, said Miss Jensen talked with him off the record a week and a half after the robbery. He said he was questioning her about her contention that she had known her roommate only as ''Lynn Adams'' and had learned her real name only through news accounts of the holdup.

Miss Jensen's lawyer, Michael B. Mukasey, said neither he nor she would have any comment on Mr. Brief's assertion. He also declined to comment on whether Miss Jensen had told investigators what, if anything, she knew about Miss Boudin and her activities involving other members of the Weather Underground. Miss Boudin and three others are being held in $250,000 bail on charges of murder, robbery and assault.

Mr. Mukasey said, however, that ''when the facts come out,'' the dismissal of the 35-year-old investigative reporter ''will be shown to have been totally unjustified.''

The editor said he insisted on the unusual off-the-record conversation about 10 days after the holdup because ''it was important for me to know what she knew.'' In common journalistic practice, information received off the record cannot be used or disclosed to anyone else. Mr. Brief said he was not violating those terms.

In an article Monday, The Advocate said Miss Jensen had been dismissed three days earlier because she had ''allowed'' the newspaper to publish inaccurate information, thereby affecting the integrity of the paper.

Also on Monday, Newsday, the Long Island daily, reported that sources ''knowledgeable about the case'' said Miss Jensen had known Miss Boudin's identity before the robbery. It did not document that assertion.

Both Newsday and The Advocate are owned by the Los Angeles-based Times-Mirror Company. Anthony Insolia, the editor of Newsday, said the description of the sources ''was not an attempt to cover up some highly placed individual within the organization.''

Mr. Brief, Mr. Insolia and other editors and reporters said the case posed highly unusual questions of journalistic practice. ''It's a situation where there are no rules, no guidelines, no policies,'' Mr. Brief said.

Virtually all of two dozen journalists interviewed said that if Miss Jensen had discovered Miss Boudin's identity during the 21 months the women shared an apartment, she would have had a duty as a reporter to tell her newspaper. ''A reporter is a reporter 24 hours a day,'' said Robert Haiman, the executive editor of The St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, in a typical comment.

''Otherwise they would be in a position of covering up something,'' said Jerry Uhrhammer, the president of a group of investigative editors and reporters. The journalists said that even though the Federal fugitive warrant against Miss Boudin had been dropped before she met Miss Jensen, her life underground since a fatal 1970 explosion at a Greenwich Village town house would be newsworthy.

Two younger reporters, however, said they had on occasion withheld from their papers newsworthy information -such as the identities of friends involved in destroying Selective Service files. The two, who declined to be identified, said they felt their personal lives were separate from their reportorial careers.


MONTREAL, May 4— Premier Rene Levesque's Parti Quebecois will decide next month whether to enter candidates in Canadian federal elections for the first time, a party spokesman said today. The party's national council will discuss the issue on June 12 and 13 in Hull, near Ottawa.

The party's long-term aim is independence for Quebec, Canada's sole mainly French-speaking province. A key issue is the party's decision will be whether its belief in secession would be compromised by fielding national candidates.

The next federal elections must be held before early 1985. The party's aim in entering them would be to cut the parliamentary majority of Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau's Liberal party, which relies heavily on its Quebec seats, and oust him from power.

Quebec voters put Liberals in 74 of the 75 Quebec seats at the last national election two years ago.


CAIRO, Jan. 13— Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr. said today that he had obtained President Hosni Mubarak's agreement for an intensified effort in coming months to achieve a breakthrough in the negotiations with Israel on Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

In a 90-minute meeting at Mr. Mubarak's office in Oruba Palace, Mr. Haig was reported to have said that the United States believed Egypt and Israel had spent enough time over the last 20 months inconclusively discussing the issues and that he was ready to give his attention to helping them accelerate their efforts for an agreement.

Kamal Hassan Ali, Egypt's Foreign Minister, told reporters later, ''Our view is that we welcome the participation of Secretary Haig in the process because we feel that it will push forward the negotiations for the autonomy.'' Haig to Meet With Begin

Mr. Haig flies to Israel on Thursday to confer with Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir on their reaction to his plans for pushing the negotiations forward. Assuming that the Israelis agree, Mr. Haig must then decide whether to devote a considerable part of his time in the near future to Middle East negotiations or whether he will appoint a special negotiator to do most of the work, with Mr. Haig giving instructions from Washington.

Mr. Haig told reporters that he had received ''the very firm and clear commitment of President Mubarak to intensify our efforts in the period ahead to achieve progress on autonomy and to work in concert for broadening the peace process with a view toward a lasting, just peace in the region.''

He said he hoped ''to achieve a greater momentum with the results of a breakthrough in the period ahead.'' Accord on Principles Sought

The Israelis and Egyptians have been negotiating to draw up a broadly worded declaration of principles that would outline the duties and responsibilities of a so-called self-governing authority that would be elected by the Palestinians living in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Both areas have been occupied by Israel since the 1967 war.

Israel and Egypt have been in fundamental disagreement since the negotiations began in May 1979. The chief obstacle arises from differing interpretations of the self-governing authority itself.

The Egyptians believe that this body should have about 120 members and should have administrative, legislative and judicial authority for running the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The Israelis, concerned that this might lead to more independence than they are willing to concede, want the body about 15 members who would have only administrative responsibility.

The Israelis are scheduled to complete their withdrawal from Sinai on April 25 and the Americans believe that in the three months before then there is an opportunity for more active negotiations.

The Egyptians and Israelis also disagree on future security arrangements for the Palestinian are a, with the Egyptians wanting theIsraeli milit ary and police presence and duties to be very limited. There is also a major difference over whether East Jerusalem should be included a s part of the West Bank and its Arab residents permittedto vote for t he ruling authority.

The Egyptians contend that since East Jerusalem, like the West Bank, was controlled by Jordan before 1967, it should be treated in the same way as the rest of the West Bank. The Israelis, having annexed East Jerusalem, have refused to include it in the negotiations and have said that Arab residents should not be allowed to vote in the West Bank negotiations.

Following Mr. Haig's meeting with Mr. Mubarak, American and Egyptian officials met to review in detail the Egyptian position on the issues so that Mr. Haig would have a clear idea of where Cairo stood. The Americans will do the same with the Israelis, officials accompanying Mr. Haig said. There is no intention on this trip, they said, to introduce any new American plan, although American suggestions for compromises have already been submitted.

Both Mr. Haig and Egyptian officials said there was no intention to set a deadline or target date for concluding the negotiations, and Egyptian officials went out of their way to say they felt no particular sense of urgency.

The United States would like to show progress in the autonomy negotiations to demonstrate to Saudi Arabia and Jordan that it takes seriously the possibility of carrying out the Camp David accords, despite Saudi and Jordanian skepticism. ---- Israeli Rules Out 'Concessions'

JERUSALEM, Jan. 13 (Reuters) -Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir said today that Israel was not prepared to make any ''further concessions'' in negotiations on autonomy for Palestinians in the occupied areas.

He also said at a meeting of Parliament's Foreign Affairs and Security Committee that as far as Israel was concerned the question of East Jerusalem was closed. In 1980, Israel declared that all Jerusalem, including the Arab eastern sector captured in the 1967 Middle East war, was its capital.

Mr. Shamir rejected a suggestion by former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of the opposition Labor Party that the Government allow Arab residents of East Jerusalem to vote in elections for an administrative council in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

''Such suggestions cannot influence the Government, but they do impair Israel's image abroad,'' the Foreign Minister said. ''There is no room for further concessions,'' he declared. ''As far as we are concerned, the matter of East Jerusalem is closed, and we have advised Egypt and the United States to this effect.''

Mr. Shamir also told the committee that the security situation in southern Lebanon would be high on the agenda in talks with Mr Haig. He said Israel would stress that the situation along its border with Lebanon was ''unbearable.''

Illustrations: photo of Hosni Mubarak and Haig in Cairo (page A4)


Europe’s favorite–well, most-used–airline continues to go from strength to strength, raising its profit forecast for the year and downplaying a looming price war.

Ireland-based Ryanair Plc RYAOF said Tuesday it now expects to turn a profit of around 955 million euros ($1.04 billion) in the year to March 2016, 10% more than in fiscal 2015, on a strong response from business and family customers to its efforts to be nicer to them.

Ryanair’s traffic rose 11% in its fiscal 2015 year, as its load factor (the proportion of seats sold relative to total seats offered) rose to 88% from 83%. The company expects that to rise to 90% this year. It said much of the improvement was down to its new Business Plus and Family Extra services, which were introduced to take some of the pain out of its notoriously poor customer experience, which combined a minimum of frills with a maximum of add-on charges.

The company had warned that it might be vulnerable to a price war from its competitors after it locked in its fuel costs for the current year before the collapse in oil prices at the end of 2014. That means that other airlines who either hedged later or didn’t hedge at all are paying much less for a key input.

Ryanair has done a lot better at hedging the cost of new aircraft, generally priced in dollars, having locked in dollar/euro rates for the next three years well above what the market is expecting.

Aside from its financial report, the Irish company, which has made a habit of getting under the skin of European authorities with accusations that they protect vested interests, took a fresh swing at the U.K.’s antitrust regulator Tuesday for its “manifestly erroneous” pressure on the company to cut its 29.8% stake in Aer Lingus, Ireland’s legacy flag carrier.

The Competition and Markets Authority is afraid of Ryanair monopolizing routes between Ireland and the U.K.. International Airlines Group, the parent company of British Airways, has been trying to buy Aer Lingus since last year, albeit less for the sake of making money in Ireland, than in increasing its dominance of London’s overcrowded Heathrow airport by snapping up its 23 landing slots.

The CMA had argued that no other company would bid for Aer Lingus as long as Ryanair held such a large stake, a view subsequently disproved by IAG’s approach.

Never one to refuse a tilt at windmills, Ryanair inevitably has a suggestion on how the U.K. should solve its politically-explosive problem with increasing airport capacity around London: simply let market forces decide.

Given the level of noise and air pollution from Heathrow and its two smaller rivals at Gatwick and Stansted, and given the issue’s impact on dozens of tightly-fought electoral districts in and around the capital, the chances of that happening (even under a notionally pro-business Conservative government) is pretty close to zero.

Summary: Company says improved family and business traffic will protect it from looming price war.


The NHL's free-agency period opens in one month, but there still is no clarity from the Coyotes on a pair of intriguing forwards who were drafted in the same year: Mikkel Boedker and Viktor Tikhonov.

Jarrett Bousquet, the agent for Boedker said this weekend that talks with GM Don Maloney have remained positive with plenty of "back and forth on numbers and term," but he added that progress has been slow.

"I think there is a deal to be made," Bousquet said via text. "We have some time before the market resets so we will see what happens in the near future."

Bousquet said he hopes to meet with Maloney at the NHL Scouting Combine, which runs today through Saturday in Buffalo.

On a more ominous note, the agent for Viktor Tikhonov, the Coyotes' secondfirst-round pick in 2008 (after Boedker), said he expects his client to test the free-agent waters on July 1, rather than reaching a deal with the Coyotes in the 30-day period they have between today (when Tikhonov's KHL contract expired) and July 1, when he can become an unrestricted free agent.

"We will watch how teams shape up their rosters through June and entry-draft trades," Tikhonov's agent, Thomas Lynn, said via text. "The Coyotes are certainly on the list, but I have been pleasantly surprised by the degree of initial interest. Besides, Vik's strong year, the UFA market shaping up and a low (salary) cap seem to be helping him."

Tikhonov had eight goals and 16 assists in 49 games for SKA St. Petersburg, which won its first Kontinental Hockey League title in April. After playing 61 games with the Coyotes in 2008-09 (eight goals, 16 points), Tikhonov, 27, spent the following two seasons with the club's AHL affiliate in San Antonio before returning to Russia when he couldn't reach an agreement with the Coyotes. He has spent the last four seasons with SKA Saint Petersburg.

The Coyotes do have interest in signing Tikhonov, but it's doubtful they will get into a bidding war. Maloney said at the end of the season that it was possible Tikhonov could return to the KHL if he got a large offer, but Lynn said Monday that the KHL is not an option.

RESTRICTED FREE AGENTS (with last season's salary)

Mark Arcbello: $600,000 Mikkel Boedker: $2.8M Tye McGinn: $600,000 Craig Cunningham: $600,000 John Moore: $850,850 Brandon Gormley: $810,000 Klas Dahlbeck: $620,000 Louis Domingue: $550,000 Note: Restricted free agents must sign NHL contracts by Dec. 1 or they are not eligible to play in the NHL for the rest of the season.

*Viktor Tikhonov (pictured above, played in KHL) **Martin Erat: $2.25M B.J. Crombeen: $1.150M David Moss: $800,000 Justin Hodgman: $550,000 Andrew Campbell: $550,000

Greg Carey Mark Visentin Brendan Shinnimin Jordan Martinook Michael Lee Darian Dziurzynski Philip Lane Philip Samuelsson

David Leggio Alex Bolduc Patrick McNeill Dylan Reese Mike McKenna

* -- The Coyotes own Tikhonov's rights until July 1 ** -- Washington retained half of Erat's salary

As for Boedker, the Coyotes are playing a tricky game the more the negotiations drag. Boedker is a restricted free agent but can become unrestricted next season. It is believed his camp is looking for a long-term deal from the Coyotes, but if the negotiations end up going to salary arbitration, Boedker could sign a one-year deal and then walk next year.

Boedker's speed and skill epitomize the direction the NHL is taking and he could command a hefty price on the open market -- perhaps near $5 million a season.

Boedker was leading the team with 14 goals and had 28 points in 45 games last season and was on track to break his single-season season highs in both categories when he had surgery to remove his spleen in January after suffering an injury in a game at Winnipeg.

He had 19 goals and 51 points in 2013-14. He signed a two-year, $5.1 million deal two seasons ago as a restricted free agent.

The Coyotes have a number of other unrestricted and restricted free agents (see list). Of the prominent unrestricted free agents, it is unlikely that Martin Erat, B.J. Crombeen or Dave Moss will return, and it's doubtful that center Mark Arcobello is in the team's plan, although the Coyotes have a desperate need for centers.

On the restricted free-agent list, the Coyotes are expected to make offers to defenseman Klas Dahlbeck and John Moore and might look to retain forward Craig Cunningham as well. Moore's situation will be interesting. He is eligible for salary arbitration, and if that award rises too high -- perhaps in the $1.7 million per season range -- the Coyotes could choose to part ways.

The Coyotes will unveil their new home and away jerseys and uniforms for the upcoming 2015-16 season at their 2015 NHL Entry Draft party on June 26 from 3-7 p.m. at Gila River Arena.

Fans interested in pre-ordering the Coyotes' new home and away jerseys can place their order at the Coyotes Den on June 26. The new jerseys will be available for pick up at the Coyotes Den or to mail (for an additional charge) beginning on Sept. 17.

The Coyotes officially announced that John Chayka has signed a multi-year contract to serve as the team's assistant GM of analytics, while Chris O'Hearn has been promoted to assistant GM of hockey operations.

In addition, assistant GM Darcy Regier will serve as GM of the Springfield Falcons, the Coyotes' AHL affiliate.

"John brings a unique skill set to our management team and is an important addition to our staff," Maloney said in a statement. "Chris continues to expand his role in our hockey operations department and will play a key role moving forward."

Chayka, 25, will be involved in all areas of hockey operations including NHL, minor league and amateur player evaluation as well as player development and coaching support. Prior to joining the Coyotes, he co-founded and served as director of hockey operations at Stathletes Inc. since 2009. Stathletes is a hockey analytics firm that tracks data through an intensive video analysis process and breaks down the game to provide objective insight into player and team performance tendencies.

O'Hearn, 33, completed his eighth season with the Coyotes in 2014-15. As a member of Arizona's hockey operations management team, he is responsible for player contract research and negotiations, scheduling, salary arbitration, salary cap management as well as the evaluation of pro and amateur players. He also is involved with fiscal and strategic planning, compliance with the CBA and administration with the NHL's Central Registry as well as the day-to-day operations of the hockey department.

Follow Craig Morgan on Twitter

Summary: The agent for Coyotes restricted free agent Mikkel Boedker said contract talks have remained positive.


Poldark 9 p.m., WGBH 2

This new “Masterpiece” period drama, based on the novels by Winston Graham as well as a “Masterpiece Theatre” series from the mid-1970s, follows the dashing Ross Poldark back home to Cornwall after years fighting in the American Revolutionary War. Alas, his father is dead, his home is near ruin, and his true love is about to marry his cousin. The romance is thick and the scenery is awfully pretty in this light summer drama.

Forged in Fire 10 p.m., History

The specificity of reality shows increases, as the reality era drags on and new subjects must be found. This new series pits master bladesmiths against each other as they create weapons that harken back to the past. The first challenge: a Japanese katana sword.

Another Period 10:30 p.m., Comedy Central

“Downton Abbey” obsessives, this one may not be for you, unless you have a decidedly un-PBS-like bawdy sense of humor. The comedy is set in turn-of-the-20th-century Newport, R.I., and it follows a wealthy family of horrible narcissists and their exploited servants. The cast includes David Wain, Michael Ian Black, Brett Gelman, Kate Flannery (Meredith on “The Office”), Thomas Lennon, and — what’s this? — Christina Hendricks from “Mad Men.”

Mr. Robot 10 p.m., USA

Christian Slater gives TV another go, this time as the leader of an Anonymous-like hacker collective hoping to bring down corporate America. Rami Malek costars in the psychological thriller as a morphine-addicted cyber-security engineer who joins the group. Once the blue-sky network, home of lightly comic dramas, USA is redefining itself with darker series.

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia 10 and 10:30 p.m., Comedy Central

They’re back, and always welcome. In the season 10 premiere, the gang tries to break a legendary beer-drinking record. Pictured: Danny DeVito (left), Charlie Day, Kaitlin Olson.

In Performance at the White House 9 p.m., WGBH 2

Ready to be inspired? Robin Roberts hosts this celebration of gospel music, with the Obamas in the audience. Among the performers: Bishop Rance Allen, Pastor Shirley Caesar, Rodney Crowell, Aretha Franklin, Rhiannon Giddens, Emmylou Harris, Darlene Love, Lyle Lovett, Tamela Mann, and the Morgan State University Choir.

The Picture Of Dorian Gray8 p.m., TCM

I like this 1945 film, based on Oscar Wilde’s 1891 novel. It’s fantastically gothic. A Victorian man transfers his mortality onto a painting of himself, and while the image ages, he remains young. But alas, his soul is corrupt. Angela Lansbury was nominated for a supporting Oscar as the jilted dance-hall performer.

Summary: Critic Matthew Gilbert offers highlights of the week in television.


06/23/2015 AT 12:20 PM EDT

found herself in a hairy situation on Monday night.

The comedian reunited with fellow

and proceeded to pull off an impression of embattled former NAACP leader

, who has been widely criticized for passing herself off as African-American.

"I remember Tina [Fey] saying when Sarah Palin was happening, everyone kept saying ... her doorman's like, 'You gotta be Sarah Palin!' But it happens to me every day, people are like, 'Oh, it's too bad, you haven't been on

since 2007. You have to play this lady.' "

Shortly after, Rudolph haphazardly slapped on a wig from behind her chair. The

star, 42, and Meyers then re-enacted a news clip in which Dolezal dodges a reporter's questions on her racial identity.

airs July 8 at 9 p.m. ET on IFC.

Summary: The actress slapped on a wig for the funny spoof


So what does it feel like when your country goes bust? Can ordinary people carry on supporting their families and going about their lives?

We went to question-and-answer site Quora for some insight in to the hardships Greek citizens are facing.

Elena Alexi, a 23-year-old student, is about to graduate university, where she studied to be an electrical and computer engineer, but she sees no future for herself or her generation of young Greeks.

“I feel deeply disappointed, sad and hopeless,” she wrote. “I have always worked hard. You cannot make plans or have dreams while this situation is going on and on.”

She wrote that her parents are hardworking small business owners who have weathered the crisis for five years, but are now “not sure if they will be able to pay their employees' salaries and taxes”. Alexi had hoped to go abroad after her studies to gather knowledge and return to Greece to create a business of her own, she wrote. “These days, I don't know if we will have food in two weeks from now...” She added: “I guess, if this situation continues, the only way will be to become an immigrant, working hard to send money to my family.”

While the average income for Greek workers has fallen by at least 40%, civil engineer Georgios Bekas’ salary has been cut by more than 70%, due to the lack of opportunities for new construction in the country.

Entrepreneur Anestis Samourkasidis, is also managing on less and has seen his personal income halve. “While I can still feed my family -- and I feel good about that -- we find it difficult to go out, go on vacation or casually buy clothes or shoes.” Although Samourkasidis wrote that he‘s “one of the ‘lucky’ 2,500,000 Greeks still working, not one of the 1,500,000 unemployed”.

Twenty-year-old computer scientist Kostas Kirimis, wrote that the rich in Greece have become richer and middle income citizens “are on the verge of bankruptcy”. But the poorest are out on the streets, “there are homeless people almost everywhere in Athens,” he wrote.

Kirimis plans to move to another country in order to find a job. “Many students at my age can't go to their universities because they don't have money to pay for the rent.”

To comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Capital, please head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter.

Summary: Life among the financial ruins: Whatâs it really like to live in Greece right now? Greek citizens share their stories.


Penn & Teller: Fool Us 8 p.m., The CW

The famed prestidigitators return for a second season of sleight-of-hand shenanigans. The premise of the contest is that top illusionists bring their best trick to the stage, and if they succeed in stumping Penn & Teller, they are invited to open for the pair at their long-running Las Vegas residency. The first season — originally an import from the United Kingdom, now produced by The CW but retaining host Jonathan Ross — produced several illusionists who managed to pull the wool over the duo’s eyes. But even when Penn & Teller get got, they always perform an illusion of their own at the end of every episode.

Chasing Life 9 p.m., ABC Family

This charming, funny, and at times poignant series — set and partially shot in Boston — resumes the chase for a second season. It should be full of drama as a now-engaged but unemployed April Carver (Italia Ricci, above with Michael Foster) deals with a recurrence of her cancer and decides it’s time to seize the day.

So You Think You Can Dance 8 p.m., Fox

The Bachelorette 8 p.m., ABC

Tiny House, Big Living 9 p.m., HGTV

Summary: A look at what’s on TV Monday, including “Chasing Life” on ABC Family and “The Bachelorette” on ABC.


Two Boston TV stations are among more than 100 nationwide banding together to form a streaming service called NewsON that will allow viewers to tune in to live newscasts on their smart phones and tablets starting this fall.

Many local news stations already stream broadcasts through their websites and mobile apps, but NewsON is the largest effort yet to consolidate under a single service that can mimic the easy channel flipping of television and eliminate the need for multiple local news apps.

NewsON is a partnership of the Cox Media Group, Hearst Television, Media General, Raycom Media, and the ABC Owned Television Station Group. Together, the five media companies own 112 stations in 84 markets across the country, including WCVB-TV (Ch. 5) and WFXT-TV (Ch. 25) in Boston. WWLP-TV in Springfield is also included.

“This is just the start,” said NewsON chief executive Louis Gump. “We’ll welcome the participation of other TV station owners, as this service only gets better with each additional station.”

The NewsON app will be available as a free download; advertising will support the business.

With its initial group of stations, NewsON says it will reach two thirds of US households.


A Baltimore Ravens player has gone viral online after his amazingly athletic abilities, endurance and talent was caught on camera – but his moves occurred off the field.

Starting lineman Brandon Williams showed off his dance moves in the locker room in a recent video, captured by a fellow player.

Williams was caught busting a move - still in full padding - before a training session and the 15-second clip of was quickly posted to Instagram by his teammate, defensive lineman Chris Canty.

It has been shared to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram more than 60,000 times.

Williams said he knew the video was going to be posted to social media but didn’t expect it to get such a positive response.

“It was the dog days of training camp, some music came on and you start getting hyped,” he told ESPN.

“You got to make it fun and you got to love what you do.

“I never knew me dancing and having fun around the locker room with Suggs and Lawrence Guy would be so crazy.”

Do you have any news photos or videos?


Bob Baia has favorite colors just like the rest of us. From various Benjamin Moore collections, here they are, with his personal descriptions:

1. Winter Gray: “A light, masculine purple.”

2. Beacon Gray: “Blue-gray that works marvelously in bathrooms. It reflects well off the face.”

3. Sidewalk Gray: “It matches well with Carrara marble in the kitchen or bathroom.”

4. Grecian Green: “Sage green that works well in a den or bedroom; comfy and works as a background against brown or neutrals.”

5. Straw: “One of my favorite golds. Incredibly wonderful, oozing warmth. It has zero gray in it. I’d put it just about anywhere.”

6. Poseidon: “Great teal color for a tween bedroom. A little on the dark side, but don’t worry about the walls in a teen bedroom being too dark. At that age, their door is never open!”

Summary: Bob Baia has his favorite colors just like the rest of us. From various Benjamin Moore collections, here they are, with his personal descriptions.


Hulk Hogan also opened up on Good Morning America, where he broke into tears

08/31/2015 AT 09:25 AM EDT

he made in an audio transcript that was released in July is not an accurate portrayal of the man he truly is.

"I'm a good person," Hogan told PEOPLE during a sit-down interview on Friday. "I'm not a racist. I made one horrible mistake."

The mistake Hogan referenced happened eight years ago when he used offensive language about his daughter Brooke's love life.

Hogan was wiped from the World Wrestling Entertainment's Hall of Fame last month after the use of using the "n-word" came to light. WWE also says it fired him, though Hogan and his reps maintain he resigned.

"My anger was directed towards Brooke," he says. "It wasn't a racial slur against him. If anyone was going to kick me to the curb or have nothing to do with me, it would be my daughter."

But instead, Hogan was amazed that what happened was the exact opposite.

"She came to me with nothing but love and said, 'Dad, I love you so much,' " he says, tearing up.

He then spoke to his son Nick and wife Jennifer and realized that he had his family by his side.

"I said, 'Okay, now I have my strength and I am going to take this head on. Since then, we have all been together.' "

Hogan blamed his language on growing up in a place where racist slurs were part of his environment.

"When I grew up, it was something that was inherited generation after generation," he says. "That was part of my daily environment."

Brooke, a budding country singer who recently released a new single "Girlfriend," told PEOPLE that her father is a great dad.

"I know who he is as a man and a father and he is not a racist," she says. "He is a man who always means well. He's so jovial and kind."

She says he is dad who "cries at the Lion King, baby talks to his teacup Chihuahus, He can grill like nobody's business and he watches the sunset every night."

He's "always happy" and is a "killer bassist."

But most importantly, he's there for her no matter what.

"No matter what was happening with life, if you call, he answers."

Hogan says that now that this burden is off his shoulders it's the best time of his life.

"Behind this dark cloud is going to be this huge shiny blessing and I'm going to get help people with this," he says. "I get to explain to them that even in the locker room when you're talking smack, it's not cool. I would love to see it taken out of the dictionary."

This experience has taught Hogan who his true friends are.

"What I have learned is that I've got this huge built in support system with all the people that have known me, watched me and worked with me," he says. "They know that just this one instance is not who I am."

Summary: "What I said was so ugly and disgusting," Hulk Hogan tells PEOPLE


As the world's richest individuals approach retirement, the next three decades will see trillions fall into the hands of their younger family members—the biggest wealth transfer in history from one generation to the next, according to a new report.

At least $16 trillion of ultra-high net worth (UHNW) individual's wealth will be passed on to the next generation over this period, spawning a new crop of multimillionaires, the Wealth-X and NFP Family Wealth Transfers Report published on Tuesday said.

"As self-made UHNW baby boomers start passing on their wealth to their children, the importance of entrepreneurship and hard work will be put to the test," the report said.

The world's population of ultra high-net worth individuals—those with at least $30 million in assets—grew to 211,235 last year, with a combined wealth of $29.7 trillion, a record high for both population and wealth.

The U.S., home to the largest billionaire population, will see the greatest amount of wealth transfers, with $6 trillion set to change hands over the next 30 years.

Germany, Japan, the U.K. and Brazil follow as the countries with the largest expected wealth transfers—a target for estate planners.

Summary: As the world's richest retire, the next three decades will see the biggest wealth transfer in history, as trillions is inherited.


The ultimate festival for the art-school band this year, and not just because of their inspired collaboration with the ICA. Also onsite is an Art Trail featuring works by (among others) Francis Upritchard, Gavin Turk, Simon Faithfull and Juneau Projects. Turk and Deborah Curtis have built a house of fairy tales in homage to the Eastnor landscape. Faithfull is taking steps to ensure festival-goers get a full moon every night with his glowing sculpture, while the ICA's mixed media tent will be a haven of dissonance, bad jokes and childish animation. With performance artist Doug Fishbone ready to make you cringe, Jeffrey Lewis doing his lo-fi cinema and Jamie Shovlin's spoof krautrock band, it's the only festival where it will be totally acceptable to stand and stare.

Summary: Eastnor Castle Deer Park, Fri 1 to Aug 3


According to legend, it was the painter Hippolyte Délaroche who, on seeing the first daguerrotypes exhibited in Paris in 1839, let out the notorious cry of despair La peinture est morte! That painting was dead or dying soon became a critical cliche, one repeated throughout the 20th century. It is an idea that has haunted Gerhard Richter during a 50-year painting career that "officially began", as he tells it, with a photograph. It has haunted him precisely because of how well he paints.

Moving between styles and media, Richter has been hailed as "the Pablo Picasso of the 21st century", "an artist beyond isms", "an enigma" - often with reference to Délaroche's oracle. Some critics take the variety in his work to signal a conviction that painting is obsolete; others protest that he is a "true believer", who paints to prove that painting lives. Richter himself has said all sorts of things. "Pictures which are interpretable and which have a meaning," he insists, "are bad pictures." Paul Moorhouse, the curator of the show at the National Portrait Gallery, has made the wager that Richter's work, in all its modes - from exquisitely realistic renderings to pure abstractions such as the 4900 Colours shown at the Serpentine last autumn - possesses a nebulous coherence. "People look at the variety and are bewildered," Moorhouse told me. "If you want to understand what it's all about ... look at the portraits."

Richter has resisted attempts to use biography to prise "meaning" from his work. Yet it is clear his experiences growing up under two totalitarian regimes helped shape the commitment to "continual uncertainty" that characterises his aesthetics. Richter was born in 1932 in Dresden. In 1935, his family moved to Reichenau, in what is now Poland, so that his father could take up a post as a schoolteacher; in 1942, they relocated to the still more provincial village of Waltersdorf. While his father, like most government functionaries, joined the Nazi party and fought on the eastern front, the young artist remained a step removed. "Hitler, soldiers, all that was for plebeians," he recalls, "whereas my mother always kept me close to 'culture'." Paintings of Mustang bombers and Phantom Interceptors that Richter produced in the mid-60s, together with his aerial views of European cities in oils and lithographs, evoke the nights of February 1945, when Dresden (100km from Waltersdorf) burned under 4,000 tonnes of US explosives. In 1946, his father straggled home from a Russian prisoner-of-war camp, and was barred from teaching under the new de-Nazification laws. "He shared most fathers' fate at the time," the artist says, "nobody wanted them."

Several paintings in the current exhibition reflect Richter's sense of belonging, literally and spiritually, to a "fatherless" generation. 48 Portraits is a pantheon of black and white headshots depicting male, mostly European, leaders in cultural and scientific fields - Alban Berg, Franz Kafka, Albert Einstein. Traumatised by his father's decline and by the disgrace of Nazi leadership, Richter gestures towards an alternative set of ancestors, representing them as they appeared in popular encyclopedias, rather than after the heraldic fashion of fascist art.

Horst with Dog (1964), also in the show, is a photo portrait in black and white in which Richter's father, identified only by his first name, appears obscured by horizontal streaks like lines of TV static. Richter renders Horst at once hideous and pitiable, a Dr Caligari double whose rumpled clothes suggest he is down on his luck. The pet simpering on his knee makes him all the more grotesque.

The final room in the exhibition contains more recent, colour paintings of Moritz, Richter's son by his third wife, Sabine. In three varyingly abstracted versions of a single photograph - among the most intimate of Richter's numerous autobiographical images - the infant's wide eyes reflect the apprehension, as well as tenderness, of the parent beholding him.

The "father problem" that the young Richter shared with many Germans of his generation anticipated his ambivalent attitude towards the people and institutions he encountered as a young artist. From the age of 16, he was determined to become a painter: his first art-related job involved producing communist banners. He also worked as a painter of signs and stage sets, before being accepted into the Dresden art academy in 1950. For five years, Richter studied amid the berubbled moonscape of Dresden, mastering the heroic style promulgated by the new regime and specialising in murals. He has never fully abandoned the desire to paint "the things one sees and which exist" that was instilled in him during these years. But his willingness to accede to the dogmas of socialist realism crumbled as he discovered the alternative styles thriving across the border.

In 1959, he travelled to Kassell in West Germany to attend the second Documenta exhibition, which presented a wide range of modernist work. Looking at the abstract expressionist paintings there transformed him. Jackson Pollock and Lucio Fontana, he later joked, were his "real reason for leaving the GDR". In 1960, he fled with his first wife, Ema, to Düsseldorf and enrolled in the city's art academy, where Joseph Beuys had just begun to teach. Reproductions in the Dresden library stopped at impressionism. Düsseldorf, by contrast, invited Richter to explore abstract expressionism, dada collage and decollage, pop and radical varieties of "anti-art".

For a time, he flourished. Eventually, however, the modernist freedoms driving him to "paint through the whole history of painting" brought him to an impasse. He found he could not fully commit to gestural abstraction, which to him seemed to rely too much on the artist's subjectivity. Nor could he embrace the anti-art ideals of Beuys and the Fluxus group, which were deeply hostile to his form of studio practice. This time his "fundamental aversion to all beliefs and ideologies" turned Richter against the capitalist west. He was particularly put off by the cults of personality surrounding his contemporaries. It was Künstlerscheisse, he later complained - "artist-bullshit".

By 1962 Richter "had had enough of bloody painting", when chance dropped a new "pretext" into his lap: a photo of French actress Brigitte Bardot. He incorporated it into the abstract canvas he was working on (now lost) and burned all his old work. Around the same time, he began collecting the photographs that comprise Atlas, the ever-expanding compendium of source images from whose panels he still draws, ranging from personal snapshots to celebrity glam-shots, from advertisements to pornography, landscape postcards to photographs of concentration camps - which he has never used, because he found them "unpaintable".

Richter later remarked: "Photographs were the way forward. I'm shocked now that the story seems clear, because it didn't seem clear at the time." What kind of solution did photos offer? Critics often quote Richter in his Notes 1964-65: "I like everything that has no style." But they almost always omit the line in brackets that follows: "(Because style is violence, and I am not violent.)" His rejection of totalising political or artistic ideologies, and his suspicion of paternal authority, mirror his refusal to settle down to any one way of painting. Through his photo portraits he developed a "styleless" style - that is, a way to continue painting without capitulating to authority or asserting it himself.

The portraits at the National Portrait Gallery lack style in the sense that each has been copied from an automatic, mechanically reproducible medium. Richter has described and demystified his method: he projects copies of photos on to canvas, traces them in pencil, then fills them out in paint. Yet, if the automatic quality of this process helps him evoke an "anti-sensibility", it hardly grants his canvases the special access to the world that early champions of photography took to be the defining trait of the medium. In an interview in the mid-60s, he asserted: "A portrait can never come closer to the sitter than when it is a very good likeness. For this reason, among others, it is far better to paint a portrait from a photograph." Richter favours photography not because it guarantees a connection between the surface appearance of the artwork and some reality behind it, but because it renounces any such claim.

The results are diverse. He has painted both black and white and colour portraits - of celebrities, such as Jackie Kennedy or Queen Elizabeth; anonymous individuals; and some family members, close friends and professional associates. There are two self-portraits from 1996 in which Richter, bled into a semi-transparent blear, looks down in the attitude of Dürer's Melancolia. His clarity of vision also varies. Although he has resisted allowing the gesture to become an "identity tag", he usually defaces his photo paintings. Sometimes, he produces a "blur", as if the camera that took the snapshot had been out of focus, by feathering the still wet paint with a dry brush. In other cases, he scrapes into the drying portrait with a ruler or spatula.

Writing for the catalogue of the 2002 Museum of Modern Art retrospective that cemented Richter's reputation, the curator Robert Storr described the artist's impulses in semi-religious terms: "doubt" and "belief". Particularly when set beside the Vermeer-like perfection of the few that Richter spares, the "blurred" and gashed canvases evoke the strength of conviction that it must take to mar them. These are the devotional gestures of a profound agnostic. The agnosticism, realised in the photoportraits, also applies to Richter's abstractions, or to the panes of glass and tinted mirrors for which he is famous. In each of his styles, Richter compels us to consider the act of looking - he balances longing for something behind what is represented with an insistence that we can never know what is there.

Moorhouse has taken pains to draw attention to the philosophical dimensions of Richter's style. "Illusion - or rather appearance, semblance - is the theme of my life," he quotes him as saying: "All that is, seems, and is visible to us because we perceive it by the reflected light of semblance." Richter's language echoes doubts about human knowledge that are as old as Plato's allegory of the cave. It also has more recent, specifically German, antecedents. Kant set out the axiom that we can never know "things in themselves", but only how they appear in experience. Schopenhauer reprised Kant's theory, speaking of the world as mere "representation". Nietzsche, in whose work Richter immersed himself as a teenager, drove the process to its conclusion, doing away with essence all together. "What could I say about any essence," Nietzsche asks, "except to name the attributes of its appearance?" Richter's terminology is more slippery than that codified by philosophers, yet his essays and interviews make it clear that he shares their concerns.

The sense that reality is unknowable (and, so, unrepresentable) reinforces the special relationship that Richter's paintings have with death. "When you take a photograph you get an immediate fracture," Moorhouse says. "When you take a painting, you open the gap even further. When you are painting from photographs that are taken years ago, the appearance becomes a ghost." Photographs, particularly black and white, have often been viewed this way. At an exhibition of daguerreotypes even earlier than the one attended by Délaroche, viewers are said to have turned away from the wraith-like portrait plates in terror. Never having seen an image of a person separated from its "original", they were spooked. By the 1860s, when "spirit photographers" in the US and Europe were reaping small fortunes, using multiple exposure and other tricks to produce images of the beyond, it had become obvious that the new medium had come into its own as just that: a medium. Photography is not only a means of representation but also, as the late German novelist WG Sebald put it, "a way of making ghosts".

Richter himself worked as a photographer's assistant developing photos when he was young (or so he has said). And he has emphasised the impact of this apprenticeship. "The masses of photographs that passed through the developing bath every day," he has said, "may well have caused a lasting trauma." His photoportraits make us conscious not only of the loss of reality in images, but also of the reality of loss that Richter, as a child of Germany's zero hour, had to confront. They constitute a form of remembrance of what they know they cannot fully represent.

• Gerhard Richter Portraits is at the National Portrait Gallery, London WC2 (0844 579 1924), until 31 May.

Summary: Gerhard Richter begins his portraits by projecting photographs on to canvas. His subjects soon become ghosts


"In the U.S. where tablets have been shipping in large volumes since 2010 and are already well established, we're less concerned about big phones cannibalizing shipments and more worried about market saturation," he added.

While consumer preferences have trended towards small tablets over the past 24 months, the rise of large phones could push consumers back toward larger tablets, the research firm said.

(Read more: Asia tablet makers take a bite out of Apple)

"The difference between a 6-inch smartphone and a 7-inch tablet isn't great enough to warrant purchasing both," it said.

"Apple's launch of the iPad Air, a much thinner and lighter version of its 9.7-inch product, could herald another market transition back toward larger screens, presuming consumers are willing to pay the higher costs associated with bigger screens," it added.

A transition towards larger tablets could be a positive development for Windows tablets, which generally offer a larger screen.

(Read more: Taste for tablets offsets starved PC market: Study)

IDC forecasts Microsoft will grow its tablet market share to 10.2 percent by 2017, from 3.4 percent currently.

While Google's Andriod and Apple's iOS are set to remain leaders in the tablet space, their market share is expected to fall to 59 percent and 31 percent, respectively, by 2017, from 61 and 35 percent, currently.

—By CNBC's Ansuya Harjani; Follow her on Twitter @Ansuya_H

Summary: Tablet computer sales have been on fire this year, but a shift in consumer preferences is set to douse demand in the coming years, according to IDC.


trial@ (Adds analyst, company comments, byline)

Aug 20 (Reuters) - A new diabetes pill from Eli Lilly and Co and Boehringer Ingelheim cut risk of heart attack, stroke and death in a closely watched study, the first glucose-lowering drug to show such protective results in a large cardiovascular trial, the drugmakers said on Thursday.

Besides burnishing the image of the year-old drug, Jardiance, the results could raise the profile of rival new drugs in the same class of medicines called SGLT2 inhibitors, such as Johnson & Johnson's Invokana and AstraZeneca Plc's Farxiga.

Lilly shares rose 2.8 percent in morning trading, amid a decline of 0.7 percent for the Arca Pharmaceutical Index of large drugmakers.

Jardiance (empagliflozin) was approved by U.S. regulators last August. By blocking the protein SGLT2, it inhibits reabsorption of glucose in the kidney, thereby lowering overall blood sugar.

Lilly and privately held German drugmaker Boehringer said the favorable results for Jardiance were seen in a 7,000-patient study of patients with type 2 diabetes considered at high risk of heart attacks and stroke. That is the most common form of diabetes, which is closely linked to obesity.

Significantly fewer cardiac deaths, non-fatal heart attacks or non-fatal strokes were seen in patients who took Jaridance in combination with standard treatments, compared with patients who took standard treatments alone, meeting the trial's primary goal.

Standard treatments included statins and blood pressure drugs. Patients were followed an average of 3.1 years.

Lilly and Boehringer said about half of deaths in people with type 2 diabetes are caused by cardiovascular disease, and that reducing cardiovascular risk is therefore an essential component of diabetes care.

"This is a positive, and a first for the field of diabetes," Sanford Bernstein analyst Tim Anderson said in a research note. "(This) could give the drug - and the broader SGLT2 class in which it competes - a competitive leg up."

Anderson noted that besides lowering blood sugar levels, SGLT2 inhibitors also modestly lower body weight and blood pressure, and that those effects could have helped Jardiance in the cardiovascular "outcomes" trial.

The drugmakers said they plan to release full results of the trial on Sept. 17 at the annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes in Stockholm.

Safety of Jardiance was consistent with results of previous trials. Its side effects have included dehydration, dizziness and low brood sugar.

(Reporting by Ransdell Pierson Editing by W Simon)

Summary: Aug 20- A new diabetes pill from Eli Lilly and Co and Boehringer Ingelheim cut risk of heart attack, stroke and death in a closely watched study, the first glucose-lowering drug to show such protective results in a large cardiovascular trial, the drugmakers said on Thursday. Besides burnishing the image of the year-old drug, Jardiance, the results could raise the...


The demand for the suburban lifestyle had been driven mainly by safety and schools, he said. "If you wanted to see the end of suburbia, all you'd need to do is make the school systems in the cities triple-A and why would anybody live in the suburbs," Zell said.

One of the byproducts of people moving to cities is soaring demand for apartments. "We are seeing 96 percent occupancy," said Zell—who's chairman of the real estate investment trust Equity Residential, one of the largest apartment groups in the country. Of the 18,000 units the REIT manages in New York City, Zell estimated 45 percent are occupied by just one person.

"It's probably going to happen here in New York first," he said. "You're going to see 300-square-foot apartments, directly related to that one person wanting to live alone—and saying, 'I'll give up space for privacy.'"

—By CNBC's Matthew J. Belvedere. Follow him on Twitter @Matt_SquawkCNBC .

Summary: Young people shunning the suburbs in favor of city life are leading the charge in the "reurbanization of America," real estate mogul Sam Zell says.


Squawk Box Live gave you news and analysis on global markets as traders tentatively await a rate decision by the U.S. Federal Reserve.

Some economists are expecting the central bank to raise interest rates for the first time since the financial crash of 2008.

Asian shares advanced on Wednesday, with Chinese stocks seeing strong gains, as sentiment got a boost from an overnight rally on Wall Street. European shares also saw gains as the session opened. Here's how the morning unfolded.

Summary: Squawk Box Live in Europe had all the news and updates ahead of the crucial Fed rate decision on Thursday.


When Ludwig Mies van der Rohe declared that "less is more" he was not talking about budgets. Saving money was rarely among his concerns, and one of the many amazing things about his Villa Tugendhat, completed in 1930 in the Czech city of Brno, is the stupendous price of its apparent simplicity. It cost five million Czech crowns at a time when a very respectable luxury villa could be built for about 320,000 crowns. In other words, it cost 15 times the going rate for houses of this type; he could accurately have said "less costs more".

Not that his clients, Grete and Fritz Tugendhat, both heirs to industrial fortunes, complained. What they got for their money was a pioneering steel-framed house, equipped with glass walls that could slide down into the floor, a special room for keeping their furs chilled and moth-free, and a heating and cooling facility like the engine room of a ship, which consumed a train-wagon-load of coal every winter. It also passed air through a shower of water, over stones taken from the sea, then through filters of cedar oil and cedar shavings, in order to make it cool and fragrant.

They got one of the most influential houses of the 20th century, whose open plan and panoramic glazing are still imitated today. Most importantly, they achieved what Greta called "a modern spacious house… with clear and simple shapes" that gave "a completely special calm". It did justice, she said, "to the primarily spiritual sense of life of each and every one of us, as opposed to mere necessity".

It has been variously claimed that modernist architecture was about rationality, or pure function, or raising the environments of the working classes; none of those arguments applied in this case.

Now, for the first time since the 1930s, it is possible to see the house more or less as Mies (as the architect is best known) intended, following a restoration supported by the EU and carried out by the city of Brno. It can be visited by the public, although its popularity means you have to book a place on its tours long in advance.

Above all, you can experience the living area at the centre of the house. To say that this has two glass walls, an open plan and clean, modernist style is like saying that Chartres cathedral has pointed arches and big windows. Nor does it get you very much further to describe the beautiful materials acquired from distant regions – macassar ebony for the library and the circular dining alcove; a wall in miraculously thin onyx slabs quarried from the Atlas mountains. Nor the spectacular view of the city, the sense of contact with the garden, the abundant light, nor the way that the steel columns, with their mirror finish, almost disappear.

The point is more that the combination of all these elements is mesmerising. If the plan, with the regular spacing of the columns, is lucid, the dissolving effects of the surfaces confound the senses. Reflections draw the garden foliage inside and the patterns of leaves play off the squirming, fossilised patterns of the stone and the grain of the wood. The creamy-brown onyx is plainly heavy, but it is thin enough that, when hit by the low winter sun, it glows on its inward side. The vanishing columns make the ceiling slab levitate, and when the glass walls disappear into the floor the room becomes a theatre box in the sky. At one end the glass is doubled, with space between the layers wide enough for a cuboid conservatory, which again inverts the perception of outside and in.

The surfaces are lush and the lines are spare. The space is ancient and industrial at once, with the construction methods of office blocks, and a pale linoleum floor combined with classical proportions, the rhythms of a temple and travertine. It is made of different scales of time – the geology of the stone, the tree growth recorded in the wood grain, the seasonal revolutions of the garden, the movement of daylight, the movements of people through the space. Silk curtains made it another place at night.

It is dreamlike, the more so for the way that boundaries are drawn with a sharpness something like the uncanny precision you get in dreams. It is a bubble made of straight lines and right angles. Its illusions are framed with the regular measure of the columns, like bar lines in music, and proportions (of which Mies said, disingenuously: "Proportions don't cost anything").

The house is built against a steep slope, with the living space in the middle one of three levels. Below is the apparatus that sustains it, like the backstage of a theatre – the heating and ventilating, the fur room, storage, laundry and the machinery for operating the windows. Above are the bedrooms and bathrooms of the Tugendhats and their children, and a terrace with a Miesian sandbox, perfectly square, and trellises for roses.

Because of the slope, only the top floor is visible when you approach from the street. You enter and a stair descends through what seems to be ground level to the living space, which in turn seems to hover above the garden, an upside-down sequence which further heightens its quality of apparition. You discover that everything in the house revolves around and sustains the central zone. Other aspects are special enough – the daring simplicity of the exterior and the refinement of the bedrooms would have been sufficient achievements for many architects – but here they support the main event.

All of which could add up to a familiar type of architecture, the uninhabitable masterpiece. Critics latched on to this possibility early, and a German architectural magazine asked, within a year of its completion: "Can One Live in Villa Tugendhat?" Greta and Fritz replied robustly that yes, you could. Their wishes were perfectly fulfilled, they said, and the design allowed different activities happily to co-exist. It was "austere and grand – not in a way that oppresses, but one that liberates". They spoke fondly of the way their children could play on the terrace, and of "sitting in the warm sun and looking out on the snow-covered landscape just as though we were in Davos". Mies later designed the Farnsworth House in Illinois, whose impracticalities drove its owner, Edith Farnsworth, to fury and lawsuits. In Brno, however, he achieved a miraculous union of art and life.

It did not last. Just over seven years after they moved in, the Tugendhats, who were Jewish, foresaw the approach of the Nazis and left for Switzerland, and then Venezuela. When they arrived, the Nazis appropriated the house and rented it out to the Messerschmitt aircraft company. They took the timber lining of the dining alcove and reinstalled it in the town's Gestapo headquarters. Shockwaves from allied bombs blew out the glass walls. The Soviet army took it and stabled horses among the exquisite veneers. After the war, it became a ballet studio, a rehabilitation centre for children with spinal defects and a guest house for the government. In 1992 the Czech and Slovak leaders met here to agree the division of their country. The house was a bubble in time as well as space and Greta's "completely special calm" was engulfed by the tumult of its period.

Its story is too good to go unnoticed by novelists, and it has not: Simon Mawer's 2009 Booker-shortlisted The Glass Room is a lightly fictionalised account of the Tugendhats and their house. Its descriptions of the place are evocative, but nothing can compare with the real thing, which, thanks to the EU millions, is about as close to its original state as could be hoped for. The timber abducted by the Gestapo was rediscovered and returned, having meanwhile become the setting of a student cafeteria, and the vibrant red and green chairs with which Mies furnished the space have been reinstalled. It is also different – it is no longer a private house for a highly privileged couple (which led a snarky critic to call it "modernist snobbery… the renewal of fancy baroque palaces, the seat of a new financial aristocracy") but a three-dimensional artwork and museum piece to be visited by the public.

Brno is a town whose location and identity most Britons, maybe even Observer readers, would be hard put to describe. Yet it has had a way of compressing a lot of history into its locality (rather, one is tempted to say, as it compresses a lot of sounds into its consonant-heavy name). The battle of Austerlitz took place just outside the town; Gregor Mendel invented modern genetics in the town's Abbey of St Thomas and Sigmund Freud was born in the region. In the 1920s the most optimistic time in Czechoslovakia's short life, it was a leading centre of modern architecture, several years ahead of London, for example. The vitality of that time has not returned, but in the Villa Tugendhat something of its spirit lives on.

Summary: Mies van der Rohe's Villa Tugendhat – a revolutionary exercise in light and space – is now restored to its 1930s glory, writes Rowan Moore


Swedish police have ordered an investigation into allegations that officers covered up accusations of sexual assault by mostly migrant youths at a music festival in Stockholm.

The investigation comes after internal police reports published in Swedish media said about 50 suspects carried out sexual assaults against teenage girls at the We are Sthlm youth festival last August. Assaults also occurred in 2014 at the same festival, which attracts thousands of people.

"It's a double betrayal of these young women," Prime Minister Stefan Lofven told Expressen newspaper.

"It has not been prosecuted and handled in the way we would wish. The second is that police did not inform or tell about these problems."

Swedish media have drawn comparisons to attacks on women in Cologne and other German cities on New Year's Eve that prompted more than 600 criminal complaints, with police suspicion resting mostly on asylum seekers.

Sweden faces a backlash among many voters after a record 163,000 asylum seekers arrived last year, part of a wave of immigration that has seen the far-right Sweden Democrats become one of the country's biggest political parties.

Quoting internal police reports and police who were there, Dagens Nyheter newspaper painted a picture of sexual assaults at the festival, which had escalated in 2014 and more so in 2015, committed mostly by young Afghans.

According to police documents seen by Reuters, in 2015, police received 20 complaints of sexual crimes - 14 of which concerned girls under the age of 15 - in the area during the festival. In 2014 there were 18 complaints.

There was no mention of ethnicity of perpetrators in the files, and a police spokesman could not immediately provide a figure of how many of the cases had been prosecuted.

Police at the time described the 2015 event as one with "relatively few crimes".

However, some officials said police were concerned that assault reports could have boost the far right.

National police chief Dan Eliasson said on Monday political considerations should not be part of their activities.

"We have to get to the bottom of this," Eliasson told a news conference, adding the investigation would look at whether police officers had committed any crimes.

Summary: Swedish police have been accused of covering up sexual assaults against teenage girls by about 50 suspects at a youth music festival.


02/04/2016 AT 01:20 PM EST

are making the best out of their cozy home.

"We're having fun," 29-year-old Amy tells PEOPLE in an

accompanying this week's cover story. "It's tight quarters, so we got to learn a lot about each other really quickly."

Though the newlyweds waited until they got

, Amy has been living in the apartment since last February, and Dillon joined her after the wedding.

Amy Duggar on the cover of PEOPLE

Of course, Amy admits that sharing a home has definitely been an adjustment for both of them.

"It was like a total girl apartment, and then my husband moved in," Amy says, to which Dillon adds, "I walked into a female explosion. That's how I feel sometimes."

Since Dillon, 27, moved in, he's been able to carve out a little space for himself here and there, including the garage, one side of a cluttered closet they've nicknamed Narnia, an electronics corner where he "nerds out" playing

and a drawer where he keeps his watches, sunglasses and socks.

Amy compares living in the apartment to camping. In the place of a full stove and oven, they have a plug-in skillet and toaster oven.

Says with a laugh: "We make do." The one perk of their limited kitchen is that it's mobile. On their frequent movie nights, they're able to roll the microwave into the living room and make popcorn from the comfort of their couch. "We're kind of boring," Amy says. "We've done the whole going out every night before. â¦ Now, it's just like sweatpants and a movie and popcorn."

Summary: See the couple's adorably close quarters, complete with a mobile kitchen!


02/18/2016 AT 11:05 AM EST

"Dr. Love" wasn't feeling the love from

, so he walked out of an interview.

Malachi Love-Robinson, 18, who is accused of

and practicing medicine without a license, among other charges, agreed to a

following his arrest Tuesday. But after defending his actions, he walked out when the interviewer asked whether he wasn't, deep down, just a liar.

Love-Robinson, who refers to himself as "Dr. Love," claimed in the interview that he is a doctor – just not an M.D.

"I do currently hold a Ph.D. – in what, I don't feel comfortable disclosing because that is not the issue here," he said. "The issue that I face now is accusations."

The clinic Love-Robinson opened in West Palm Beach, Florida bills itself as a holistic practice and is known as the New Birth, New Life Alternative Medicine and Urgent Care Clinic. Asked what training he underwent that qualifies him to treat patients, Love-Robinson replied, "I have shadowed many doctors."

He added: "I have been studying this particular field for a while. It may not have been eight, nine, 10 years. But it has been long enough to, I would say, justify what I do."

The interview then devolved into farce when Love-Robinson was asked if he was, in fact, not a doctor but simply a fraud and a liar.

"I don't appreciate your tone. I don't appreciate the way you're portraying this interview to actually be," Love-Robinson said. "I'm sorry, I'm going to have to cut this interview short." He then stood up and left.

The Florida teen faces seven criminal counts,

said – two counts of practicing medicine without a license, one count of grand theft larceny and four counts of fraud. Among his alleged victims was an elderly woman who is said to have paid almost $3,500 for treatment of stomach pain.

Love-Robinson, who is free on bail, has given other interviews since his arrest, including one to

He said in that interview that he was offering a holistic medicine alternative to people.

"This was me simply trying to do something for the community in a light that I saw that was needed and honestly if you ask me people are getting tired of hearing that they have to take a script just to feel better," he said.

Summary: Malachi Love-Robinson, 18, accused of grand theft and fraud, defends himself before ending the interview early


02/23/2016 AT 05:15 PM EST

Paz de la Huerta's lawsuit against Lionsgate moved forward Tuesday amid claims that an on-set accident left her unable to work.

Video of the purported incident surfaced Monday, showing a woman identified as de la Huerta, 31, being struck by an ambulance and thrown to the ground.

The clip was reportedly shot during the filming of

in October 2011 and is being used a evidence in a $55 million breach-of-contact lawsuit filed by the actress against Lionsgate, reports the

Frederick M. Brown / Getty

According to the paper, de la Huerta suffered a broken tailbone and spinal fracture in the accident and was forced to put her career on hold to undergo more than 20 surgeries to help correct her injuries.

In court documents obtained by PEOPLE, de la Huerta also claims, in addition to the on-set injury, a breach of contract by Lionsgate for using an unauthorized voice-over for her character.

The actress states that producers approached her to record sound bites for the film, which she alleges she did, but that Lionsgate had the voice "redone" using a "Jane Doe" recording from another performer. The actress claims she did not learn that her performance had been dubbed over until the film was released, and that the poor quality of the voice-over damaged her career.

"As you can see in the video, what happened that night was terrible. It has scarred me both physically and emotionally for many years," the actress previously told the

The film studio requested the hearing on Tuesday in hopes of dismissing the case, but the judge denied the request and ruled to allow the lawsuit to proceed.

A spokesperson for Lionsgate declined to comment.

"We're moving forward, which is great," she told the

following the hearing. "So I really do hope that justice prevails."

Although de la Huerta was awarded workers' compensation following the accident, she claims she spent all her "life earnings" on her medical care.

"Living in pain wasn't an option and I didn't have any familial support, so I spent all my life earnings on my surgeries and everything, and it's time for them to pay," she said.

Summary: Actress Paz de la Huerta suffered a broken tailbone and spinal fracture in the accident


The bumper sales should come as welcome news to CEO Satoru Iwata, who has received flack for the poor sales of one of its latest products the Wii U –the successor to the hugely popular Wii.

After its launch in November 2012, the Wii U sold 1.1 million units in its first five months of sales – compared to 2.1 million sales in the first five months of the Wii's release in November 2006.

Iwata told CNBC in June that the reason for the Wii U's disappointing sales was down the firm relaxing its marketing efforts and failing to properly communicate the strengths and uniqueness of the product.

The U.S. holiday season, spanning over the months running up to Thanksgiving on November 28 and Christmas 25, is an crucial time for video game and console makers, and historically these firms see their highest sales over this period.

(Read More: New consoles couldspark rebound in video game industry)

Nintendo's strong sales come as one of the firm's competitors in the video gaming space - Sony - gears up to launch its latest console, the PlayStation 4, on Friday.

Sony's PlayStation 4 is set to compete directly with Microsoft's latest game console, the Xbox One, which is set to hit the shops in a week's time.

Nintendo, which created blockbusters like Super Mario, Zelda and Donkey Kong in the 1980s, has struggled to adapt to a consumer shift to smartphones and tablet computers.

— By CNBC's Katie Holliday: Follow her on Twitter @hollidaykatie

Summary: Nintendo has posted its best monthly sales in the U.S. this year, boosted by the launch of the 2DS and games Pokémon X and Pokémon Y in August.


While three kids jumped and squealed in the house, nanny Erica Jensen opened her iPad and beamed into her doctor’s office by video. She came away with instructions to get her diabetes under control — without having to wade through Boston traffic or take time off of her job.

The consultation was part of a new effort at Brigham and Women’s Hospital to let patients make “virtual visits.”

As more hospitals experiment with video consults, it’s raising hope among patients — but prompting a debate over who will foot the bill.

Hospitals and insurers are butting heads over that question at the Massachusetts State House, where lawmakers are considering requiring private insurers to cover virtual medical appointments if those consultations would be covered for an in-person visit. Twenty-nine states have similar laws, according to the American Telemedicine Association.

So far, the Brigham has not been reimbursed for its video experiments, said Dr. Adam Licurse, medical director of Brigham and Women’s Physicians Organization, which oversees telehealth.

Brigham doctors see up to 10 patients per week by video, and will soon see up to 100 a week as the practice spreads to different specialties, said Licurse. The virtual visits aren’t offered to every patient, just to those who have met their doctor in person and need a follow-up that does not require a physical exam.

Jensen, for instance, uses her video chats with Brigham endocrinologist Dr. Marie McDonnell to discuss her latest insulin numbers. She said she loves the convenience: “It really is like FaceTiming with a friend.”

McDonnell, who sees about five patients a month by video, said they seem to have better attendance online. At the hospital, she said, “many patients just don’t show up. It’s too overwhelming. Then all of their care slowly unravels when you can’t maintain contact.”

Not all hospitals offer patients a telemedicine option, but many are trying it out.

Joslin Diabetes Center doctors use virtual visits for follow-up appointments with out-of-state patients, and would do more if insurance paid for them, said spokesman Jeff Bright.

At Boston Children’s Hospital, Dr. David Casavant, who treats patients on home ventilators, said he once used a video app to examine a patient who was having a coughing fit, and ended up saving the family an ambulance ride.

Cambridge Health Alliance, a safety net hospital with many low-income patients, has started a grant-funded telederm program in which primary care doctors snap photos of rashes and send them to dermatologists, who pledge to get back within 24 hours. Doctors have made 550 consultations that way, according to dermatology chief Dr. Robert Stavert. He said in two-thirds of cases, patients have clear problems, such as psoriasis or hives, that can be treated without requiring them to come into the clinic.

The Massachusetts Hospital Association has organized a coalition to support House Bill 267, which would require private payers to reimburse telemedicine at the same level as in-person services. The bill would ensure all Medicaid and state employee plans cover telemedicine services, including patient-to-doctor and doctor-to-doctor consultations. And it would allow doctors to remotely treat patients in different states.

Representative John Scibak, a South Hadley Democrat and former hospital vice president who sponsored the bill, said it aims in part to reduce the time, money, and stress it takes for patients to get to the hospital.

But the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans, which represents 17 private plans, argues that the bill is far too broad — and would allow doctors to start billing even for minor services such as a phone call.

The bill “would undermine the premise that telemedicine will ultimately lead to savings for providers and consumers,” said Eric Linzer, a spokesman for the association.

Many private insurers are already working with hospitals and doctors’ offices to cover specific telemedicine procedures, and it’s better to let the marketplace figure that out rather than impose a “one-size-fits-all” law, Linzer added.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, which launched a telehealth benefit in January, now offers to reimburse for video consultations with a patient’s doctor. And it lets patients virtually tap into a national network of on-call doctors through a company called American Well. But the company opposes HB 267 on the grounds that telemedicine is cheaper to implement than in-person visits, so the reimbursement rates shouldn’t be the same, said Gregory LeGrow, senior director of technology engagement solutions.

Michael Sroczynski, the hospital association’s vice president of government advocacy, countered that hospital overhead costs are mostly labor-related and don’t disappear with telemedicine.

The state Center for Health Information and Analysis is conducting a cost analysis of the bill, which isn’t expected until summer.

Meanwhile, McDonnell said she and fellow endocrinologist Dr. Emma Morton-Eggleston plan to double the number of patients they see by video. And when the affiliated Faulkner Hospital opens a new diabetes clinic in June, there will be a separate, well-lit room where doctors can virtually connect with patients to manage diabetes, weight, and sleep, she said.

One remaining challenge, McDonnell said, is ensuring patients have peace and quiet on their end. During their visit last week, Jensen got distracted by a crying baby and two kids who started jumping on the couch.

“That’s the only downside to virtual visits,” McDonnell said. You have to “make sure the patient has privacy and attention.”

Summary: As virtual medical visits take off, hospitals press insurers to start paying for them — but meet resistance


By Chris Baio’s estimate, maybe moving to a different continent immediately after dropping a chart-topping and critically beloved album wasn’t the best move one can make.

“It was a bit insane,” he said, a slight laugh betraying the understatement. In a telephone interview Baio, who performs under his surname only, recalled his state of mind leading up to the release of his first solo LP, “The Names.” The month after his band Vampire Weekend issued its acclaimed “Modern Vampires of the City” in May of 2013, Baio and his wife crossed the ocean to settle in London. With one EP of his own out and another on the way, he drank in the change of scenery and got to work on a full-length debut.

“It becomes kind of a feeling; you know when it’s time to seize it,” he said. “I knew I had the songs, I knew I had stuff I wanted to write about, and I knew I’d have the time to do it. That’s very important because I think you wanna get things right. You don’t wanna rush anything.”

“The Names,” released last year, takes its name from a Don DeLillo novel, which stuck with Baio after learning that DeLillo once lived and worked in his hometown of Bronxville, N.Y.. With that in mind, Baio, who stops by Brighton Music Hall on Thursday, listed the writer alongside four other inspirations from outside the realm of music.

1. Novelist Don DeLillo “Proximity is a very powerful thing, and to know that the town where I grew up is where one of the great American writers was writing is super, super inspiring. I read all his books, and I really loved them: loved his language, loved his humor, loved his sense of the absurd.”

2. Filmmaker Ingmar Bergman “ ‘Persona’ is a movie that I saw in my mid-20s, and it just kinda blew my mind. The older you get, it’s easier to get more jaded about art, and to be in your mid-20s and have something really kick your ass I think is a pretty cool thing. It’s very minimal. It’s black and white, it’s mostly two actresses on screen the entire time, but it’s one of the most colorful films of all time.”

3. Photographer Matthias Heiderich “He took the photograph that’s the cover of my album. What I love about his work is that it exists in this kind of middle ground between graphic design and photography, and there’s something kind of uncanny about that. If you were to just look at my album cover for a second and then look away, I don’t think you’d be able to say definitively what is what.”

4. Filmmaker Elem Klimov “He directed the movie ‘Come and See,’ and it’s a movie I haven’t seen in a while, but it is, along with ‘Persona’ — those are my two favorite movies of all time. There’s just something so bleak and heart-wrenching and affecting about that movie. I would say it’s not necessarily something that has a direct influence on the music I make, but just the ability to move, the ability to evoke something powerful in someone else, that’s kind of a goal in anyone making art.”

5. Painter Kazimir Malevich “Around the time that I was making my record, there was a really great retrospective on him at Tate Modern in London, and his progression artistically is pretty incredible. His use of color, I find, is very, very influential on me, kind of in a similar way to Heiderich and his photography. It can be kind of a similar exercise [in songwriting] to imagine what the sonic equivalent of a Malevich painting would be.”

Baio performs at Brighton Music Hall on Feb. 11 at 8 p.m. Tickets: $13, 18+. 617-779-0140. www.crossroadspresents.com/brighton-music-hall

Summary: Vampire Weekend bassist Chris Baio, whose solo tour hits Boston on Feb. 11, lists five influences from outside the realm of music.


04/11/2016 AT 09:15 AM EDT

was the subject of intense media scrutiny as she publicly testified on Capitol Hill that then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas sexually harassed her.

Hill's experience – now the subject of HBO's upcoming film

– was trying, and Thomas was still approved to the court. Regardless, Hill, now a professor at Brandeis University, told

Monday that she's accepted her part in the events.

"I'm really at peace with my role in history," Hill told Savannah Guthrie, adding, "I don't think I have to become at peace with him being on the Supreme Court ... that was so important to the integrity of the court."

Hill worked for Thomas at the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, and spoke out against the judge during the confirmation hearings, which were televised to an estimated 30 million households.

, the 59-year-old is portrayed by

that she met with Washington ahead of filming, and answered questions from the actress about her mindset during her testimony.

"She just wanted to know not only how I felt but what was I thinking and that really was encouraging to have someone wanting to know – what was my thinking pattern and what was going on in my mind during this whole episode," Hill explained, noting that parts of her experience were "quite vicious" – something the film shows "very clearly."

Of revisiting her story on the small screen, Hill said that "It's important for us, I think, to relive the story and continue to learn the lessons from it."

She continued, "That's why the film is important and having a younger audience – 25 years is a long time. An entire generation has grown up and has never really witnessed this event."

Hill said that she has neither crossed paths with Thomas since the hearings, nor is she interested in seeing him again.

Summary: Anita Hill's 1991 testimony that she was sexually harassed by Clarence Thomas is the subject of HBO's Confirmation


WASHINGTON — President Obama on Friday announced his support for opening the market for cable set-top boxes, singling out the devices in millions of homes as a clunky and outdated symbol of corporate power over consumers as he introduced a broad federal effort to increase competition.

In an unusual step, Obama weighed in personally on a pending proposal at the Federal Communications Commission, having his administration file comments that applauded the effort to loosen cable companies’ grip on the boxes and endorsing the move in an interview.

He said it was one example of the kinds of actions government agencies should take in response to an executive order he signed Friday calling for proposals for administrative action to promote competition and better protect consumers.

“The cable or satellite box is just one example of an area where, because it’s been tied to the provider and you rent it, and consumers spend billions of dollars on it every single year, there hasn’t been much innovation,” Obama told Yahoo Finance in an interview taped Thursday. “Our private sector thrives, and innovation is the hallmark of the United States — that’s our big comparative advantage with other countries — but it starts to become less effective, and reduces both what consumers get and the kind of innovation we generate, if we get closed systems or if people are gaming the system.”

The announcements are the latest moves by Obama to push back against the forces of consolidation and monopoly, and to shift power away from large corporations in an array of industries.

The president’s aides gave no examples of the kinds of rules that Obama would like to see agencies propose in response to the executive order. Jason Furman, the chairman of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, said White House officials had already notified the agencies of the coming call for recommendations, so some of the regulations were already underway.

The administration can comment on any proposal by the FCC, an independent agency, but it does so sparingly, and it is rare for the president himself to speak out on a pending matter. In this case, his advisers said that Obama felt that the issue merited his involvement because of its importance for consumers and the broad impact the changes could have on the cable market, one that touches many US households.

The FCC proposal would allow subscribers to choose and buy the devices they use to view television programming, instead of leasing the boxes from their cable companies at an average annual cost of $231. The agency approved the plan in February, starting a 60-day comment period that closes in a week.

In comments submitted Friday, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, part of the Commerce Department, urged the FCC to take a “measured and balanced” approach to injecting competition into the set-top box market, including enabling alternative providers to provide their own user interfaces as well as other features and services on the devices.

Among the supporters of the set-top box proposal are technology companies like Google, Amazon, and Apple. The cable industry is opposed.


Carlie Trent and Gary Simpson

The mother of missing Tennessee 9-year old Carlie Trent says she "always had a bad feeling" about Gary Simpson, the

On May 4, Simpson, Carlie's uncle by marriage who, along with his wife, had once had custody of Carlie, picked her up from her Rogersville elementary school. Simpson and Carlie did not return home later that afternoon and the following day an Amber Alert was issued in Tennessee.

Shannon Trent tells PEOPLE she has not had custody of Carlie or her 7-year-old sister for about two years, saying, "I just recently got my life straight and I just wish I could at least see my girls again."

When she heard that her daughter had been allegedly kidnapped by Simpson, she was shocked by the news – but not as much by the suspect.

"I've always had a gut feeling," Trent tells PEOPLE. "I've always had a bad feeling about Gary [and] I should have stuck with my gut."

Trent tells PEOPLE that Simpson has been part of the family for 34 years and was given custody of his nieces when Carlie's father, James, was having what she describes as "problems." At the time of Carlie's disappearance, James had custody of her.

"He was a very trusted family member. If we had known anything like this, we would have never let our kids around him," Trent says.

Josh DeVine of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation tells PEOPLE that in order to pick up Carlie, Simpson allegedly told teachers that James had been in a car accident and he was sent to get her. But Devine says this was a lie and that Simpson had no authority to pick Carlie up.

On Tuesday, authorities said that before Simpson allegedly kidnapped his niece, he bought girls underwear, a bikini, clothing, lipstick, nail polish, blankets and a child's camping chair

"It made me sick to my stomach. I mean, I almost got sick," Trent says of the items Simpson allegedly purchased. "I don't know what he's done to her. I don't think he would hurt her, but if he's capable of kidnapping a child he's capable of anything."

Authorities say the items purchased by Simpson confirm their suspicion that he allegedly brought Carlie to a remote area or campground. Trent says she believes the alleged kidnapping was premeditated.

"And just to think he's had this planned for a long time," Trent says. "I think he's got a lair or something or some sort of shelter."

After the alleged kidnapping, Simpson brought Carlie to a local grocery store and bought non-perishable food items and toiletries, officials said. In a surveillance video from a Save-A-Lot, Carlie doesn't appear to be distressed, officials said. However there is still concern for her safety.

"We believe this girl to be in imminent danger. As the days go, our concern for [Carlie's] well-being only grows," DeVine said at a press conference on Tuesday.

Carlie Trent with her younger sister

Katie, Shannon and Carlie Trent

Trent says she and her family will not stop looking for their daughter. She urges Simpson to come forward, telling PEOPLE, "Gary, think about what you are doing right now – it's just crazy, it's just insane. You're not going to away with this. We will find her – we have to find her."

She adds, "And Carlie, Mommy and Daddy are searching high and low and doing everything we can do to save you."

he believes Simpson has an obsession with his daughter.

"I personally think that for some reason, he's developed this obsession with Carlie," he said. "I wonder what he's trying to put in her head, what kind of story he's told her [about] why he's doing what he's doing."

Simpson was last seen driving a white 2002 Dodge Conversion Van with Tennessee registration number 173GPS.

On Tuesday, Missouri authorities issued an Amber Alert after it was believed Simpson was spotted near Otterville. However, hours later, authorities announced the alert was a false alarm.

Carlie is described as 4'8" tall, weighing about 75 lbs., with blonde hair and blue eyes. She was last seen wearing a black and gray tank top with blue jeans. Simpson was last seen wearing a brown cap with a dark colored shirt and blue jeans.

Anyone with information regarding Carlie's or Simpson's whereabouts is urged to contact the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation at 1-800-TBI-FIND or the Rogersville Police Department at (423) 272-7555.

Summary: "I'm scared to death; I don't know what he's done to her," she says