To most people, it's a hundred bucks. But to a small cadre of dedicated, if slightly obsessed, collectors, the new $100 bills that go into circulation Oct. 8 are a gold mine.

What excites the collectors most are the new bills' serial numbers. With a new design, the bills' serial numbers will "reset" and start back at number one — and those bucks will be worth big bucks in the right circles.

"I would wager a guess that [the number one] note will bring between between $10,000 and $20,000 in uncirculated (mint) condition," said independent dealer Scott Lindquist.

The last time the $100 bill was redesigned, back in the 1990s, that first serial number sold for more than $10,000 on the collector market.

"Early on, they'll have the highest demand and highest premium. I would anticipate that the first number ones to reach the market will be $7,500 to $10,000," if not more, said Frederick Bart, a dealer of rare currency. The lowest eight-digit serial numbers — 00000001, 00000002 and so on — will fetch the highest prices."

Combinations of serial numbers — like eight of the same digit, which collectors call "solids" — will probably be worth $3,000 or so in the collectible market, said Bart.

Other popular numbers are "radars," where the first four numbers mirror the last four numbers, and "ladders," where the numbers go up sequentially. Among collectors, the collective term for these is "fancy" serial numbers.

In the United States, Bart estimated there are "several hundred dedicated people" willing to shell out five figures for one of the new $100 bills which still feature the head of Benjamin Franklin.

(Read more: $3 billion in useless $100 bills?)

Jason W. Bradford is one of these. A collector of rare bills since the age of eight, Bradford's day job is running a company that authenticates these sought-after pieces of paper.

"I love low serial notes. One through 100, basically, are very cool… I've got several dealers on the lookout" for the new $100 bills once they come out, he said.

"Certainly, if the right note came along… I'd love to have it," he said, even if that meant dropping $10,000.

"I've paid more for a piece of currency than I paid for my first house," Bradford said.

(Read more: Bureau gives new meaning to blowing hundred-dollar bills)

Donn Pearlman, spokesman for the Professional Numismatists Guild, an organization of people who make a hobby — and sometimes a living — from the study or collection of coins and paper money, said his priciest purchase wasn't nearly as much. But the nominal value of the bill he paid around $250 for was only 50 cents, a rare note printed during the Civil War era when coins were in short supply.

The new bills have colorful anti-theft features like a wide holographic strip and color-changing ink, and it's the biggest redesign the "Big Ben" has gotten since the "big head" bills, as collectors call them, went into circulation in 1996.

"A major redesign like this in U.S. currency doesn't happen too often, so it's kind of a big thing and the new technologies that are going to be on it… are going to be a nice visual," said George Cuhaj, editor of the Standard Catalog of United States Paper Money.

(Read more: Finding Wall Street's missing money (and yours too!))

Summary: To most people, it's a hundred bucks. But to a small cadre of dedicated, if slightly obsessed, collectors, the new $100 bills are a gold mine.


05/11/2016 AT 01:00 PM EDT

to the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, but there's something on her mind other than training: The

about her career and training regimen ahead of the 2016 Games, Morgan addressed what is rapidly becoming the elephant in the room when the Summer Olympics come up.

"The Zika virus is definitely a concern,"

. "You don't know how long the virus lasts in your system, and that's an issue for someone who's trying to get pregnant," she continued. "I am concerned, but I really do trust the International Olympic Committee about traveling in Brazil. It is kind of scary."

Morgan joins U.S. women's national team goalie Hope Solo in voicing concerns about the virus ahead of the Games –

that she would consider not attending the Games because of the virus, but later recanted her statement.

that Zika could explode into a global epidemic after the Games, as 500,000 visitors return to their home countries possibly carrying the disease, which can be spread via sexual contact as well as mosquito bites.

that the World Health Organization should lobby the International Olympic Committee to stop the Games.

in February that he had "full confidence" in Brazil's preparations and battle against the virus.

However, Brazilian swimmer Leonardo de Deus recently

surrounding the outdoor warm-up poll at the Maria Lenk Trophy qualifying event (the second of Brazil's two qualifiers).

Olympic organizers have said that they plan on covering the outdoor warm-up pool with an air-conditioned tent come August, and Rio's doctor, Dr. Joao Grangeiro said athletes will not be at risk of disease and should plan on attending the Games. (His announcement came on the heels of the World Health Organization declaring the Zika virus a public health emergency in Brazil and Latin America.)

Summary: Earlier this year, U.S. women's soccer team goalie Hope Solo also addressed concerns about the virus


BlackBerry never had a chance to compete with the iPhone, BlackBerry’s former co-CEO said on Tuesday.

After Apple unveiled the iPhone as an AT&T exclusive in 2007, Research in Motion (which has since rebranded as BlackBerry) rushed to released a competing product, the BlackBerry Storm, under pressure from Verizon Wireless. The Storm, however, didn’t match the hardware or software features of the iPhone and turned into a flop.

“With Storm we tried to do too much. It was a touch display, it was a clickable display, it had new applications, and it was all done in an incredibly short period of time and it blew up on us,” said former Research in Motion co-CEO Jim Balsillie at an event in Toronto this week, according to the Associated Press. “That was the time I knew we couldn’t compete on high end hardware.”

Balsillie added that it became clear to him that the company, which had pioneered the multi-purposed phone for business use less than 10 years earlier, wouldn’t be able to match Apple’s iPhone, especially after the Storm saw what he says was a “100% return rate.”

Balsillie left Research in Motion in 2012.

Summary: He says the Storm saw a 100% return rate


About 25 million Americans currently take a drug to lower their cholesterol, so it’s no surprise that the most popular among them, statins, consistently top the list of best-selling prescription medications. But recent studies hinting that they were associated with memory problems have led some patients to shy away from them.

According to the latest data, though, there’s probably no need to avoid taking statins for this reason if a doctor prescribes them to protect against heart disease. In a report published in JAMA Internal Medicine, Dr. Brian Strom, chancellor of biomedical and health sciences at Rutgers University, and his colleagues say that while statins may contribute to short term memory issues, these tend to resolve over the long term and that such memory problems are not unique to the statins.

MORE: Who Really Needs To Take a Statin?

Previous studies had reported a possible connection between statins and memory loss, but those studies compared statin users to non-statin users. In his study, Strom included another group for comparison: people prescribed cholesterol-lowering drugs that were not statins. Among a large group of 482,543 statin users, 26,484 users of non-statin cholesterol-lowering drugs and 482,543 controls who weren’t on any drugs, Strom and his team found that both cholesterol-lowering drug groups showed short-term memory problems in the first 30 days after they started taking their medications compared to the controls. For statin users, the increased odds of memory lapses was four-fold, and for the other drug group, nearly the same, at 3.6-fold.

Because both groups taking drugs showed similar memory effects, Strom says that it’s unlikely that statins are uniquely to blame for the short-term cognitive issues. And because statins and the other cholesterol-lowering drugs work in vastly different ways, it’s also unlikely that the effect can be blamed on the drugs themselves. Strom proposes that the groups’ short-term memory issues, which were recorded by doctors in the patients’ medical records, is more likely the result of these patients simply being more aware of and sensitive to any changes in their functions after starting a new medication. In other words, people may have been having memory issues before they started their medications, and the problems might have occurred if they had not started taking them, but the symptoms became more noticeable because the users were more attuned to changes after filling their new prescription. The control group might have been experiencing similar memory issues but didn’t report them to their doctors; therefore, the issues might not have been recorded. “People on new medicines are more likely to notice a problem, more likely to blame problems on the drug and more likely to go back to the doctor and report these problems,” Strom says.

MORE: Statins May Seriously Increase Diabetes Risk

While it’s possible that the drug-taking group is also at higher risk to begin with for memory-related problems, since they have more potentially vessel-blocking cholesterol in their blood that can also impede blood flow to the brain, the results remained strong even after the group adjusted for risk factors such as diabetes and other blood-related conditions.

What’s more, Strom and his team also looked at users who might have been prescribed statins, stopped taking them because they were uncomfortable with the short-term memory issues, and then were prescribed them again at a later time. These patients did not report memory problems at the same rate, suggesting that the effect has less to do with the drugs themselves than with a hyper-vigilance for any changes associated with new drugs—the second time around, the drugs weren’t novel any more. “If the memory problems were real, we would expect that those who took statins for the second time would develop memory problems again,” he says. “The fact that we saw this as a problem so infrequently in this group suggests that it was more because the statins were a new drug the first time around.”

Based on the results, Strom says he informs his own patients that for some, statins may be linked to a short-term memory issue but that these tend to disappear over the long term. He also warns that even the short-term problems may not be a true effect of the drugs but rather a misinterpretation of the studies. “People should not steer away from statins because of a fear of short-term memory problems,” he says, “because they probably are not real.”

Summary: Some cholesterol-lowering drugs, called statins, could contribute to short-term memory lapses, but new data suggest that risk may not be real


The Imitation Game director Morten Tyldum is still surprised by how little he knew about the movie’s subject, Alan Turing, before taking on the project. “It’s sort of like if Albert Einstein was a little-known mathematician,” he says. “Alan Turing was one of the most important individuals in the last century, and he’d sort of been living in the shadows of history far too long. I think it’s impossible to not be fascinated or intrigued or outraged when you hear the story for the first time.”

Though The Imitation Game (like other some of the other biopics that stand a chance to win an Oscar this weekend) has come under fire for historical inaccuracies and not delving deeply enough into Alan Turing’s sexuality, the Oscar-nominated director says that emotional accuracy was very important to him while making the film. Though he left some of the best odd details he learned about Turing out of the film—”He was allergic to pollen, so he used to wear a gasmask sometimes in meetings without telling anybody why,” for example—Tyldum says the overall arc of the film is true to Turing’s life.

He spoke with TIME about the true story of Turing’s sexuality, suicide and odd habits.

TIME: How much do you think historical accuracy matters in a biopic?

Morten Tyldum: I think it matters a lot. It’s a huge responsibility when you’re dealing with real-life persons and real-life events to do it accurately. Of course, you have to compress a lot into two hours, and there’s no way you can be totally accurate. You have to convey the emotional accuracy—how did Alan Turing feel at this time?—and to do that, you sort of have to dramatize events.

That’s why I wanted it to feel like a thriller. He was 27 years old when he came to Bletchley [Park, where the code-breakers worked]. Here was this man plucked straight out of Cambridge. And he ends up with all these incredible secrets being dumped on his shoulders and all this incredible pressure. It would be as if he was living in the middle of this wartime spy thriller, so that’s what we wanted to convey.

One thing people have been saying is it’s not accurate that the machine he built was named Christopher. Here’s the fact though: The machine was inspired by Christopher. We know this because he wrote letters to Christopher’s mom his whole life. We know that from his journals, his obsession about recreating a consciousness that he lost—Christopher. How do we communicate that onscreen without making it a lecture? By naming the machine Christopher.

Could you talk a little bit about the effort that went into re-creating all the details in the computer?

It’s based on the machine he built. It’s this incredible design with all of these colorful dials in red and yellow—that’s how it was. We also wanted to emphasize that it was more than a machine for Alan. So we added all this red cabling that was sort of like the blood veins of something that is alive.

Turing eventually went through chemical castration and then committed suicide. Do you know what happened to the other men prosecuted under this law?

I think prison was more common than chemical castration. What I do know is that this law had a huge impact on many male lives. I got a very touching email from a 92-year-old man who said, ‘I was wrongfully convicted by the same law as Alan Turing when I was young and thank you for shedding a light on this. I watched your movie in tears.’

Fifty thousand men are still alive who were prosecuted under this law. This law existed up until 1967. Can you imagine? And it was only for men, not women. It was known as the blackmail law because people had something on you they could use against you. That’s why the campaign is going on that all the 50,000 men who have been convicted should all be pardoned. Because there’s nothing to forgive, nothing to pardon. They never did anything wrong.

Why did you decide not to show Alan Turing’s suicide?

We shot Benedict being dead, and in many ways it felt melodramatic and unnecessary. To me, it’s all about his relationship to Christopher. So him turning off the light on the machine and saying goodbye to Christopher, then the movie is over.

At first, we were fascinated by the apple. Alan killed himself by taking a bite of this cyanide apple, and the rumor was that that’s where the Apple logo came from. It was this great link from the inventor of computer science to this device we all carry around in our pockets now. I shot the apple and Benedict lying there and all that. But the whole thing turned into a sort of Apple commercial. The other thing is, it turns out it’s not really true. Steve Jobs said he wished Alan Turing had been the inspiration for the Apple logo, but it was a coincidence.

The apple did come from Alan Turing’s fascination with Snow White, which we tried to get in but there wasn’t room for it. It was too hard to explain. The true story is actually that he watched Snow White when he was waiting for the interview with Commander Denniston at Bletchley Park—the one that you see in the beginning of the film. He took the train from London, and he was early and went to the village cinema to see a movie while he was waiting. He saw Snow White, and from then on, he was a little obsessed with the story of Snow White. That’s why he decided to kill himself with the bite of an apple—which is in many ways poetic, but it felt like too much to explain.

I wanted to show the last night they had together, which is also a true story, they made this huge bonfire and burned everything. I wanted to go from his goodbye to Christopher to that ending with the fire. It just felt right.

Read next: Benedict Cumberbatch Talks About Playing the Role of the Genius

Listen to the most important stories of the day.

Summary: The Oscar-nominated director talks about the true story of Alan Turing and Bletchley Park


Comedian, actor and former heroin addict, Russell Brand, has suggested politicians should regard drug addiction as a disease to be treated as a health issue rather than a criminal or judicial matter.

The flamboyant film star, who arrived to give evidence to the Commons home affairs select committee, wearing a black hat, gold chains and crosses, and a torn black vest top, confirmed he had been arrested around a dozen times for drug possession.

He agreed it would be "a brilliant idea" if the policing costs of "nicking people for possession" were instead used to fund treatment and drug education programmes.

But Brand, who has given frank accounts of his battles to overcome heroin addiction, was careful to make clear he didn't want to start "banging the drum" for legalisation. He said he didn't feel qualified to talk about legalisation although he did think it was possible for some people to take drugs safely and he didn't want to be identified with a "just say no campaign".

He said he didn't think that drug addicts cared about the legal status of the drugs they were taking, or where they came from or the consequences for those involved in their production.

"I don't think they are going to be affected because they're normally on drugs," he said.

But he was keen to stress to the MPs, who are conducting an inquiry into drug policy, that he believed that an abstinence-based recovery approach was needed. "We don't want to discard people by writing them off on methadone and leaving them on the sidelines," he said, although he acknowledged the heroin substitute could play a role as part of a recovery programme.

He said rather than any carrot or stick approach he wanted to see "love and compassion" in society's response. He said his own drug addiction had been caused by emotional and psychological difficulties and a spiritual malady. It was more important to tackle those than treating addicts as criminals, he added.

The rapidly spoken comedian tried to engage the MPs on the committee, chaired by the former Labour minister Keith Vaz, with some banter. When Vaz asked if he had been arrested "roughly" 12 times, he replied: "Yes, it was rough."

When the veteran Labour MP, David Winnick, gently suggested he shouldn't treat the committee as a variety show, he couldn't resist pointing out that it seemed more like Dad's Army to him.

When the MPs suggested that as a celebrity he could be a role model for young people, Brand responded: "Who cares about bloody celebrities? Their role is insignificant." He said he wasn't trying to get a message across to young people but to people with addiction and wanted to ensure that the response to them was based on "truth and authenticity".

His backing for a more abstinence-based approach was supported by Chip Somers, the chief executive of the detox centre, Focus 12, where Brand went for help: "Just to park people on methadone for four to seven years is criminal."

Summary: Actor tells MPs committee on drugs that an abstinence-based recovery approach would better benefit addicts


MEXICO CITY, Jan. 1 -

Lounging in the central park, or alameda, of a Mexican village, gossiping with friends and purchasing snacks from a pushcart vendor is a favorite way to pass a Sunday in Mexico, even in crowded Mexico City, where the central park is a particularly beautiful one.

As a small boy, Mexico's great muralist Diego Rivera went to Mexico City's alameda on a Sunday, lounging with his parents, just as hundreds of people do today, nearly a century later.

A decade before he died in 1957, Diego Rivera painted a large fresco called ''Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in the Central Alameda,'' in which the trees of the park embrace a Rivera-esque fantasy. Painted in the Hotel del Prado across the street from the alameda, the mural embraced the centuries of history the park had seen, from the Spanish Inquisition to the Mexican revolution.

The mural has been in the hotel ever since, first in the dining room and then in the lobby.

The hotel, once a fashionable tourist spot but a bit in decline in recent years, was seriously damaged during the earthquakes that struck Mexico City 15 months ago, killing thousands of people and destroying hundreds of buildings. The hotel came close to collapsing and has been closed ever since, but the mural survived with only a few tiny cracks. Mural Moved 100 Yards

Although the timing was a bit of an accident, park loungers were treated to a unique spectacle three weeks ago, just six days after the master's 100th birthday.

Mr. Rivera's mural, all 77,000 pounds of it encased in foam rubber, wood, and steel girders to hold it rigid, was extracted from a second-floor lobby window of the del Prado by an enormous crane and loaded onto a flatbed truck.

The truck carried it ever so slowly and gently 100 yards to a new site where the mural was settled onto a concrete platform, the workers treating the giant apparatus as if it were filled with thousands of eggs.

In the coming months, a building will be built around it and a salon created. There, government art conservationists hope, the mural will remain permanently, and safe from earthquakes, a national artistic treasure that all who come to the alameda can view.

As did so many of Mr. Rivera's murals, the alameda mural instantly generated heated controversy because the artist, an avowed atheist and Communist, tucked away a small scroll in the work that said, ''God does not exist.''

Historians recount how demonstrators stormed the hotel and slashed the fresco, which Mr. Rivera repaired.

In 1956, little more than a year before his death, Mr. Rivera made peace with the Roman Catholic Church and changed the wording on the scroll to merely reflect the 19th-century meeting at which a Mexican politician had spoken the words.

After making the change, he descended from the scaffold and told waiting reporters, ''I am a Catholic.'' More Than a Year of Study

''We knew the day of the earthquake that regardless of what happened to the hotel the mural would have to be moved,'' said Juan Urquiaga, a Government architect who is head of the Office of Architecture and Conservation of National Artistic Heritage. ''We've spent more than a year studying the problem and getting ready for the move.''

Mr. Rivera, who was paid 512 pesos per square meter for his work - or about $4,300 for the entire mural -painted the fresco on a bed of plaster placed in a heavy steel frame. It measured 49 feet 3 inches by 15 feet 9 inches and was one of the last great murals he painted.

The frame is mounted within a massive system of steel girders, held together by a forest of steel-girder bracing so that the mural is not subjected to any twisting movements that might crack the plaster.

The weight of the work confounded the architects and engineers in the last year as they pondered the mural's future.

''Everyone felt it should be next to the alameda, or at least very close to the alameda,'' Mr. Urquiaga said.

''We considered placing it in the Fine Arts Palace, but the columns of that building are too close together.''

Another government museum behind the fine arts building and a block from the alameda had a second-floor salon long enough to accommodate the mural.

But when engineers began studying the 19th-century building, they had visions of the mural, girders and all, crashing down to the first floor should someone slam a door too hard, or during Mexico City's next earthquake.

Eventually, it became clear that the government would have to build a structure.

Another hotel across the street from both the Hotel del Prado and the alameda did collapse during the earthquake. In its place, the government built another park. The adjacent site where the hotel parking lot stood was vacant, and this was chosen for the mural. Earthquake-Proof

In the weeks prior to the move, while workers labored amid the ruins of the second-floor lobby of the del Prado to prepare the mural, other workers hurried to lay the concrete foundation of a new building.

They prepared a pedestal 50 feet long and 5 feet wide onto which the mural would be lowered by the crane and fastened in place.

The plan is to build the walls and roof of the salon around the mural, solving the problem of maneuvering the unwieldy object through a door or window of some other structure.

Moreover, by constructing the salon with enough structural steel to satisfy the designer of any modern bank vault, Diego Rivera's masterpiece will be earthquake-proof.

At the del Prado, a platform was built extending out of the second-floor lobby window into Juarez Avenue. Dozens of steel casters were placed under the mural.

On the day of the move, the crane pulled the mural out of the hotel onto the platform and then lifted it onto the truck for the trip to the new foundation.

''Our biggest problem was avoiding the possibility of any torsion when the mural was moved,'' Mr. Urquiaga said. ''But the steel structure is so well braced, we don't think there will be any damage.''

But it will likely be several months before the art conservationists find out if they succeeded.

For the move, the face of the mural was covered with cloth, polyurethane cushioning material and then a sturdy wooden cover.

That will remain in place until the salon is completed and there is no danger of bad weather affecting the fresco.

''We will remove the cover, clean the mural and repair any cracks. Our hope is there will be no cracks beyond the few small ones that resulted from the earthquake,'' Mr. Urquiaga said.

Summary: LEAD: MEXICO CITY, Jan. 1 -


Donald Trump delivered as promised -- the

organization has officially filed 2 crushing legal claims against ex-Miss Pennsylvania

... for saying the pageant's a fraud.

TMZ broke the story ... Miss Universe owner

gave Monnin a 24-hour ultimatum to retract her statements that pageant winners are predetermined -- but Monnin refused.

So this morning, one of Donald's lawyers tells TMZ, the Miss Universe Organization -- Miss USA's parent company -- has filed docs to take the matter before a private arbitrator, and he intends to go after Monnin for all she's worth.

The action was not filed as a formal lawsuit in court because of a stipulation in Monnin's contract -- which requires any dispute to be handled through private arbitration, and only if it can't be worked out there can it be filed in court.

We're told the Miss Universe team has filed two separate causes of action -- breaching the contract by talking trash about the pageant and a second claim for defamation. How much are they going for? We're told, "Significant damages."

Attempts to reach Monnin were unsuccessful.

Summary: Donald Trump delivered as promised -- the Miss Universe organization has officially filed 2 crushing legal claims against ex-Miss Pennsylvania Sheena…


just put the ICE in ice cream -- at least judging by the MASSIVE DIAMOND ENGAGEMENT RING his girlfriend was flashing at Cold Stone Creamery.

The Detroit Lions quarterback finally popped the question to longtime GF (and college sweetheart) Kelly Hall -- a former cheerleader at the Univ. of Georgia.

Hall posted a shot of the goods on her Instagram page -- subtly flashing the rock while munching down on some dessert.

She added the caption, "Don’t think I could be any happier!! #icecream."

As for the ring, no word on the size yet ... other than the fact that it's HUGE (good thing Stafford signed that $53 MILLION contract extension last year).

Summary: Matthew Stafford just put the ICE in ice cream -- at least judging by the MASSIVE DIAMOND ENGAGEMENT RING his girlfriend was flashing at Cold Stone…


Remember the pain you felt deep in your chest when you unconsciously left-swiped that would-be bae-of-your-dreams away while feverishly perusing Tinder? Remember how you hoped and prayed that somehow that special Tinderoni would reappear, all in vain?

Well, apparently you weren’t alone. A back-button is the “most requested feature” among Tinder users, according to co-founder Sean Rad, in a recent interview published by Tech Crunch on Tuesday (the same day Rad announced he would step down as CEO of the company but stay on as president and board member).

Soon the folks at Tinder will unveil a paid version of the dating app that will allow users to “undo” left swipes, TechCrunch reports. With the new version—called “Tinder Plus”—users can also search for matches outside of their region. Tinder Plus will be available soon for select users in the UK, Brazil and Germany.

So, that feeling of deep loneliness you felt when you missed out on The One may soon be nothing more than a distant memory. Of course, there’s still no guarantee your almost-missed-match won’t turn out like this.

Summary: It could be love at second swipe


won't need to clear space in his jewelry box for another NBA championship ring -- because his days of winning titles are likely over ... so says Lakers legend

The NBA Hall of Famer was out in Beverly Hills yesterday when we asked if he were in Kobe's shoes ... would he stay in L.A. or demand a trade to a better squad so he could end his career with a shot at competing for a title.

And that's when Jerry dropped his truth bomb -- saying Kobe probably won't win another championship during his NBA career.

Kobe's not gonna like that.

Summary: Kobe Bryant won't need to clear space in his jewelry box for another NBA championship ring -- because his days of winning titles are likely over ... so…


Bernie Sanders’ campaign schedule in the days leading up to Super Tuesday suggested that he had largely conceded the black vote to Hillary Clinton. In that timeframe, Sanders focused his attention on the northern and western states also holding primaries and caucuses during the SEC Primary. In the short term, this strategy paid off—he won in Vermont, Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Colorado—but this “Northern Strategy” wasn’t without consequences.

In the 1960’s and ‘70s, the Republican Party launched its infamous “Southern Strategy,” in which candidates used coded racial language to signal to whites who were uncomfortable with the Civil Rights Revolution of the 1960s that they might be a more hospitable party.

The Southern Strategy contributed to a gradual realignment of white, southern voters from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party. With this shift, minority voters became increasingly more important to Democratic victories. By 2012, Gallup estimated that minorities made up about 37% of self-identified Democrats, with blacks making up 22% of all Democrats. When you consider the fact that many minority, Democratic populations are concentrated in states with large white, Republican populations who will not participate in Democratic primaries, the importance of the minority vote becomes especially clear. Democratic candidates must actively compete for minority votes in these states because it will likely be decisive.

Thus, the path to the Democratic presidential nomination runs through the South, and must include substantial African-American support. Without question, Clinton won handily among African-American voters on Super Tuesday, earning at least 70% of the black vote in states with large enough black populations to count their votes.

For his part, Sanders won in states with larger white populations who might be more receptive to his message. While this strategy is efficacious in the short-term, in the long-term, it has important strategic and normative implications. The vast majority of the available delegates on Super Tuesday were in the South, the states with the largest minority populations. By conceding the South to Clinton, Sanders gave up on an opportunity to improve his vote margins in states that had greater numbers of delegates to pledge.

This concession becomes especially poignant when we consider that Sanders was competitive with Clinton among black millennials. There were clear generational differences in the black vote in Southern states. In the two Super Tuesday states with the largest black populations, support for Clinton was positively correlated with age. While only 54% of black Georgians under age 30 voted for Clinton, 80% of black seniors (age 65 and older) voted for Clinton. The generational gap was even larger in Alabama, where 52% of blacks under age 30 voted for Clinton, compared to 85% of black seniors. The generational gap we see in Georgia and Alabama looks very similar to the generational differences that manifested in South Carolina just a few days earlier.

Now, given the historically low turnout of young people (and the fact that Clinton still won among this demographic), it would be impossible for Sanders to close the gap between him and Clinton with increased black youth turnout. But for him to visibly shift his attention away from the South also sent the wrong signal, one that he may not have enough political capital to overcome.

Historically, there have been underlying tensions between progressive white Democrats and blacks. While blacks on average are supportive of a social welfare safety net, they have also critiqued white progressives who focus on class issues and ignore racism in class-based social movements or who minimize the ways that racism, not just economic disadvantage, hurts black communities. In the past six months, Sanders has grown more adept at talking about racial issues. However, he contradicts his rhetoric when it appears that he’s shifting away from campaigning in states with large minority populations.

While Sanders will likely win more primaries, it seems very unlikely that he can win enough delegates to overcome Clinton’s lead in pledged delegates and superdelegates, especially with this current strategy. Moreover, Sanders’ strategy raises the question of whether it is appropriate for the Democratic Party, which touts its support of civil rights, to nominate a candidate who conceded a huge portion of one of its most important constituent bases.

Andra Gillespie is an associate professor of political science at Emory University. Her research covers African American politics, particularly the politics of the post-Civil Rights generation of leadership, and political participation, in which she uses experimental methods of inquiry.

Summary: Looks like voters aren't feeling the Bern after all


Soda and sweets aren’t making Americans fat. In fact, underweight Americans consume more junk food than those who are morbidly obese.

In a new study in the journal Obesity Science & Practice, Cornell professors analyzed the food intake of about 6,000 people, according to MarketWatch. The study found that consuming more fast food, candy and soda was not correlated with higher body mass indexes—“While a diet of chocolate bars and cheeseburgers washed down with a Coke is inadvisable from a nutritional standpoint, these foods are not likely to be a leading cause of obesity.”

The trick, the professors say, is portion control. Eliminating the junk food that gets so much bad attention won’t make a difference unless it is paired with a generally improved diet and exercise. “If you want to try and prevent obesity, or want to create policy that is going to help people, simply addressing the availability of junk foods and sodas isn’t going to do it,” professor David Just said in a Cornell post. “This isn’t the difference between fat people and skinny people. It’s other things.”

The researchers did find one significant eating difference between those who were morbidly obese, and everyone else: french fries. Those whose BMIs surpassed 44.9 and were considered morbidly obese ate 50% more french fries than the average person.

Summary: According to a study by Cornell.


06/21/2016 AT 03:10 PM EDT

Leakes tells PEOPLE Now that when

appeared as guest panelist on her upcoming game show

, he had only one question for her: "Are those mink lashes?"

"He asked me about my eyelashes," she explains, adding that she assured him, " 'I don't know about mink but, they're real. They're real honey.' "

The game show revival stars Leakes and

, along with a cast of rotating celebrities, and the superstar panelists – corralled by host

– must decide which of three people is telling them the truth about their identity and incredible talent or job by asking a number of questions. The series will also include musical performances from a house band.

"Working with Mike was amazing," says Leakes, 48. "For a minute I think Betty was like, 'Okay, okay, okay,' because Mike was all over the place. He was saying and doing everything."

Of the iconic boxer, Leakes adds, "He is definitely an Energizer bunny, and he says a lot and does a lot – but that is an episode that you do not want to miss coming on. He is amazing."

premieres Thursday at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.

Summary: The boxer had only one question for the Real Housewives of Atlanta star when he appeared on her new show To Tell the Truth


A cradle of learning, culture and civilization, Europe is home to some of the world's oldest and most prestigious universities.

Here CNBC takes a look at Europe's top 10 higher education institutions, according to the QS World University Rankings for 2014-2015. The rankings were first compiled in 2004 and assess quality of teaching, research, employability and international outlook.

Over 3,000 institutions across the world were assessed and more than 800 ranked.

By Anmar Frangoul, Special to CNBC.com

Brian Lawrence | Photographer's Choice | Getty Images

Summary: CNBC takes a look at Europe's top 10 higher education institutions, ranked by research, employability and international outlook.


Mary Jean Crenshaw Tully, a founding strategist of modern feminism and former president of the National Organization for Women's Legal Defense and Education Fund, died on Dec. 27 at White Plains Hospital. She was 78 and lived in Armonk, N.Y.

The cause was a heart attack, said her daughter, N. Linsey Tully.

Mary Jean Tully was an architect and mainstay of the feminist movement that regained momentum in the 1970's. She was most recently a board member and adviser of the Veteran Feminists of America, a gathering of the ''Second Wave'' of the movement.

She was a co-founder of the Westchester chapter of NOW and went on to head the group's national legal arm from 1971 to 1977.

From 1971 to 1981 she was president of the Fund for Women's Rights, founded by Betty Friedan to lobby for the Equal Rights Amendment and other women's rights issues. She founded the Midlife Institute at Marymount Manhattan College and directed it from 1981 to 1986.

In the late 1980's, Ms. Tully gave financial support to the Tully Crenshaw Feminist Oral History Project, which collects interviews with those active in the movement. It became part of the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard.

Ms. Tully started it as the History of NOW and Betty Friedan Project, and it led to reunions of those active in the organization's early days, which in turn gave rise to the Veteran Feminists of America, founded in her Manhattan apartment. Now based in Lafayette, La., it tracks the movement's early adherents and keeps them informed through a Web site, www.vfa.us.

Ms. Tully was also a founder and past co-chairwoman of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy and a founding member of the New York State National Women's Political Caucus.

Mary Jean Crenshaw, an Army brat, was born in Fort Sill, Okla., and educated at Stanford University, the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Chicago before she received a master's degree in sociology at Wayne State University. She raised five children and lectured in sociology at Long Island University, Brooklyn, for several years in the late 1960's.

Her involvement with social issues began in the late 1940's, when she was active in the N.A.A.C.P. in Schenectady, N.Y. In 1952, while living in Kansas, she began an association with the League of Women Voters.

Ms. Tully's 1947 marriage to C. Robert Tully, also of Armonk, ended in divorce in 1991. She is survived by three sons, Bruce C., of Manhattan; Scott P., of Pleasantville, N.Y.; and Andrew G., of San Francisco; two daughters, N. Linsey, of Manhattan and Laura L., of Lexington, Mass.; a sister, Carolyn Griffin of San Antonio; and six grandchildren.

Summary: Feminist activist Mary Jean Crenshaw Tully dies at age 78; photo (M)


Longtime basketball sideline reporter Craig Sager’s cancer fight may be more dire than anyone thought.

On Monday, it was learned that his leukemia is no longer in remission. In a longer clip of his interview with HBO’s “Real Sports,” released prior to the broadcast of Tuesday’s episode, Sager explains the grave predicament he’s facing.

“I go [to the doctors], ‘I know, what are the chances?’ And [the doctors said], ‘Well, you’ve got normally 3-6 months to live,” he said. “But somebody may only have a week. Somebody may have five years. You could be the first one to five years.”

The 64-year-old Sager, who never bowed down to anyone along the sidelines during his lengthy career, made it clear he isn’t about to start now.

“I’m not going to be that 3-6 months. I’m going to be that five years,” he said. “I’m going to make medical history. … I’m fighting this thing to the end. I have too much to do.”

The veteran TV voice also clarified the timetable in a statement Wednesday morning: “The typical prognosis is 3-6 months to live, but I would like to stress that is for a patient who is not receiving treatment. Fortunately, I am receiving the best treatment in the world and I remain fully confident I will win this battle.”

Sager’s initial diagnosis came in April 2014 before his return in March of last year. He returned to the sidelines for the first game of this season after undergoing a bone-marrow transplant over the summer.

And Sager said he has no plans to surrender his broadcasting duties just yet. He’s still scheduled to be a part of the “NBA on TNT” broadcasts through April, meaning his multi-colored suits will still be airing across television screens the rest of the season.

“Still kicking, still fighting,” Sager said. “I haven’t won the battle. It’s not over yet, but I haven’t lost it either.”

Many in the NBA have tweeted their support to Sager:

My prayers goes out to one of the best to ever do it Craig Sager!! Please Stay Strong. #CancerSucks

— LeBron James (@KingJames) March 22, 2016

Sending my best wishes to Craig Sager as he continues the fight against cancer. Praying for you Craig! #SagerStrong

— DerekFisher (@derekfisher) March 21, 2016

Summary: Longtime basketball sideline reporter Craig Sager’s cancer fight may be more dire than anyone thought. On Monday, it was learned that his leukemia is no longer in remission. In a longer clip of his…


First Utility, the UK’s largest independent energy supplier, has launched a new deal with a cashback website to give customers £50 if they sign up to any of its tariffs.

The discount means that its one-year dual fuel fixed tariff, costing an average of £719 once the cashback is applied, is the cheapest deal on the market.

It’s the first cashback deal that has launched since Ofgem, the energy regulator, relaxed rules that previously banned cashback being offered on gas and electricity tariffs.

The deal is only available to new customers. The cashback is paid into customers bank accounts within 90 days of switching via TopCashback.

Experts welcomed the rule change but warned that households should do a whole of market comparison before switching energy suppliers.

Archna Luthra, energy expert at MoneySavingExpert.com, said “The changes are welcome news for consumers – any sweetner in exchange for switching is a winner.

“However don’t let the cashback tail wag the dog. Make sure you do a whole of market comparison and focus on the cheapest deal for you (which depends on where you live and how much energy you use).”

The number of households moving to better energy deals increased by 8pc in the first three months of this year compared to the same period last year, according to Ofgem.

The regulator claims that two thirds of customers could save up to £325 by moving from their supplier’s expensive standard tariff to the cheapest fixed-term deal.

“It’s no surprise that switching energy is catching on as it’s the easiest way for most people to save money,” said Mark Todd, co-founder of energyhelpline.com, a price comparison website.

He added: “With over 40 suppliers now on the market there’s more choice than ever, and the time it takes to switch has been cut to two to four weeks.”

The cheapest energy deals are often reserved for customers who sign up to “fixed” tariffs, meaning that they pay the same amount for their energy for a set amount of time – usually 12 months.

However, fixing is a gamble because if energy suppliers cut prices, like they did earlier this year, then those who are locked into a fixed tariff may not be able to take advantage of lower prices.

The cheapest fixed tariff on the market is Avro Energy’s one-year fixed simple and power tariff, costing an average of £745 per year, according to MoneySavingExpert.com.

While the cheapest variable tariff is GB Energy Supply’s premium energy saver, costing £765 per year.

If you'd like to get in touch with the author of this story, email: tara.evans@telegraph.co.uk


See the latest Chicago Tribune coverage of Archbishop Blase Cupich of the Chicago Catholic archdiocese.

Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich inherited a church last month that has operated in the red for many years and is tens of millions of dollars in debt. But the Archdiocese's financial picture is on the rebound, driven in large part by the improving health of its operating budget, officials say.

Read the story: December 15, 2014

Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich on Wednesday praised President Barack Obama's executive order last week that could protect millions of immigrants from deportation.

Read the story: November 26, 2014

Making his first of three pastoral visits to ethnic parishes across Chicago, Archbishop Blase Cupich on Sunday apologized to parishioners at a West Side church who have been grappling with a sex abuse scandal involving a former church pastor.

Read the story: November 23, 2014

Archbishop Blase Cupich will make the first of three visits to ethnic parishes across the city this Sunday, when he celebrates Mass at the predominantly African-American St. Agatha Catholic Church.

Read the story: November 19, 2014

The new archbishop of Chicago expressed his gratitude to members of religious orders and lay movements during a Wednesday morning prayer service for them at Holy Name Cathedral.

Read the story: November 19, 2014

Tackling the weight of expectation in Chicago with both gravity and humor, Archbishop Blase Cupich assumed the helm of the Catholic Church in the city Tuesday during an elaborate ceremony at Holy Name Cathedral.

Read the story: November 18, 2014

Three deliberate thuds echoed through Holy Name Cathedral on Monday night, as the next leader of 2.2 million Catholics signaled his arrival to the Chicago Archdiocese.

Read the story: November 17, 2014

Blase Cupich on Monday night will knock on the front doors of Holy Name Cathedral, where predecessor Cardinal Francis George, auxiliary bishops, and other civic and religious leaders will wait to greet him.

Read the story: November 16, 2014

During his earliest steps toward becoming Chicago's next archbishop, Blase Cupich wasn't sure religious life was for him.

Read the story: November 15, 2014

Blase Cupich flew into O'Hare International Airport less than a week before he is set to succeed Cardinal Francis George as archbishop of Chicago, and said his first task is getting "spiritually ready" for his new job.

Read the story: November 13, 2014

Excerpts of the Tribune's sit-down interview with incoming Archbishop Blase Cupich.

Read the interview: November 14, 2014

The fate of more than 83,000 schoolchildren will be in the balance as Bishop Blase Cupich takes the reins of Chicago's archdiocese.

Read the story: November 13, 2014

Blase Cupich will forgo the historic Gold Coast mansion that has housed Chicago archbishops for more than a century, opting instead for more modest digs inside the rectory of Holy Name Cathedral.

Read the story: October 22, 2014

Immigrant rights activists are hoping that Blase Cupich's outspoken advocacy for their cause translates to meaningful changes to local and state laws that would make Illinois the friendliest state for immigrants

Read the story: October 8, 2014

When Bishop Blase Cupich arrived in the Spokane diocese, he faced nothing short of a financial disaster stemming from the clergy sex abuse scandal.

Read the story: October 2, 2014

Catholic educators say Blase Cupich has the knowledge needed to help the city's Catholic schools thrive.

Read the story: September 29, 2014

Chicago's next archbishop said Monday that Catholics should make poverty more of a priority, both locally to help the city's poor and nationally, where his bishop colleagues can keep the issue front and center.

Read the story: September 22, 2014

Roman Catholics in Spokane say Chicago's next archbishop steered his own course — even when it meant risking offense or contradicting other U.S. bishops.

Read the story: September 22, 2014

Roman Catholics across the Chicago area flocked to their parishes Sunday, expressing hope that their next archbishop, Blase Cupich, will be an extension of Pope Francis by welcoming more voices on matters such as same-sex marriage and helping to heal the wounds of the clergy sex abuse crisis.

Read the story: September 21, 2014

As our largest private provider of education, health care and social services, the Catholic Church touches vast numbers of Chicagoland lives. Whoever runs the show matters -- to us all.

Read the editorial: September 21, 2014

When he received the phone call 11 days ago, Bishop Blase Cupich of Spokane, Wash., was as surprised as anyone to learn he had been selected as Chicago's next archbishop.

Read the story: September 20, 2014

Saturday's announcement that the next archbishop of Chicago is the grandson of Croatian immigrants thrilled some area Catholics with roots in the southeastern European country whose population is dwarfed by that of Illinois.

Read the story: September 20, 2014

Summary: See the latest Chicago Tribune coverage of Archbishop Blase Cupich of the Chicago Catholic archdiocese. Cupich takes on an archdiocese in the red Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich inherited a church last month that has operated in the red for many years and is tens of millions of dollars in debt....


Hell has an address: 55 Cancri-e is the first alien planet to have some of its surface features directly observed. And it’s no tropical paradise.

For some time 55 Cancri-e has been considered “strange.” Some felt it may be made of diamond. Others suggested it was covered in exotic fluids.

So an international team of astronomers headed up by the University of Cambridge has examined data captured by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope about this 40 light-year-distant “super-Earth.”

Orbiting a sun-like star in the constellation Cancer, the astronomers observed the rocky planet through several entire orbits — each just 18 hours.

What they found is a world of extremes.

All this is odd: It shouldn’t be that hot, astronomers say, even though it does sit relatively close to its star.

They also found an out-of-place “hot spot.”

At about the halfway point between the point closest to the star and the night side is a bright streak.

The astronomers suggest this may be fast-flowing lava, behaving in a way very similar to water due to its extreme temperature.

“This shift either indicates some degree of heat recirculation confined to the day side, or points to surface features with extremely high temperatures, such as lava flows,” a statement reads.

The data suggests a lava world where the lava becomes hardened on the dark side of the planet.

“The day side could possibly have rivers of lava and big pools of extremely hot magma, but we think the night side would have solidified lava flows like those found in Hawaii,” said Michael Gillon of the University of Liège in Belgium.

55 Cancri-e is one of only a few rocky worlds close enough for detailed observation.

It also belongs to a type of rocky “super-Earth” planet that appears to be common, based on just a decade’s worth of discoveries of alien worlds.

“Our view of this planet keeps evolving,” says Brice Olivier Demory of the University of Cambridge in England, lead author of the report. “The latest findings tell us the planet has hot nights and significantly hotter days. This indicates the planet inefficiently transports heat around the planet. We propose this could be explained by an atmosphere that would exist only on the day side of the planet, or by lava flows at the planet surface.”

The study, published in the science journal Nature, details how astronomers used infrared sensors to map the conditions on 55 Cancri-e’s rocky surface.

“By understanding the characteristics of the instrument — and using novel calibration techniques of a small region of a single pixel — we are attempting to eke out every bit of science possible from a detector that was not designed for this type of high-precision observation,” said Jessica Krick of NASA’s Spitzer Space Science Center, at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

This article originally appeared on News.com.au.

Summary: Hell has an address: 55 Cancri-e is the first alien planet to have some of its surface features directly observed. And it’s no tropical paradise. For some time 55 Cancri-e has been considered &#822…


Lack of sleep gives you the “munchies” just like smoking weed, a new study claims.

Sleep-deprived people crave sugary snacks and chips because skimping on snoozing produces brain chemicals similar to ones found in cannabis, according to scientists from the University of Chicago.

Researchers found participants who got several nights of poor sleep consumed roughly 300 more calories per day than those who were properly rested. They were more likely to eat high-calorie food with twice as much fat, according to the study published in the journal of Sleep.

Test subjects who failed to get enough Z’s had more trouble resisting unhealthy snacks — even when they were full — than ones that got enough sleep, said lead researcher Erin Hanlon.

“We know that marijuana activates the endocannabinoid system and causes people to overeat when they are not hungry, and they normally eat yummy sweet and fatty foods. Sleep restriction may cause overeating by acting in the same manner,” Hanlon said.

For the study, 14 men and women in their twenties spent eight days dozing at the university’s research center. Half of the time, they were allowed 7.5 hours of sleep per night, the other half only 4 hours and 11 minutes.

When participants lacked enough sleep, they binged on fatty foods in the late afternoon and evening — consumed roughly 300 more calories than when they were rested, researchers said.

Subjects meals at the same times — 9 a.m., 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. — and were allowed to choose what they wanted to eat.

Summary: Lack of sleep gives you the “munchies” just like smoking weed, a new study claims. Sleep-deprived people crave sugary snacks and chips because skimping on snoozing produces brain chemicals similar …


PYONGYANG, North Korea — North Korea presented a detained American student before the media on Monday in Pyongyang, where he tearfully apologized for attempting to steal a political banner — at the behest, he said, of a member of a church back home who wanted it as a “trophy” — from a staff-only section of the hotel where he had been staying.

North Korea announced in late January it had arrested Otto Warmbier, a 21-year-old University of Virginia undergraduate student. It said that after entering the country as a tourist, he committed an anti-state crime with “the tacit connivance of the US government and under its manipulation.”

No details of what kind of charges or punishment Warmbier faces were immediately released.

According to Warmbier’s statement Monday, he wanted the banner with a political slogan on it as a trophy for the church member, who was the mother of a friend.

In previous cases, people who have been detained in North Korea and given a public confession often recant those admissions after their release.

He was arrested while visiting the country with Young Pioneer Tours, an agency specializing in travel to the North, which is strongly discouraged by the US State Department. He had been staying at the Yanggakdo International Hotel, which is located on an island in a river that runs through Pyongyang.

It is common for sections of tourist hotels to be reserved for North Korean staff and off-limits to foreigners.

Warmbier is a native of Ohio, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, while campaigning in New Hampshire as a Republican presidential candidate, called the arrest “inexcusable.” Kasich has urged President Barack Obama to “make every effort to secure Mr. Warmbier’s immediate release and keep (his) family constantly apprised.”

Kasich said North Korea should either provide evidence of the alleged anti-state activities or release Warmbier.

In his comments, Warmbier said he was offered a used car worth $10,000 by a member of the church. He said the church member told him the slogan would be hung on its wall as a trophy. He also said he was told that if he was detained and not returned, $200,000 would be paid to his mother in a way of charitable donations.

Calls to the Friendship United Methodist Church went unanswered Monday.

Warmbier named that as the church his acquaintance belonged to and there is a church of that name in his hometown, Wyoming, Ohio.

He said he was also encouraged in his act by the “Z Society” at the University of Virginia, which he said he was trying to join. The magazine of the university’s alumni association describes the Z Society as a “semi-secret ring society” that was founded in 1892 and conducts philanthropy, puts on honorary dinners and grants academic awards.

Warmbier said he accepted the offer of money because his family is “suffering from very severe financial difficulties.”

“I started to consider this as my only golden opportunity to earn money,” he said, adding that if he ever mentioned the involvement of the church, “no payments would come.”

North Korea regularly accuses Washington and Seoul of sending spies to overthrow its government to enable the US-backed South Korean government to control the Korean Peninsula.

US tourism to North Korea is legal and virtually all Americans who make the journey return home without incident.

Even so, the State Department has repeatedly warned against travel to the North. Visitors, especially those from America, who break the country’s sometimes murky rules risk detention, arrest and possible jail sentences.

Young Pioneer describes itself on its website as providing “budget tours to destinations your mother would rather you stayed away from.”

The agency, based in China, also has tours to Iran, Cuba, Turkmenistan, Iraq and other former Soviet countries.

After Warmbier’s detention, it stressed in a news release that he was the first of the 7,000 people it has taken to North Korea over the past eight years to face arrest.

“Despite what you may hear, North Korea is probably one of the safest places on Earth to visit,” it says on its website.

In the past, North Korea has held out until senior US officials or statesmen came to personally bail out detainees, all the way up to former President Bill Clinton, whose visit in 2009 secured the freedom of American journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling. Both had crossed North Korea’s border from China illegally.

It took a visit in November 2014 by US spy chief James Clapper to bring home Matthew Miller, who had ripped up his visa when entering the country, and Korean-American missionary Kenneth Bae, who had been incarcerated since November 2012.

Jeffrey Fowle, another US tourist from Ohio detained for six months at about the same time as Miller, was released just before that and sent home on a US government plane.

He left a Bible in a local club hoping a North Korean would find it, which is considered a criminal offense in North Korea.

Summary: PYONGYANG, North Korea — North Korea presented a detained American student before the media on Monday in Pyongyang, where he tearfully apologized for attempting to steal a political banner — at the…


The message from Thursday night’s Democratic debate is that everybody in America should get on a leaky rowboat and find somewhere, anywhere, else in the world to live — because life in the United States is a nightmare from which millionaires and billionaires and the Koch brothers and the Republicans will not allow us to awake.

The two candidates for the Democratic nomination spent most of two hours arguing over who was the better diagnostician of the moral diseases, ideological calamities, spiritual infirmities, racial injustices and downright evils that are being visited upon the suffering 320 million who have found themselves through no fault of their own trapped between two oceans in a dystopian oligarchic hell they call America.

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders were essentially auditioning last night for the role of Snake Plissken. Do you remember Snake Plissken? He was the eyepatch-wearing hero of “Escape from New York,” the 1981 science-fiction picture in which Manhattan has become a prison and Snake Plissken is the only guy who can find the way out.

Only the America from which they want to liberate us is Barack Obama’s America. Oh, they don’t say as much. Hillary blames the Koch brothers. Bernie blames millionaires and billionaires and the campaign finance system. They both blame the Republicans.

But let’s face it: It’s Obama’s world. They and we are all just living in it.

And what a world. “There is,” Sanders said, “massive despair all over this country.” Wages low. Millions in prison.

The highest rate of childhood poverty in the world. The old have inadequate health care, don’t have enough money for food, are chopping up their pills to make them last longer.

Hillary said immigrants are living in fear. There’s systemic racism. Police brutality.

And don’t forget the horrors of being white, with “an increase in alcoholism, addiction, earlier deaths. People with a high school education or less are not even living as long as their parents lived . . . Coal miners and their families who helped turn on the lights and power our factories for generations are now wondering, has our country forgotten us?”

She concluded the debate by saying Sanders’s focus on punishing Wall Street was limited.

That’s because “if we were to stop that tomorrow, we would still have the indifference, the negligence that we saw in Flint. We would still have racism holding people back. We would still have sexism preventing women from getting equal pay. We would still have LGBT people who get married on Saturday and get fired on Monday. And we would still have governors like Scott Walker and others trying to rip out the heart of the middle class by making it impossible to organize and stand up for better wages and working conditions.”

Every now and then, one or the other would grudgingly say America had “potential,” but only to point out that it was potential to which it was not living up. Sanders even went into a long peroration about how horrible it was Hillary once said something nice about Henry Kissinger, who is 92 years old and last served as a US government official 40 years ago.

I thought “The Walking Dead” was a frightening vision of America. That zombie show is a walk in the park compared to Thursday night’s debate.

The loathsome and reprehensible caricature of America foisted upon its citizenry by Sanders and Clinton — a country with undeniably serious problems and challenges that is still the last great hope of Earth and a place Americans should and mostly do still feel grateful to have as their unique birthright — is another sign that we have a great many lessons we’re going to have to learn all over again.

In the 1980s, Democrats found themselves forced to battle the impression that they were anti-American. So desperate were they to dispel this idea that at their convention in 1984, Democrats waved a thousand flags and chanted “USA” and sang the national anthem until their voices went hoarse.

And that was after four years of a Republican president.

In 2016, after seven years of a Democratic presidency, look where they are now.

Summary: The message from Thursday night’s Democratic debate is that everybody in America should get on a leaky rowboat and find somewhere, anywhere, else in the world to live — because life in the United S…


What are you doing for lunch? If you’re gulping down a quick meal alone at your desk, as well over half of white-collar workers regularly do, you might want to make other plans—especially if you’re hoping top talent will stick around.

A recent white paper from consulting firm The Energy Project and the Harvard Business Review looked at the daily habits of about 20,000 U.S. managers and their teams. The researchers found that white-collar employees who step away from their desks a few times during the workday, especially at lunchtime, report feeling 40% more engaged in their work and 40% more creative than people who spend their lunch hours grinding away. They’re also 81% more likely to say they plan to stay with their current employer.

Yet most managers, it seems, have not caught on. Only about one in five (21%) bosses “model sustainable behavior,” including taking real breaks at midday, the study says. Even fewer leaders (17%) encourage the people who work for them to do so.

It turns out that companies like Google that offer free lunch to all are on to something. It’s not really about the food, so much as the communal setting, where employees get a chance to meet, talk, and maybe even come up with some new ideas, or just chill for a while.

Too many leaders elsewhere “have bought into the belief that the best way to keep up is to be working all the time,” observes Tony Schwartz, CEO of The Energy Project, which counts Google, Apple, and the Cleveland Clinic among its clients. “At the most practical level, leaving your desk for lunch is an opportunity to let go of whatever stresses you’ve accumulated during the morning, so you return to work feeling more energized and focused in the afternoon.”

A real lunch break can also help stave off burnout. “With the increased demands created by technology and a more complex global economy, even the most committed employees often feel they are running on empty,” Schwartz says. “Taking back your lunch is the first step in taking back your life.”

Thinking of heading out for a bite? Why not ask someone from the office to join you? Maybe somebody from the finance department: When staffing firm Accountemps polled 2,500 accounting and finance professionals last month, asking how they spent their lunch hours, one-third (33%) said they run errands, while 28% catch up on email. About half (49%) said they usually eat alone at their desks—but apparently only because no one has made them a better offer. Almost as many (46%) said they’d rather “enjoy a meal with coworkers.”

Summary: People whose bosses encourage them to take breaks during the day are 81% more likely to stay in their jobs.


Supersize the amount of raw vegetables in your salad — just watch the amount of dressing you use.

Can shrinking our waistlines be as simple as bringing serving sizes down a notch? That can help, according to Consumer Reports.

Follow these techniques to help train your brain to recognize and stick with healthy helpings of food.

Using portion control as your primary healthy-eating strategy allows you to eat almost any food while keeping calories in check.

Scoop and pour. Pull out some measuring spoons and cups to dole out precise portions of your favorite foods for a few weeks. You might be surprised to see that a serving of the cereal you eat most days is ¾ cup, while filling up the bowl to what looks like a reasonable portion puts you closer to 2 or 3 cups. (For a guide to serving sizes, go to choosemyplate.gov.)

Share with a friend. When dining out, start with your own healthy appetizer, such as salad or soup, and split the entrée. It’s also wise to go halfsies on extras, like a side of french fries or dessert. Consumer Reports suggests slowing down so you can enjoy each bite.

Watch your portions of healthy foods, too. Plenty of nutritious foods, such as almonds and dates, are also high in calories. And when people think that a food is good for them, they underestimate calories, according to a study from Cornell University.

Resized portions will seem small only if they’re not satisfying. By favoring satiating foods, you can feel full from smaller servings.

Focus on fiber. Simply choosing foods that are rich in fiber can help fill you up. In one study, increasing fiber intake to at least 30 grams per day for 12 months helped 240 adults who were at risk for type 2 diabetes lose almost as much weight as people who followed a more complicated diet that specified exactly how many servings of carbs, vegetables, and protein to consume. Fiber-rich choices include beans, fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.

Curb your appetite. Take the edge off your hunger with a healthy appetizer; that will help you limit yourself to that 1-cup serving of cooked pasta. A salad before or during the meal helped people eat 11 percent fewer calories overall, in a study in the journal Appetite.

Take smaller bites. That can help you keep portions in check. For example, research from the Netherlands found that people who took tinier sips of tomato soup ate about 30 percent less than those who gulped it.

Supersize the salad. It’s difficult to find fault with a heaping bowl of raw vegetables. So in addition to the standard lettuce, tomato, and cucumbers, add asparagus, beets, or whatever vegetables you like. Watch out for the extras, though — cheese, croutons, wonton noodles, and, of course, dressing can catapult a salad’s calorie count into double-cheeseburger range.

Eat veggies family-style. Measure out carbs (like potatoes) and protein (like steak) to control portions of higher-calorie foods. But put vegetable side dishes on the table so that people can help themselves to abundant servings of those filling, low-calorie foods.

Increase portions with produce. Not sure a half-cup serving of cooked rice will fill you up? Round it out with vegetables. For example, add 1 cup of chopped fresh spinach per serving of rice for a bulked-up but not weighed down side dish. (Mix the spinach into the hot rice as it finishes cooking, stir, and cover the pot for 1 minute. After the heat wilts the greens, stir again before serving.)


BRUSSELS—The European Union launched a complaint against China Tuesday for failing to remove export duties on certain raw materials, which it says favor Chinese industry and violate commitments Beijing made when it entered the World Trade Organization 15 years ago.

The case is the third such legal action by the EU—following two successful ones...

Summary: The EU launched a complaint against China for failing to remove export duties on certain raw materials, which it says violate commitments Beijing made when it entered the WTO 15 years ago.


Dozens of Iraqi government forces and militia members have been killed in an attack on military barracks east of Fallujah by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Military sources said 50 members of the Iraqi security forces and allied Shia militias were killed on Saturday.

ISIL losses were reported too, with sources close to the group saying 12 of its fighters were killed by helicopter gunships.Â

On May 23, Haider al-Abadi, Iraq's prime minister, announced the start of the offensive to "liberate Fallujah" from ISIL. Â

For almost two years, Fallujah, which is just 50km west of the capital Baghdad,Â has endured a siege imposed on the city after it became the first to fall to ISILÂ in January 2014.

OPINION: What success would look like in Fallujah

Matthew Glanville, former adviser to the governor of Anbar province, believes the Iraqi forces were overly confident in their operation to recapture Fallujah.Â

"The lesson from the earlier offensive against Tikrit last year was that where ISIL had the opportunity to dig in, particularly among the civilian population, it was always going to take a very long time to get them out without civilian casualties," Glanville told Al Jazeera.Â

Iraqi forces surround Fallujah as they push to drive out ISIL

"While Fallujah itself has been isolated, the wider ISIL movement still has the capacity to fight back. The time the Iraqi government has spent putting together this offensive has given ISIL even more time to dig in."

An example of ISIL's defence strategies was revealed earlier this week, when the army discovered a network of tunnels near the southern edge of the city.

It is believed that up to 90,000 civilians are still inside Fallujah.Â

Although the Iraqi government said it had a particular strategy to establish safe corridors for civilians in the city centre to leave, Glanville said many are reluctant to go from fear of how they may be treated by the Shia forces.Â

The humanitarian crisis in Iraq has been dubbed one of the world's worst by the UN.

Since the beginning of the present conflict in 2014, more than 3.4 million people have been internally displaced and 2.6 million have fled Iraq.

Source:Â Al Jazeera and agencies

Summary: Government forces and allied Shia militias targeted east of Iraqi city, leaving at least 50 dead.


Some say that we wouldn’t join the EU now if we were given the option but I think they are forgetting that joining on the terms we currently enjoy wouldn’t be an option anyway. No other country has the uniquely favourable conditions that we do.

Of course, the decision isn’t just about economics, but in sport we are constantly analysing the game and weighing up the odds. If I apply that approach to the referendum it is crystal clear to me that we cannot take the risk to leave the EU. It’s just not worth it. There is still no clear answer to what would happen if we leave because nobody actually knows.

My wife and I are about to welcome our first baby into the world. Why on earth would we play Russian roulette with our own futures and, more importantly, those of our children? This decision is too big to be decided by a throwaway gamble. It deserves greater consideration than that, and there really is no better call than to remain part of the bigger picture.

Summary: Like many others observing the EU referendum, I initially assumed that I was too far removed from the key issues to make a call either way.


It's one of the great mysteries of the business world: How much is Donald Trump really worth?

The world famous real-estate developer and television personality has consistently said it's in the billions. A 2005 book citing anonymous sources said it was between $150 million and $250 million. Mr. Trump sued the writer for defamation. He alleged damage to his reputation that caused him to lose out on future deals in locales from Philadelphia to Kiev.

A hearing in that case will take place Monday in a state court in Camden, N.J. As part of the proceedings, the Donald, as he's known to fans and detractors alike, has provided under oath the secrets to how he values his wealth and treasure. In one case, he says, he does "mental projections."

"My net worth fluctuates, and it goes up and down with markets and with attitudes and with feelings, even my own feeling," he told lawyers in the December 2007 deposition.

The deposition, marked "Confidential," comes to light at a time when some of Mr. Trump's projects, including several condominium developments that bear his name, are struggling. Among the problems are anemic sales, lawsuits, sharp declines in value and troubles with creditors.

In a telephone interview Sunday, Mr. Trump disputed that these are tough times for him. "We have a lot of cash right now. We're starting to buy things," he said while taking a break from playing golf at a Trump course in Bedminster, N.J. He said he stood by the statements he made in the deposition.

In the deposition, given to lawyers representing the book's author, Timothy O'Brien, and its publisher, a unit of French-based Lagardere SCA, Mr. Trump described his public persona. "I'm not different from a politician running for office," he said.

In the deposition, Mr. Trump said that his 2007 estimate of his net worth -- over $4 billion -- is "a very conservative number, in my opinion." He also said $6 billion is a good number, counting his brand value. (In the interview Sunday, he said he was worth $5 billion, not counting brand value.)

Mr. Trump was asked whether he has ever exaggerated in statements about his properties. "I think everybody does," he said in the deposition. "Who wouldn't?"

A follow-up question: Does that mean he inflates the value of his properties in general, nonfinancial public statements? "Not beyond reason," he said in the testimony.

The deposition reveals he told his bankers and New Jersey casino authorities in 2004 and 2005 that he was worth approximately $3.6 billion. In 2005, Deutsche Bank evaluated his net worth as part of underwriting a $640 million construction loan it made to Mr. Trump's Chicago condo and hotel project. The bank said his worth was $788 million, according to information presented by the author's lawyers present during Mr. Trump's deposition.

In his testimony, Mr. Trump discounted that and other low-ball evaluations as "ridiculous." And he noted, "They [Deutsche Bank] still come up with numbers that are many times" what the book's author, Mr. O'Brien, reported. In his interview Sunday, he said Deutsche Bank looked at some of his assets, not all of them, and didn't do independent appraisals. A Deutsche Bank spokesman couldn't be reached.

Mr. Trump said Sunday that Mr. O'Brien, author of "TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald," will "wish he never heard of that God damn book" and predicted that "the publishing company will pay me hundreds of millions of dollars" as a result of the suit.

Mr. O'Brien, who is an editor at the New York Times, declined to comment through his attorney, citing the ongoing litigation.

In the deposition, Mr. Trump discussed how he determined the value of a residential development on old rail yards on Manhattan's west side. According to the deposition, when a newsletter reporter writing about the project's 2005 sale for $1.8 billion said Mr. Trump had a "small interest," Mr. Trump wrote him a note. "You're a real loser. Thanks for the nice story. Is 50% small?"

But Mr. Trump had a 30% limited-partnership interest in the project, according to legal documents. A group of Hong Kong investors were the owners. Asked about this during the deposition, Mr. Trump explained that, in his eyes, he owned half because he gets paid fees for managing the buildings and because he didn't have to put up cash in the deal. "In my own mind I've always felt that," he said. "That 30% is equated to 50%," he said. In his interview Sunday, Mr. Trump said he had owned the equivalent of "more than 50%."

Mr. Trump often licenses his name to other developers in return for a fee or a cut of the sales. During the deposition, Mr. O'Brien's lawyer, Andrew Ceresney, noted that Mr. Trump had claimed publicly that he had a major ownership in one such project.

For example, in a November 2007 Wall Street Journal interview cited by Mr. Ceresney, Mr. Trump said he had sold out units at an eponymous condo-hotel project in Hawaii. "The building is largely owned by me," he said in the interview. But in the deposition, Mr. Ceresney produced the licensing agreement for the project. Mr. Trump wasn't a major equity holder in the project, it showed, a fact Mr. Trump didn't dispute.

"Because this is such a strong licensing agreement that I consider it to be a form of ownership," Mr. Trump said. "I'd rather have this than own the building," he said. Moments later he said: "I would say that it could be interpreted to be a form of ownership in the building."

In the deposition, Mr. Trump is asked about the Bedminster, N.J. golf course, which financial statements showed had a net loss of $4.6 million in 2005. Has he ever done a financial analysis of his investment there?

"Yes, I've done mental projections," he said, figuring he'd eventually make $120 million. He never put them down on paper. "You don't really have to," he said. Mr. Ceresney, asks: "Have you discounted in your mind for the risk that you won't sell [memberships] at the prices you are anticipating?"

"I think I will, but it's possible I won't. But I think I will," Mr. Trump said.

At one point during the deposition, Mr. Trump explained the importance of putting his projects in the best light possible. "Would you like me to say, oh, gee, the building is not doing well, blah, blah, blah, come by, the building -- nobody talks that way. Who would ever talk that way?"

Write to Alex Frangos at alex.frangos@wsj.com

Corrections & Amplifications: In the initial version of this article, the Las Vegas and Hawaii properties were misidentified as the other property. The captions now identify the correct property.

Summary: Donald Trump provided under oath the secrets to how he values his wealth as part of a defamation suit against a writer.


Jeremy Corbyn is to offer a free vote to MPs on David Cameron’s proposals for UK to bomb Isis in Syria but will make it clear that Labour party policy is to oppose airstrikes.

The Labour leader will also press Cameron to delay the vote until Labour’s concerns about the justification for the bombing are addressed, as part of a deal he has thrashed out with the deputy leader, Tom Watson, and other senior members of the shadow cabinet over the weekend.

Related: Shadow cabinet meets to decide on Syria - Politics live

His decision averts the threat of a mass shadow cabinet walkout, while making it clear that his own firmly held opposition to airstrikes is official Labour party policy, backed by the membership.

It will also create a dilemma for Downing Street about whether to press ahead with the vote this week, because undecided Labour MPs are likely to be tempted to back Corbyn’s call for a longer timetable.

Cameron has been expected to try for a vote on Wednesday but he has said he will not do so unless he is sure there is a clear majority in favour of strikes.

It is understood there has been no discussion with No 10 about Labour’s proposals to put off the vote.

Corbyn has written to the prime minister asking for further details of the Cameron plan and a commitment to stage a two-day debate.

Corbyn wrote to Cameron: “As of this morning, we have not had a clear proposal from the government on when you plan to bring forward a motion to the house on airstrikes in Syria or on arrangements for the debate.

“In the view of the opposition on a matter of such critical importance there must be full and adequate time for any debate in the house and only a full two-day debate would ensure time for all members who wish to participate to be able to do so.

“As has happened previously, a one-day debate would inevitably lead to important contributions being curtailed. It is incumbent on us all to ensure the country feels there has been the fullest parliamentary discussion of what you have rightly described as a highly complex situation.

“In addition, the debate would be much better informed by views from the foreign affairs and defence select committees following your recent statements.”

The Labour deal was brokered over the weekend and on Monday morning between the leader’s office and the deputy leader, Tom Watson.

Cameron is due to visit Bulgaria this Thursday for critical talks on his plan to renegotiate the terms of UK membership of the European Union.

Tory MPs said they were still expecting the vote to be called on Wednesday, despite Corbyn’s efforts to get it delayed.

However, one senior Labour source, who is not in Corbyn’s camp, said Labour MPs seemed to have become more wary of backing military action over the weekend for fear of “marking their card” and getting singled out as targets for possible deselection by activists.

Even though Corbyn is allowing a free vote, Labour MPs will still be defying their party’s official position if they back Cameron’s motion.

The Labour leader’s decision will be communicated to the whole party at a meeting of MPs and peers at 6pm on Monday.

Related: Airstrikes in Syria are lawful, but I’ll be voting against them | Keir Starmer

Corbyn will stress with the agreement of Watson that the preconditions for current party policy to support airstrikes have not been met.

Those preconditions include unambiguous support for airstrikes from the United Nations, clear support of regional partners, a comprehensive humanitarian plan and a commitment that airstrikes only target Isis and that any strikes are subordinate to any diplomatic efforts to stop the war.

Corbyn went into the shadow cabinet meeting armed with polling of a sample of members who responded to an email asking for their views, which showed 75% of 1,900 people were against Cameron’s proposals.

He has also canvassed the views of Labour’s national executive committee, while members of the grassroots Momentum group of Corbyn supporters have urged people to lobby their MPs against airstrikes.

Summary: Labour leader says party policy is to oppose airstrikes and calls for vote to be delayed but tells his MPs they can vote with their consciences


Foroohar is an assistant managing editor at TIME and the magazine’s economics columnist. She’s the author of Makers and Takers: The Rise of Finance and the Fall of American Business.

Businesspeople are increasingly taking center stage in politics. Think Donald Trump, but also Michael Bloomberg, Carly Fiorina, and so on.

Will we also see executives becoming ambassadors for social causes? Hot button issues like race, religion, gay marriage and the like used to be territory that CEOs avoided. But a number of them have been bucking that trend. Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has taken on issues like gun violence and race relations; Salesforce founder Marc Benioff and a number of other business leaders came together to pressure the governor of Georgia to veto a “religious liberty” bill that would have allowed discrimination against same sex couples. (Apple CEO Tim Cook did the same thing a year ago in Indiana.)

Why are they doing it? Schultz told me in an interview a couple of years ago that he felt a social obligation to speak out about race after the shooting of a young African American man in Ferguson, not only because he employs so many people of color, but because consumer anxiety after the event (and the riots that followed) was impacting the firm’s sales.

But there’s also growing evidence that CEOs may have to take on these issues, whether they want to or not, because their consumers demand it. A recent study from public relations firm Weber Shandwick, “The Dawn of CEO Activism,” found that Millennials in particular are looking to business leaders to speak out on important social issues. 46% of them say they would be more likely to buy from a company with a CEO that takes a position on a risky topic like race or guns or gay marriage that they agree with. That can directly impact a company’s bottom line. A separate study by Duke and Harvard professors found that Tim Cook’s position on gay marriage not only swayed public opinion on the topic, but increased consumer intentions to buy Apple products.

But the trend can work the opposite way, too. 40% of Americans say they would be less likely to buy from a company if it turns out that its leader is espousing a view they don’t like. Indeed, Schultz took plenty of heat for his stance on race, in part because it seemed awkward to ask baristas to discuss the subject with customers.

My prediction? Corporate activism is going to increase not only because leaders themselves have social beliefs they want to put forward, but because corporations will increasingly find themselves involved in areas that used to be the purview of the public sector, like education, workforce training, and such. Corporations now take the largest share of the national wealth share by far compared to labor and the public sector. It’s only natural that corporate leaders should become more involved in the debate over various social issues. What it means for the bottom line will depend on the topic – and the leader.

Summary: Execs are speaking out on everything from race relations to education


A new rule issued last week by the Obama administration increasing the number of American workers eligible for overtime pay is unlikely to have a significant effect on wages but could create around 100,000 new jobs, according to an analysis from Goldman Sachs.

On May 18, the Labor Department issued the new rule, which more than doubles the salary threshold above which workers are ineligible for overtime pay. Currently a worker who makes more than $455 a week is not eligible for overtime pay; under the new regulations anyone in a non-exempt profession earning up to $913 a week will be eligible for overtime. Executive and administrative jobs are exempt from the rule, as are professions like doctors, teachers, and lawyers.

Under the new rule, which is set to take effect in December, the Labor Department estimates that roughly 4.2 million American workers will be newly eligible for overtime pay—150% of their normal hourly wage—when they work more than 40 hours a week.

However, rather than adding substantially to overtime pay, Goldman Sachs projects that the measure will instead add about 100,000 jobs over the course of 2017, as employers respond to the changes by hiring new workers rather than paying their current workers time-and-a-half to work more than 40 hours.

Though the rule is expected to have little impact on wages, 100,000 new jobs is a sizable amount. The U.S. economy is presently creating between two and three million jobs every year.

Summary: Though it’ll have little impact on wages themselves


Starting at £100,000 with no fees included, the portfolio would grow to just under £350,000 after 25 years. With a fee of just 0.15pc a year – as charged by many tracker funds – the portfolio would be around £13,000 down at the 25-year mark by comparison.

As investors in funds are supposed to have a long time horizon – ideally at least five to 10 years – small fee differences from the beginning have the potential to compound into large differences in returns later.

If the fees were increased to 0.75pc, after 25 years, the portfolio would have grown only to around £290,000. The difference in returns between the 0.15pc and 0.75pc fee examples – around £45,000 – effectively represents the effect of the fee differential between an index tracker and a typical active equity fund.

The difference between a 0.75pc fee and a 1pc fee is £17,000 at the end of the 25 years. It would be easy to think of the difference between fund charges of 0.75pc and 1pc as splitting hairs, but in reality, unless the latter can outperform by enough over the long term to counteract the fee difference, the higher fee is hard to justify.

Charlie Musson, from AJ Bell, the investment shop, said: “One area to watch for is the cost of accessing different markets. A UK equity fund might have a fee of around 0.75pc a year whereas a global or emerging market equity fund might have an annual charge of around 1.1pc.”

One option highlighted by Mr Musson is investment trusts. These are funds that are listed as companies in which investors can buy shares.

They tend to have lower charges than conventional funds, such as unit trusts, and can sometimes be bought, thanks to fluctuations in their share price, at a discount to the value of their assets, although premiums are also possible.

He said: “In many cases the cost differential between funds and investment trusts is not as significant as it used to be, but they are still worth considering. For example, Scottish Mortgage is an actively managed global equity portfolio and has an annual charge of 0.45pc.”

Another type of fund called exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, can also be used to access otherwise expensive sectors relatively cheaply.

For example, an emerging markets ETF from UBS, the Swiss bank, has an annual charge of 0.45pc, compared with well over 1pc for actively managed funds that invest in emerging markets.

Summary: Fees on some funds may be about to fall to zero as asset management firms consider taking a small loss on them in order to attract and retain business, a report has suggested.


There will be questions, however, about why the Olympic silver medallist, reigning world champion and one of the big favourites for Sunday’s race, allowed herself to miss two further tests having already missed one in August of last year.

That first missed test, on Aug 20 2015, is the one CAS cleared her of, ruling that the UKAD Doping Control Officer had not followed required procedures nor made reasonable attempts to locate Armitstead.

Armitstead was staying at her team hotel at the UCI Women’s Road World Cup in Sweden when the doping control officer arrived.

CAS ruled that there was “no negligence on Armitstead’s part and that she had followed procedures according to the guidelines.”

Summary: Lizzie Armitstead’


Whatever else it does, the Trump campaign will test the willingness of the American electorate to support a candidate who asserts his right to run roughshod over the Constitution and flout traditional constraints on the exercise of power. Will voters fall in line behind a man who declares “I am your voice” and “I am the law and order candidate,” a man who looks more than 30 million television viewers in the eye as he says

Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.

Trump is the candidate of the massive and unruly rally, seemingly always on the edge of violence, the candidate who dismisses critics and opponents as weak losers and who whips up mass audiences via Twitter, the 21st century counterpart to the Depression-era radio rants of Father Coughlin and Charles Lindbergh — the aviator-turned-isolationist who brought us the original America First movement.

Trump’s entire campaign is premised on the primal assault of an in-group against an out-group. More brazenly than any major party presidential contender in American history, he promises voters the comfort, security and even happiness that autocratic leaders claim they can provide. He has based his presidential bid on the yearning for authoritarian leadership that he believes animates a majority of the voting public.

Matthew MacWilliams, in a chapter of the forthcoming book, “Why Irrational Politics Appeals,” writes that those who support Trump stand out because of two variables: “authoritarianism and a personalized fear of terrorism.”

MacWilliams, a doctoral candidate in political science at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, goes on to argue in a companion essay that:

Trump’s success in the Republican primaries this year is demonstrably different than what has occurred in America’s political past.

It is instead “the rise of American authoritarianism – America’s Authoritarian Spring.”

As the world knows, Trump set out to tap voters’ fears in his acceptance speech at the Republican convention on July 21st, arguing that 2016 is

a moment of crisis for our nation. The attacks on our police, and the terrorism in our cities, threaten our very way of life. Any politician who does not grasp this danger is not fit to lead our country.

There is a striking array of statistical data linking Trump to voters disposed to believe in the value of authoritarian control.

Robert P. Jones, the C.E.O. of the Public Religion Research Institute, wrote in an email responding to my inquiry:

Although openness to authoritarian leadership is a very difficult thing to measure, a recent P.R.R.I./Brookings survey found that there may be more receptivity than conventional wisdom might suggest.

The P.R.R.I. survey measured the authoritarian leanings of voters versus the autonomous leaning of voters by using a series of questions that ask what values parents seek to instill in their children.

A majority of Americans prefer children to have respect for elders (74 percent) rather than independence (26 percent); to demonstrate good manners (70 percent) rather than curiosity (30 percent); and to be well-behaved (61 percent) rather than creative (38 percent).

P.R.R.I. ranked respondents on a scale of highly autonomous, autonomous, mixed, authoritarian and highly authoritarian:

A majority of Americans favor either highly authoritarian (31 percent) or authoritarian (26 percent) traits. In contrast, roughly one-quarter express preferences for either highly autonomous (10 percent) or autonomous (13 percent) traits. One in five Americans (20 percent) has mixed preferences.

Most notably, according to P.R.R.I.,

Americans who have a highly authoritarian orientation are more than twice as likely as those who have a highly autonomous orientation to say the country needs a leader who is willing to break the rules to set things right (58 percent vs. 22 percent).

The accompanying chart shows the distribution of authoritarian versus autonomous values across the entire population.

Summary: Can Trump’s embrace of an explicitly authoritarian strategy take him all the way to the White House?