As a politician (or the wife of one), it is hard to avoid having nearly every aspect of your appearance publicly torn apart, and any mistake can be costly. Just witness the recent brouhaha over Hillary Clinton’s choice of jacket.

Such outrage over fashion statements has always been with us, from Mary Todd Lincoln’s 400 pairs of gloves to John Edwards’s $1,000 haircuts. Sometimes, though, a sartorial choice has the opposite effect, helping a politician communicate a “man of the people” message that belies his (or her) personal wealth.

As the national conventions get under way, MONEY offers this compilation of some of the most memorable money moments in political fashion.

On April 19, 2016, the internet exploded after Hillary Clinton defeated Bernie Sanders in the New York Democratic primary. But it wasn’t due to the significance of the win; instead, the fabric of social media ripped at the seams over Clinton’s choice of attire—a Giorgio Armani jacket priced at $12,495. While Clinton is no stranger to criticism of her appearance, she took particular heat for wearing the jacket to give a speech on inequality that night.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump had a lot up his $7,000 Brioni suit sleeves when he passed out “diamond cufflinks” as presents to friends and colleagues. Reportedly telling Charlie Sheen the ones he gave him were genuine Harry Winston and telling his mentor, lawyer Roy Cohn, his were Bulgari, he in fact handed out cubic zirconia cufflinks (originally thought to be worth tens of thousands) that a source told the New York Post were valued at less than $100.

Is it a fish? Is it a bird? Who cares, it’s a $990 T-shirt! Ann Romney’s Reed Krakoff Audubon silk top, which she wore on CBS’s “This Morning” in 2012 while the country was still in the midst of a recession, was held up in the Washington Post as “indicative of a tone-deaf campaign.” (And lest anyone think it was a gift from the designer, Krakoff was quick to point out that the candidate’s wife bought it off the rack.)

In May 2009, Michelle Obama sported some comfy sneakers, in anticipation of a day spent on her feet assembling food packages for hungry children at the Capital Area Food Bank. What she failed to do was check the pricetag before she left the White House, since her kicks were quickly ID’d by the media as Lanvin cap toe sneakers priced around $550 at Barneys.

As the son of the 41st president of the United States and grandson of Wall Street banker and Sen. Prescott S. Bush, President George W. Bush struggled to overcome his reputation as being out of touch with the general populace. His custom suits from Giliberto Designs, Oxxford and Sam’s Tailor, costing thousands of dollars each, did little to contradict his rich image. In an attempt to offset their extravagance, he donned a $50 Timex Indiglo quartz wristwatch. But not just any drugstore Timex: his was customized with the presidential seal and engraved.

Presidential candidate and “pretty boy” Edwards faced heavy criticism in 2007 when it was reported that he paid $1,250 for a haircut—including covering travel expenses—for his Beverly Hills stylist Joseph Torrenueva. The shear expense seemed astronomical to anyone listening to his political platform, which centered around issues of poverty. (He subsequently started getting his ‘dos at Supercuts, according to the New York Post.) It is worth noting, however, that an Edwards cut still ranks quite cheap internationally when compared with the $10,958 monthly salary paid to the stylist who tends to French President Francois Hollande’s locks.)

After Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the quintessential outdoorsy sports mom, became the Republican vice presidential nominee on August 29, 2008, the Republican National Committee decided to outfit her and her family with more refined wardrobes. The $150,000 shopping expedition was widely criticized—especially at a time when the country was in an economic crisis. Republication political consultant Ed Rollins told the New York Times, “It looks like nobody with a political antenna was working on this. It just undercuts Palin’s whole image as a hockey mom, a ‘one-of-us’ kind of candidate.” Initially, Palin herself went into sticker shock. However, it didn’t take long before she became quite comfortable in her pricey new threads.

As the grandson of a vice president and a solid member of the upper crust, Democratic presidential contender and Illinois Gov. Adlai Stevenson was having a hard time painting himself as a “candidate of the people.” However, after a photograph of him wearing shoes with holes in the soles at a 1952 Labor Day speech surfaced in the paper—and was adopted by his campaign—he became a symbol of frugality with which the public could better identify.

April 18, 1977, was a chilly day in the neighborhood for President Jimmy Carter. In a televised “fireside chat,” Carter advocated energy conservation and announced a tax increase on gas and heating oil. His not-so-subtle wardrobe choice of a cardigan suggested that he had lowered the White House thermostat to conserve fuel. He hoped to set an example for American public, but the unintended effect was an irritated audience.

John McCain was wrong-footed on the 2008 campaign trail, when he traveled the country to discuss the housing crisis facing Americans—and did so in $520 imported Ferragamo calfskin loafers. As the owner of a ranch in Sedona; condos in Phoenix, Arlington, and La Jolla; and two beachfront residences in California, according to the Atlantic, McCain raised hackles among voters who felt he couldn’t relate to their struggles to pay their mortgages.

President George Washington’s hair—an arrangement known as the “queue” that was all the rage in the 18th century—was not a wig. Instead, it involved laborious styling of his past-the-shoulders hair, first pulling it back to show off his forehead, then braiding and tying it, fluffing the sides, and finally powdering it to a white sheen. Washington’s powder recipe included grease and flour—even though at the time, flour was rationed for his own Continental Army troops to “two pounds of flour and one-half pound of rendered tallow per hundred men.”

Nancy Reagan’s 1981 inaugural gown gave the country sticker shock in its day. Priced at $10,000 (and part of her $25,000 inaugural wardrobe), the dress appeared to elevate Mrs. Reagan to the status of royalty, judging from the photographs she posed for in the East Wing of the White House. The New York Times reported, “Nancy Reagan has, in her first nine months in the White House, become identified with spending money.” Beyond the dress, Reagan also purchased more than $200,000 of new china for presidential residence and refurbished it using $800,000 of donations from affluent friends. The “Queen Nancy” moniker stuck—so much so that the first lady herself famously poked fun at it at a 1982 journalists’ dinner.

If Nancy Reagan’s White House expenditures seem excessive, they pale in comparison with First Lady Mary Lincoln’s. Known for her struggle with emotional instability (she was institutionalized in her later years), Mary Todd Lincoln also had a reputation for being a shopaholic. According to the Lehrman Institute, “One memorable four-month period saw her collect about 400 pairs of gloves,” and “At A. T. Stewart’s New York department store, she bought furs, silks laces, jewelry, three thousand dollars for earrings and a pin; five thousand for a shawl.” As if her personal expenditures weren’t enough, she also headed an extravagant redecoration project of The White House (far exceeding the $20,000 had been allotted), which infuriated her husband. “It never can have my approval,” the president declared. “It would stink in the nostrils of the American people to have it said that the President of the United States had approved a bill overrunning an appropriation of $20,000 for flub-dubs for this damned old house when the soldiers cannot have blankets.”

Summary: The cheap, the pricy and the ill-timed


Police confirmed they are treating the death as suspicious as neighbours claimed they heard screams before emergency services arrived at the scene.

One neighbour, who did not want to be named, told the Daily Record: “It appears he challenged someone he thought was going to vandalise his car.

“I heard screams and thought it was just children playing.”

Another neighbour said they heard someone shout about the amount of blood before telling others to call an ambulance. “They were hysterical. At that point I knew it was very bad,” they added.

Mr Kiltie was a Stagecoach bus driver, who was described as a “pleasant man” and a “real hard worker”.

Summary: A father-of-four whose body was found in a garden was stabbed to death after he confronted a vandal he thought was trying to damage his car, witnesses claimed.


For women today, oil and image don't mix.

That's what has prompted Procter & Gamble Co. to drop the "Oil" from Oil of Olay, in a quiet repositioning of its venerable half-century-old beauty brand. P&G hopes the simpler name "Olay" will make its $500 million line of skin-care products and cosmetics more appealing to younger women -- a critical task for the consumer-products giant.

Summary: Advertising  : Procter & Gamble has dropped the "Oil" from Oil of Olay, part of a quiet repositioning of its venerable half-century-old beauty brand.


Lindsey Anne Jones and Stephen Theodore Hauschka were married Saturday evening at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis. The Rev. Douglas Mitchell, a Presbyterian minister, performed the ceremony. The couple met at Middlebury College, from which they graduated cum laude.

Mrs. Hauschka, 26, received a law degree last month from Boston College.

She is the daughter of Linda D. Jones and Roger C. Jones of Edina, Minn. Her father is a founding partner at Teneca, an investment banking firm in Minneapolis.

Mr. Hauschka, 25, is a placekicker with the Denver Broncos of the National Football League. He played football for three seasons at Middlebury. After graduating, he began studies for a master’s in parks, recreation and tourism management at North Carolina State, where he also played football for one season and later signed as a free agent with the Minnesota Vikings.

He is a son of Dr. Barbara Hauschka and Peter Hauschka of Needham, Mass. His mother is a dentist at the Sowles Trauring Dental Partners of Brookline in Brookline, Mass. His father is a senior research associate in orthopedics and the director of scientific resources at Children’s Hospital in Boston.

A version of this article appears in print on June 26, 2011, on page ST12 of the New York edition with the headline: Lindsey Jones, Stephen Hauschka. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe

Summary: The bride just completed a law degree; the bridegroom is a placekicker for the Denver Broncos.


08/02/2016 AT 12:30 PM EDT

's front-runner Luke or (very, very) dark horse Chad, the future

will no doubt have his hands full with eligible ladies.

This season's crop of guys were some of the most talked about yet!

Chad, 28, is an unlikely choice (and he's already on

), but who wouldn't want to watch "Chad do Chad" all season?

The fan-favorite war vet, 31, had ladies swooning over his Texan charm and has said he's "open" to starring on the show.

JoJo Fletcher and Jordan Rodgers on the cover of PEOPLE

During his time on the show, the 27-year-old medical sales rep says he learned to be more open with his feelings.

"I want to be in love," says Hayes, 27, who was left heartbroken after a proposal-gone-wrong on the finale. "And I'm dying to start a family."

Before the next star of

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

Summary: JoJo Fletcher's final rose on Monday left four men vying for the chance to be the one handing out the stems next season


Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders was probably the last face John Kasich supporters expected to see Wednesday at a rally in Ohio.

A man dressed up as the Democrat made an appearance at the event, shouting in character as Sanders, complaining about the economy and even giving Kasich praise for his calm debate performances.

“Hello, I just want to say I disagree with the young man’s numbers,” the Sanders impersonator announced after Kasich called him up. “I want to thank you for bringing a little class to the Republican debates.”

The performance may give comedian Larry David’s appearance as Sanders on Saturday Night Live a run for its money—including the bit at the end where he takes a selfie with Kasich using a flip-phone that only a parody of Sanders would own.

Summary: This guy gives Larry David a run for his money


Neva Morris of Ames, Iowa, was 114 years, 245 days old when she died on Tuesday with her son-in-law at her side.

Mrs Morris became the oldest living American on March 8. The Gerontology Research Group of Los Angeles says Eunice Sanborn of Jacksonville, Texas, is now the oldest living American at 113 years, 260 days old.

Morris' son-in-law, Tom Wickersham, said last month that Morris had vision and hearing loss but was "quite mentally alert." She also liked to sing "You Are My Sunshine" nearly every day.

Walter Morris, her last living child, said in the local newspaper: "She lived a long, charitable and wonderful life. She was a private person whow as very proud of her family.

"She was always there if you needed her. She loved her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren very much."

The Ames Historical Society said Mrs Morris was born Neva Freed on Aug. 3, 1895. She married Edward L. Morris in 1914.

Summary: A woman who became the oldest living American and second oldest person in the   world less than a month ago has died.


Medical textbooks skirt the topic, he added, often avoiding any explanation. And few scientists have studied cramps.

But as anyone who has ever complained of cramps will attest, lots of advice is circulating on how to avoid them and lots of people — friends, coaches, doctors — think they have a solution.

Take a multivitamin pill to get zinc and magnesium. Massage the muscles. Drink plenty of water. Be sure to get enough electrolytes like sodium and potassium. Stretch before you start to exercise. No, stretch as soon as you finish. See a nutritionist to correct imbalances in your diet. See a trainer to be sure you are moving correctly.

Of course, Dr. Marks said, medical conditions can lead to cramps, including narrowed blood vessels, usually from atherosclerosis, or compression of a nerve, as happens in spinal stenosis. Cramps also can arise from hypothyroidism. And they can be a side effect of medications like diuretics, used to lower blood pressure, which can lead to a potassium deficiency that can cause cramps.

But, he and others said, those conditions do not explain the vast majority of cramps.

“You are left with the fact that cramping usually occurs in healthy people without any underlying disease,” Dr. Marks said.

There are three leading hypotheses about how to treat cramps and how to prevent them.

There’s the dehydration proposal: you just need more fluid. But, Dr. Schwellnus said, he studied athletes who cramped and found that they were no more dehydrated before or after a race than those who did not have cramps.

Then there’s the electrolyte hypothesis: what you really need is sodium and potassium.

Michael F. Bergeron, who directs the environmental physiology laboratory at the Medical College of Georgia, said the electrolyte hypothesis applies to a specific type of cramp that is related to excessive sweating. It occurs, he said, when the fluid that bathes the connection between muscle and nerve is depleted of sodium and potassium, which was lost through sweat. The nerve then becomes hypersensitive, Dr. Bergeron said.

“Usually you feel little twitches first,” he explained. “They last for 20 to 30 minutes and if you don’t do anything you can be in full-blown cramps.” Those cramps, he continued can move from place to place on your body, from one leg to the next, to your arms, stomach, even your fingers or your face.

The solution, Dr. Bergeron said, is to drink salty fluids like Gatorade (the company sponsors his research). He said he had prevented cramps in tennis players this way.

But asked whether there are any rigorous studies to confirm this hypothesis, he said no. “We haven’t done the study yet,” he said. “We’re at the point of kind of connecting the dots.”

The third hypothesis is advanced by Dr. Schwellnus. He questions the electrolyte hypothesis because his studies of Ironman-distance triathletes as well as other studies of endurance athletes found no difference in electrolyte levels between those who suffered cramps and those who did not.

DR. SCHWELLNUS proposes that the real cause of cramping is an imbalance between nerve signals that excite a muscle and those that inhibit its contractions. And that imbalance, he said, occurs when a muscle is growing fatigued.

His solutions for cramps are to exercise less intensely and for shorter times, to be sure you had enough carbohydrates to fuel your muscles, to train sufficiently and to regularly stretch the muscles that give you problems. These recommendations are based on his recent study of Ironman triathletes, Dr. Schwellnus said.

But while he advocates those practices, he said, they have not been proved in a rigorous study.

In the meantime, some doctors have resorted to experimenting on themselves, devising their own explanations and cures.

Dr. Charles van der Horst, an AIDS researcher at the University of North Carolina, said he was stunned when his calf started to cramp without warning when he was running. The pain was almost unbearable, he said, and even when the muscle finally relaxed, it cramped again when he resumed running.

“I started carrying a cellphone with me on long runs,” Dr. van der Horst said. When a cramp struck, he called his wife to ask her to drive out and get him.

“I think I was getting calcium deposits or something,” Dr. van der Horst said.

His solution was to massage his calves at all hours, pushing deep into the muscle. This seems to work, he said, explaining that it’s been a year now since he had a cramp.

Dr. Stephen Liggett, a professor of medicine and physiology at the University of Maryland, has a different solution. He got terrible cramps in his calf during yoga. The culprit, he decided, was the drugs he takes for asthma, which can diminish the body’s supply of potassium. He knew that potassium is sold over the counter. But because high levels of potassium can be dangerous, store-bought potassium supplements are not very strong.

Dr. Liggett’s solution is not one anyone who is not a doctor should try at home. Before he does yoga, he measures the potassium levels in his blood before and after taking what he describes as a hefty dose of over-the-counter supplement. Then he calculates how much additional potassium he thinks he needs, securing it from concentrated potassium tablets from his research lab — how much he declined to say.

“I didn’t want to drink two gallons of Gatorade,” Dr. Liggett explained. He hasn’t had cramps since he began “preloading,” as he calls it, with potassium. But, he said, “I haven’t done a controlled trial.”

Dr. Marks, for one, is not convinced by the evidence for any of the hypotheses, nor by any of the proposed remedies.

“I would say the answer to that question is still open to investigation,” he said. And, he added, he hopes someone takes it up.

A version of this article appears in print on , on page G8 of the New York edition with the headline: A Long-Running Mystery, the Common Cramp. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe

Summary: Medical textbooks skirt the topic, often avoiding any explanation. But as anyone who has ever complained of cramps will attest, lots of advice is circulating on how to avoid them.


If an insurance agent pitches you an “indexed annuity,” here is something to ask: What fabulous prize are you helping him, or her, to win?

The question springs from a probe under way by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) targeting sales incentives for annuities, which are tax-deferred savings, investment and lifetime-income products issued by insurance companies. Much of the senator’s focus is on the indexed annuity, widely known within the industry for the perks available to agents, according to industry executives and financial advisers.

In simplest terms, this type of annuity promises a return tied to a stock-market index, while guaranteeing against losses if the market falls. But it is much more complicated than that—with serious limitations on the upside potential—and long has been controversial because of the many ways consumers can misunderstand it, experts say.

In the first quarter of 2015, sales of indexed annuities rose 3% from the year-earlier quarter, to $11.6 billion, even as total U.S. annuity sales fell 7% to $54.4 billion, according to Limra, a research firm funded by the insurance industry.

In letters dispatched in April to 15 of the nation’s largest annuity issuers, Sen. Warren quoted from marketing materials aimed at insurance agents with a record of high-volume annuity sales, describing sales incentives including “four days in the heart of California’s wine country at the prestigious Calistoga Ranch and Spa”; a trip to South Africa to visit Cape Town and Kruger National Park; and the opportunity to “tour the Mediterranean on a private yacht, like royalty, celebrities, and the wealthy elite.”

The letters say perks also have included cash awards, car leases and, in at least one instance, “a diamond-encrusted NFL Super Bowl Style ring with high-quality gold and a ruby in the middle.”

Sen. Warren’s letters seek from the insurers “a list of all incentives,” saying that annuity sellers who are “more interested in earning perks than in acting in their clients’ best interest can place Americans’ savings and retirement security at risk.”

So, does that mean you should steer clear of indexed and other types of annuities?

The American Council of Life Insurers says consumers should feel comfortable in their purchases. “From product development to advertising to sales, life insurers offering annuities must comply with state and federal laws and rules that help protect consumers’ interests,” the trade group said in a statement after Sen. Warren’s letters went out. “State regulations include extensive product disclosure, strong suitability standards, as well as truth-in-advertising and credentialing requirements.”

Still, many financial advisers and even some insurance-industry executives advise caution. “While I believe that an indexed annuity can find a place in many conservative investors’ portfolios, I also believe it is a product that is frequently incorrectly sold,” says Scott Stolz, president of the insurance and annuity division of securities firm Raymond James Financial Inc.

Here is more of what you need to know if you are considering a purchase:

THE INNER WORKINGS: While the stock-market link is part of the pitch, financial advisers and agents who understand indexed annuities say they tell their clients to think of them more as juiced-up bank certificates of deposit. Insurers back the contracts mostly with bonds. Often, the return is pegged to the S&P 500, but increasingly insurers are using proprietary indexes.

Insurers typically restrict the upside potential, setting a cap on annual gains at a given percentage figure or limiting them to a percentage of the index’s gain, for instance. So even if the stock market is roaring, the consumer would likely get a single-digit return, Mr. Stolz says. What’s more, insurers typically exclude dividends from the calculation of payouts, though these can notably boost results in a lackluster market year.

And many indexed products’ contracts allow insurers to adjust the participation in gains for the coming year, subject to specified minimums and maximums, says Lawrence Rybka, president of ValMark Securities Inc., a securities and insurance brokerage firm based in Akron, Ohio. He calls it “changing the deal for clients.”

Some—and possibly many—buyers don’t understand the role of the upside restrictions when they lock themselves into the long-term contracts, critics say. Early-withdrawal penalties range from three to 16 years and the average is 10 years, according to Wink Inc., a market-research firm in the insurance and annuities industry.

“An indexed annuity is not an equity investment in any way,” Mr. Stolz says. “Anyone who buys it as an equity alternative is going to be disappointed at the results.”

Agents’ commissions are paid by the insurer; the expense is built into the product. In general, the higher the commission, the longer the period during which early-withdrawal penalties, also known as surrender charges, apply. “Look for indexed annuities with surrender-charge periods of seven years or less, and you will likely have one that offers good consumer value,” Mr. Stolz says.

THE BEST USES: Indexed annuities can work well for conservative savers who want to earn, on average, 1.5 to three percentage points a year more than they would get on bank CDs over a seven- to 10-year period, Mr. Stolz says. They also are preferable to bank CDs in that the interest is tax-deferred until it is withdrawn from the contract.

Some indexed annuities include riders, for an extra cost, to guarantee monthly income for life, an attractive feature to those who don’t have an old-fashioned pension plan and worry about outliving their savings. And some also offer long-term-care benefits should the buyer become incapable of independent living.

Stan Haithcock, an annuity specialist who is a critic of aggressive sales tactics and is quoted in Ms. Warren’s letters, cautions that consumers buying an indexed annuity for the lifetime-income feature should purchase only those issued by highly rated carriers. Some indexed annuities make sense “if fully explained by the agent and understood by the client,” he says. Mr. Haithcock contributes regularly on annuities to MarketWatch.com, which is published by News Corp’s Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal.

ValMark’s Mr. Rybka says potential buyers should consider whether other types of annuities would work better for creating a lifetime income stream. He says his firm’s brokers sell few indexed annuities, because they find drawbacks often outweigh advantages.

Ms. Scism is a news editor for The Wall Street Journal in New York. Email her at leslie.scism@wsj.com.

Wink Inc. is a market-research firm in the insurance and annuities industry. A previous version of this article incorrectly referred to it as an index-products consulting firm. (June 9, 2015)

Summary: Agents can earn exotic trips and other perks for selling these tax-deferred investment products. Here is what you need to know if you’re considering a purchase.


At Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, CEO Warren Buffett’s face is everywhere. From rubber duckies to running shoes, it turns out that the Oracle of Omaha is also a great salesman. The gathering of shareholders is as much about shopping as it is about investing in stocks.

Registers at the display for Brooks Running, a Berkshire Hathaway company, were busy as shoppers snatched up sneakers and T-shirts. CEO Jim Weber predicts Brooks will sell $400,000 of merchandise over the weekend.

Fortune’s Susie Gharib caught up with Weber. He gave Susie a sneak peek at this year’s special edition sneaker in honor of Buffett.

Summary: Brooks Running CEO Jim Weber shows off the new product.


This article originally appeared on Time.com.

Delta is compensating customers who experienced delays after a computer outage Monday halted flights around the world.

The airline is offering $200 vouchers to passengers who experienced delays longer than three hours or had a flight cancelled, Delta announced in a release.

“We know that travelers value our commitment to excellent operational performance, and today we did not deliver on that commitment,” Gil West, Delta’s chief operating officer said in a statement. “We want our customers to know we are thoroughly investigating the matter and that we are truly sorry.”

See also: Delta Air Lines Flights Resume After Computer Crash Strands Passengers

Delta CEO Ed Bastian also apologized in a video posted on Twitter.

Hundreds of flights were cancelled and hundreds more were delayed earlier in Monday, leaving many passengers stranded after a loss of power in Atlanta that “affected Delta computer systems and operations worldwide.”

Summary: Delta CEO Ed Bastian also apologized to customers in a statement.


Sandwich chain Jimmy John’s said it would stop including noncompete agreements in its hiring packets, as part of a settlement with New York authorities to be announced Wednesday.

The settlement follows another deal that the New York attorney general’s office reached last week with legal publisher Law360, part of a crackdown on companies using such provisions in employment contracts.

The clauses bar departing employees from taking jobs with their company’s competitors for a designated period. The use of such provisions by Jimmy John’s had raised eyebrows because they applied to junior employees who made sandwiches, and weren’t limited to the senior or technical positions for which such clauses originated.

Jimmy John’s, a closely held company based in Illinois, has more than 2,000 locations across the U.S., mostly franchised.

The company said it worked closely with the attorney general’s office to reach a settlement and wouldn’t support any of its restaurants enforcing a noncompete agreement against an employee. It also said it agreed to tell its New York franchisees that the agreements are “disfavored” by New York law and that the attorney general’s office believes the franchisees should void any such agreements.

Some Jimmy John’s stores has used contracts forbidding employees from working for any other establishment that made more than 10% of its revenue from selling sandwiches and is within 2 miles of any existing Jimmy John’s, according to the settlement.

The company had stopped providing the sample agreements to its franchisees in late 2014, but some had used them believing they were required, according to the settlement. Authorities asked the company to tell its franchisees specifically that the attorney general’s office believed any such agreements should be voided.

The attorney general’s office “concluded that the Non-Competition Agreements place a restraint on employees that is greater than the legitimate interests of the employer and imposes undue hardship on the employee,” according to the settlement.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said the agreements “limit mobility and opportunity for vulnerable workers and bully them into staying with the threat of being sued.”

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan separately sued the chain earlier this month over the agreements, which she described as “highly restrictive” and “illegal and unenforceable under Illinois law.” That case continues.

In May, the White House issued a report saying noncompete agreements can impose “substantial costs on workers, consumers, and the economy more generally.” In March, the Treasury Department said such agreements could have benefits—such as making companies more comfortable sharing trade secrets with employees or encouraging investment in their training—but were often used in ways that lacked “transparency and fairness.”

Around 15% of workers without a college degree are currently subject to noncompete agreements, and 14% of people earning less than $40,000 are subject to them, according to the White House report.

Write to Aruna Viswanatha at Aruna.Viswanatha@wsj.com


* Both the House of Reps and Senate sit - the final week in 2016.

* The Senate is sitting to midnight as it debates government legislation restoring the building and construction industry watchdog.

* The government fast tracks amended backpacker tax legislation through the lower house.

* Question time in both houses at 2pm (AEDT).

* Liberal Democrats senator David Leyonhjelm predicts the government's legislation to re-establish the Australian Building and Construction Commission could clear the upper house on Tuesday.

* Unions have launched a fierce campaign at more than a dozen building sites in a last-minute bid to crush the government's workplace reforms

* The OECD expects the Australian economy to grow at below three per cent until 2018, but expects the RBA to lift the cash rate in late 2017.

* Labor won't support the Turnbull government's controversial youth internship program unless concerns with the legislation are addressed.

* Labor could still pursue a Senate inquiry into Attorney-General George Brandis' handling of the Bell Group fallout.

* An imminent tightening of security at Parliament House threatens to deny public access to its signature sloping lawns, as authorities worry about the iconic building's ongoing vulnerability to a terrorist attack.

* The government is planning to tighten laws around small consumer loans and leases in an attempt to prevent exploitative practices.

* House of Reps: MPs debate government bill for a 15 per cent tax on working holiday makers; $5 hike to the departure tax with five-year freeze; media ownership reforms; life insurance changes; simplifying student payments.

* Senate: Senators debate restoration of the Australian Building and Construction Commission; overhaul of the vocational education and training loans scheme.

Elsewhere: Coalition MPs and senators meet; Labor caucus meets; NSW Premier Mike Baird addresses the National Press Club 1230.

WHAT BOTH SIDES WANT TO SPIN

* What the coalition wants to spin: Only months into the new parliament we are delivering on our election commitments and we are providing the strong and stable economic leadership Australians deserve.

* Who Labor wants to pursue: Does the prime minister seriously expect the Australian people to believe there was no agreement between the federal and West Australian governments on the WA kickback scandal?

"I think children rolling down the hill is a fantastic thing and I'm sure that children rolling down the hill is not a security risk to the parliament." - Cabinet minister Mathias Cormann.

BOConnorMP: @TurnbullMalcolm former Banker, current horse trader, happy to change ABC for ABCC #horsetrader #grubby #auspol

Summary: What's on the agenda for federal parliament on Tuesday.


The Northern Territory Labor government will establish an inquiry into political donations to look at the "murky relationship" between the Country Liberals Party and an alleged slush fund.

Chief Minister Michael Gunner brought forward a motion in parliament for the inquiry, which is expected to be completed within a year.

It will examine the current disclosure system and whether there should be a cap on party campaign spending or public funding of candidates.

It'll also investigate all donations to political parties in the past 10 years, including the alleged CLP slush fund Foundation 51 and the Labor-affiliated Harold Nelson Holdings.

Mr Gunner says electoral reform is crucial to restoring community trust in government after the CLP failed to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from Foundation 51 in the lead up to the 2012 election.

"Deliberate and systemic breaches of the disclosure provisions are a direct attack on our Territory democracy," he said.

"The public has a right to know about the murky relationship between the CLP and Foundation 51 and their related financial arrangements."

Former CLP leader Terry Mills said Labor has also done bad things in the past and has been called out for it as well.

"Pride comes before a fall," he warned.

"Before you start crafting yourselves as the ones who are pure as the driven snow and this has only happened to those baddies that are now no longer with us, be careful and ever vigilant that you don't fall into the trap of this ever occurring again, because it has happened before."

This week the parliament passed legislation to put an end to taxpayer-funded political advertising, while the government also plans to deliver an independent commission against corruption.

Summary: An inquiry into political donations in the NT will examine whether there should be a cap on party campaign spending or public funding of candidates.


New England employers are feeling the pinch of a tight labor market as retailers, manufacturers, and staffing firms struggle to fill open positions and keep workers, according to the Federal Reserve.

Economic activity in Boston and the New England region grew at a moderate pace from mid-October to mid-November, and most companies planned to raise wages modestly to remain competitive, according to the Fed’s latest survey of businesses, called the Beige Book.

Unemployment in Massachusetts fell to 3.3 percent in October, the lowest level in more than 15 years, and the shrinking labor pool is causing headaches for some companies. Two manufacturers that participated in the survey said finding hourly workers has become difficult.

Staffing firms said legal, marketing, and medical assistant positions were particularly hard to fill, according to the Federal Reserve report. “Clients recognize that it has become more costly to recruit and secure qualified and experienced candidates.”

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Some of the region’s businesses are also beginning to worry that the strong US dollar is dampening sales, as American goods become more expensive to overseas consumers. Boston tourism officials were also uncertain that the region could continue to draw leisure travelers in such large numbers next year.

New flights out of Logan Airport to Asia have helped boost the number of visitors from China and other parts of that continent by 34 percent through the third quarter of 2016. Overall, Logan saw a 19 percent increase in international visitors during the first nine months of this year, compared to 2015, the report said.

Tourism officials, “expressed some uncertainty about whether the strong international travel numbers will continue in 2017, especially for leisure travelers, if the US dollar remains strong against other major currencies,” according to the report.

The nationwide survey found that the economy expanded in most parts of the United States from early October to mid-November.


The Obama administration is announcing its support for requiring women to register for the military draft.

The number of U.S. Army soldiers on active duty has been reduced to its lowest since 1940, according to a published report.

Famously known as the training grounds for incoming special agents, the FBI’s sprawling academy in Quantico, Virginia also plays host to some 1,000 domestic and international law e...

Air Force veteran Liz Skilbeck recently got a new license plate for her vehicle that identifies it as being driven by a female veteran. Before that, the license plate just identifi...

The military services are already beginning to recruit women for combat jobs, including as Navy SEALs, and could see them serving in previously male-only Army and Marine Corps infa...

None of the remaining eight female Ranger School candidates managed to pass the first phase of the U.S. Army’s elite infantry program, the Army said in a statement late Friday.

None of the remaining eight female candidates going through the Army Ranger School made it out of the first phase of training at Fort Benning, Ga., defense officials told Fox News ...

Summary: Recruitment stories and articles from Fox News Politics


As the results poured in on Election Day in America, so many people were evidently interested in learning about immigrating to Canada that the country’s immigration website crashed...

An unintentional optical illusion has the Internet guessing whether legs in a photo are oiled up, covered with gloss, or something else. According to the photographer, the illusion...

A short video out of Chaing Mai, Thailand showing an adorable young elephant “rescuing” a man in a river has gone viral after it was posted to YouTube.

A diver off the coast of Mexico is lucky to be unharmed after a huge great white shark broke into a cage in an astonishing scene caught on camera.

A video posted to YouTube has garnered nearly half a million views because it shows a mysterious spectre on one of the Great Lakes.

Taking selfies is out. Live-streaming is the new way to express yourself and show the world what’s going on in your life.

A camera in Michigan set up to film an eagle’s nest has caught something else on film, and some say that it looks like the legendary creature bigfoot.

A device called the Pilot has captured imaginations and sparked skepticism. How well will it work?

An awful story out of Italy, where a 31-year-old woman committed suicide after being tormented for a year over a sex video.

Summary: Viral news articles and videos from FoxNews.com's Tech section.


A Victorian man faces drug and theft charges after police found a large stolen Christmas star atop a 25-metre-tall gum tree in his backyard.

Police tracked down the yellow star - which was allegedly stolen from a community display - following numerous tip-offs from the public in Kerang.

The 24-year-old man was arrested and interviewed on Wednesday and has since been charged with cultivating a narcotic, possessing cannabis and theft, a Victoria Police spokeswoman said in a statement on Friday.

The Kerang man was bailed to appear at the Kerang Magistrates Court in early February.

Summary: Rescue crews have recovered a huge yellow Christmas star from atop a 25-metre tall gum tree after it was stolen in country Victoria.


As the helicopter lifted, Tjawina Porter murmured to herself in Ngaanyatjarra. It had been perhaps half a century since she set foot on the sacred site, a prohibitive distance away except by air.

The senior Ngaanyatjarra woman from Tjukurla had flown over the area in 2014 and thought she’d relocated the site, Talykira. Now she would walk it.

Supporting her 80-something-year-old frame on a metal cane and accompanied by her daughter and niece, Porter whispered as she walked. The site did – and perhaps sometimes still does – hold water. There was none there now but still Porter was sure this was the place.

The three sat down and Porter told the story of the Bush Turkey Dreaming, crooking her finger to signify the protagonist, Nganurti. Talykira marks a significant site in the story of the Nganurti’s travels and antics across the land while seeking a source of fire. It also marks an important water source in this desert region.

Talykira holds significant cultural importance for many if not all the Aboriginal people who gathered in September for a five-day dual-purpose camp in a remote part of the Central Desert, just east of the Western Australian border.

At night the men sang of Tjukurpa, the Dreaming, around a campfire. In daylight hours groups set off for site visits and burning trips.

Senior men and women from communities across the Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia had convened to discuss business and visit a number of sacred sites within the Katiti-Petermann and Ngaanyatjarra Indigenous protected areas in the NT and WA, accompanied by anthropologists.

By confirming and noting the sacred sites, the Central Land and Ngaanyatjarra councils – which represent Indigenous groups in the Central Desert region – seek to equip itself with cultural information about traditional country, ownership and seniority. They can then help Indigenous groups protect and preserve their sites from any adverse affects from mining, tourism and development projects on the rest of their land.

While these site searches went on, senior people and young Indigenous rangers conducted burns from the ground and, instructed by Central Land Council experts, from the sky.

The burning clears patches of thick dry fuel in the lead-up to summer, but senior people must first find their stories in the landscape to ensure they won’t be destroyed by the fires.

“Burning trips guided by the elders are as much about fire management as they are about passing on valuable ecological and cultural knowledge to younger generations,” says the Central Land Council director, David Ross.

It also allows people to visit parts of their country they often couldn’t otherwise reach, explains the Ngaanyatjarra council anthropologist Bryony Nicholson.

“It is because the cultural focus has been supported, from the planning stage to the burning itself, that the Ngaanyatjarra rangers are so confident using the aerial incendiary machine,” she says.

“You don’t have to feel nervous about putting fire in the landscape when you have the level of knowledge held by these senior people underpinning operations. Without them, it’s a different story.

“The Ngaanyatjarra IPA [Indigenous protected area] really supports this focus because it is what is important for people in looking after country and it delivers positive land management outcomes as well.”

Some of the sacred sites are nearby but not all are mapped, and not all those on the map are in the right place. Senior men, including the Ngaanyatjarra council director, Mark Butler, as well as Ernest Bennett and Lyle Giles, consulted maps.

Talykira hadn’t been visited in decades. From this camp, only Porter had been there. Some of the men, including Simon Butler, had flown over it the previous day but not landed.

“That was really wonderful,” says Butler, who lives in the remote Western Australian community of Wingellina. “We’ve been in the helicopter, having a look around countryside, and we’ve been really proud of that country.”

On the eve of the final day they decided to visit Talykira the next morning and take the “newspaper lady” with them so they could share their story with the rest of the world.

Climbing into the helicopter, the first group – Joe Young, Jimmy Donegan, Albert Fox and Steve Mitchell – make jokes through the communications system and direct the pilot.

The aircraft lands in a clearing and the four walk towards the rise, matching snippets of song to bits of land and discussing the story, becoming more excited as they go.

“The turkey man stole the fire. He crossed through here,” Mitchell says, pointing. “All the way, right up to the seaside. Then they pull it out, they pull him outside and drag him away.”

Young explains the significance of the “mixed-up area”, important for many Indigenous desert people. “They’re using all this one reserve. It’s a big story, big culture.”

He says his mother and father took him around the country as a boy but not to this place, although he knew of it. His brother taught him to honour and share it. Young in turn brought his daughters on the trip. The land may be traditionally theirs but it is for everyone to visit, he says.

“My fathers and my mothers have all passed away, so have the elders,” he says. “I’m glad to see this place, my Dream site. This is for everybody, not just for myself and my brothers and sisters. This land, it’s for everybody. That’s why I’m here.”

Antony Whiting, an anthropologist with the Central Land Council, accompanied the men on many of their site trips over the week. He says they enables traditional owners to reconnect with their land and culture.

“The large number of people attending spoke to the significance of the site, as did the stories of the Tjukurpa they sung and spoke about,” he says. “They felt strong on the country, visiting the sacred sites and singing the songs for that country and felt that the country and sacred sites also became strong from their visit and their performance of the songs.”

Not everyone can make it out bush. Toby Farmer learns later of the group’s success while on dialysis in Alice Springs, receiving a photo from Whiting. He visited Talykira often as a child and finding the site again had been on his mind since he left for the Warburton mission to go to school.

“I was there with my family, my mother and father ... After rain we would go out,” he says. “Talykira, if you dig him up [the water] will come out quick.

“When I saw that photo, I thought, ‘Oh yeah! They found that place. Winner!’ Make me happy. It’s a really important place. Big story.”

The long-held memories of senior people reveal a mosaic of stories, Nicholson says. It begins with the most important one, the Tjukurpa. Then tales of the “early days people” are added and the experience of people such as Porter living and travelling around this country.

“In 2016, add to this the stories of travelling across country in a helicopter, visiting sites for the first time and patch burning with an incendiary machine,” Nicholson says.

“It’s just another story of lives and events played out on country but it’s what’s important when it comes to looking after it. Visiting country, actually being there, is to experience the real ‘telling’ of the story. It is what makes the mark or leaves the lasting impression that becomes the story for the next generation to tell.”

• Helen Davidson travelled as a guest of Country Needs People

Summary: Helicopters and incendiary machines are put to work as Indigenous Australians seek out sacred sites and care for their land in the remote central desert


While most of us were busy complaining about 2016 losses, Rent the Runway (RTR) has been busy celebrating win after win.

On Tuesday, the clothing rental company announced a $60 million funding round after announcing a new partnership, a new flagship store, and a new revenue stream—all in the same year, according to Recode.

"We are coming off of our most successful year since the company's inception," the company's co-founder and CEO Jennifer Hyman said in a statement. The success she is referring to might also allude to the fact that RTR is now profitable on an EBITDA basis and has grown revenues to over $100 million this year, Recode reports.

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The series E round was led by Fidelity, with participation from existing investors Technology Crossover Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures, Highland Capital Partners, and Advance Publications.

Hyman told Recode that the associated valuation is a “significant step up” from the $520 million one that RTR earned when it raised $60 million in 2014. “I didn’t really see a purpose to having an outsized valuation right now that was way ahead of our growth and potentially make it harder for us to have optionality over the next few years,” Hyman said.

According to a statement issued by the company, RTR plans to invest the new influx of capital into four areas: 1) the company's original a la carte rental product, through which customers can clothing piecemeal; 2) its Unlimited subscription business, which gives women access to a rotating selection of designer clothes for a fixed monthly price; 3) brick-and-mortar store locations, which already exist in six cities; and 4) its operations and logistics platform.

Last month, RTR opened its first store-in-store boutique at luxury department store Neiman Marcus in San Francisco, as well as a new flagship store in New York City.

And back in March, the company launched Unlimited, a new subscription service that allows members to rent clothing for everyday wear. “With Unlimited, we are putting the closet in the cloud and allowing women to experience and cycle through thousands of designer looks for their everyday work and weekend wear," Hyman said at the time.

Recode reports that revenue from Unlimited accounted for more than one-fifth of total company revenue in its first year.

Around this time last year, Hyman said that she believes her company can grow to be even bigger than Netflix (nflx), the movie rental company to which many drew comparisons when RTR first launched (some still continue to do so). "Given that Netflix is a $60 billion company—and we don’t have to watch TV or movies every day, but we do all have to get dressed—the potential for Rent the Runway was 10 times bigger than I ever thought,” she told Fortune.

Rent the Runway did not respond to Fortune's request for comment.

Summary: Its "most successful year" just got even better.


Police say two are dead and two injured after a shooting outside a Connecticut theater late Friday night following a concert.

Connecticut's highest court has reinstated murder conviction of Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel.

State and local police have responded to a melee at a Connecticut shopping mall and arrested several people.

A Connecticut state trooper made a very special delivery in time for Christmas.

A judge has ruled that a Connecticut teen will be tried as an adult for his alleged role in the beating of an elderly Yale University professor last year.

A Connecticut man has pleaded not guilty to raping an 18-year-old neighbor after finding and returning her lost dog.

Police have returned to the home of a man whose 2013 killing remains unsolved and whose daughter is presumed dead after she went out sailing with her son and their boat sank this y...

A former UConn soccer player who lost her scholarship after giving the middle finger to a television camera said she is suing the school, calling her punishment excessive.

A reputed Connecticut mobster who authorities say is the last surviving person of interest in the largest art heist in U.S. history is now undergoing psychological testing to see i...

Summary: Connecticut news, local news, news articles, national news. FOXNews.com features local news and national news articles. Plus exclusive Connecticut news video clips.


Thursday, September 19th 2002, 8:23AM

At CNN opening, Fox ready for a street fight,

CNN unveiled a new street-side studio yesterday and a detachment from rival Fox News Channel was there to join the festivities.

The new studio in the Time-Life Building, home to Paula Zahn's "American Morning," is near the site of Fox' breakfast show, "Fox and Friends," with hosts E.D. Hill, Brian Kilmeade and Steve Doocey.

So, when Zahn went on the air, Fox had 20 models outside wearing "Fox and Friends" shirts while handing out granola bars, Frisbees and fruit juice.

It was a way to "welcome Paula to the neighborhood," said a Fox source.

Fox' sidewalk stunt didn't affect CNN's show, said a CNN spokeswoman.

"It was silly and inconsequential," she said.Richard Huff

Barbara Johnson has been named news director at WNBC/Ch. 4.

Johnson joins the station after 11 years at WABC/Ch. 7. Most recently she was the executive producer of Ch. 7's 5 and 6 p.m. newscasts. She replaces Dianne Doctor, who recently left for WCBS/Ch. 2.R.H.

Kelly Ripa is the host of "Reading: Your ABC's to Success," a half-hour literacy special set to air Saturday on WABC/Ch. 7 at 7:30 p.m. WPIX will soon air 4 1/2 hours of daily programming in Spanish for viewers with sets using Second Audio Program (SAP) capabilities.

Answers to yesterday's TV Jumble: PLOTS, FLYING, MARTIN, LAWYERS. Bonus Jumble: GET SMART.

Summary: At CNN opening, Fox ready for a street fight CNN unveiled a new street-side studio yesterday and a detachment from rival Fox News Channel was there to join the festivities. The new studio in the Time-Life Building, home to Paula Zahn's "American Morning,"is near the site of Fox' breakfast show, "Fox and Friends,"with hosts E.D. Hill, Brian Kilmeade and Steve Doocey. So, when


BY MITCHELL FINK WITH LAUREN RUBIN

Monday, June 11th 2001, 2:21AM

If Angie Harmon and Jason Sehorn wanted a top-secret wedding on Saturday, they sure did a lousy job keeping the neighbors away.

By the time the former "Law & Order" star and the New York Giants all-pro defensive back arrived at the Highland Park Presbyterian Church for the 6:30 p.m. ceremony, residents of the wealthy Dallas suburb were already in their lawn chairs and poised to spot the celebrities who disembarked from shuttle vans all marked with the word "wedding."

Some of the well-known names among the 400 guests included Jesse Martin and S. Epatha Merkerson from "Law & Order," model Bridget Hall, Giants coach Jim Fassel and Sehorn teammates too numerous to mention.

The bride wore a strapless white Vera Wang gown trimmed with roses.

Musicians from the Dallas Symphony Orchestra accompanied the traditional service, which featured Harmon family members singing the hymn "In the Garden." Neither Harmon nor Sehorn spoke any long declarations of love during the ceremony. All each one said, in fact, was "I do."

The reception, held a few blocks away on a lavish Highland Park estate, boasted a five-tier wedding cake and a menu of chicken and steak, asparagus and rice, and champagne with raspberries. Most of the music was country, sprinkled with Earth, Wind & Fire.

And everywhere you looked around the massive tent there were roses. "They must have imported every single rose in Texas," said one guest.

JETS VS. GIANTS: WHO'S MORE KOSHER?

It's obvious that programming a television network involves more than just juggling timeslots and canceling shows that are duds. But just how far will a network executive go to ensure that he or she lands on top? Further than you'd think.

When I encountered NBC Entertainment President Jeff Zucker last week at Tavern on the Green, I asked him about an E-mail I heard he had sent to Loew's hotel honcho Jonathan Tisch, whose family co-owns the Giants. Zucker was trying to find out who has more Jewish football fans, the Giants or the Jets.

He was more than just randomly curious. "I have a four-hour miniseries, 'Uprising,' about Polish Jews who fight the Nazis in World War II," he said. "I want to start it on a Sunday night. On Sunday, Oct. 28, the Giants are on [against the Washington Redskins]. It's the ESPN Sunday night game. The following Sunday, the Jets are on ESPN [against the New Orleans Saints]. If I had to pick one of those two Sundays, I want the one with fewer Jews watching football."

As it happens, Tisch was also at Tavern on the Green that evening to see Zucker win an honor from the Fresh Air Fund. And while the issue wasn't settled - teams don't normally keep those kind of statistics - Tisch speculated that the Jets probably have a greater number of Jewish fans, "because Jets fans tend to live in the suburbs on Long Island, Westchester and New Jersey."

Meanwhile, the bicoastal Zucker, who was executive producer of the "Today Show" before taking over the network's entertainment division in December, just bought a house in the Coldwater Canyon area of Beverly Hills.

He hasn't given up his New York apartment, but recently sold his house in Bridgehampton.

"I couldn't deal with having three houses," he said. "Mentally and financially."

By the way, one of the funnier lines of the night came from emcee Conan O'Brien, who quipped, "We all need to be out of this tent by 11 p.m. Mayor Giuliani needs a place to sleep."

KERNEN'S SQUAWKING IT UP AND TOOTING HIS OWN HORN

A movement is underway to nominate Joe Kernen for one of GQ magazine's Men of the Year awards. And the person who started the hype was Kernen himself.

The co-host of CNBC's "Squawk Box" was leafing through the June issue of the men's magazine, in which he and his co-host, David Faber, are featured, when he noticed an announcement calling for the magazine's readers to vote for GQ's Men of the Year.

So Kernen had an idea. "Let's stuff the ballot box," he said. Last week, Kernen lobbied his CNBC viewers to log onto GQ's Web site to vote for one of the program's financial reporters.

Little did he know that GQ already had its list of nominees in place in the "Newscaster" category. They are MSNBC's Dan Abrams, Chris Matthews and Brian Williams; "Meet the Press" host Tim Russert; CNN's Wolf Blitzer and Jeff Greenfield; Bill O'Reilly and Brit Hume from the Fox News Channel, and Bryant Gumbel and Steve Kroft from CBS.

Close to 500 of the financial commentator's viewers have surfed onto www.gq.com with requests for Kernen and Faber to be nominated.

"It's a grass-roots movement to get financial journalists on the ballot, doggone it," said Kernen. "It's taking on a life of its own."

Kernen seems overjoyed with the response. "The market has been slow, so we needed to have a little fun," he said.

Whether the ploy will get Kernen on the GQ ballot remains to be seen.

"There seems to be a groundswell for Joe that we can't ignore," said a GQ spokeswoman. "However, the voting's already three weeks underway" - it ends Friday - "so I'm not sure we'll be able to make an exception. Perhaps there'll be a role for him at the awards show and with his enthusiasm and fan base, not to mention that fantastic head of hair - 2002 just might be his year."

CUSACK SWEARS HE DIDN'T CUSS OUT THE PREZ

John Cusack was horrified to read quotes attributed to him in the next issue of Details in which he rants about the policies of President Bush and curses him repeatedly.

Cusack's assistant called me Friday to say that while the magazine accurately depicted Cusack's sentiments, "He never used swear words during the interview. Swearing makes his comments seem much harsher," said the assistant.

I called Details, and they beg to differ. "We have the entire interview on tape," said a Details rep, "and he did use curse words."

Â In 1966, Janis Joplin made her first appearance with Big Brother and the Holding Company at the Avalon ballroom in San Francisco. She was just 23 at the time, and died four years later of a drug overdose.

Â In 1979, John Wayne, a k a "the Duke," died after a 15-year battle with cancer. He was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1964 and succumbed to stomach cancer. His death may have been related to the movie "The Conquerer," which was filmed in 1955 near a Nevada atomic test site. More than 45 people who worked on the film have died from cancer, including Wayne's co-star, Susan Hayward, and the movie's director, Dick Powell.

Â In 1982, Steven Spielberg's classic movie "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" opened.

Eleven years later, another classic Spielberg movie had its premiere - "Jurassic Park." Also that day, the Ike and Tina Turner film biography, "What's Love Got to Do With It," opened.

Â In 1995, Courtney Love, widow of Kurt Cobain and leader of the group Hole, was hospitalized in Seattle after passing out on a flight from New York. She had taken "an accidental prescription-drug overdose," said a spokesman for Geffen Records. Love was released two days later.

Summary: If Angie Harmon and Jason Sehorn wanted a top-secret wedding on Saturday, they sure did a lousy job keeping the neighbors away. By the time the former "Law & Order"star and the New York Giants all-pro defensive back arrived at the Highland Park Presbyterian Church for the 6:30 p.m. ceremony, residents of the wealthy Dallas suburb were already in their lawn chairs and poised to spot the celebrities


Marilyn Monroe had two careers: one as a nude pin-up, the other as Hollywood's most sought after actress. Today, two actresses are channeling each Marilyn: one may be nominated for an Academy Award, the other is posing naked to jump start her career.

Michelle Williams is getting Oscar buzz for her star turn in “My Week With Marilyn," where she plays the iconic actress at the height of her fame. Despite the fact that she looks little like Monroe, critics are loving Williams in the part which centers around Monroe's life during the 1956 production of "The Prince and the Showgirl” with Sir Laurence Olivier.

Lindsay Lohan will soon be channeling the other, seedier side of Monroe's career, with Lohan's full frontal interpretation of the deceased icon in Playboy magazine at Hugh Hefner's behest. The issue is expected to hit newsstands by Christmas.

The fact that one actress is in a critically acclaimed role and the other is throwing a Hail Mary pass to stay relevant, and both are channeling the exact same star, shows just how wildly different two Hollywood careers can unfold, and how razor thin the margin is between stardom and stumbling.

Lohan and Williams both emerged as teen actresses in the late nineties and early 2000s. Both were lauded early on for their charm, grace and talent in poppy teen roles, Williams as Jen the rebellious new girl on Dawson’s Creek and Lohan in films like “Freaky Friday” and “Mean Girls.”

Both were elevated to more serious fare as adults, Williams with “Brokeback Mountain” and Lohan with “Prairie Home Companion” and “Georgia Rule.”

Williams was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress for her role in “Brokeback” and in 2010 was nominated again, this time for Best Actress in “Blue Valentine.”

Lohan has since been arrested, rehabbed, jailed and essentially blacklisted from Hollywood.

“Lindsay was blindly led around as a child actress by self-serving parents who wanted to exploit her rather than support her, which, in my opinion is the basis for a lot of her resentment, anger and emotional issues," says “Cult of Celebrity” author Cooper Lawrence about why things went sideways for Lohan. "They expected her to be the one to support the family thus changing the roles of who the parent really was and the dynamic of who is really in charge.”

“Michelle Williams was always into self-preservation and worked hard as a young actress on her own merit, emancipating herself from her parents in an effort to be more independent and have more agency over her own life,” Lawrence said.

Williams emancipated herself from her parents when she was 15 in order to work around child labor laws. Lohan on the other hand has been consistently dogged by a family of hangers on from her often arrested father Michael, currently awaiting heart surgery after a stint in jail, to her party girl momager Dina.

And so while critics are cooing over the girl from the Creek as Monroe, they’re saving up their vitriol for the debut of Lohan’s Playboy spread, which Hollywood insiders are already whispering will be a career-killer for the former star.

“Lindsay is making a huge mistake by taking her clothes off for Playboy. She should be trying to kick start her acting career,” Hollywood publicist Michael Sands tells Fox411. “It looks like Lindsay wants to make a quick buck to pay her many bills off. This is a time where she could rehab her image and gracefully turn down the offer.”

Indeed, Monroe went from pin-up to movie star, and not the other way around.

Summary: Tale of Two Marilyns: Lindsay Lohan and Michelle Williams Inhabit Icon's Seedy Start, Superstardom


PANAMA, Friday, Nov. 15, 1861.

General President MOSQUERA has rid himself of all the reminiscences that attached to the old Government of OSPINA, not excepting even its name. We are no longer called New-Granada--but BOLIVAR has been resurrected, and we now rejoice in the high sounding cognomen: "The United States of Colombia." The Governor of Panama, by a decree dated the 6th inst., accepts the new temporary constitution, agreed to by all the other States except Antioquia, and notifies all Government officers and Consuls in the State, that henceforth the Isthmus forms one of the pact. Foreigners do not much relish the article which deprives them of an appeal to the Supreme Court at Bogota, as our Panama Courts, for the past four years have been, as a general thing, notoriously incompetent and corrupt; and another article depriving foreigners of the right which they held under the old constitution of holding real estate, will probably be modified when the Convention shall adopt a new Constitution this Winter. In accepting this new pact, the State of Panama does not relinquish the advantages she acquired under the Guardia-Murillo Convention, made at Aspinwall, but expects its confirmation from Gen. MOSQUERA and the Convention. I scarcely expect MOSQUERA, however, to approve that portion of ceding the rights of the General Government in the Panama Railroad to the State. But the people say they are willing to forego that advantage if the article granting them the right to remain inert in times of war and revolution is accepted.

We have no later news from Bogota. The British gunboat Cygnet, which arrived at Aspinwall on the 12th, brings dates from Cartagena to the 8th -- four days later than our previous news -- but she has nothing new. The mails had arrived from Bogota about an hour before she sailed; but it is too much to expect a British Captain to find out anything in an hour, and the enterprise of the Post-Office Department of Carthgena is not a theme of general wonder. The Captain of the British vessel says he heard no confirmation of the rumor of the defeat of CARRAL and his small force in Santander.

By an arrival from the State of Cauca, on the Pacific side, the news that Col. VICTORIA had retaken Popayen, the capital of the State, in the name of MOSQUERA, is confirmed. It was thought ARBOLEDA's forces would soon be beaten or disbanded, and that he would take refuge in Peru or Ecuador.

We have no mails from Central or South America and shall not have any in less than a week.

Panama is quiet, and will remain so, as the opponents of MOSQUERA, having lost the Government rule in the State, can no longer disturb the city by their arbitrary and illegal acts. The people grumble a good deal at the late action of Gen. SUMNER in transporting political prisoners across the Isthmus without the consent and against the protests of the Governor, but if the General committed any wrong in this, no doubt they will be satisfied with an apology from the Government at Washington.

The United States steam-sloop Lancaster, flag-ship, is still at Panama. The United States sloop-of-war Cyane, Commander BISSELL, arrived at Panama from Acapulco, on the 11th. The United States steam-corvette Wyoming ought to reach Panama to-day. The relief brought out for her by the North Star are on board the Lancaster awaiting her arrival. Surgeon HEARD, of the Cyane, ordered home, leaves to-day on the North Star. Surgeon WM. JOHNSON, Jr., late of the Bainbridge, at Aspinwall, takes his place. The United States brig Bainbridge and the British gunboat Cygnet are at Aspinwall. The Golden Gate saw the United States steamer Saranac off Cape St. Lucas, Nov. 6, going in shore. The United States steamer Narragansett was at Acapulco Nov. 9.

The California Lee Circus Company, "with the wonderful elephant Prince Albert," is performing at Panama to full houses.


By John Leonard RABBIT IS RICH. By John Updike. 467 pages. Knopf. $13.95.

ALMOST everybody in a John Updike novel runs away from death and circles back. If the obvious exceptions are George Caldwell in ''The Centaur,'' Hakim Felix in ''The Coup'' and, perhaps, the minister in ''A Month of Sundays'' who quotes Barth and Tillich even as he couples, then the obvious exemplar is Harry (Rabbit) Angstrom. Once a decade Harry fails to escape; in ''Rabbit Is Rich,'' he merely moves across town. He jogs, and beneath his sneakers ''the dead stare upwards.'' They are family, friends, the famous and ''whole races like the Cambodians.'' They cheer on this ''king of the ghosts'':

''Maybe the dead are gods, there's certainly something kind about them, the way they give you room. What you lose as you age is witnesses, the ones who watched from early on and cared, like your own little grandstand.'' A middle-aged Harry - he has grown up from Peter Rabbit to the Babbitt of Sinclair Lewis - thinks of Skeeter and Jill and his own dead daughter, of Mamie Eisenhower and John Wayne and a Canada goose that interfered with a doctor's golf game and so was clubbed to death on the fairway. Sometimes he even thinks of God with a capital ''G'':

''Maybe God is in the universe the way salt is in the ocean, giving it a taste.'' And: ''What I think about religion is - is without a little of it, you'll sink.''

His son, Nelson, thinks Harry is ''such a fool he really believes there is a God he is the apple of the eye of.'' His son is wrong. That there might not be any God is as scary to Harry as the fact of his own death. Suppose he escapes, in a machine, from the city of things, of boxes and cages and traps? He can't read a map; nature, anyway, as George Caldwell told us, is ''garbage and confusion.'' Suppose he seeks in sex an anodyne, or a substitute for the sacraments? He will find emptiness in the black cave, and waste. He wastes himself while the dead aren't looking and God is short of meanings. Running Out of Gas

Inconveniently, Harry is also America, going down the rabbit hole. The time of ''Rabbit Is Rich'' is 1979. The place is Brewer, Pa. Skylab is falling - you will remember that in ''Rabbit Redux'' we were on our way to the moon - and America, like Harry, is running out of gas. The Iranians hold us, and Harry, hostage. On television, everything's a rerun, especially the situation-comedies, and at the movies everything's a sequel, except for ''Breaking Away'' and ''Starting Over.'' No gas, no ideas, no God, just gravity.

The action is simple enough. When he isn't selling Toyotas or speculating in gold and silver, Harry plays golf and drinks gin at the Flying Eagle Country Club. His wife, Janice, plays tennis and drinks anything. His son, Nelson, comes home from college with a defeated sulk and two young women, one of them pregnant. Nelson wheedles a job on the Toyota lot and gets married. Harry drives around looking for Ruth, whom he deserted in ''Rabbit, Run'' and who may be the mother of his daughter. Janice and Harry and their country-club cronies fly off for a Caribbean holiday and some wife-swapping. Nelson runs away from home. Harry and Janice move to a better neighborhood.

These bare bones, though, add up to the usual Updike xylophone; he hands out hammers to his critics. Yes, the style is too rich, as though he were supposed to grunt. Yes, the sex is ritualized and incessant, as though there were nothing else to do in Brewer after the death of God. Yes, the novel wanders, pauses, ponders, sings and picks its nose, as though we hadn't abolished the 19th century. Yes, once again he thinks too much about female toes. Count the symbols; feel the impo tence; watch out for the juxtapositions and the incongruities ; look for the priest, the teacher and the artist; disdain the C alvinist, the pornographer, the show-off. Did Chiron andPascal swap w ives?

Well, I like his music very much. Let the critics, like Nelson, ''suck the foam out of one more can,'' their ''surly puzzled'' faces ''drinking and eating up the world, and out of spite at that.'' Mr. Updike on bathrooms here is as wonderful as he was on garages in ''The Centaur'' and on caves -remember the severed head of Edumu? - in ''The Coup.'' Basketball and baseball are easy to write about, but who else could make golf interesting? We learn how to sell a car and sail a boat and lose a soul. The sex is at least superior to that of Norman Mailer and D.H. Lawrence when the vapors take them, and is sometimes funny; there is a scene with Harry and Janice and many, many krugerrands that would convulse Cotton Mather. And I like Rabbit very much as well. To be sure, his search for Ruth isn't really a running away; it is more a form of nostalgia, like ''antique'' convertibles, and nostalgia is history written by liars. His running days are over. Nor does he understand his own son;fathers are not permitted to. He is suspiciou s of intelligent women and complications rub him the wrong way. He t ries to like everybody, and can't. He wants to be innocent, and isn't . But he dreams for the rest of us. He is our Canada goose. A Radiance

According to Ruth, he is all ''me, me and gimme, gimme.'' Thelma, on the other hand, finds ''the way you never sit down anywhere without making sure there's a way out'' somehow ''radiant''; he is her ''little hairshirt,'' on Earth with ''some kind of assignment.'' I believe that radiance. Huck Finn, after all, didn't have to grow up. Ishmael, lest we forget, came back too. Rabbit has to compromise. ''Outward motion'' can mean ''inner dwindling.'' Freedom hurts. Only in Toyota commercials do we rise and hang suspended; the Flying Eagle sinks. After the death of God - after the chilling discovery that every time we make a move toward ''the invisible,'' somebody gets killed - we require a myth of community, something, as Felix put it in ''Coup,'' that ''fits the facts, as it were, backwards.''

A hard lesson and, after three ''Rabbit'' books, a splendid achievement. Let Felix also have the last word: ''I perceived that a man, in America, is a failed boy.''


Green tea offers a variety of immune-boosting benefits. For example, experts suggest that green tea contains a polyphenols known as catechins that kills certain viruses. Avoid adding milk to green tea. The proteins within milk can actually make the polyphenols less effective. Just add a little lemon and honey, and you should be good to go. Also, if you buy bottled green tea drinks, be aware that many are loaded with sugar.

Summary:
By DualFit.com
The flu and cold season is here to stay -- at least for a while. Whether you’re in the office, on the train or at your favorite resta...


PHILADELPHIA Officials say a police officer seen on video punching a woman at a Philadelphia neighborhood street party over the weekend is being suspended for 30 days as of Thursday with intent to dismiss.

Commissioner Charles Ramsey took the action Wednesday against Lt. Jonathan Josey following Sunday's events during a north Philadelphia festival associated with the city's annual Puerto Rican Day Parade.

Prosecutors earlier said a disorderly conduct charge was being withdrawn against 39-year-old Aida Guzman of Chester.

A 36-second video on YouTube shows Guzman being struck in the face and falling to the ground, her face bloodied, then being led away in handcuffs.

She has marks on her lip, where the punch landed, and on her elbow, on which she fell, reports CBS staitn KYW in Philadelphia.

John McNesby, president of the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police, told WPVI-TV he thinks the decision to dismiss Josey "stinks."

Ramsey told CBS station KYW in Philadelphia dropping the charges against Guzman is "appropriate."

"In looking at the video and looking at the charges," he said, "clearly, there were some discrepancies there."

Ramsey also indicated Josey could face criminal counts.

"Obviously, he could be criminally charged. The DA would have to make that decision," he told KYW.

Summary: Officer caught on tape punching woman at street party suspended with intent to dismiss, could face charges, department says


LOS ANGELES — Port clerks returned to work Wednesday, jubilant in the knowledge that an eight-day strike that paralyzed the nation’s busiest shipping complex had won them — at least for now — guarantees that their jobs won’t be outsourced to China, Arizona, or other places.

The 600 clerical workers at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach represented by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union won only modest gains in wage and pension benefits in the new four-year contract.

But more importantly, said union spokesman Craig Merrilees, they won promises from management that, as workers retire or leave the ports during the next four years, no more than 14 jobs will be outsourced. Companies also must continue to provide workers to fill in for vacationing employees and those who take extended absences, but they do not have to cover for short-term illnesses or bereavement leave.

‘‘The key issue in this whole strike was the outsourcing of good jobs, and they won protections against outsourcing abuses,’’ Merrilees said.

He acknowledged that the issue would likely be front and center in negotiations when the new contract expires in 2016.

Shippers denied outsourcing jobs, but strikers said they had proof.

Trinnie Thompson, a unionsteward, said workers have seen invoices and e-mail showing some of their responsibilities being usurped by people in offices in Costa Rica, Shanghai, Colorado, and Arizona.

‘‘They take a job here in California where the average salary is $65,000 and are paying only $30,000 in a state like Arizona,’’ she said.

The clerks handle such tasks as filing invoices and billing notices, arranging dock visits by customs inspectors, and ensuring that cargo moves off the dock quickly and gets where it is supposed to go.

The increased computerization of such tasks, which allows them to be performed in cities far from the ocean, makes the clerks especially vulnerable, say labor experts.

‘‘These are fairly complicated jobs, you can’t just hire anybody to do them, but nevertheless they can be done from other places,’’ said Nelson Lichtenstein, director of the Center for the Study of Work Labor and Democracy at the University of California Santa Barbara, said Wednesday.

Moving such jobs overseas or to states that pay less, and where unionization is not as strong, has been a trend in the United States for decades, he said.

‘‘What’s remarkable about this is that the union struck, they shut down the ports, and they won,’’ he said, adding it showed what the strong labor movement that still exists in the shipping industry is capable of accomplishing.

The clerks make average salaries of $41 an hour, or about $87,000 a year. With overtime and generous benefits, they receive average annual compensation of $165,000 that will rise to about $195,000 if the proposed contract is ratified.

They also receive pensions and 11 weeks of time off.

Summary: Port clerks returned to work Wednesday, jubilant in the knowledge that an eight-day strike that paralyzed the nation’s busiest shipping complex had won them — at least for now — guarantees that their jobs will not be outsourced to China, Arizona, or other places. The 600 clerical workers at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach represented by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union won only modest gains in wage and pension benefits in a new four-year contract.


Across the nation, home prices have plummeted over the past couple years to levels not seen since 2002. But the real estate market varies widely from city to city. So, which cities have home prices that are likely at fair value or overshot and which are still overvalued? Business Insider talked to Dan Alpert of Westwood Capital to investigate.

Alpert looked at housing prices in 20 different cities and compared these current prices with a "fair value" estimate gleaned from the local price-to-rent ratio. Here's what he found:

Markets that are still overvalued: Boston, Los Angeles, New York City, Miami, Portland, Seattle, Tampa, San Diego.

Markets that are fair value or overshot: Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, San Francisco, Phoenix, Minneapolis, Dallas, Denver, Las Vegas, Cleveland.

Summary: Across the nation, home prices have plummeted over the past year to levels not seen since 2002.  But the real estate market varies widely from city to city.  So, which cities have home prices that are likely at fair value or overshot and which are still overvalued?


Oh, what a fine line between adorably grody little aliens whose phone-home request only the heartless would deny and malevolent space horrors best left on call-waiting forever. We get a little of both this week with the hi-def debut of “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial” (1982; above) and the 3-D Blu-ray release of Ridley Scott’s “Alien” quasi-prequel, “Prometheus” (2012). For throwback entertainment, it’s no contest: “E.T.” is as heartwarming as you remember (and maybe slightly more edgy than you remember in its PG-scripted sibling rivalry). The disc includes a new interview with Steven Spielberg that packs a lot into 12 minutes, tracing the film’s roots in a divorce-themed project that Spielberg had been developing to revisit his own adolescence. “This was, indeed, my first personal movie,” he says, noting that he expected the film to play like Disney fare of the era — i.e., not a box-office draw of any major note, despite its family-friendliness. Another new segment offers nearly an hour’s worth of minimally edited on-set footage, including Spielberg directing a Halloween scene in drag to have a little fun with kid stars Henry Thomas and Drew Barrymore.

“Prometheus,” meanwhile, is a dissatisfying case of 2012 effects technology not doing much to ratchet up ’70s sci-fi tension — although fatally curious space archeologist Noomi Rapace has a stomach-lurching moment to rival the original’s chestburster shock. Scott provides commentary, with co-writer Damon Lindelof (“Lost”) supplying another track. (“E.T.” Universal, $34.98; “Prometheus,” Fox, $49.99)

Hair band culture gets to sing out loud and, yes, proud in “Hairspray” director Adam Shankman’s adaptation of the Broadway nostalgia fest. Julianne Hough (“Footloose”) and Diego Boneta are the slightly vanilla small-town girl and city boy searching for stardom on the ’80s Sunset Strip club scene. The movie benefits from stunt-casting Tom Cruise as Axl Rose-y rock god Stacee Jaxx. (Try watching this one with Cruise’s similarly unexpected roles in “Magnolia” and “Tropic Thunder.”) Extras: Poison singer Bret Michaels hosts a look back, Cruise meets Def Leppard, and we get background on the stage version. (Warner, $28.98; Blu-ray, $35.99)

A FOOTBALL LIFE: SEASON 1 (2011)

Ever catch one of Bill Belichick’s torturously monotone press conferences and wonder, say, how the heck the guy rallies the troops at halftime? We get some answers in a two-part, two-hour documentary, in which a film crew shadows him for the 2009 season. The well-done program was a highlight of the NFL Network’s new profile series, whose first season also included segments on Walter Payton and Tom Landry. The most surprisingly compelling material: a program on NFL Films founder Ed Sabol and his iconic perspectives on the game, produced by his recently deceased son and partner, Steve. (Vivendi, $39.93; available now)

Summary: Oh, what a fine line between adorably grody little aliens whose phone-home request only the heartless would deny and malevolent space horrors best left on call-waiting forever. We get a little of both this week with the hi-def debut of “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial” (1982) and the 3-D Blu-ray release of Ridley Scott’s “Alien” quasi-prequel, “Prometheus” (2012).


NEW YORK — If you ever wanted soup to come out of your coffee machine, you’re in luck.

Campbell Soup Co. will offer K-cup soup packs that can be made with Green Mountain’s popular single-serve coffee machines. The soups include a K-cup pack of broth that is brewed over a packet of dry pasta and vegetables.

‘‘It’s delicious soup at the touch of a button,’’ said Campbell’s chief executive, Denise Morrison.

Green Mountain says its machines are designed so the system is cleansed by the brewing process, meaning there is no danger soup and coffee flavors will mix. In addition cups for coffee and tea, Green Mountain offers K-cups for fruit drinks and hot cocoa.

Nutrition information for K-cup soups was not available because the companies are still working through product details, Campbell said. But the companies are calling the soup packs snacks.

Campbell and Green Mountain said they will launch three varieties next year, including Chicken Broth & Noodle.

Campbell has been trying to reinvigorate sales of its flagship soup business with new flavors and packaging to appeal more to people in their 20s and 30s. Its Go soups, for example, come in flavors such as Moroccan Style Chicken and in pouches that can be microwaved.

Morrison said the K-cup soups represent another push into higher-growth areas.

The company, which also makes Pepperidge Farm cookies and Prego spaghetti sauces, has been trying to diversify its portfolio as people opt for foods they feel are fresher or healthier. It recently bought Bolthouse Farms juices and Plum Organics baby food.

Summary: If you ever wanted soup to come out of your coffee machine, you’re in luck. Campbell Soup Co. says it will start offering K-cup soup packs that can be made with Green Mountain’s popular single-serve coffee machines. The soups include a K-cup pack of broth that is brewed over a packet of dry pasta and vegetables. ‘‘It’s delicious soup at the touch of a button,’’ Campbell chief executive Denise Morrison said in a phone interview. Green Mountain says its machines are designed so that the system is cleansed by the brewing process, meaning there wouldn’t be a danger of the soup and coffee flavors mixing. In addition to coffee and tea, Green Mountain also offers K-cups for fruit drinks and hot cocoa.


may have been a failure but hope for the former Jets' quarterback to suit up again isn't totally dead.

Russian football team Moscow Black Storm is offering Tebow $1 million for two games, its owner Mikhail Zaltsman told Russia Beyond The Headlines earlier this week.

“I talked with him personally and he wanted to go," Zaltsman insisted.

The one problem holding up the dream deal, according to Zaltsman? Tebow's agents. "They're thinking of using him as a motivational speaker,” he said. "They don’t want him to play football.”

The Russian league is just the latest non-NFL football league to consider adding the perhaps highest profile backup quarterback to play in the NFL. Tebow, for his part, has not strayed from his statement that he wants to pursue a career as an NFL quarterback, despite the recent setbacks.

According to the report, Zaltsman wouldn't need Tebow in Russia until later this month to play in Black Storm’s semifinal against the Moscow Patriots. He also wouldn't be the only American in the league. Former University of North Carolina fullback Bobby Rome (who now plays quarterback for the Moscow Patriots) spoke to Russia Beyond The Headlines to encourage Tebow to think about the offer.

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Summary:
The rally for Tim Tebow to Jacksonville may have been a failure but hope for the former Jets' quarterback to suit up again isn't totally dead.
Russia...


One of Banksy's most famous murals has been sold at auction in the US after being removed from the wall of a Brighton pub.

Kissing Coppers, a life-size black-and-white graffiti work of two policemen kissing, was sold to an anonymous buyer in Miami for for $575,000 (£345,000).

Spray-painted on to the side of the Prince Albert pub in Trafalgar Street near Brighton city centre in 2004, it became one of Banksy's most famous street works.

The original was replaced with a replica encased in Perspex after being carefully removed and flown to America in 2011, the Argus reported.

It had been expected to sell anywhere from $500,000 to $700,000 dollars.

However, two other pieces from the elusive Bristol street artist, created in New York last year, failed to receive their minimum bids at Fine Art Auctions Miami.

The two works that went unsold were Bandaged Heart and Crazy Horse Car Door, completed during Banksy's New York City residency in the autumn, according to the seller, Stephan Keszler.

Over the past three years, he said, he had sold 11 original works by the street artist. They include the controversial sale in London of Slave Labour (Bunting Boy), which last year went for £750,000 to a US collector.

Slave Labour, which shows a young boy hunched over a sewing machine making union flag bunting, appeared on a wall in Wood Green, north London, in May 2012, just before the royal diamond jubilee celebrations.

Haringey council had supported an unsuccessful campaign to return the "symbol of local pride".

Banksy, who refuses to reveal his full identity, began his career spray-painting buildings in Bristol.

Summary: Famous artwork sells in Miami but two other pieces from the elusive Bristol street artist fail to meet their reserves


Barbara had some great questions! Like these:

“Do you think you’re a good actor?”

“Do you think you’re sexy?”

Clint: “… I don’t know, I never look at myself that way.”

Meanwhile, they stared into each other’s eyes a lot, which may have just been Barbara’s interviewing style… or maybe not.

They meet again in 1982, on Clint’s land in California, and this isn’t even the most bizarre part of the interview.

hums doe / a deer/ a female deer / Barb, a drop of golden sun…

During the interview, Barbara checks in on his relationship & asks him about his tough guy rep. “You’re very calm, things don’t ruffle you. What goes on inside?”

This is where it starts getting SPICY.

Clint: “”A woman might go absolutely nuts if she knew everything that goes on in my head…”

Barbara: “You would drive me nuts, and I would drive you nuts.”

And then Clint responds (kids, this is textbook flirting - watch and learn…)

According to Barbara, Clint asked her to stay for dinner after this interview. She declined.

In 2006, she said that turning down that dinner was one of her 30 biggest regrets.

In 2012, she was interviewed by Extra, and brought up the Clint interview first…

and in 2014, just before her retirement, she spoke to AARP the Magazine. We, of course, asked her about her most flirtatious interview.

“Clint Eastwood. I heard recently that he’s getting divorced, and I thought I should write him a letter: “Dear Clint, I’m still here.”

I have to tell you he hasn’t yet called me up to say, “Dear Barbara, how are you?”

We don’t know why either, Barbara.

Summary:
They got flirtatious in his old interviews, but she turned down his offer of dinner. Now, Barbara Walters says she regrets turning Clint down - and wants him to call, now that he's single.

If ...


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For decades, most states with capital punishment used a standard combination of three drugs in lethal injections: a sedative, often sodium thiopental; pancuronium bromide as a paralytic agent; and potassium chloride to stop the heart. The drugs in the cocktail were easy to come by and effective, allowing for a relatively standard lethal-injection protocol throughout the U.S. These days, the ways states are choosing to kill their most heinous criminals are anything but uniform.

States used to buy lethal-injection drugs from large, multinational pharmaceutical companies. But in 2011, the European Commission tightened controls on the sale of drugs for use in executions elsewhere. As stockpiles dwindled, the upended supply chain has led many states to experiment with new combinations.

This appears in the May 26, 2014 issue of TIME.

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Summary: The method of execution was supposed to be quick, painless and humane. So why is it suddenly so troubling?


Rescue teams in western Colorado are searching for three people missing after a four-mile long mudslide in Mesa County.

The mud is thought to be 250ft deep in places, the Associated Press reports, after an entire ridge collapsed in the wake of heavy rainfall.

The area is extremely remote, and authorities said it was unlikely any structures had been swallowed by the mudslide. The nearest major road, the I-70, is around 26 miles away from the area and not in any danger.

Summary: Collapsed ridge is thought to be four miles long and two miles wide


''FROM the very first days of Sarah Lawrence College,'' said Charles De Carlo, its president, ''music, and specifically the performance of music, has been given a major place in our curriculum. This is unusual at small lbieral arts colleges, where the emphasis is generally on learning about things, rather than doing them. Composers have always participated in the making of music on our campus - both as teachers and as performers of their own works - and when we stopped to realize what a striking number of really distinguished creators have worked and lived here over the years, we decided a little festival was in order. The way things are turning out, I think we're going to have a very happy occasion.''

We should know in very short order, because the Festival of American Music at Sarah Lawrence takes place today, with concerts at 2 and 8 P.M., and an open reception for the composers at 4:30 P.M.

The afternoon roster was expected to include works by Norman Dello Joio, Ezra Laderman, Chester Biscardi, Andrew Thomas, Edmund Haines, Joel Spiegelman and Norman Lloyd (to whose memory the festival is dedicated). The evening session will offer the world premiere of Andre Singer's String Quartet No. 5, along with scores by Meyer Kupferman, Leo Smit and William Schuman. Mr. Kupferman is in California and Mr. Laderman in Pennsylvania, tending to other premieres of their music, but the other composers will be in attendance, several of them as performers.

''We are especially proud to be remembering Norman Lloyd on this special day,'' said Kenneth Wentworth, faculty chairman of the concert committee. ''He may not have been a major figure as a composer, but his life as a musician touched American culture in myriad ways, and for many of us he was a very important and impressive person.''

After 12 years on the Sarah Lawrence faculty, Mr. Lloyd joined the Juilliard teaching staff, later becoming dean of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio and director of the arts program at the Rockefeller Foundation. He died last summer of leukemia.

Performing participants at the festival will include members of the Laurentian String Quartet, the Laurentian Chamber Players and Music for A While (all ensembles in residence at Sarah Lawerence), the college orchestra and choir and several guest artists.

The festival and concerts are free, but tickets are required. Call the college (337-0700) for an updated reservations report. Looking ahead to next Sunday, the Laurentian Chamber Players will be back at Sarah Lawrence for an 8 P.M. concert honoring yet another distinguished American composer, Leon Kirchner. Mr. Kirchner will be in attendance for a performance of his String Quartet No. 2 and then will discuss the piece with the audience. Also on the program is the Brahms Quintet in F minor, with Shoshana Rudiakov as guest pianist. Admission is $5 (half that for senior citizens and students). For more information, call the college at 337-0700.

Other musical events of note on Westchester campuses today include a 3 o'clock concert at the Center for the Arts of the State University at Purchase, by the Philharmonia Virtuosi under the direction of Richard Kapp. On the schedule are concertos and orchestra works by J. S., J. C., C. P. E. and W. F. Bach - which pretty well takes in the whole Bach clan, except for P.D.Q. Bach. Tickets at the door are $9 and $10; or you can save by subscribing to all three concerts of the Virtuosi spring series.

At 7:30 this evening, the horn player Harry Berv will speak on ''Arturo Toscanini as I Knew Him,'' accompanied by rare tapes and a kinescope of the maestro in rehearsal. This takes place at the Westchester Conservatory of Music in White Plains, where Mr. Berv is on the faculty. Admission is $5.

And at 8 tonight, the Hoff-Barthelson Music School in Scarsdale is presenting the first of three scholarship fund-raising concerts, with works of Mozart, Beethoven, Prokofiev and Dvorak played by Anna Pelekh and Julia Signitzer, faculty violinists, the violist Robert Dan and the pianist Albert Lotto. Tickets, available at the door, are $6; students admitted free.