It was the summer of 1945, and World War II had ended. Former soldiers, including famous baseball stars, streamed back into America and into American life. Yankee slugger Joe DiMaggio was trying to be Yankee fan Joe DiMaggio, sneaking into a mezzanine seat with his 4-year-old son, Joe Jr., before rejoining his team. A fan noticed him, then another. Soon throughout the stadium people were chanting “Joe, Joe, Joe DiMaggio!” DiMaggio, moved, gazed down to see if his son had noticed the tribute. He had. “See, Daddy,” said the little DiMaggio, “everybody knows me!”

We all interpret the events around us according to our own worldview. By adulthood we’ve either gotten beyond the me-me-me context of 4-year-olds, or gone into politics. But drawing conclusions about data we encounter in sports, business, medicine and even our personal lives, we often make errors as significant as that of Joe Jr.

This holiday weekend—the Fourth of July—kicks off the home stretch of a two-month period that made Joe DiMaggio Sr. an icon of American culture. In 1941, a few months before Joe Jr. was born, and sandwiched between the day Hitler’s insane deputy Rudolf Hess parachuted into Scotland on an unauthorized peace mission and the day a secret British report concluded that the Allies could complete an atomic bomb ahead of Germany, there was a period of 56 successive Yankee games in which Joltin’ Joe had at least one hit.

DiMaggio’s hitting streak was an inspiration in troubled times. The pursuit of any record comes with pressure—Roger Maris lost some of his hair during his attempt to break Babe Ruth’s home-run record in 1961—but most records forgive you an off day as long as you compensate at other times. Not so with a streak, which demands unwavering performance. And so DiMaggio’s streak has been interpreted as a feat of mythic proportion, seen as a heroic, even miraculous, spurt of unrivaled effort and concentration.

But was it? Or was this epic moment simply a fluke?

Recent academic studies have questioned whether DiMaggio’s streak is unambiguous evidence of a spurt of ability that exceeded his everyday talent, rather than an anomaly to be expected from some highly talented player, in some year, by chance, something like the occasional 150-yard drive in golf that culminates in a hole in one. No one is saying that talent doesn’t matter. They are just asking whether a similar streak would have happened sometime in the history of baseball even if each player hit with the unheroic and unmiraculous—but steady—ability of an emotionless robot.

That randomness naturally leads to streaks contradicts people’s intuition. If we were to picture randomness, we might think of a graph that looks jerky, not smooth like a straight line. But random processes do display periods of order. In a toss of 100 coins, for example, the chances are more than 75% that you will see a streak of six or more heads or tails, and almost 10% that you’ll produce a streak of 10 or more. As a result a streak can look quite impressive even if it is due to nothing more than chance.

A few years ago Bill Miller of the Legg Mason Value Trust Fund was the most celebrated fund manager on Wall Street because his fund outperformed the broad market for 15 years straight. It was a feat compared regularly to DiMaggio’s, but if all the comparable fund managers over the past 40 years had been doing nothing but flipping coins, the chances are 75% that one of them would have matched or exceeded Mr. Miller’s streak. If Mr. Miller was really merely the goddess of Fortune’s lucky beneficiary, then one would expect that once the streak ended there would be no carryover of his apparent golden touch. In that expectation Mr. Miller did not disappoint: in recent years his fund has significantly lagged the market as he bet on duds like AIG, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch & Co. and Freddie Mac.

Of course a 10- or 15-game streak is a far cry from one of 56 games. This is where DiMaggio’s great ability plays a role, for if we are to compare DiMaggio’s performance to a coin, it must be a weighted coin. With a lifetime batting average of .325, DiMaggio had a better-than-75% chance of getting a hit in a game, while a balanced coin has but a 50% chance of success. Moreover, each year for over a century, hundreds of players have sought to achieve a streak such as DiMaggio’s. All those factors increase the odds that such a streak could have occurred by chance alone.

It’s not just the statisticians who wonder whether our heroes achieve records more often than coins. Psychologists, and, increasingly, economists, also puzzle over the seemingly discrete worlds of chance and perception. The fusion of those worlds was sanctified when half of the 2002 Nobel Prize in economics was awarded to psychologist Daniel Kahneman “for having integrated insights from psychological research into economic science, especially concerning human judgment and decision-making under uncertainty.”

Research into why people misinterpret streaks dates to 1985, and a paper co-authored by Mr. Kahneman’s regular collaborator, the late Amos Tversky, in the journal Cognitive Psychology. (No one doubts that, had he lived, Mr. Tversky would have shared in the prize). The paper was titled “The hot hand in basketball: On the misperception of random sequences.” Everyone who has ever played basketball knows the feeling of being “in the zone.” Your hand is on fire. You can’t miss. But are you feeling a true increase in ability, or is your mind inferring it because you just took a bunch of shots that, for whatever reason, went in?

If a person tossing a coin weighted to land on heads 80% of the time produces a streak of 10 heads in a row, few people would see that as a sign of increased skill. Yet when an 80% free throw shooter in the NBA has that level of success people have a hard time accepting that it isn’t. The Cognitive Psychology paper, and the many that followed, showed that despite appearances, the “hot hand” is a mirage. Such hot and cold streaks are identical to those you would obtain from a properly weighted coin.

Why do people have a hard time accepting the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune? One reason is that we expect the outcomes of a process to reflect the underlying qualities of the process itself. For example, if an initiative has a 60% chance of success, we expect that six out of every 10 times such an initiative is undertaken, it will succeed. That, however, is false. In order to warrant confidence that results reflect a deeper truth, you need many more trials than 10. In fact, one of the most counterintuitive features of randomness is that for a small number of trials, the results of a random process typically do not reflect the underlying probabilities.

For example, suppose we undertake an analysis of the resources, effort and ability of all the companies in the Fortune 500 and determine that every company has the same 60% chance of success in any given year. If we observe all the companies over a period of five years and the underlying probability of success were reflected in each company’s results, then over the five-year period every company would have three good years.

The mathematics of chance indeed dictate that in this situation the odds of a company having zero, one, two, four or five good years are lower than the odds of having three. Nevertheless it is not likely that a company will have three out of five good years—because there are so many of those misleading outcomes, their combined odds add up to twice the odds of having exactly three. That means that of the 500 companies, two-thirds will experience results that belie their underlying potential. In fact, according to the rules of randomness, nearly 50 of the companies will have a streak of either five good years, or five bad years, even if their corporate capacities were no better or worse than their counterparts’. And so if you judged the companies by their five-year results alone, you would probably over- or underestimate their true value.

In sports, the championship contenders are usually pretty evenly matched. But in baseball, even if one assumes that the better team has a lopsided 55/45 edge over the inferior one, the lesser team will win the seven-game World Series 40% of the time. That might seem counterintuitive, but you can look at it as follows. If you play a best-of-one game series, then, by our assumption, the lesser team will win 45% of the time. Playing a longer series will cut down that probability. The problem is that playing a seven-game series only cuts it down to 40%, which isn’t cutting it down by much. What if you demand that the lesser team win no more than 5% of the time—a constraint called statistical significance? The World Series would have to be the best of 269 games, and probably draw an audience the size of that for Olympic curling. Swap baseball for marketing, and you find a mistake often made by marketing departments: assuming that the results of small focus groups reflect a trend in the general population.

We find false meaning in the patterns of randomness for good reason: we are animals built to do just that. Suppose, for example, that you sit a subject in front of a light which flashes red twice as often as green, but otherwise without pattern. After the subject watches for a while, you offer the subject a reward for each future flash correctly predicted. What is the best strategy?

A nonhuman animal in this situation will always guess red, the more frequent color. A different strategy is to match your proportion of red and green guesses to the proportion you observed in the past, that is, two reds for every green. If the colors come in some pattern that you can figure out, this strategy will enable you to be right every time. But if the colors come without pattern you will do worse. Most humans try to guess the pattern, and in the process allow themselves to be outsmarted by a rat. (Those trying to time the market lately might wish they had let the rat take charge.) Looking for order in patterns has allowed us to understand the patterns of the universe, and hence to create modern physics and technology; but it also sometimes compels us to submit bids on eBay because we see the face of Jesus in a slice of toast.

Another reason we reject the power of randomness is our need for control. DiMaggio’s streak affects us because we all appreciate struggle and effort, triumphing despite huge odds. The notion that we might not have control over our environment, on the other hand, causes us to shudder.

Many studies illustrate how this basic aspect of human nature translates to a misperception of chance. For example, a group of Yale students were asked to predict the result of a series of coin tosses. The tosses were secretly rigged so that each student would have some success initially, but end up with a 50% success rate. The students were obviously aware of the random nature of their task. Yet when asked whether their performance would be hampered by distraction, and whether it would improve with practice, a significant number indicated that it would. Their deep-seated need for control trumped their intellectual understanding of the situation.

What about DiMaggio’s streak? There are many subtleties in randomness. For example, do you model a player as having a fixed batting average—that is, probability of a hit—or do you allow for the average to vary within the season, or even game to game? How do you treat the variation in at-bats, walks, etc.? The analyses can get long and the number of data needed unwieldy, so the jury is still out, but one of the studies, by Samuel Arbesman and Steven H. Strogatz of Cornell University, attacked the problem by having a computer generate a mock version of each year in baseball from 1871 to 2005, based on the players’ actual statistics from that year. The scientists had the computer repeat the process 10,000 times, generating in essence 10,000 parallel histories of the sport.

The researchers found that 42% of the simulated histories had a streak of DiMaggio’s length or longer. The longest record streak was 109 games, the shortest, 39. In those 10,000 universes, many other players held the record more often than DiMaggio. Ty Cobb, for example, held it nearly 300 times.

DiMaggio’s streak, for better or worse, defined his life. Decades later, constantly hounded by autograph seekers, he wrote “If I thought this would be taking place due to the streak, I would have stopped hitting at 40 games.” He died just 10 years ago, at age 84. Joe Jr., who had trouble coping with his father’s fame, fell to a history of drug and alcohol abuse. He died five months after his father.

People are remembered—and often rewarded—not for their usual level of talent or hard work, but for their singular achievements, the ones that stand out in memory. It does no harm to view those achievements as heroic. But it does harm us to make investments or other decisions on a basis of misunderstanding. And it can be sad or even tragic when we interpret as failures plans or people simply because they did not succeed. Extraordinary events, both good and bad, can happen without extraordinary causes, and so it is best to always remember the other factor that is always present—the factor of chance.

Corrections & Amplifications Steven H. Strogatz co-authored a study of randomness in baseball statistics. His first name was incorrectly spelled Stephen in a previous version of this article.

—Leonard Mlodinow teaches randomness at Caltech. His most recent book is “The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives.”

Summary: “The Drunkard’s Walk” author Leonard Mlodinow explains how even champions’ winning streaks owe as much to the laws of chance as talent and hard work.


That’s the message that Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s campaign manager, sent Tuesday afternoon. In an interview with CNN‘s Chris Cuomo, Manafort said that the controversy surrounding Melania Trump’s speech at the Republican National Convention was “another example” of what happens “when a woman threatens Hillary Clinton.”

Manafort was referring to the accusations that Trump’s speech was copied, in part, from Michelle Obama’s 2008 Democratic National Convention address—which was, as luck would have it, written by former Clinton speechwriter Sarah Hurwitz.

Clinton’s communication director Jennifer Palmieri was quick to fire back at Manafort, saying that “blaming Hillary Clinton isn’t the answer for every Trump campaign problem.”

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Manfort told CNN that no one will be fired over the speech—which he maintains was not plagiarized. “To think that [Melania] would do something like that knowing how scrutinized her speech was going to be last night is just really absurd,” he said.

Journalist Jarrett Hill was the first to point out the similarities between the two speeches, but the idea quickly went viral on Twitter on Monday evening, accompanied by the tongue-in-cheek hashtag #FamousMelaniaTrumpQuotes, in which users attribute famous quotes so the presumptive GOP nominee’s wife.

Still not sure what to believe about the origin of Trump’s words? Watch Melania Trump and Michelle Obama’s speeches side by side and judge for yourself:

Summary: And denies that it was plagiarized


A group of nearly 400 doctors north of Boston has decided to end its longtime ties with Partners HealthCare and join a rival physician network affiliated with Tufts Medical Center.

The decision by the Hallmark Health System physician group follows the announcement last month that Hallmark would pursue a merger with Tufts’s parent company. The move shakes up the competitive market for doctors in Eastern Massachusetts and is a blow to Partners, the state’s largest health system.

Hallmark, based in Medford, said its doctors would join the Tufts network, called New England Quality Care Alliance, or NEQCA, on Jan. 1, pending regulatory approvals.

The Hallmark and Tufts physicians groups “share common values and a commitment to excellence, serving our communities, and keeping care local,” Hallmark spokesman Rob Brogna said in a statement on Thursday. “We look forward to bringing the benefits of this partnership to our patients.”

The Tufts network now has about 1,800 physicians. Spokewoman Alison Nogi said in a statement that the deal with Hallmark is “a natural alignment that will serve to strengthen and expand the excellent work we do in supporting our physicians and serving our communities.”

Doctors tend to refer patients who need specialty care to specialists and hospitals within their own networks, so the deal could result in more referrals to Tufts, and fewer to Partners hospitals such as Massachusetts General. But details of the transaction have yet to be worked out.

“This is a major step forward for Tufts to gain the support of this physician group,” said Ruselle W. Robinson, a health care lawyer at Posternak Blankstein & Lund LLP.

Hallmark and Partners have a history. Their doctors have been affiliated for two decades. More recently, Hallmark sought for three years to be acquired by Partners, until calling off that plan in December 2015 amid antitrust concerns.

Hallmark, a nonprofit health system that owns Melrose-Wakefield Hospital in Melrose and Lawrence Memorial Hospital in Medford, later went looking for other merger partners. It settled on Wellforce, a parent company founded by Tufts and Lowell General Hospital in 2014.

Tufts and Lowell General were the only members of Wellforce until Hallmark agreed to join them.

The moves by Hallmark and its doctors to affiliate with Tufts and Wellforce will be monitored by the Health Policy Commission, a state agency that watches health care transactions.

“The physicians of Hallmark have been valued colleagues for two decades,” Partners spokesman Rich Copp said. “While we are disappointed, we certainly understand their decision given the pending merger between Hallmark and Wellforce.”

Partners remains the state’s dominant health care system, with 10 hospitals and more than 6,000 doctors, but it has lost doctors in recent years to other competitors, including Steward Health Care System and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Summary: The decision by the 400-doctor Hallmark Health System group follows the announcement last month that Hallmark would pursue a merger with Tufts’s parent company.


Hillary Clinton’s campaign will begin advertising ahead of the general election against Donald Trump later this week, beating Trump and the Republicans to the airwaves as Democrats lay plans for a hard-fought summer-and-fall campaign.

The one-minute ad, slated to begin showing on Thursday, contrasts some of Trump’s more extreme statements with Clinton, who narrates the video.

“Today, we face a choice about who we are as a nation,” Clinton says in the ad. “Do we help each other? Do we respect each other? Do we stand together?” Trump, meanwhile, makes repeated cameos in the ad with clips from his rallies saying “I’d like to punch him in the face” in reference to a protester, and “Knock the crap out of them, would you?” as well as mocking a disabled New York Times reporter.

Clinton, shown at different points during her primary campaign greeting voters, then explains the underlying message of her campaign: “It’s wrong to pit people against each other,” Clinton says. “I believe we are always stronger together.”

Donald Trump quickly rebutted the ad on Twitter, denying that he mocked the New York Times reporter.

Clinton made a false ad about me where I was imitating a reporter GROVELING after he changed his story. I would NEVER mock disabled. Shame!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2016

The new Clinton ad joins three general election ads aired by Priorities Action USA, the pro-Clinton superPAC that has been supporting her bid against Trump. Together, the ads seek to portray Trump as mean-spirited and divisive. The Clinton campaign did not say how much it cost to place the ads.

Clinton will campaign in swing states this week, including Ohio, Pennsylvania, as well as a Wisconsin event with President Obama.

Summary: Her message: "We are stronger together."


“People always think ‘Mo’s going to double up, he's going to win the two golds’, but it isn’t going to be that easy,” he said.

For once, one suspected, these were not just platitudes.

Invincible for almost five years, Farah is now 33 years old. Two of his main rivals over 5,000m in Rio, Ethiopia’s Yomif Kejelcha and Kenya’s Caleb Ndiku, are 18 and 23 respectively, further emphasising that time is not on Farah’s his side.

Indeed, by his impeccable standards, the season has been below par.

Beaten into second at the Edinburgh Cross Country in January and third at the World Half Marathon Championships in May, Farah was left unimpressed by his traditional 1,500m sharpener in Monaco earlier this month when he ran a slower time than his two previous attempts at the distance over the past few years.

Summary: Grinning broadly for a selfie ahead of his personal press conference in London on Thursday, there was not a hint of concern on Mo Farah’


SYDNEY, July 26 (Reuters) - The Australian Prime Minister on Tuesday ordered an inquiry into the treatment of children in detention after the airing of video showing prison guards teargassing teenage inmates and strapping a half-naked, hooded-boy to a chair.

Footage of the abuse of six aboriginal boys in a juvenile detention center sparked renewed criticism of Australia's treatment of Aborigines and their high imprisonment rate.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) aired CCTV footage late Monday of boys in a Northern Territory juvenile detention center also being stripped naked, thrown by the neck into a cell, and held for long periods in solitary confinement.

"Like all Australians, I've been deeply shocked - shocked and appalled by the images of mistreatment of children," Turnbull said on ABC radio as he announced a Royal Commission, Australia's most powerful, state sanctioned inquiry.

The CCTV footage from the Don Dale Youth Detention Centre in Darwin was shot between 2010-2014. A lawyer representing two of the boys said all six boys abused were of aboriginal descent. Aborigines make up the majority of the Northern Territory population and 94 percent of juvenile inmates in the territory.

Reality of incarceration in the U.S.:

Reality of incarceration in the U.S.

In this Aug. 31, 2015 photo, a room used for recreation by inmates in solitary confinement at the Washington Corrections Center, in Shelton, Wash. is shown. A new program that may soon be extended to dozens of maximum custody solitary confinement prisoners at the facility will give inmates the option of using their recreation hour outside of their cells to watch sunsets, mountains and underwater seascapes on video, with the hope that they will be calmer, and guards will have to deal with fewer outbursts or violent interactions. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

FILE -- In this July 24, 2014 file photo, an inmate is seen in one of the cells at the mental health unit at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation's Stockton Health Facility in Stockton, Calif. In an agreement filed in U.S. District Court in Sacramento, Friday, Aug. 29, state corrections official have agreed to shift mentally ill inmates into specialized housing units instead of placing them in the same isolation units as are used for other inmates, Friday, Aug. 29.(AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, file)

Harris County inmate Kristi Leonard leans against a telephone in her cell block Tuesday, June 4, 2013, in Houston. Arrested numerous times for prostitution, Leonard is part of a rehabilitation program called We've Been There Done That. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)

An inmate stares out a window at the Deuel Vocational Institution in Tracy, Calif., Friday, March 2, 2012. California prisons marked a milestone Friday when California prison officials announced they have removed the last of nearly 20,000 extra beds that had been jammed into gymnasium and other common areas to house inmates who overflowed traditional prison cells.(AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

PHOENIX, AZ - MARCH 11: Undocumented immigrant Jose Reyes Robledo, 42, Mexico poses for a portrait as he serves time in Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Maricopa County Tent City jail on March 11, 2013 in Phoenix, Arizona. He said he has lived in Phoenix and previously San Diego as an undocumented immigrant for 20 years. He is married with three children and was born in the United States. He was arrested and charged in Maricopa County on July, 2012 for armed robbery with a deadly weapon. As an undocumented immigrant with a criminal record, he may likely be deported to Mexico after serving his jail sentence. President Barack Obama's administration deported a record 1.5 million people during his first term of office with 55 percent of deportees in 2012 having a criminal conviction for drug offenses or driving under the influence, according to U.S. immigration officials. The Maricopa County Tent City jail, run by county Sheriff Joe Arpaio, maintains a controversial policy of issuing striped uniforms and pink undergarments to inmates, despite an ongoing court challenge. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

A cell in an enhanced supervision housing unit on Rikers Island in New York, Thursday, March 12, 2015. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has unveiled a comprehensive plan to curb jail violence after a visit to the problem-plagued Rikers Island jail complex. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

In this photo taken on Tuesday, May 5, 2015, inmate Jesse Cole is shown on a television screen as his wife Edna wipes away a tear while sitting with their sons, William, 4, center, and 8-month-old Jesse James, during a video visitation with at the Fort Bend County Jail, in Richmond, Texas. Prisonersâ rights advocates are worried that the growing use in the U.S. of video technology to facilitate visits between inmates and their family and friends at county jails and prisons is part of a trend to eliminate the more traditional in-person visit. But officials who run these facilities say video visitation has been a boon to their efforts to improve security and increase visiting hours. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

An inmate uses the recreation room of one of the housing units at Sacramento County's Rio Cosumnes Correctional Center in Elk Grove, Calif., Thursday, May 30, 2013. A report by the California Little Hoover Commission says Gov. Jerry Brown's prison realignment plan is forcing county sheriff's rather than judges, to decide which inmates get released early from jail and which serve their full sentences.(AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

An inmate does pushups on the floor of his cell at the Men's Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles Wednesday, Oct. 3, 2012. Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca says he plans to implement all the reforms suggested by a commission in the wake of allegations that a culture of violence flourished in his jails. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)

AP10ThingsToSee - In this June 26, 2014 photo, a U.S. veteran with post-traumatic stress, sits in a segregated holding pen at Chicago's Cook County Jail after he was arrested on a narcotics charge. The complex, with more than 10,600 inmates, is one of the country's largest single-site jails. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

Raymondville, UNITED STATES: A Homeland Security Officer(L) talks with detainees inside Homeland Security's Willacy Detention Center, a facility with 10 giant tents that can house up to 2000 detained illegal immigrants, 10 May 2007 in Raymondville, Texas. The 65 million USD facility was constructed as part of the Secure Border Initative last July and now where many of the former 'catch and release' illegals are detained for processing. AFP Photo/Paul J. Richards (Photo credit should read PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images)

In this photo taken Oct. 15, 2014, an inmate lies across a bunk in the psychiatric unit of the Pierce County Jail in Tacoma, Wash. Some of Washingtonâs mentally ill are strapped to gurneys in emergency rooms awaiting beds in psychiatric hospitals, while others sit in jail for months waiting for competency evaluations and treatment, with some getting trapped in both broken systems And receiving no treatment. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

A prisoner behind bars and thick plastic looks over at a corrections officer in an enhanced supervision housing unit on Rikers Island in New York, Thursday, March 12, 2015. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has unveiled a comprehensive plan to curb jail violence after a visit to the problem-plagued Rikers Island jail complex. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Correctional officer Ken Kleinworth frisks an inmate leaving a dining hall at the Washington Corrections Center, Thursday, Feb. 17, 2011, in Shelton, Wash. The population of Washington state prison inmates has become whiter, older and more violent in the past decade, an Associated Press review of Department of Corrections records has found. And while running the prison system eats up 5 percent of the state budget, there appear to be few places that can be cut without having to resort to releasing inmates early, as some states have done to balance the budget. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

FILE - In this Jan. 11, 2012, file photo, a man waits to be processed at a Border Patrol detention center in Imperial Beach, Calif. The U.S. Border Patrol's parent agency on Monday, Oct. 5, 2015, issued nationwide custody standards, a little more than a year after its jails were overwhelmed with Central American children fleeing to the United States. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)

FILE- In this 2010 file photo, an inmate reads a book in his bunk at the John Lilley Correctional Center in Boley, Okla. Oklahoma Department of Corrections spokeswoman Terri Watkins declined to speculate on why Oklahomaâs prison homicide rate is so high, but those who work inside Oklahomaâs prisons say the reason is simple: the facilities are overcrowded and understaffed. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)

FILE - In this July 31, 2014 file photo, an inmate at Rikers Island juvenile detention facility carries a plastic fork behind his back as he walks with other inmates in single file to the jail's chapel for a visit from Def Jam co-founder Russell Simmons and entertainer L.L. Cool J. The city's juvenile jails are extremely violent and unsafe, the result of a deeply ingrained culture of violence in which guards routinely violate constitutional rights of teenage inmates and subject them to "rampant use of unnecessary and excessive force," federal prosecutors said in a scathing report released Monday, Aug. 4, 2014. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson, File)

FILE -- In this photo taken Oct. 15, 2014, an inmate huddles under a heavy blanket on a bunk in the psychiatric unit of the Pierce County Jail in Tacoma, Wash. Washington On Thursday, March 12, 2015, Gov. Jay Inslee signed a bill to set a 14-day limit on the amount of time a mentally ill person can be held in jail awaiting competency evaluations or treatment. The new law comes ahead of a federal trial that aims to end the competency wait lists. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, File)

An inmate sits on his bed in the geriatric unit during a media tour Thursday, Feb. 26, 2015, at the Utah State Correctional Facility in Draper, Utah. Gov. Gary Herbert said Thursday that he's opposed to the idea of allowing a state commission to pick a location to build a new prison instead of leaving the decision with the Legislature. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, Pool)

"Our (indigenous) people have known about things like this...and to just see it laid bare in front of us last night must be a wake-up call to everyone in Australia - that something's got to be done about the way we lock our people up in this country, and particularly the way we lock our kids up," an emotional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Mick Gooda told reporters.

"What we saw last night is an absolute disgrace."

A report into some of the incidents by the Northern Territory Children's Commissioner in 2015 found fault with the guards' behavior, but the findings were disputed by the then head of prisons and not acted upon, said the ABC.

Northern Territory Chief Minister Adam Giles sacked his corrections minister within hours of the broadcast and said that information about the abuse had been withheld from him, blaming a "culture of cover-up" within the Corrections system.

Some Aborigines in the territory called for Giles to be removed, with one wearing a hood over their head with the words "Sack Giles." A coalition of Northern Territory Aboriginal organizations called for the national government to dissolve the territory government, which it has the authority to do.

"Any government that enacts policies designed to harm children and enables a culture of brutalization and cover-ups, surrenders its right to govern," said spokesman John Paterson.

Residents in Alice Springs staged a peaceful protest against the abuse of children in detention, while the ABC reported that at least eight people were protesting on the roof of a prison in the town. Reuters could not confirm the prison protest.

The CCTV video showed guards mocking inmates, carrying a boy by the neck and throwing him onto a mattress in a cell, and covering a teenager's head with a hood and shackling him to a chair with neck, arm, leg and foot restraints.

"Excessive use of force, isolation and shackling of children is barbaric and inhumane," said Human Rights Watch Australia Director Elaine Pearson.

The ABC reported that only two detention staff members identified in footage remained within the youth justice system.

Lawyer Peter O'Brien, who represents Dylan Voller and Jake Roper who were abused, said he was suing the state on their behalf, alleging assault, battery and false imprisonment.

"It seems as if this abuse is built into the very core of the system," he said in a statement, calling for the immediate release of Voller, who is now in an adult prison, and all children imprisoned in the Northern Territory.

Australia's Human Rights Commission president Gillian Triggs, who backed the inquiry, said: "We have been reporting on this question of indigenous incarceration, particularly of juveniles, for many, many years and we have had many, many reports...on the appalling conditions in which they are held."

Aborigines comprise just three percent of Australia's population but make up 27 percent of those in prison. (Additional reporting by Tom Westbrook; Editing by Jane Wardell and Michael Perry)

RELATED: Life in prison: A look at becoming an inmate:

NTP: Life in prison: A look at becoming an inmate

Prisoners stand while being processed for intake at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison, Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2015, in Jackson, Ga. They arrive by the busload each Tuesday and Thursday, dozens of new inmates entering Georgiaâs prison system. Most stay only a week or two. But for those sentenced to die, this is their last stop. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Frederick Harris, right, cuts the hair of Josh Harris, no relation, as he is processed for intake at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison, Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2015, in Jackson, Ga. When inmates arrive, their possessions are inventoried. Then they shower and don white jumpsuits. They sit in barber chairs while permanent inmates give them close haircuts, then pose for an ID photo. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

A motivational poster hangs on the wall as prisoners stand at attention while being processed for intake at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison, Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2015, in Jackson, Ga. The prison, the stateâs biggest, houses about 2,100 male inmates on a wooded, 900-acre campus about 50 miles south of Atlanta. A warden and three deputy wardens oversee more than 600 employees. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Prisoner Ricky Wheat looks out from his cell at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison, Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2015, in Jackson, Ga. Inside the prison itâs loud and busy. Heavy metal gates clank open and shut. Inmates shuffle in single-file lines, guided by just a few guards. Chatter, shouts and the crackling of radios echo with nothing soft in sight to absorb the sound. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

A prisoner faces a mural painted by inmates on a cinderblock wall inside the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison, Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2015, in Jackson, Ga. When visitors approach, inmates in the hallways turn their backs and stand close to the walls. That makes it easy for guards to spot a guy who steps out of line. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Capt. Dwain Williams checks on a prisoner in the the Special Management Unit, known as high-max at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison, Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2015, in Jackson, Ga. Face-to-face interaction is rare. The cells are only 7 by 13Â½ feet, and inmates canât see out unless guards slide back a metal cover over the grated opening on the door. Meals slide through an opening like a mail slot. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

An inmate looks out of his cell in the the Special Management Unit, known as high-max at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison, Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2015, in Jackson, Ga. A select few have glass instead of sliding metal doors as windows because theyâre known to hurt themselves and need extra supervision. Theyâre on the same row as others whose cells are behind a glass partition because they have a history of throwing things, including bodily fluids, from their cells. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

An inmate takes a GED exam at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison, Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2015, in Jackson, Ga. While many in high-max wonât ever be free, some will eventually get out. The GED program aims to help a relatively small number of inmates who will eventually get out be better prepared for release. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Sgt. Michael Stovall looks through a set of security gates on death row at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison, Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2015, in Jackson, Ga. The inmates on death row have been convicted of horrific crimes, but they generally cause few problems according to prison Warden Bruce Chatman. Possibly because many still have appeals pending and donât want to risk jeopardizing a chance, however slim, that their lives could be spared, he said. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Personal items sit on shelves of a prisoner's cell on death row at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison, Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2015, in Jackson, Ga. The 76 death row inmates live in four âpodsâ of neatly kept single-inmate cells measuring just 6Â½ by 9 feet and feature a bed, sink, toilet and shelves. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Shoes sit under a prisoner's bed in his cell on death row at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison, Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2015, in Jackson, Ga. Georgia has executed inmates by injection since October 2001, when the state Supreme Court ruled electrocution violated the stateâs ban on cruel and unusual punishment. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

A prisoner on death row stands in his cell at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison, Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2015, in Jackson, Ga. An electric chair that was used in 23 executions, a primitive-looking wooden armchair outfitted with leather straps, now sits unused in a closet off the area where witnesses sit for executions. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

A cell sits empty on death row at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison, Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2015, in Jackson, Ga. Once a judge signs an execution order, the warden meets with the inmate to read him the order, give him a copy and ask if he has any questions. The inmate doesnât return to death row but instead is held in the prisonâs medical area under 24-hour watch by two guards for the roughly two weeks until his execution date. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

A calendar hangs inside a prisoner's cell on death row at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison, Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2015, in Jackson, Ga. On the day of the execution, the condemned inmate can receive visitors until about 3 p.m., when heâs given a medical checkup and then brought to a holding cell near the execution chamber around 5 p.m. Heâs given his final meal and has an opportunity to record a final statement. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Sgt. Andrew Archie walks through death row at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison, Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2015, in Jackson, Ga. The 76 death row inmates live in four âpodsâ of neatly kept single-inmate cells measuring just 6Â½ by 9 feet and feature a bed, sink, toilet and shelves. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Prison Warden Bruce Chatman talks with prisoners on death row as they walk in a yard at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison, Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2015, in Jackson, Ga. On the unusually warm early December morning, six men were in the yard that includes basketball and volleyball nets. Several took the opportunity to bend the wardenâs ear, asking about a backed-up toilet and people allowed to visit. Another asked: âHey, warden. Can you help us get a basketball? Itâs been over two months.â (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Correctional officers are reflected in a puddle as they stand guard outside a yard for death row inmates at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison, Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2015, in Jackson, Ga. Inmates are allowed into the common area or into the outside yard in small groups of men who are known to get along. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Deputy Warden of Security Keith Eutsey, left, and Warden Bruce Chatman walk to the execution chamber along rows of barbed wire at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison, Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2015, in Jackson, Ga. Death row inmates donât have far to go when their appeals run out. The chamber where lethal injections take place, a small room with a gurney, separated by a large pane of glass from the observation area, is on the grounds. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

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Summary: The CCTV video showed guards mocking inmates, carrying a boy by the neck and throwing him onto a mattress, and shackling a half-naked teenager to a chair.


Citing the example of Johann Strauss, the father and the son, he continued: "In that case, the father was the jealous one; he didn't even allow his son to play his music. In this case, he turned out better than me, and I love it. You can't imagine how proud I am of him. The word naches" -- Yiddish for joy -- "applies."

The son said that it took years for him to distance himself from his father. "When I was a little kid, I wanted so badly to be like him I once said to him I want to change my name. And he said, 'To what?' And I said, 'To Carl.'

"I was raised on people like Mel Brooks coming to the house, and Sid Caesar and Neil Simon. They alway seemed like the most interesting and smartest people."

Apparently unready or unable to leave the subject of childhood and separation behind, Mr. Reiner will next direct a fantasy called "North," based on a novel by Alan Zweibel, a television comedy writer. The movie concerns a 9-year-old boy who decides to become emancipated from his parents.

Over the last six years Mr. Reiner's hits have included "Stand by Me," "The Princess Bride," "When Harry Met Sally . . ." and "Misery." Yet he has sometimes been criticized for, in the words of one leading producer, "playing things a little too safe, not quite pushing the envelope further or being more of a heavyweight."

But Mr. Reiner seems to be satisfied with his choices; his priority is finding stories that strike a personal chord. One was Stephen King's novel "Misery," which he turned into the 1990 film about a writer, played by James Caan, who is trapped and kept prisoner by a lunatic fan (Kathy Bates).

"It was very personal in a weird way," said Mr. Reiner, who saw "Misery" as the story of a man, not unlike himself, who was trying to branch out creatively. "Here I was, a television actor for eight years," he said of playing Meathead, Archie Bunker's son-in-law, in the long-running CBS series "All in the Family." "I was famous, and everyone knew me, and I wanted desperately to become a film director. And it was very hard for people in this community to accept that. It took me years."

Similarly, he found personal resonance in the 1989 romantic comedy "When Harry Met Sally . . .," which portrayed a couple (Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan) treading the delicate line between friendship and romance. Mr. Reiner, who divorced the director Penny Marshall in 1981 after 10 years of marriage, said that the movie "was born out of my experience of being thrown out in the dating world and being very confused about whether you could be friends with a woman, or did sex always have to come into the equation." (Since 1989, Mr. Reiner has been married to Michele Singer, a photographer; they have a 1-year-old son.)

Mr. Reiner has been able to pursue such visions because of his relationship with Castle Rock, one of the larger and more successful independents. His total control over casting and production is rare. So, for "Misery," he cast Mr. Caan, whose career was then in the doldrums, and Ms. Bates, a stage actress who was virtually unknown on the screen. Had Mr. Reiner worked at a studio, the Caan-Bates casting would have been virtually unthinkable. Ms. Bates, who won an Academy Award for the part of the deranged fan, Annie Wilkes, said of the director: "He and I really played Annie together. His eye was always in sync with my emotions."

Nora Ephron, who wrote the screenplay for "When Harry Met Sally . . .," noted that Mr. Reiner takes special care casting even the smallest roles. She cited the famous scene in "When Harry Met Sally . . ." in which diners in a New York delicatessen react as Sally fakes an orgasm.

"You can tell an enormous amount about people by the way they cast their movies," said Ms. Ephron. "And you can see by Rob's casting how generous he is. He never makes a joke at the expense of an actor's physical appearance. In the orgasm scene, the joke was extended and it went on, and Rob kept cutting from one face to the next, and in every single cut you saw compassion; there wasn't a cheap joke in any of those shots. Very few directors wouldn't have found an extra who was funny-looking in some easy, jokey way. Rob will never do that."

Ms. Ephron (who has cast Mr. Reiner in "Sleepless in Seattle," the comedy she is now directing) believes that the director has been positively influenced by his years in television. "In a TV series, you noodle and noodle all week long until you shoot it on Friday," she said. "Rob does a long version of that. He takes months. He reads every part aloud. If a line isn't funny when he reads it, it's not funny and it's never going to be funny."

Mr. Reiner's comedic instincts were evident in his very first movie, "This Is Spinal Tap," a satirical film about a fictitious rock band made up of sniveling English lunks. The 1984 film was critically acclaimed, but he now says it may have been too derivative of some of his father's television routines with Sid Caesar. Mr. Reiner considers his breakthrough to be "Stand by Me," a critically well-received movie about boyhood friendships that opened two years later.

Summary: For Rob Reiner, the film "A Few Good Men" carries remarkable personal resonance. Not that Mr. Reiner has served in the Navy or faced a high-stakes military trial, which is the centerpiece of the movie.   Instead, the 45-year-old director identifies almost eerily with the Navy lawyer Daniel Kaffee (played by Tom Cruise), whose glib, wise-guy style masks intense fears about living in the shadow of a father, now dead, who was a renowned naval attorney general.


Stocks ended little changed on Tuesday after a late-afternoon slump wiped out much of the day’s gains.

Investors weighed mixed results from Walmart, Home Depot and other big American retailers, and new data on inflation. Energy stocks were among the biggest decliners as oil prices closed lower.

“You saw oil prices come down, and the market has been following oil prices,” said Quincy Krosby, market strategist at Prudential Financial. “The market moved up handsomely yesterday, so we’re not losing all of the gains.”

The Dow Jones industrial average added 6.49 points, or 0.04 percent, to close at 17,489.50. Earlier Tuesday, it was up more than 116 points.

The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index lost 2.75 points, or 0.1 percent, to close at 2,050.44, after briefly moving into positive territory for the year. The Nasdaq composite index rose 1.40 points, or 0.03 percent, to 4,986.02.

Major stock indexes wavered for much of the morning as investors sorted through the latest company earnings and economic reports. Traders pushed stocks higher by noon and for much of the afternoon until the final hour of trading, when the rally evaporated.

Investors, who have been worried that sales could be weak this holiday season, sold retailers that reported disappointing quarterly results.

Urban Outfitters fell 3.8 percent after its latest quarterly sales fell short. The stock dropped 87 cents to $21.80. Dick’s Sporting Goods slumped 9.4 percent after reporting worse-than-expected results and giving a weak outlook. The stock fell $3.85 to $36.96.

Other big retailers fared better.

Walmart shares rose 3.5 percent after the company reported improved customer traffic and an increase in an important sales figure for the third quarter, even as a stronger dollar hurt its performance overseas. The company, the world’s largest retailer, also issued a forecast for the holiday shopping season that largely beat Wall Street expectations. The stock rose $2.05 to $59.92.

Position of the Dow Jones industrial average at 1-minute intervals on Tuesday.

Stock in Home Depot climbed 4.4 percent after the company reported better-than-expected third-quarter earnings and revenue, and delivered an upbeat fiscal outlook. The stock rose $5.34 to $126.18.

Traders also watched economic reports. The Labor Department reported that the Consumer Price Index rose 0.2 percent in October after falling in August and September.

The small increase in inflation could make it more likely that the Federal Reserve will begin raising short-term interest rates from historical lows next month, said David Chalupnik, head of equities at Nuveen Asset Management.

“Historically, hiking interest rates would not be good for the stock market, but at this point it’s a psychological boost that the economy is self-sustaining enough that the Fed could get off the zero interest rate policy,” Mr. Chalupnik said.

The energy sector shed 1.2 percent, extending its losses this year to 15.9 percent. The sector, which is the S.&P. 500 index’s biggest decliner for the year, has been hurt by the protracted slide in oil prices.

That decline resumed on Tuesday. Benchmark United States crude oil dropped $1.08 to settle at $41.71 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, used to price international oils, fell 99 cents to $43.57 a barrel in London.

Wholesale gasoline was little changed at $1.238 a gallon, heating oil fell 1.7 cents to $1.368 a gallon and natural gas fell 1.4 cents to $2.371 per 1,000 cubic feet.

European indexes moved higher, partly because of a report showing that business optimism in Germany rose more than analysts had expected this month, thanks to strong domestic demand and a weaker euro. Germany’s DAX rose 2.4 percent, while France’s CAC 40 jumped 2.8 percent. Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 2 percent.

Gold fell $15 to $1,068.70 an ounce, silver declined 5 cents to $14.17 an ounce and copper gave up 1 cent to close at $2.10 a pound.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 2.27 percent, unchanged from Monday. The dollar rose to 123.38 yen from 123.17 yen, while the euro fell to $1.0645 from $1.0683.

A version of this article appears in print on November 18, 2015, on page B2 of the New York edition with the headline: Stocks Little Changed After a Late Slump . Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe

Summary: Walmart and TJX were doing well after reporting better-than-expected quarterly results, but shares of Urban Outfitters and Dick’s Sporting Goods slumped.


He did compelling versions of the song Guilty By Association Blues, whose rather damning political observation is all the better for being delivered via humour. He got a laugh with the couplet

'If I had a parrot he’d probably land in jail, For saying what I’m thinking and showing too much tail'

Schmidt moved straight on to Around The World In 80 Days - the tale of how a mistaken translation in a Dutch newspaper about the meaning of Guilty By Association Blues resulted in a hate campaign against Schmidt ("the Internet being a big game of Chinese whispers gone wrong" he joked) - a clever way of describing the lunacies of the electronic age.

Man Of Many Moons - a deceptively simple song about vulnerability - was beautifully delivered on a night of uplifting music. It was a good example of his deft lyricism:

'Words are risky cause they last so long, They’re like statues in a storm'

Schmidt is an inspiring example of an independent musician delivering music in an unashamedly genuine way. And this part of his British tour was enjoyed in The Green Note, a venue that even the offered the chance to be stay healthy - via organic lager. What more could you ask?

Schmidt is on tour in England for the rest of this week - playing in Barnsley, Liverpool, Coventry, Glastonbury and Sheffield. Catch him while you can.

For details of Schmidt's concerts see his homepage.

Summary: Danny Schmidt, whose new album is called Man Of Many Moons, is in fine   form at Camden Town's Green Note club.


A family of pine martens is thriving at Cruachan power station.

The animals have made themselves at home at Scottish Power's visitor centre on the banks of Loch Awe near Oban.

They have attracted the attention of staff who have been feeding them home-made treats.

Cafe assistant Shona Mcleman said: "There have been a few sightings over the years but this family in particular seem well and truly settled in now."

Summary: A pine marten family has made itself at home at Scottish Power's visitor centre on Loch Awe.


Cathy Engelbert is CEO of Deloitte LLP.

As the opening ceremony for the 31st Olympic Games kicked off in Rio de Janeiro Friday night, 207 nations joined to celebrate this pinnacle of sportsmanship, dedication, and talent. More than 10,000 athletes will bring their unique stories of personal trial and overcoming odds to live their passion.

From my early days of playing 2:2 in basketball against my three older brothers, to my years playing Division 1 college basketball and lacrosse, sports have played a big role in my leadership development. I can’t help but feel the excitement of the international community coming together to honor athleticism and achievement.

The Games also remind me that business leaders and athletes share similar qualities. They must know when to lead, know when to follow, know when to pass to their teammates, and know when to ask for help, to name a few. I’ll watch as these same themes unfold in Rio, and celebrate their impact in our workplace, as we watch moments of brilliance in the performance of these athletes.

Here are some ways professionals can channel their inner Olympian:

Find a coach that invests in your growth. Behind every great athlete is a masterful coach that inspires the athlete to evolve into the strongest performer they can become. Seek out a personal coach or mentor in the workplace. He/she should push you when you need it by encouraging and motivating you. Don’t be afraid of their honesty. And most importantly, pay it forward and become a coach to someone else. Take Gerek Meinhardt, a Deloitte advisory consultant who is also an American fencer competing in Rio. Gerek’s 17-year relationship with his coach helped pave his Olympic journey. And true to the nature of paying it forward, Gerek’s coach is a former fencing Olympian who is now helping Gerek attain his Olympic dreams.

Measure success in your own achievement, not against others. You never know where your career will take you. A competitor in the market could suddenly become an unlikely partner. Be flexible, keep your slate clean, and stay open to unlikely collaborations.

Keri Walsh Jenner and April Ross were on opposing American women’s beach volleyball teams, competing against each other in the London 2012 Olympic finals. After Keri and her partner clinched the gold, Keri immediately asked April to team up in Rio and aim for the gold together. Both of their partners were retiring, opening up chances for an unlikely partnership that inspired their Rio journey together.

Persevere through struggle and setbacks. Late nights, early mornings and personal sacrifice are a necessary part of every Olympic success story. Athletes have to overcome a daily struggle to avoid feelings of self-doubt when facing temporary setbacks.

The same is true in the workplace. If you experience a setback, shift your mindset and view it as an opportunity for growth. Think of swimmer Missy Franklin. She won four gold medals at the London 2012 Olympics. For Missy, setbacks came in the form of back spasms in 2014. The struggle from this experience forced her to train even harder. Four years after winning Olympic gold, Missy will compete in Rio and seek to defend her swimming titles.

Take good care of yourself. As we train our professionals to channel their inner Olympian, it’s important to focus on overall well-being. Incorporating exercise, breaks, and mindfulness into daily practice has tremendous benefits. Whenever I speak to audiences inside or even outside of Deloitte, I always encourage people to take care of themselves. Just as an athlete needs recovery breaks, take time to rest and recover from work too. Only when you take care of yourself, can you help others thrive.

It would be difficult to have the commitment needed to reach the most elite levels of sport without passion. The same can be said for business. Live your passion isn’t just the theme of the Rio Games, but a way of life for anyone who aspires to be a business leader.

Summary: Channel your inner Olympian.


Software company Talend SA had a strong debut on the Nasdaq on Friday in what investors see as a possible boost for the lackluster tech IPO market so far this year.

Talend priced above the high end of its range Thursday night at $18, up $1 from the company’s estimated range, and raised $95 million. Shares opened Friday at $27.66, up nearly 54% from the IPO price, and closed at $25.50.

The IPO, only the fifth tech debut of 2016, provided an encouraging sign as companies have hesitated to risk a poor performance in the public markets even as private capital has become harder to raise.

“While relatively few in number, the strong aftermarket performance of these [recent] offerings is reinforcing the demand,” said Brett Paschke, head of Equity Capital Markets at investment banking firm William Blair & Co. “We are seeing many companies making preparations to launch and expect a more active IPO market in the coming months.”

Talend makes software that combines data from disparate corporate systems so that companies can use it to make business decisions. It claims more than 1,300 customers, including General Electric Co.

It attributed the decision to go public to a combination of revenue growth, positive cash flow, and burgeoning demand.

“Part of the reason we were able to take the company public in an environment like this is a combination of high and accelerating growth with cash-flow break even,” said Chief Executive Mike Tuchen. “We are sustainably cash-flow positive, and there is an enormous market [of big data and cloud customers] moving our way.”

The offering shows that the market for tech IPOs may be reviving after a dormant period.

Line Corp., which makes a mobile messaging app, raised $1.14 billion in July in a dual IPO in New York and Tokyo and was trading Friday nearly 12% above its IPO price of $32.84.

Twilio Inc., which provides telephony services over the internet, closed Friday at $40.63, up from an IPO price of $15.

Talend is somewhat unusual, according to Menlo Ventures Managing Director Matt Murphy, who isn't a Talend investor. It was founded in France, has several European investors and less than $100 million in revenue, which venture investors have considered the bar for companies going public.

“If a company like that can get out and do well, it says a lot about the appetite out there for new issues, which is what everyone is worried about,” Mr. Murphy said.

Still, the IPO market has been missing big names like Uber or Airbnb, according to Andreessen Horowitz Managing Partner Scott Kupor.

“We need one of those marquee names to go out,” Mr. Kupor said. “Until then, you’ll see a slower drumbeat” of smaller companies.

Talend has raised more than $100 million from investors including Balderton Capital, Bpifrance, Idinvest Partners, Iris Capital and Silver Lake Sumeru.

Although it isn’t profitable, both revenue and net losses have been moving in the right direction. Its revenue last year was $76 million, up from $62.6 million in 2014. Net loss was $22 million, compared with a $22.5 million loss in 2014.

The market for software that, like Talend’s, helps corporate customers analyze large amounts of data has been uneven, as many customers have struggled to understand what they want to do with data and how to do it.

Big data technology is also shifting as more companies move software from their own premises to the cloud.

A couple of Talend’s competitors, Tibco Software Inc. and Informatica Corp., have gone private to manage this transition, which requires changing from selling perpetual licenses to cloud software subscriptions, according to IDC Research Director Stewart Bond.

While Talend’s cloud business is growing, “almost every company will be hybrid [cloud and on-premises] for at least another decade,” Mr. Tuchen said. “We can solve the problem while they’re doing it.”

About half the market doesn't use specialized software to extract and analyze data, instead doing it by hand, he said. That leaves lots of opportunity for software companies to automate the work, he added.

Write to Deborah Gage at Deborah.Gage@dowjones.com

Summary: Software company Talend had a strong debut on the Nasdaq in what investors see as a possible boost for the lackluster tech IPO market so far this year.


Edward Daly, who as the Roman Catholic bishop of Northern Ireland’s second-largest city argued relentlessly for peace during the three decades of sectarian violence known as the Troubles, died on Monday in Londonderry. He was 82.

His death, at Altnagelvin Area Hospital, was announced by Bishop Donal McKeown of Derry, the diocese that Bishop Daly led from 1974 to 1993, when he stepped down after having a stroke. (The city, officially Londonderry, is commonly known by its shorter name.) He was hospitalized after a fall several weeks ago.

“Bishop Daly served, without any concern for himself, throughout the traumatic years of the Troubles, finding his ministry shaped by the experience of witnessing violence and its effects,” Bishop McKeown said in a statement.

On Jan. 30, 1972, as a 38-year-old curate at St. Eugene’s Cathedral, Father Daly escorted unarmed protesters on a march toward the city center when British soldiers opened fire, resulting in the deaths of 14 people. The massacre became known as Bloody Sunday.

Images of Father Daly waving a bloodied white handkerchief as protesters tried to carry a wounded man, Jackie Duddy, to safety circulated around the world.

“I went in front with this handkerchief in my hand, and they carried Jackie behind me,” he later told the BBC. “All hell was let loose. We were very nervous and frightened, and when we laid him down on the pavement, he had died.”

He added: “It was utterly disgraceful. There was nothing fired at them — I can say that with absolute certainty because I was there.”

Father Daly later told The New York Times that the massacre fueled the growth of the Irish Republican Army, the paramilitary group that battled British security forces and the unionist segments of Northern Ireland’s population throughout the Troubles.

“Many young people I have talked to in prison have told me they would have never joined the I.R.A. had it not been for what they witnessed on Bloody Sunday,” he said.

In 2010, after a 12-year investigation that cost about 200 million pounds, or $265 million at current exchange rates, “a serious and widespread loss” of discipline among the soldiers was blamed for the massacre.

Britain’s prime minister at the time, David Cameron, apologized, calling the massacre “unjustified and unjustifiable.” The next year, the government agreed to compensate the victims’ families.

Edward Daly was born on Dec. 5, 1933, in the village of Belleek, County Fermanagh, near the border with Ireland. He attended St. Columb’s College, a boys’ grammar school in Londonderry, before the diocese sent him to the Pontifical Irish College in Rome to prepare for the priesthood.

He was ordained as a priest in 1957 and appointed a curate in Castlederg, County Tyrone; in 1962, he was named a curate at St. Eugene’s, the Roman Catholic cathedral in Londonderry, and he was ordained a bishop in 1974.

As bishop, he repeatedly denounced waves of violence. In 1976, he deplored a firebombing that destroyed much of Londonderry’s shopping district, and in 1987, he stopped church funerals for I.R.A. men after one service was turned into a paramilitary display by republican gunmen.

On Oct. 24, 1990, the I.R.A., threatening to kill his family if he did not obey, forced Patrick Gillespie, 42, a Catholic kitchen worker at a British Army base, to drive a van containing explosives into a military checkpoint outside Londonderry.

The attack, one of three “proxy bombs” that day, killed Mr. Gillespie and five soldiers. At a Mass attended by Catholics and Protestants, Bishop Daly said the killers had “crossed a new threshold of evil.”

“They may say they are followers of Christ,” he said. “Some of them may even still engage in the hypocrisy of coming to church, but their lives and their works proclaim clearly that they follow Satan.”

Bishop Daly was equally unsparing in his criticism of the British authorities. After prosecutors moved to quash the murder convictions of six Catholics who said they had been coerced into confessing to the 1974 bombings of two bars in Birmingham, England, he said in 1991, “The justice system in Britain has problems, and it must face up to those problems.”

The same year, he expressed alarm about the covert recruitment of I.R.A. members by the British security services; some were found out and killed.

The Troubles largely ended in 1998 with the Good Friday Agreement, which provided for self-government in Northern Ireland with power sharing among its political factions.

The agreement also set out the principle that Northern Ireland would remain part of the United Kingdom until a majority of people in both Northern Ireland and Ireland wished otherwise.

Bishop Daly, who is survived by two sisters, spent his retirement as a chaplain to the Foyle Hospice in Londonderry and as archivist for the diocese.

He wrote two memoirs, “Mister, Are You a Priest?” (2000) and “A Troubled See: Memoirs of a Derry Bishop” (2011).

In the 2011 book, he questioned the Vatican’s policy on priestly celibacy. “I think priests should have the freedom to marry if they wish,” he told the BBC, expressing worries about a shortage of priests.

On Monday, religious and secular leaders, Catholic and Protestant alike, mourned Bishop Daly’s death.

Bishop Kenneth Good of Derry — of the Church of Ireland, which is part of the Anglican Communion — praised him “for unwavering Christian leadership and guidance when it was desperately needed in this city and community, during the darkest days of the Troubles.”

Follow Sewell Chan on Twitter @sewellchan.

A version of this article appears in print on August 9, 2016, on page B16 of the New York edition with the headline: Edward Daly, 82, Bishop During ‘Troubles’. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe

Summary: As a priest and later as bishop, he argued relentlessly for peace during the three decades of sectarian violence.


Tumbleweeds, once just an innocent symbol of the desolate American West, prompted two Colorado counties to declare a state of emergency this week.

“They are nothing but a hazard,” Gary Gibson, a county commissioner in rural Crowley County, Colorado, told USA Today. “They aren’t just a nuisance. They cause damage.”

According to Gibson, the weeds are a fire hazard: they can become trapped under vehicles and then combust when heated. Last fall, 45 miles of road were closed because they were choked by tumbleweeds.

The rapidly growing plant has been a particular issue in eastern Colorado due to a recent drought. Young cows typically eat the tumbleweeds, but a low water supply has caused herds to shrink, allowing the weeds to flourish. Plants are capable of scattering thousands of seeds as they roll across the landscape.

Both Crowley and Pueblo Counties are asking the Colorado government for assistance on the matter, since it has supposedly developed beyond local control.

Summary: A recent drought has reduced cattle herds, which usually eat the plants, allowing the weeds to get out of control


I knew Christopher Hitchens casually, envied his rhetorical fluency, abhorred his interventionist cheerleading, and was offended by his arrogantly dismissive manner toward those he deemed his inferiors in debate or discussion, which included most of the human race. Perhaps, his sociopathic arrogance is epitomised by the kind of explanation he often gave of why he was such an unrepentant heavy drinker, as for instance, "...because it makes other people less boring. I have a great terror of being bored". I confess that someone who needs constantly to drink hard liquor to bear the company of others is likely to be a bore, and certain to be a boor! Presumably as result of this profligate lifestyle, Hitchens graduated from Oxford with rather paltry third class honours.

I knew Christopher Hitchens casually, envied his rhetorical fluency, abhorred his interventionist cheerleading, and was offended by his arrogantly dismissive manner toward those he deemed his inferiors in debate or discussion, which included most of the human race. Perhaps, his sociopathic arrogance is epitomised by the kind of explanation he often gave of why he was such an unrepentant heavy drinker, as for instance, "...because it makes other people less boring. I have a great terror of being bored". I confess that someone who needs constantly to drink hard liquor to bear the company of others is likely to be a bore, and certain to be a boor! Presumably as result of this profligate lifestyle, Hitchens graduated from Oxford with rather paltry third class honours. If some non-academic institution of appraisal were available to offset Hitchens' undeniable gifts of the mind with his deficiencies of character and heart, the Oxford grade would seem deserved even if we could have repackaged Hitchens as a dutiful student living up to his intellectual potential.

I was particularly appalled one time when we were on a panel together by the way he insulted a member of the audience for putting a question awkwardly. There was something so chilling about this reversion to the demeaning debate style of the Oxford Union as to cancel out for me on that occasion his brilliance of expression reinforced by an astonishing erudition. Such behaviour coheres with his willingness to forgo second thoughts about his advocacy of launching an unlawful aggressive war against Iraq, despite the false pretences and bloody ordeal that the Iraqi people endured, and continue to endure.

There is no doubt that Hitchens faced his own difficult death bravely, without succumbing to deathbed retreats, whether from stubbornness or authenticity, it is hard to say. In his last years, he apparently made many people happy with his dogmatic embrace of atheism during a time of religious revival in this country and elsewhere. Hitchens always had a willingness to express these harsh anti-religious opinions, but never softened by a tone of empathy, and certainly without humility, for those many among us who take religion and spirituality seriously.Â

For reasons never made transparent, Hitchens, as disappointed Trotskyites often do, lurched to the right in the early 1990s, and for a while was an ardent presence on the neoconservative dancefloor. He resigned in 2002 as a columnist for The Nation on ideological grounds, and clearly became more comfortable in the slicker, sicker world of Vanity Fair, and also a venue where his writings were far more acclaimed.

Hitchens is for me a hard case when it comes to deciding what to remember and what to forget. As indicated, I found his demeanour generally unpleasant in that Oxonian highbrow sense and his late politics reactionary and essentially mindlessly condescending with respect to the relevance of law, truth, justice and, most of all, the rights of others to shape their own destinies in the spirit of self-determination. At the same time, someone who unabashedly depicted the criminality of Kissinger's embrace of Pinochet's torture and crimes against humanity, deserves some sort of post-mortem salute. As well, like Hitchens, I voted for Ralph Nader in the 2000 elections, and although it did not contribute to the Bush victory, I came to reconsider my belief at the time that the choice between Bush and Gore was of little consequence for the issues that I cared most about. I do retain the view that Nader discussed some of the issues that needed to be confronted, especially relating to the excesses of finance and global corporate capitalism that neither party has faced, and only recently, thanks to the Occupy Movement, have such questions started to light the political sky. In the end, it is Hitchens' erudite and often illuminating essays and articles on political literature, past and present, which will continue to merit attentive reading and will be gratefully cherished for a long time to come, although even here where his core strength lies, the absence of any generosity of spirit takes its inevitable toll.

In the end, we need to suspend moral and political judgment, and celebrate those rare human beings whose life and ideas exhibited memorable vividness. Hitchens was one of those: Christopher Hitchens RIP.Â Â

Richard Falk is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and Visiting Distinguished Professor in Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has authored and edited numerous publications spanning a period of five decades, most recently editing the volume International Law and the Third World: Reshaping Justice (Routledge, 2008).

He is currently serving his third year of a six-year term as a United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights.Â

Follow him on Twitter: @rfalk13

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

Summary: Someone who constantly drinks hard liquor to bear the company of others is likely to be a bore, and a boor.


09/05/2016 AT 02:30 PM EDT

It's a big day for

– and he has his beautiful family by his side to support him.

The actor, 50, arrived at Monday's

world premiere in London with his wife

and their three kids: daughter Tallula, 14, and twin sons

The evening marked the couple's first red carpet event since calling off their divorce earlier this year.

Patrick Dempsey with wife Jillian and kids Tallula, Sullivan and Darby

Dave J Hogan / Getty

from Dempsey in January 2015 after 15 years of marriage, but by the end of the year, the two began

. In January of this year a source

the two had called off their divorce plans. In May, Dempsey

"You have to work at everything," he told

. "And you cannot do everything. Something has to be sacrificed."

also had the support of her family at the premiere. Thompson, 57, who plays Jones's doctor in the film, was joined by her daughter,

, on the pink carpet. Wearing a standout red jumpsuit, Thompson was all smiles next to her 16-year-old, who opted for a one-shoulder black lace dress.

Gaia Romilly Wise (L) and Emma Thompson

Dave J Hogan / Getty Images

, the franchise's leading lady, wearing a navy blue off-the-shoulder dress with a center slit.

Dave J Hogan / Getty

In a behind-the-scenes look at the upcoming film

dish on the much-anticipated third installment – and how they battle it out for the beloved Brit when she finds herself pregnant and unsure of who the father is.

"It's very hard for her," says Dempsey in the clip. "And that's where the conflict is and the humor is and that's where the heart of the piece is."

hits U.S. theaters Sept. 16.

Summary: Patrick Dempsey and his wife Jillian have been married since 1999


09/30/2016 AT 02:05 PM EDT

is revealing his own very personal reason for using marijuana medicinally.

"I got Crohn's disease when I was 17 or 18," he said in a new interview with

. "And I found that the medicines that the doctors were prescribing me and seeing all these doctors and trying new things ... weed would be the only thing that would help me eat."

"My stomach would be in pain all day and I wouldn't be able to eat, but then I'd smoke and I can eat and do my shows," the 22-year-old continued. "I wouldn't be able to do

if I didn't smoke weed. I wouldn't be able to do anything really. Me performing not high has gone awful. It's awful for me because I don't feel well."

The comedian went on to add that he feels offended by those who don't understand the need for medical marijuana and who think that you can't be productive while smoking.

"I work really f---ing hard and I take care of my s--- and I need weed in order to do that," he explained in the video. "I'm sick, I have Crohn's ... so it sucks."

premiers on Saturday at 11:30 p.m. ET on NBC, and Davidson's first hour-long stand-up special,

airs Oct. 29 at 11 p.m. ET on Comedy Central.

Summary: Due to his Crohn's disease, Pete Davidson wouldn't be able to perform comfortably without medical marijuana


A 61-year-old man accused of murdering his 81-year-old mother remains in a psychiatric facility after appearing in a Perth court looking dishevelled.

Police and St John Ambulance officers were called to the Whitehaven Crescent home in Balga just before 6.30pm on October 4 where Barbara Chokolich was found to have suffered significant injuries and was pronounced dead at the scene.

Steven John Chokolich appeared in Perth Magistrates Court on Wednesday via video link from the Frankland Centre at Graylands Hospital and had his case adjourned to the Stirling Gardens Magistrates Court next month.

Summary: A man has made his second appearance in court charged with the murder of his elderly mother in Perth's north.


A Victorian couple who provided medical cannabis to cancer patients has been found guilty of illegally cultivating a narcotic plant.

Elizabeth and Matthew Pallett were found guilty on Wednesday of the charge after police seized 15.5 kilograms of cannabis from their Carrum Downs home last year.

The Palletts, who represented themselves, told the County Court jury they discovered medicinal cannabis to relieve their own pain and did not intend at first to provide it to others.

Both said they could not say no when people, including mothers with terminally ill children, came to them seeking cannabis pain relief.

The couple also admitted to growing the cannabis found at their property, knowing it was illegal.

"I don't think compassion is a crime, I think that's what society should be doing," Matthew Pallett said.

The Palletts told the court cannabis should not be considered illegal for medicinal purposes.

Crown prosecutor Andrew Moore said it didn't matter if the Palletts had good intentions.

"This is not a test case about medical marijuana or cannabis, or whether the accused are good, well-motivated people at heart," he said at the start of their trial.

The Palletts are due to front a plea hearing on Thursday afternoon.

Summary: A Victorian couple who gave medical cannabis to cancer patients have been found guilty of a drug offence.


"No more" was the cry as both sides of politics came together in a rare display of unity.

Putting aside the argy-bargy of the final sitting week for the year, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Labor leader Bill Shorten joined dozens of MPs and senators in an event to combat domestic violence in indigenous communities.

The leaders linked arms with 'No more' campaign founder and ABC sports commentator Charlie King on the forecourt of Parliament House on Monday.

"Family violence is unacceptable, there is no room for it," he said.

"We don't need to march one day of the year, we need to march all the time."

King called for a new chapter on how Australia deals with family violence, including by businesses and sporting clubs.

He acknowledged members of the Rirratjingu Aboriginal Corporation from Arnhem Land who performed a ceremonial dance at the gathering.

Without any financial help, they had been able to reduce family violence by 27.9 per cent in one year.

"That's extraordinary isn't it?" he said.

Mr Turnbull later moved a motion in parliament to acknowledge that violence against women was a national issue.

He noted Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women were 34 times more likely to experience violence and called on all men to take action to stop it.

"We can and we must do better," the prime minister told the lower house.

"As a parliament and as a nation, we no longer avert our gaze from the horror and the shame that is domestic violence - we look clear-eyed at this appalling failure and we are resolved to stop it."

Mr Shorten said violence against women did not discriminate, yet the rates of family violence suffered by indigenous Australians were a "source of national shame".

"We owe it to ourselves, to the nation we imagine ourselves to be, the nation we want our children to see in the mirror, to right this wrong," he told MPs.

Last Friday, on White Ribbon Day, Mr Turnbull said there were 16 domestic violence incidents in the Northern Territory alone including one in which a woman's jaw was broken.

Summary: Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten have joined indigenous campaigners in linking arms against family violence in indigenous communities.


More than 2000 retired British expats whose pensions were frozen because they lived abroad have moved back to the United Kingdom over the last year, official figures suggest.

The snapshot data from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) was disclosed in a written answer by pensions minister Lord Freud in response to a parliamentary question by Democratic Unionist peer Lord Browne of Belmont.

It is estimated around 550,000 pensioners living abroad do not receive annual increases in their state payouts.

However, whether an expat's pension is frozen or not depends on where they have moved to, as Britain has made reciprocal arrangements on uprating with some countries.

It means people retiring to Canada, Australia, India, the African continent and many parts of the Caribbean lose out on state pension increases, while those living in European Union countries, the United States, Jamaica, Israel and the Philippines receive the full amount.

As a result, about 640,000 UK pensioners who live overseas do see their pensions rise.

The situation has led to claims of an unfair "national lottery" and demands for action at Westminster to tackle the "injustice" of the current system.

The British government has previously rejected calls for change on financial grounds, pointing out the uprating of all state pensions would cost more than an extra GBP 500 million ($A834 million) a year.

But campaigners argue it would generate savings as it would avoid the cost of people returning to the UK at a time when they were more likely to need the support of the NHS and social services.

In his question, Lord Browne asked the Government "how many UK pensioners whose pensions are frozen because they live overseas have moved back to the UK in the last 12 months for which figures are available?".

In his written response, Lord Freud said: "There were 2190 recipients of the UK state pension who were resident overseas with non-uprated state pensions on 31 May 2015, and who were resident in the UK on 31 May 2016."

Summary: UK pension changes mean people retiring to Canada, Australia and India lose out on state pension increases.


WATCH: U.S. considering retaliation after missiles were fired from an area in Yemen controlled by Houthis, a group loosely affiliated with Iran.

For the second time in four days, a cruise missile has been fired at the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Mason (DDG 87) from Houthi-controlled territory in Yemen.

The missile fell into the sea short of the destroyer, which was in international waters in the Red Sea. No one was injured. The Pentagon said it would respond "at the appropriate time and in the appropriate manner" to the attack.

"At about 6 p.m. local time today (11 a.m. EDT), the ship detected at least one missile that we assess originated from Houthi-controlled territory near Al Hudaydah, Yemen," said Peter Cook, the Pentagon press secretary.

"The ship employed defensive countermeasures, and the missile did not reach USS Mason," said Cook, who added that there was no damage to the ship and it will continue its operations.

"Those who threaten our forces should know that U.S. commanders retain the right to defend their ships, and we will respond to this threat at the appropriate time and in the appropriate manner," said Cook.

Earlier, a U.S. official characterized the missile as a coastal-defense cruise missile.

The Houthis are an Iranian-backed militia group that seized control of the government in Yemen in early-2015, a move that led to a military intervention in Yemen by a Saudi-led coalition.

It was unclear if the countermeasures deployed by the Mason caused the missile to fall into the sea or whether it fell into the water on its own, said a U.S. official.

Initially another U.S. official had said that two cruise missiles had been fired at the Mason.

The attack is similar to one Sunday when two missiles were fired at the Mason over the span of an hour from Houthi-controlled territory.

Countermeasures were used against the first missile though it's unclear whether they are what led the missile to fall into the sea short of the destroyer. The second missile fell into the sea before countermeasures could be deployed.

The United States was already weighing a possible military retaliation against the Houthis for Sunday's attack, a Pentagon spokesman said Tuesday.

"We want, very much, to get to the bottom of what happened,” Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis said. “We're going to find out who did this, and we'll take action accordingly.

“Anytime anyone engages a U.S. Navy ship at sea in hostility they do so at great peril to themselves.”

Houthi militants two weeks ago attacked a transport ship belonging to the United Arab Emirates, one of the countries that has provided troops and support in Yemen against the Houthis.

The recent Houthi attacks are believed to be in response to a coalition airstrike this weekend in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa that killed more than 100 people attending the funeral of a Houthi leader.

That airstrike led the White House to announce it was reviewing its support for the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen.

Summary: Pentagon will respond "at the appropriate time and in the appropriate manner."


A Canadian woman charged as part of an alleged cocaine smuggling trio has broken down when told she would go to trial over the alleged 95kg haul of drugs.

Melina Roberce sobbed and shook as she was told on Wednesday she would be facing trial in February at Sydney's District Court over a charge of importing a commercial quantity of a border controlled drug.

The 22-year-old and two co-accused arrived in Sydney in August aboard a cruise ship after starting their journey in England in July.

They had stopped at several South American countries along the way.

At the time of their arrest, authorities described the discovery as a record bust estimated to be worth about $31 million, with Australian Border Force regional commander Tim Fitzgerald saying it was the country's biggest cruise ship narcotics seizure.

The large cache of dugs was allegedly found in a large suitcase stashed under a bed in a tiny cabin Roberce had been sharing with Isabelle Lagace, 28, for 39 days.

Roberce's defence lawyer Chayana Miers had argued there was a lack of evidence in relation to her client's participation and there was no fingerprint evidence linking her to the suitcases.

But Magistrate Robert Williams found the prosecution's circumstantial case to be strong and committed a distraught Roberce to jury trial early next year, during a committal hearing on Wednesday afternoon.

Andre Tamine, 63, has also been charged over the alleged attempted importation.

All three are in custody as their matters remain before the court.

Roberce will face Sydney's District Court on February 3.

Summary: A Canadian woman charged over her alleged involvement in a drug-smuggling trio from whom a record amount of cocaine was seized will go to trial next year.


Scientists in China have identified the first known dinosaur species that grew teeth as juveniles then lost them as adults, a finding that may explain why birds have beaks, said a study Thursday.

The research is based on fossils of a small and slender dinosaur known as Limusaurus inextricabilis, part of the theropod group of dinosaurs which were the ancestors of modern birds.

It likely ate meat as a youngster but transformed into a beaked-adult that probably subsisted on plants, said the study in Current Biology.

"We found a very rare, very interesting phenomenon," said lead author Shuo Wang of Capital Normal University in Beijing, China.

"Toothed jaws in juvenile individuals transition to a completely toothless beaked jaw in more mature individuals during development."

The results are based on an analysis of the fossilized remains of 13 ceratosaurian theropod dinosaurs, collected from the Upper Jurassic Shishugou Formation of northwestern China.

These remains allowed researchers to reconstruct the dinosaur's growth from a hatchling to age 10.

The first scientific paper on Limusaurus was published in 2001, when researchers had just one fossilized juvenile.

More specimens were unearthed in the following years.

"Initially, we believed that we found two different ceratosaurian dinosaurs from the Wucaiwan Area, one toothed and the other toothless, and we even started to describe them separately," said Wang.

But then researchers realized the fossils looked quite similar, except for the teeth. Eventually they concluded that the specimens were the same species, some were just younger and had teeth.

"This discovery is important for two reasons," said co-author James Clark, a professor of biology at the George Washington University.

"First, it's very rare to find a growth series from baby to adult dinosaurs. Second, this unusually dramatic change in anatomy suggests there was a big shift in Limusaurus' diet from adolescence to adulthood."

The theory of a change in diet is supported by the chemical makeup of the fossilized bones, said the study.

This process could help explain "how theropods such as birds lost their teeth, initially through changes during their development from babies to adults," it added.

Among contemporary fish and amphibians, such tooth loss is commonly seen. The platypus, a beaked mammal, loses its teeth, too.

Researchers said the discovery of tooth loss in the Limusaurus marks the first in the fossil record and the first among reptiles.


Keith Powell plays a straight-laced and scholarly writer on NBC's Emmy Award-winning "30 Rock," a workplace comedy where the workplace exists behind-the-scenes of a live variety show. Affectionately nicknamed "Toofer" because he is both a Harvard graduate and a minority (two-for-one), his character brings a sophisticated, yet sarcastic style to the writers' table.

Powell, along with the "30 Rock" cast, was nominated for a 2008 Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series.

Other notable television work includes a starring role in the ABC pilot "Judy's Got A Gun" as a straight-laced detective, a guest lead role on "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" as an obsessive frat boy, and an appearance on "Law & Order" as a suave record executive. He has appeared onstage at the nation's top regional theaters in everything from Shakespeare to contemporary works, in roles that range from rappers to kings to the cognitively disabled.

A varied and accomplished artist, he became the country's youngest Artistic Director of a professional theater when he founded Contemporary Stage Co. in Wilmington, Delaware at 22 years old. At CSC, he has produced, directed, and/or performed in plays starring Lynn Redgrave, Keith David, Jasmine Guy, Richard Easton, and Sean Patrick Thomas.

Upcoming projects include creating and directing a new musical by Grammy Nominee and Tony Award winner Duncan Sheik, with a book by Obie winner Kyle Jarrow. He is also writing and developing several movie projects.

Keith lives in Brooklyn and is a graduate of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.

Summary: Keith Powell as Toofer from the 30 Rock comedy TV show. Read cast bios and profiles with pictures and photos of Keith Powell who plays Toofer in the 30 Rock comedy TV show from NBC.