Miami Gardens POlice Chief Stephen Johnson was arrested for soliciting a prostitute, officials said. He was immediately fired from his position. (Published Friday, Feb. 27, 2015)

 Miami Gardens Police Chief Stephen Johnson was arrested for soliciting a prostitute in Dania Beach Friday, officials said.

 Mayor Oliver Gilbert confirmed the arrest and said Johnson was fired immediately.

 Jail records showed Johnson, 53, was being held on $300 bond. It was unknown if he has an attorney.

 According to a Broward Sheriff's Office arrest report, deputies were conducting an undercover operation targeting solicitation of prostitution at a Dania Beach hotel when Johnson was arrested.

 Authorities had placed an escort ad on backpage.com and two detectives were posing as prostitutes at the hotel, the affidavit said.

 Johnson had called the number on the ad and arranged to pay $100 for 30 minutes with two prostitutes, the report said.

 When Johnson arrived at the hotel room, he was let in and handed over the $100, the report said. He had two condoms in his pocket when he was arrested, the report said.

 A news release from the department said Assistant Chief Antonio Brooklen will serve as interim chief.

 "We remain committed to excellence and integrity on every level," the department said in the release. "We will not allow Mr. Johnson's bad judgment to reflect negatively on the hardworking officers of the City of Miami Gardens and the residents they serve on a daily basis."

 The department came under fire earlier this month following the officer-involved shooting of 25-year-old Lavall Hall.

 Johnson said Hall attacked two officers with a broom handle and was shot twice with a Taser before he was fatally shot by an officer.

 Hall's family has been critical of police in the wake of the shooting, holding a vigil and protest and demanding more answers in the shooting.

 Johnson was named Miami Gardens' Police chief in May 2014 after a long career with the North Miami Police Department. He also served as North Miami's city manager from 2011 to 2014. ||||| It wasn't just any cop who answered the online ad for the "two-girl" special.

 It was the top cop from the Miami Gardens Police Department, deputies say.

 Police Chief Stephen Edward Johnson, 53, was arrested Friday by detectives posing as escorts in a Dania Beach hotel room.

 After making a phone call to negotiate a price of $100 for a threesome Friday, Johnson knocked on the door of Room 423 at 6:20 p.m., a sheriff's report said. What he found inside were cops posing as prostitutes in an undercover sting operation by the Broward Sheriff's Office.

 Johnson's punishment, meted out by Miami Gardens City Manager Cameron Benson, was swift. Within hours of his arrest, Johnson was fired from his $165,000-a-year job.

 After posting a bond of $300, Edwards walked out of Broward's Main Jail in downtown Fort Lauderdale at 12:45 a.m. Saturday. With news cameras rolling, he said on-the-job stress was behind his would-be tryst.

 Broward Sheriff's Office Stephen Johnson lost his job as Miami Gardens police chief after being arrested Friday by undercover cops posing as escorts in Dania Beach. Stephen Johnson lost his job as Miami Gardens police chief after being arrested Friday by undercover cops posing as escorts in Dania Beach. (Broward Sheriff's Office)

 Edwards spoke of a 10-year-old girl hit Friday by an undercover officer from Miami Gardens, saying he had been overcome with emotion after meeting with her family at the hospital.

 "I want to apologize to the community, and I want to apologize to my elected officials," said Edwards, who lives in a Hollywood condo. "Tonight was a very unfortunate night for me dealing with an incident that occurred today. It just overwhelmed me."

 According to the Broward Sheriff's Office, here's what led to the top cop's arrest:

 As part of an undercover sting, Broward sheriff's detectives placed an escort ad on Backpage.com offering a "two-girl special" along with price rates and a telephone number.

 When Johnson called, a detective posing as a prostitute answered. During the conversation, Johnson said he wanted to "do everything" and asked that the undercover detective wear high heels to satisfy a fetish.

 Johnson was told he could pay $80 for a 30-minute session, the sheriff's report shows. But when he heard about the "two-girl special," Johnson said he was willing to pay a price of $100.

 According to deputies, when Johnson arrived at the unnamed hotel, he produced $100 in cash. At the time of his arrest, Johnson had two condoms in his pocket, detectives said. The entire transaction was captured on video.

 Johnson, hired in April to help mend the battered reputation of the Miami Gardens Police Department, was well-liked and even respected by the rank and file, said a Miami Gardens officer who was not authorized to comment and requested anonymity.

 "I'm just in shock," the officer said. "I came home last night and my phone was burning up. I did not see this coming."

 Benson said he, too, was taken aback when he got wind of Johnson's arrest Friday followed by a courtesy call from Broward Sheriff Scott Israel.

 "It was one of the most painful things I've ever heard as a manager," Benson said. "To hear that type of news, it's like a punch in the stomach. It was something that I just couldn't fathom."

 The chief's arrest was another setback for a troubled agency rocked by allegations of racial profiling.

 Before joining Miami Gardens last year, Johnson served as the police chief in North Miami, later stepping into the role of city manager.

 Johnson took the helm shortly after the owner of 207 Quickstop convenience store filed a lawsuit claiming Miami Gardens officers habitually harassed his minority employees and customers. An investigation by The Miami Herald found that one employee had been stopped 419 times in five years.

 "We were in a bit of turmoil at the time [he was hired]," Benson said. "I was bringing in someone who was experienced, who had served as chief and who could come in and mend relationships with the community. He was the person I believed who could do that job and accept the challenge."

 Johnson's arrest was just another unexpected crisis from which Miami Gardens will recover, Benson said.

 "The way I look at it, it's another obstacle for us to overcome," Benson said. "This city is going to continue to move forward. And we have collectively taken a stance that no matter what, we are going to do everything to improve the city and ensure our residents are living in a safe environment and living in a city that is respectful. This is not going to stop us from doing that."

 Assistant Chief Antonio Brooklen has been named the interim police chief. On Saturday, Benson said he was not yet sure whether he would promote from within or look outside the organization for a new chief.

 At Johnson's condo Saturday, a valet driver wondered if the chief had made a date with a cop posing as a prostitute.

 When the valet learned the chief was snared in an undercover sting, he shook his head.

 "Oh, wow!" he said. "That's some bad luck."

 epesantes@tribpub.com or 954-356-4543

 sbryan@sunsentinel.com or 954-356-4554 ||||| Stephen Johnson arrived in Miami Gardens almost a year ago with a mission: to repair a frayed relationship between the police department and the community.

 On Friday night, he lost his job after being arrested and charged with soliciting a prostitute at a Dania Beach hotel as part of a sting operation by the Broward County Sheriff’s Office.

 On Saturday morning, when Johnson bonded out of the Broward County Jail, a gaggle of TV cameras greeted him. He then apologized for the arrest and pointed to stress on the job for his poor judgment.

 “I want to apologize to the community, and I want to apologize to my elected officials,” he told reporters. “The stress overwhelmed me, and I made a very bad decision to deal with that moment I’ve never experienced before.”

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 In his remarks, Johnson made a vague reference to an incident on Friday morning involving a 10-year girl who was struck by an unmarked Miami Gardens police car. Johnson, however, did not elaborate further about how the incident and his arrest were connected, but he said it was a stressful situation.

 Johnson’s arrest has again thrust the police department into a negative spotlight. It comes just days after protesters marched into City Hall to express their anger over the fatal police shooting of a mentally ill man fewer than two weeks ago.

 On Saturday, Miami Gardens Mayor Oliver Gilbert told the Miami Herald that the city and police department will move on from this incident.

 “Mr. Johnson’s actions were unacceptable and I support the city manager’s decision to end his tenure as chief of police immediately,” he said. “The city police department is more than one man. It is hundreds of dedicated men and women that rise to serve the wonderful residents of the city. Their duty is unchanged and their service will not be interrupted. We will move forward as a police department, city, and community, together.”

 The Broward Sheriff’s Office gave this account of Johnson’s arrest:

 On Friday, Johnson used his cellphone to call a number he’d found on the escort section of backpage.com and spoke to a woman he believed to be a prostitute. They discussed him paying $80 for 30 minutes with one woman, later settling on $100 for a threesome.

 At about 6:20 p.m. Friday, Johnson arrived at an unidentified hotel in Dania Beach with two condoms in his back pocket. He knocked on the door of room 423, where he was greeted by the presumed prostitutes. As soon as he paid the $100, he was arrested.

 Detectives captured the encounter with Johnson on video and audio.

 Within an hour of the arrest, City Manager Cameron Benson fired Johnson and named Assistant Police Chief Antonio Brooklen interim chief. Then the city released this statement:

 “We remain committed to excellence and integrity on every level. We will not allow Mr. Johnson’s bad judgment to reflect negatively on the hardworking officers of the city of Miami Gardens and the residents they serve on a daily basis.”

 The expectations had been high for Johnson, a veteran cop. He’d come with 30 years of experience working in the public sector. Rising from a rookie cop to police chief in North Miami during the first 27 years, he then transitioned to the city’s administration when he was appointed interim city manager in August 2011. Within three months, he was given the permanent job.

 By spring 2014, city administrators in Miami Gardens were looking for a new top cop after losing former chief Matthew Boyd — the young city’s first and only police chief at the time — and his deputy chief Paul Miller when they resigned amid allegations of harassment and illegal stop-and-frisk tactics at the 207 Quikstop. The scandal, brought to light after the Miami Herald obtained surveillance videos from the convenience store owners showing cops’ behavior, left a blemish on the department’s reputation.

 In April 2014, Johnson donned the four gold stars on his collar for Miami Gardens as he set out to improve the reputation of the police department.

 He did make some strides in gaining favor with the community. At his first appearance before the City Council last year, he gave the public his cell phone number to make himself accessible. He was more present at community events and crime watch meetings.

 Before he was hired in Miami Gardens, Johnson did face some controversy when he was police chief in North Miami. He was criticized for buying 43 replica police badges for former North Miami Mayor Andre Pierre without consulting the city manager. According to evaluations from his time on the North Miami force, he was noted for submitting police reports late and writing correspondence with grammatical errors.

 He’d recently been dealing with the shooting death of a mentally ill man, Lavall Hall. He had been shot by police officer Eddo Trimino. Trimino and his partner claim Hall was shot after he struck the officers with a broomstick. Johnson supported his officers, tell the press they “did the best they could.”

 Johnson is also listed as a pastor at Bethel House of God Church in Hallandale Beach, according to the congregation’s website. Efforts to reach church officials were unsuccessful. |||||

Write a summary.

– A Florida police chief got arrested Friday for allegedly soliciting a prostitute and was promptly fired just 10 months into his tenure, NBC Miami reports. According to an arrest report, Miami Gardens Police Chief Stephen Johnson called a number in a "two-girl special" prostitution ad and negotiated a $100 deal for two women for 30 minutes. Only problem: The woman he allegedly paid at a motel was really a sheriff's detective. "The stress overwhelmed me, and I made a very bad decision," Johnson tells the Miami Herald in his apology. He was hired last May to repair community relations after former top cop Matthew Boyd resigned amid allegations of harassment and illegal tactics. "It was one of the most painful things I've ever heard as a manager," says the city manager who fired Stephens, the Sun-Sentinel reports. "It's like a punch in the stomach."


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 Mitt Romney, trailing in the polls, needed to prove tonight that he could stand on stage with President Barack Obama as an equal and a plausible president of the United States.

 He did that in the crucial first 40 minutes of Wednesday night's debate, addressing Obama respectfully, even warmly — but then tangling with a sometimes hazy and professorial Obama on taxes and deficits.

 "You don't just pick the winners and losers — you pick the losers," he told Obama of his energy investments, sliding time and time again into a second person singular address calculated to level the rhetorical playing field.

 Romney departed dramatically from the hard conservatism of his primary campaign, downplaying the scope of his tax cuts.

 “There will be no tax cut that adds to the deficit," he said, without fully explaining how he'd accomplish that.

 And he sought to soften the edge of his cuts with an easy example of the cuts he'd make.

 "I'm sorry Jim, but I'm going to stop this subsidy to PBS. I like Big Bird, I like you, too," he said.

 And he embraced — to a point — the Simpson-Bowles plan for cutting the deficit, while stopping short of actually crossing the line to support a tax increase.

 But Romney's core success was that he won by not losing: He has barely weathered a campaign that reduced him to a smaller figure than President Obama. On stage, they were roughly the same size. ||||| Obama often sounded like he was defending a doctoral dissertation, Simon writes. | REUTERS Obama snoozes and loses

 DENVER — One word of advice for Barack Obama before his next debate: caffeine.

 I had a Pepsi right before the debate started Wednesday night and was tingly for the next 90 minutes.

 Story Continued Below

 President Obama looked like someone had slipped him an Ambien.

 ( Also on POLITICO: 5 takeaways from the Denver debate)

 The first presidential debate of 2012 took place at the University of Denver and was between Obama and Mitt Romney. But only Romney showed up.

 For much of the debate, it appeared as if Obama, the former professor, and not Obama, the presidential candidate, was on stage.

 It’s not that Romney’s performance was perfect or polished — it wasn’t — it’s just that Obama’s was so mediocre.

 It is possible Obama was overconfident, but I doubt it. He is not a foolish man. So I think he was just overtired or over-distracted or over-something. But he sure wasn’t over-energetic.

 ( PHOTOS: Obama not having fun)

 Maybe Jen Psaki, his traveling press secretary, was preparing us when she said on Air Force One Sunday that Obama “has had less time to prepare than we anticipated. That’s just a fact. It’s difficult to schedule significant blocks of time when you’re the president.”

 Mitt Romney, by comparison, seemed bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. He seemed to enjoy being there.

 He was far from profound. “My priority is putting people back to work in this country,” he said.

 And: “I love great schools.”

 Trite? You bet. But at least he spoke in reasonably short sentences.

 Obama often sounded like he was defending a doctoral dissertation. His thoughts seemed to range from lengthy to endless.

 Mr. President, shorter is better. Really. We are a society with a short attention span.

 ( Also on POLITICO: Not debatable: Obama stumbled)

 Complex problems do not require complex answers. Not on TV, they don’t. Once a candidate is safely elected, he can be as long-winded as he wants in the White House and even before Congress.

 But he has to get elected. And it’s a little early for Obama to fall on the ball. Which is where he seemed to spend most of the evening Wednesday.

 And, by so doing, he let Romney get away with a lot.

 “Mr. President, you’re entitled to your own airplane and your own house, but not to your own facts,” Romney said in one of the few zingers of the debate.

 Couldn’t Obama have replied in kind? Obama could have said something like: “And you, Gov. Romney, think you’re entitled to car elevators and Swiss bank accounts!” ||||| You can think of a general election campaign as being divided into four quarters.

 The first one consists of the presidential primaries. What matters in this stage is not only who gets nominated, but how well they position themselves for the remainder of the race, through things like fund-raising, adopting (or avoiding) issue positions that might be damaging later, gaining experience on the campaign trail, building out their staffs and receiving at least an initial round of vetting by the news media.

 The second quarter begins when the candidates effectively clinch their nominations, and the general election campaign begins in earnest. This period is long and sluggish, and most of the “fans” (voters) will not really have tuned in yet. But it is also a time when a campaign makes important strategic decisions, in terms of its tone and tenor, its allocation of resources, and its issue positioning — decisions that it may be stuck with, for better or for worse. The second quarter culminates when the candidates make their vice-presidential selections.

 The third quarter consists of the party conventions and their immediate aftermath. It is a short quarter as far as the calendar goes, but one in which the winner of the election often becomes much more apparent. George H.W. Bush in 1988, Bill Clinton in 1992, and George W. Bush in 2004 moved into leads after the conventions that they essentially never relinquished.

 We’ve probably already been in the fourth quarter for a week or so, because we’ve already passed the point when a convention bounce (if it was indeed a bounce and not a permanent shift in the conditions) might be expected to wear off. And we’ll reach a fourth-quarter landmark on Wednesday, when President Obama and Mitt Romney hold their first of three debates.

 Every now and then, the game goes into overtime — in which case things like turnout and the Electoral College math suddenly begin to matter a great deal. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves: it’s early in the fourth quarter and Mitt Romney finds himself down in the race. The question is how far behind he is, and what he’ll have to do to make up his deficit with Mr. Obama.

 According to the win probability calculator at AdvancedNFLStats.com, an N.F.L. team down by field goal with 10 minutes left to play in the fourth quarter has a 34 percent probability of winning the game. A team down by a touchdown wins just 16 percent of the time.

 (A technical note for sports geeks: these cases assume that the trailing team has possession of the football with first down and 10 yards to go at its own 20 yard line.)

 If you look at our estimate of Mitt Romney’s chances of winning the Electoral College, which are about 15 percent right now in the FiveThirtyEight forecast, the touchdown analogy works best: Mr. Romney has about as much chance of winning as an N.F.L. team does when it trails by a touchdown early in the fourth quarter.

 It might be surprising that a team down by just a touchdown — a close game, by any common description of it — winds up winning so rarely. But there are a few things to consider.

 First, a field goal alone won’t be enough for the team to come back. It needs something big to happen — or it needs to score at least twice.

 Second, although there’s still enough time in the game for the trailing team to have multiple opportunities to score, there is also enough time for the opponents to score as well and extend their lead. So the team still has to play defense — it’s not purely a two-minute drill.

 A third and often overlooked (if completely obvious) point: if the trailing team does score a clutch touchdown, it only ties the game. There are a lot of cases in which it will later lose anyway.

 Right now, our forecast says that Mr. Romney has only about a 15 percent chance of winning. But that does not mean that he only has a 15 percent chance of tightening the race — or of making it come down to the wire.

 But there are plenty of circumstances in which Mr. Romney has some good things happen, makes the race very close, and then loses — whether because he loses Ohio, or because his turnout operation isn’t much good, or because the polls turn out to be slightly biased toward him rather than against him.

 As for what might happen this week: the first debate alone will probably not provide an opportunity for Mr. Romney to score a touchdown. Historically, the largest shifts in the polls after the first debate have been about three points in either direction — smaller than Mr. Romney’s current deficit in most polls. This would be the equivalent of a field goal.

 But there is also another potential scoring opportunity for Mr. Romney: the monthly jobs report, the next-to-last one before the election, will come out on Friday.

 My view is that we’ve gotten to the point where the importance of these jobs reports can be a little overstated. That’s not because the economy isn’t important (of course it is), or because jobs aren’t an important economic indicator (of course they are), but because any one economic report won’t tell you all that much. Furthermore, both the forecasts of jobs numbers and the government’s initial estimates of it are quite crude. Payrolls are expected to have grown by about 115,000 jobs in this month’s report, but those forecasts miss, on average, by about 70,000 jobs.

 Still, there is about a one-in-five chance (based on the historical distribution of forecast errors) that the jobs estimate will miss by at least that margin to the downside, which means that fewer than 50,000 jobs will have been created last month. If we print a jobs number somewhere in that range — say, just 35,000 jobs added last month — perhaps that counts as another field goal for Mr. Romney.

 Here’s where the precision of our analogy breaks down. Unlike in a football game, we do not know exactly how far Mr. Romney is behind. Could a clear win for Mr. Romney in the debate — and a distinctively bad (but not subzero) jobs report — be enough to draw the race into a tie? One of those things alone probably won’t do it. But if he gets both? It seems possible, at least, but it’s hard to know for sure.

 Also unlike in a football game, of course, the candidates don’t necessarily take turns. We’ve just described Mr. Romney’s dream scenario, an imaginable (if not exceptionally likely) sequence of events that could have the race looking almost even by a week or two from now. But it could be Mr. Obama who scores next instead. If he is perceived as winning the debate, and the jobs number misses by a substantial margin to the upside (meaning that more than about 180,000 jobs are created), Mr. Romney’s position could become extremely desperate.

 Sunday’s Polls

 There were some interesting polls on Sunday, but not necessarily ones that ought to much alter our understanding of the race.

 The most noteworthy number was a national poll from The Washington Post and ABC News. Their top-line number was good for Mr. Romney, putting him just two points behind among likely voters — closer than most other recent surveys.

 In context, however, the poll was not quite as encouraging as it seemed for Mr. Romney. One issue is that the trendline did not improve for him. The Washington Post and ABC News national polls have generally shown fairly strong numbers for Mr. Romney; they had him behind by just one point among likely voters in a poll they conducted just after the Democratic convention, and ahead by two points in their poll before either party convention.

 Another issue is that the story that the Washington Post and ABC News polls are telling about the election is one in which Mr. Romney has Electoral College problems. Although their national polls have shown a very tight race throughout the year, their recent surveys of Florida, Ohio and Virginia had Mr. Obama with big leads there. For that matter, a breakout from their latest national poll showed Mr. Obama with a much clearer lead in swing states than in the country as a whole. I don’t think you should make very much of that — I’d much rather look at actual polls of the swing states than a small-sample breakout that lumps them all together — but since the Washington Post and ABC News polls have shown quite poor numbers for Mr. Romney in the battleground states that they surveyed, at least we’re getting a consistent story from them.

 There were also two Ohio polls on Wednesday. One, from Public Policy Polling, put Mr. Romney down by four points there. If The Washington Post’s national poll was not quite as strong as it looked for Mr. Romney, this one was a little better for him than it might appear, since Public Policy Polling’s surveys are slightly Democratic-leaning and since their other two polls of Ohio since the conventions had shown Mr. Obama with slightly larger leads.

 However, this was counterbalanced by a Columbus Dispatch poll, which put Mr. Obama ahead by nine points in Ohio. The Columbus Dispatch poll is highly unusual — it is conducted entirely by mail — a technique that has produced some big hits and big misses in the past. But the trendline is worth looking at even if the topline numbers should be taken with some caution, and it was very favorable for Mr. Obama since their August poll had shown a tied race.

 My impressionistic view is that Mr. Obama’s polls have not been quite as strong over the past three or four days as they were early last week, but the FiveThirtyEight forecast does not yet record any signs of a turnaround. Mr. Obama’s position held steady in the “now-cast,” our estimate of what would happen in an election held today. And he gained slightly in the Nov. 6 forecast, as he is likely to do on most days in which the polling is neutral or ambiguous, since time is running off Mr. Romney’s clock.

 But time in a presidential campaign is not linear. By this point next week, two of Mr. Romney’s best remaining opportunities to change the game will have come and gone. ||||| You only needed to look at the faces of MSNBC’s pundits or Democratic officials in the spin room to know what everyone professionally involved in politics believes — Mitt Romney won big in this first debate. We’ll see how the public digests it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the polls draw close in the next week and that thereafter this race — as was always likely — goes down to the wire.

 I’ll let others assess in detail Romney’s assertive presence and demeanor, and the obvious toll it took on the president, who, in split screen shots when he wasn’t speaking, often looked irked or working a bit to suppress frustration or anger.

 What interests me most is Mitt’s audacity. Wednesday night at long last came the full-throated return of the Rockefeller Republican many suspect is Romney’s true political nature, if indeed he has one. With one fatal exception I’ll note in a moment, on taxes, health care, education, regulation and more, Romney came across as deeply informed, experienced and reasonable, and as a powerful and articulate critic of the economy’s weaknesses on Obama’s watch.

 Romney’s macro theory of the race has always been that in a time of high unemployment and economic anxiety, being a credible alternative would suffice. Until tonight, the polls suggested that strategy was falling short. Now, it looks much more plausible, especially when combined with the iron political law that every presidential campaign eventually obeys: Do what you have to do to get the nomination, and then appeal to the center once its locked up. I expected Mitt to turn to the middle right after he became the de facto nominee, or at least at the convention, and not wait until now. If he wins, of course, Romney and his advisers will be hailed as geniuses for their timing, for bonding the party faithful to the ticket with the choice of Paul Ryan and a conservative-themed convention, and then dashing to the center for the home stretch.

 Look at what we saw Wednesday night. Mitt Romney believes that of course we need regulation to make markets work, and that banks need higher capital standards to protect taxpayers from having to bail out their bad bets — yet he also laid out some convincing ideas about Dodd-Frank’s unintended consequences and shortcomings. He’d mend banking regulation, not end it. His air of reasonableness made Obama’s retort that Romney wanted to let Wall Street run wild feel off key. This tone and positioning was emblematic of Romney’s performance across a number of issues.

 Health care has always required enormous audacity from Romney. While his attempt to distinguish his Massachusetts plan from Obamacare wasn’t persuasive to someone like me, who has studied the details for years, I think it would have appeared perfectly reasonable to less wonky voters. I won’t rehearse them all here, but Romney previewed his staccato talking points on this matter in the Republican primary debates, and I wrote then that (to my astonishment) he was on his way to a politically sufficient position. That Romney can not only pull this off but also go on offense while doing it (when in fact Romneycare is basically the same as Obamacare) takes remarkable dexterity.

 Which brings us to Mitt’s audacity on taxes: What can Obama reply when Romney says, as he now does, that he’ll insist that his reforms end up both revenue and distributionally neutral, so that we’re simply getting the supposed growth benefit from lower marginal rates, especially for small business? The president can call him a flip flopper or mathematically challenged, or assert that it can’t work without taking on sacred cows like the mortgage interest deduction and the tax exemption for employer-provided health benefits, but so long as Romney has Marty Feldstein and other respected economists saying it’s theoretically possible, as a political matter, it’s likely a draw. (The truth is that Romney originally proposed cutting taxes only for middle income earners who would “suffered most in the Obama economy,” before he decided in the primaries to sign on to bolder conservative tax theology to win, so this may in fact be a return to an emphasis Romney actually “believes in” – to the extent that this is an intelligible concept.)

 Romney’s critics — including me — are often frustrated that he’s been laughably inconsistent on policy over time. But, as I’ve argued before, from his point of view this criticism really doesn’t matter. Romney’s not trying to win a prize from pundits for coherence or consistency. He’s trying to win the power of the presidency. Actual consistency — as opposed to the appearance of having certain guiding principles — has surprisingly little relevance when it comes to getting to 50 percent plus one. Just ask Ronald Reagan, who pragmatically raised taxes multiple times as both governor and president while winning elections and retaining his reputation as an anti-tax crusader.

 Yet taxes were the most striking of the president’s many failures Wednesday to draw contrasts that would have rightly made Romney look unattractive. Amazingly, Obama failed to dramatize the injustice of Romney’s desire to exempt wealthy individuals like himself from any participation in the inevitable fiscal adjustment the country faces. He made the point feebly that Romney wouldn’t go for even a 10 to 1 spending cut to tax hike deal, and tossed out a weird line about Donald Trump, but he didn’t hammer home the insanity and immorality of constantly cutting taxes on high earners when we’ve been at war for a decade and now need to pay for the boomers’ costly retirement.

 Indeed, if I were advising Romney, I’d say that atop tonight’s performance, if Romney said he’d be open to top earners bearing a greater tax burden as part of broader changes that get our long term fiscal house in order, he’d knock out the single most indefensible policy choice that lets Democrats brand him justly as nefarious. He must have reasons for not doing this, but with Romney, who knows what’s coming? Maybe in the next debate he’ll say he’s thought it over and that people like him may need to pay something more, and he’ll score big with independent voters.

 Obama’s other striking omission was his failure to slam the Republican Congress for its failure to cooperate on what was essentially a Republican-style health reform. Again, the president hit the point once, but feebly. He left Romney looking like a leader who could pass a major health reform on a bipartisan basis, and Obama as lacking the chops to do the same in Washington. That’s unfair to Obama — as in the first years of Bill Clinton’s presidency, Republicans were determined in 2009 and 2010 to do everything in their power to foil major health reform or to gain politically if it passed. But Obama failed completely to articulate this reality for the viewing audience.

 It’s hard to know what the president or his team were thinking Wednesday night. Maybe those who said it is a rattling experience for any president used to sycophants to be confronted in public by a forceful critic were right: This throws a man off his game. Maybe the campaign figured its ads could do the dirty work while Obama took the high road while on stage. But whatever Team Obama thought before Wednesday night, it’s about to change. Because based on the first debate, it’s a recipe for defeat.

 Matt Miller is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund and a contributor to MSNBC. His e-mail address is mattino2@gmail.com. ||||| Instant-reaction polls conducted by CNN and CBS News suggest that Mitt Romney was the winner of the first presidential debate.

 A CNN poll of debate-watchers found Mr. Romney very clearly ahead, with 67 percent of registered voters saying he won the debate, against just 25 percent for President Obama.

 A CBS News poll of undecided voters who watched the debate found 46 percent siding with Mr. Romney, 22 percent for Mr. Obama and 32 percent saying it was a tie.

 Google, which is experimenting with online surveys, found 38.9 percent of respondents saying they thought Mr. Obama performed better in a poll it conducted during the debate, against 35.5 percent for Mr. Romney and 25.6 percent who said it was a draw. But a second poll they conducted after the debate found 47.8 percent of respondents giving Mr. Romney the advantage, against 25.4 percent for Mr. Obama.

 There is not a lot of empirical research on the relationship between instant reaction polls and their eventual effect on the head-to-head polls. However, these were strong numbers for Mr. Romney where comparisons to past post-debate polls are available. A similar CBS News poll conducted among undecided voters after the first debate in 2008, for example, found that 40 percent said that Mr. Obama won the debate, against 22 percent for John McCain. The head-to-head polls moved toward Mr. Obama by about three percentage points after that debate, although some of that may have been from the momentum that Mr. Obama had carrying into the evening.

 The 67 percent of voters in the CNN poll who said that Mr. Romney won Wednesday night’s debate was higher than in any of the network’s surveys of the 2008 debates.

 By comparison, 51 percent of debate-watchers in a CNN poll after the first presidential debate in 2008 said that Mr. Obama had the stronger performance. And 58 percent said so after the third and final presidential debate in 2008.

 There may be some mitigating factors for Mr. Obama. First, although the conventional wisdom was that Mr. Obama had a lackluster performance throughout most of the debate — he certainly had an extremely cautious and defensive strategy — there were few obvious moments in which he said things that will make for compelling YouTube clips or cable news soundbites.

 Second, head-to-head polls throughout the election cycle have been hard to influence for any reason. There are few undecided voters remaining — and undecided voters may be less likely than others to have actually watched the debates.

 Still, it seems likely that Mr. Romney will make at least some gains in head-to-head polls after the debate, and entirely plausible that they will be toward the high end of the historical range, in which polls moved by about three percentage points toward the candidate who was thought to have the stronger debate.

 The FiveThirtyEight “now-cast” — our estimate of what would happen in an election held immediately — had Mr. Romney trailing by a wider margin than three points in advance of the debate. (Instead, it put his deficit at about five points nationwide.) But our Nov. 6 forecast anticipated that the race would tighten some. It’s going to take a few days for any reaction to the debate to filter through the FiveThirtyEight model.

 My own instant reaction is that Mr. Romney may have done the equivalent of kicking a field goal, perhaps not bringing the race to a draw, but setting himself up in such a way that his comeback chances have improved by a material amount. The news cycle will be busy between now and Nov. 6, with a jobs report coming out on Friday, a vice-presidential debate next week and then two more presidential debates on Oct. 16 and Oct. 22.

 According to one prominent offshore gambling site, Pinnacle Sports, Mr. Obama’s odds of winning the election declined to about 73 percent after the debate from around 80 percent beforehand. |||||

Write a summary.

– Everyone from the left to the right thinks Mitt Romney smoked President Obama in last night's debate, but how will that translate to the polls? Nate Silver of the New York Times says it's possible he could see a gain of about 3 points, about as high as these things get. He likens it to Romney kicking a field goal, which makes more sense when you recall that Silver had Romney down by a touchdown before the debate. Romney hasn't tied the game, but he's set "himself up in such a way that his comeback chances have improved by a material amount." A sampling of other opinions today: Roger Simon, Politico: "It’s not that Romney’s performance was perfect or polished—it wasn’t—it’s just that Obama’s was so mediocre. ... I think he was just overtired or over-distracted or over-something. But he sure wasn’t over-energetic." Ben Smith, BuzzFeed: Romney's biggest task was to prove "he could stand on stage with President Barack Obama as an equal and a plausible president of the United States." Check. Matt Miller, Washington Post: Well played, Romney. Miller expected him to track to the middle more quickly after the primaries, but maybe this is better. "If he wins, of course, Romney and his advisers will be hailed as geniuses for their timing, for bonding the party faithful to the ticket with the choice of Paul Ryan and a conservative-themed convention, and then dashing to the center for the home stretch."


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– If his House censure is still stinging, Charlie Rangel would do well to pick up today's Washington Post. Columnists Dana Milbank and David Broder don't exactly make the case he's innocent (not even Rangel does that), but they lend sympathetic voices: Milbank: He belittles the House ethics panel, calling it rank hypocrisy that Rangel got singled out for common behavior. "If it's any consolation, Rangel should know that however harmed he was by the censure, the entity that was really disgraced was Congress itself. This is because Rangel's two-year battle with the House ethics committee exposed the woeful state of lawmakers' abilities to police their own."  Broder: He likens Rangel's case to that of Dan Rostenkowski's in the late '80s. "He and Rosty had the same view of the hometown patronage games that brought them down. They wanted the perks that went with their positions of power. But they used them more often to help others along than for themselves, and they weren't greedy. Often, they were just sloppy about the demands of the new era of politics."

I remember conversations with him when he was engaged in what may have been his greatest coup: helping free Hillary Clinton from the confines of the East Wing and converting her into a successful Senate candidate in New York.

 The number of people who were determined to keep that from happening were legion, both in Washington and New York. But Rangel knew them all, and he knew how to get around them - by co-opting or by mowing them down, whatever was required. And he loved every minute of this game - which he played for unselfish purposes, not to expand his own influence.

 He and Rosty had the same view of the hometown patronage games that brought them down. They wanted the perks that went with their positions of power. But they used them more often to help others along than for themselves, and they weren't greedy. Often, they were just sloppy about the demands of the new era of politics.

 It makes you weep to see someone like this fall.

 l

 Correction: In my Nov. 18 column, I wrote that Rep. Steny Hoyer had challenged Rep. Nancy Pelosi for the top leadership post in the House of Representatives. In fact, the two once ran against each other for minority whip, the No. 2 post. ||||| Charlie Rangel stood, stony-faced, in the well of the House. His feet planted wide, his hands crossed over his fly, the 80-year-old lawmaker awaited the rebuke of his peers.

 On Thursday evening, for the first time in 27 years, the speaker read aloud the resolution of reproach. "By its adoption of House Resolution 1737, the House is resolved that representative Charles Rangel of New York be censured," Nancy Pelosi read, calling on the fallen chairman of the Ways and Means committee to pay the taxes he owes. Rangel, staring back at the speaker, swallowed hard.

 After the ritual of public humiliation, the Harlem Democrat's friends came with outstretched arms to console him, but Rangel brushed them off, instead requesting permission to address the House.

 The disgraced lawmaker, defiant even in his moment of shame, scolded his accusers for treating him worse than "those that in the past have done far more harm to the reputation of this body than I."

 Rangel then went downstairs to offer more defiance at a news conference. "I leave here knowing that everyone knows I'm an honest guy," he proclaimed, accusing his colleagues of a "very, very, very political vote." The freshly censured legislator even offered a suggestion for newspaper headlines: "Rangel found not guilty of corruption and self dealing."

 Sorry, Charlie: That's not going to happen. But if it's any consolation, Rangel should know that however harmed he was by the censure, the entity that was really disgraced was Congress itself. This is because Rangel's two-year battle with the House ethics committee exposed the woeful state of lawmakers' abilities to police their own.

 The rules governing members' behavior were proven to be so lax as to be irrelevant. The vast majority of transgressors are never punished - Rangel was only because he himself asked the ethics committee to investigate some of the allegations against him.

 To be sure, Rangel deserved punishment for his wrongs, which included failing to pay taxes on his Dominican beach home and improperly using his office for charitable fundraising. But in the 30 minutes allotted to him for his defense on the House floor Thursday evening, Rangel and his friends made a compelling case that he was being punished for doing things that lawmakers do routinely.

 "The only examples of anybody sanctioned for tax matters in this House in the history of the United States have been those who didn't pay taxes on bribes they received," argued Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), in Rangel's defense. Several members had a chuckle over their laxity.

 "Far more serious ethical lapses than Mr. Rangel's have not met with censure," seconded Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.).

 And Rep. Peter King (N.Y.), one of the only Republicans to oppose censure for Rangel, implored his colleagues to "step back" and reconsider. "Let us apply the same standard of justice to Charlie Rangel that has been applied to everyone else, and that all of us would want applied to ourselves."

 Which is to say: a very lenient standard. |||||


Tweet with a location

 You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, embattled by controversy at home, might have been expected to be extra careful on her visit to China where she’s looking to boost investment in her country’s sputtering economy.

 But the Argentine President, who met with President Xi Jinping on Wednesday and joined a meeting of 1,000 Argentine and Chinese businessmen, sparked a flurry of online outrage when she posted a tweet mocking the Chinese accent by replacing r’s with l’s:

 “Are they here only for the lice and petloleum,” she said in Spanish, in a tweet that has been shared more than 1,500 times since she posted it Wednesday:

 Fernández, who has more than 3.5 million followers on Twitter, followed up the initial tweet a minute later with another post that appeared to respond to the commotion over her earlier comment:

 “Sorry, do you know what? The levels of ridiculousness and absurdity are so high they can only be digested with humor,” she said.

 Fernández’s government has been rocked by the death of Alberto Nisman, a prosecutor investigating the deadly 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center. Nisman’s body was found the day before he had been expected to testify before Congress that the President had covered up Iran’s alleged involvement in the attack.

 On Thursday, the lead investigator into Nisman’s death said that a warrant for Fernández’s arrest signed by the prosecutor had been found in the garbage in his apartment. ||||| These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported "No More 404" sites. |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– Argentinian President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is in China today, where she met with President Xi Jinping to sign various agreements and spoke at a conference attended by 1,000 businessmen in an effort to raise Chinese investment in Argentina's struggling economy. And yet, she still thought it would be a good idea to post a tweet mocking the Chinese accent, Bloomberg reports. The tweet, posted in Spanish, translates as: "Did they only come for lice and petloleum?" She was referring to the businessmen; Bloomberg notes that the tweet was in response to criticism that she tends to crowd her supporters into events. She followed the original tweet up with, "Sorry, do you know what? The levels of ridiculousness and absurdity are so high they can only be digested with humor," Time reports. The presidential palace's official Twitter account retweeted that second tweet, but not the first. (Kirchner is really not having a good week.)


Summarize this article:

The world’s ugliest color has been described as “death,” “dirty” and “tar,” but this odious hue is serving an important purpose: discouraging smoking.

 Pantone 448 C, a “drab, dark brown” also called “opaque couché,” was specifically selected after three months and multiple studies by research agency GfK. The agency was hired by the Australian government to find a color that was so repugnant that if it was on tobacco products, it would dissuade people from smoking.

 A man smokes a cigarette on September 25, 2014 in Paris, holding a sample of a "plain cigarette packaging" cigarette box (THOMAS SAMSON/AFP/Getty Images) THOMAS SAMSON—AFP/Getty Images

 The new color was adopted for all tobacco packaging along with graphic health warnings. Now, other governments are following suit. The United Kingdom, Ireland and France have all passed “plain packaging” laws as well, using mockups using the same murky color. Ugly never looked so good.

 Gifts: The 100 Most Influential Images of All Time ||||| Key facts and figures on tobacco sales, consumption and prevalence

 Tobacco sales and excise

 $5.135 billion in September 1959;

 $3.720 billion in December 2012; and

 $3.260 billion in December 2015.3

 Know your limits – changes to Australia’s duty free tobacco allowance

 Smoking prevalence rates

 ABS National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey, 2014-15

 the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 15 years and over who were daily smokers was 38.9% in 2014-15, down from 44.6% in 2008 and 48.6% in 2002;

 in 2002, 51% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander males aged 15 years and over were daily smokers, the daily rate declined to 46% in 2008 and to 41% in 2014-15;

 in 2002, 47% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander females aged 15 years and over were daily smokers, the daily rate declined to 43% in 2008 and to 36% in 2014-15;

 fewer young people are starting to smoke with a significant decrease in daily smoking rates of those aged 15-24, down to 31% in 2014-15 from 39% in 2008; and

 the data indicates that the majority of the change in daily smoking rates has occurred in non-remote areas (37% of people aged 15 years and over smoking daily in 2014-15, down from 48% in 2002), compared with remote areas (47% smoking daily in 2014-15, down from 50% in 2002).

 ABS National Health Survey: First Results, 2014-15

 14.7% (age-standardised) of adults aged 18 years and over smoked daily (approximately 2.6 million smokers), decreasing from 16.1% in 2011-2012;

 16.9% of males and 12.1% of women smoked daily;

 16.3% of 18-44 year olds smoked daily;

 12.7% of adults aged 45 years and over smoked daily;

 31.4% were ex-smokers;

 52.6% had never smoked;

 people living in Outer Regional and Remote areas of Australia had higher rates of daily smoking at 20.9% compared to people in Inner Regional areas at 16.7% and Major Cities at 13.0%; and

 21.4% of people living in areas of most disadvantage smoked daily compared with 8.0% who live in areas of least disadvantage.

 Table 1: Comparison of adult daily smoking rates, 18 years and older, from 2001 to 2014-156

 2001* 2004-05* 2007-08* 2011-12* Males 27.2 26.2 23.0 18.3 Females 21.2 20.3 19.0 14.1 Total % 22.3 21.3 19.1 16.3

 Australian Secondary School Students’ use of tobacco in 2014

 smoking among 12 to 15 year olds is at its lowest level since 1984, when the survey began;

 there was a significant decrease in the youth smoking rate (12-17 year olds). In 2014, 5% were current smokers which is significantly lower than the 7% found in both 2011 and 2008; and

 more youth have no experience with smoking in their lifetime: 94% of 12 year olds and 61% of 17 year olds.

 National Drug Strategy Household Survey detailed report 2013

 daily smokers aged 14 years or older in Australia declined from 16.6% in 2007, to 15.1% in 2010 and 12.8% in 2013; and

 daily smokers aged 18 years or older, declined from 17.5% in 2007, to 15.9% in 2010 to 13.3% in 2013.

 young people are delaying commencing smoking – the average age at which 14 to 24 year olds smoked their first full cigarette increased from 15.4 years of age in 2010 to 15.9 years of age in 2013;

 the proportion of 12-17 year olds who had never smoked in 2013 remained high at 95%;

 the proportion of 18 to 24 year olds who have never smoked increased significantly between 2010 and 2013, from 72% to 77% respectively;

 people aged 18 to 49 years of age were far less likely to smoke daily than they were 12 years ago;

 the average number of cigarettes smoked per week has decreased from 111 cigarettes in 2010 to 96 cigarettes in 2013; and

 16.5% of smokers (14 years or older) reported using unbranded tobacco in their lifetime with 3.6% using unbranded tobacco (half the time or more) in 2013, declining from 4.9% in 2010.

 Table 2: Decrease in Australian Smoking prevalence 1991 to 20139, 10

 1991 1993 1995 1998 2001 2004 2007 2010 2013 14+ yrs 24.3 25.0 23.8 21.8 19.4 17.5 16.6 15.1 12.8# 18+ yrs 25.0 26.1* 25.0 22.7 20.0 18.2 17.5 15.9 13.3#

 Specific population groups6

 Remoteness

 People aged 14 years or older, living in remote and very remote areas, were twice as likely to have smoked daily in the previous 12 months as those in major cities: 22% compared with 11.0%.

 The proportion of people aged 14 years or older smoking daily rose with increasing remoteness: 11.0% in major cities; 15.4% in inner regional; 19.4% in outer regional; and 22% in remote and very remote areas.

 Socioeconomic and employment status

 People (14 years or older) living in areas with the lowest socioeconomic status (SES) were 3 times more likely to smoke daily than people with the highest SES, 19.9% compared with 6.7%, but there were significant declines in daily smoking in both these groups between 2010 and 2013.

 The declines in daily smoking seen nationally were also seen among employed people but there were no significant changes in the smoking behaviour of unemployed people who were unable to work between 2010 and 2013.

 People aged 14 years or older, who were unemployed, were 1.7 times more likely to smoke daily and those who were unable to work were 2.4 times more likely to smoke daily.

 Compared to 2010, employed people aged 14 years or older were less likely to smoke daily in 2013, down from 16.1% to 13.5% respectively.

 Table 3: Comparison of 2010 and 2013 State and Territory tobacco smoking status, people aged 14 years or older, by sex and jurisdiction (age-standardised).11, 12

 2010 NSW Vic QLD WA SA Tas ACT NT National Males 15.6 15.0 18.4 17.5 17.1 16.1 12.0 27.5 16.4 Females 12.9 14.7 15.0 13.6 13.1 15.8 10.1 16.8 13.9 Persons 14.2 14.9 16.7 15.6 15.0 15.9 11.0 22.3 15.1

 2013

 2013 NSW Vic QLD WA SA Tas ACT NT National Males 13.3 14.0 17.0 15.7 12.9 19.8 9.6 23.6 14.6 Females 10.3 10.6 13.3 8.9 13.0 13.1 9.7 17.6 11.2 Persons 11.8 12.3# 15.2 12.3# 13.0 16.5 9.7 20.8 12.9#

 Figure 1: Smoking prevalence rates for 14 years or older and key tobacco control measures implemented in Australia since 19906

 Tobacco control timeline

 1973 – health warnings first mandated on all cigarette packs in Australia.

 1976 – bans on all cigarette advertising on radio and television in Australia.

 1986 to 2006 – phased in bans on smoking in workplaces and public places.

 1990 – bans on advertising of tobacco products in newspapers and magazines published in Australia.

 1992 – increase in the tobacco excise.

 1993 – Tobacco Advertising Prohibition Act 1992 prohibited broadcasting and publication of tobacco advertisements.

 from 1994 to 2003 – bans on smoking in restaurants.

 1995 – nationally consistent text-only health warnings required.

 1998 to 2006 – bans on point-of-sale tobacco advertising across Australia.

 2006 – graphic health warnings required on packaging of most tobacco products.

 2010 – 25% increase in the tobacco excise.

 2011 – first complete State or Territory ban on point-of-sale tobacco product displays.

 2012 – offence for any person to publish tobacco advertising on the internet or other electronic media.

 2012 – introduction of tobacco plain packaging, and updated and expanded graphic health warnings.

 2013 – changes to the bi-annual indexation of tobacco excise and the introduction of the first 12.5% tobacco excise increase on 1 December.

 2014 –12.5% excise increase on 1 September.

 2015 –12.5% excise increase on 1 September.

 2016 – release of the Post Implementation Review of Tobacco Plain Packaging.

 2016 –12.5% excise increase will be implemented on 1 September.

 Tobacco plain packaging

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 Each year, smoking kills an estimated 15,000 Australiansand costs Australia $31.5 billionin social (including health) and economic costs.The Australian Government and state and territory governments, through the Council of Australian Governments, have committed by 2018, to reduce the national adult daily smoking rate to 10% and halve the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adult daily smoking rate (from 47% in 2008).Figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) show the total consumption of tobacco and cigarettes in the December quarters from 2012 to 2015, as measured by estimated expenditure on tobacco products:Tobacco clearances data (including excise and customs duty) are an indicator of tobacco volumes in the Australian market, and provide a useful approximation of tobacco consumption over time. Treasury has advised that tobacco clearances fell by 3.4% in the 2013 calendar year relative to the 2012 calendar year and fell a further 7.9% in the 2014 calendar year. As at the end of 2014, tobacco clearances had fallen a total of 11.0% since 2012.These tobacco clearance rates do not take into account refunds of excise equivalent customs duty made under Customs’ plain packaging related Tobacco Refund Scheme between December 2012 and May 2013. These refunds cannot be related to annual net clearances on a comparable basis to other data used to derive tobacco clearance rates.The tobacco excise rate was indexed to average weekly ordinary time earnings (AWOTE) from 1 March 2014 and there have been three of four 12.5% increases in the tobacco excise rate (1 December 2013, 1 September 2014, 1 September 2015) implemented. The next 12.5% increase will occur on 1 September 2016.As part of Health initiatives announced in the 2016 Budget, the Australian Government is reducing the allowable amount of duty free tobacco for travellers arriving in Australia.From 1 July 2017, travellers aged 18 years and over can only bring 25 grams of duty free tobacco, plus one open packet, into Australia. The tobacco can be in any form (cigarette, loose leaf and so on) and is equivalent to approximately 25 cigarettes.If you have more than this amount, you will be required to pay duty on all tobacco in your possession, unless you agree to dispose of the excess.Please ensure you are familiar with duty free limits when travelling to Australia.For more information on duty free limits, as well as what you can and cannot bring to Australia visit the Duty free concession page on the Department of Immigration and Boarder Protection website.There are a number of sources the Government relies on to monitor smoking rates, including data from national surveys conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW), and drug and alcohol information collected nationally from secondary school students by the Cancer Council Victoria.On 28 April 2016, the ABS released the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey, 2014-15.The survey was conducted from September 2014 to June 2015 with a sample of 11,178 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living in private dwellings across Australia. The report shows that in 2014-15:On 8 December 2015, the ABS released the National Health Survey: First Results 2014-15.The survey was conducted in all states and territories and across urban, rural and remote areas of Australia (other than very remote areas) from July 2014 to June 2015, and included around 19,000 people in nearly 15,000 private dwellings. The report shows that in 2014-15:On 24 November 2015, the Cancer Council Victoria released the 2014 Australian secondary school students’ use of tobacco report.The survey included over 23,000 secondary aged students aged between 12 and 17 years of age during months of June to December of the 2014 academic school year. The report shows that in 2014:On 25 November 2014, the AIHW released the 2013 National Drug Strategy Household Survey detailed report (2013 NDSHS).The survey collected data from 23,855 people across Australia aged 12 years and over living in private dwellings. The report shows that in 2013:Other 2013 NDSHS findings included:The 2013 NDSHS results do not reflect any impact from the Australian Government’s 1 March 2014 change to bi-annual indexation of tobacco excise or the first of four 12.5% excise increases on tobacco products which took effect on 1 December 2013.Australia’s low smoking rate is the result of sustained, concerted and comprehensive public policy efforts from all levels of government and action from public health organisations.Further information on the impact of tobacco plain packaging in Australia is available on the Evaluation of Tobacco Plain Packaging in Australia page ||||| Tweet with a location

 You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| Find another color PANTONE 448 C

 *Before using, understand that the colors shown on this site are computer simulations of the PANTONE Colors and may not match PANTONE-identified color standards. Always consult PANTONE Publications to visually evaluate any result before utilization. ||||| (CNN) Can the sight of a greenish-brown color really be enough to deter smokers from reaching for their next pack of cigarettes?

 Lawmakers in the UK hope the "world's ugliest color" will be helpful in lowering smoking rates in their country. In May, previously passed legislation will go into effect requiring all packs of cigarettes to be standardized. Tobaccos products will be stripped of brightly colored branding and replaced with a sludge-like color.

 But does the stripped-down, "ugly" packaging really reduce smoking?

 Researchers from the UK and Canada summarized several studies that look at the impact of tobacco packaging on consumer attitudes and behavior. Their findings were published today in a Cochrane Review

 Jamie Hartmann-Boyce of the Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group, co-author of the review, noted that "the evidence we have so far suggests that standardized packaging may reduce smoking prevalence and increase quit attempts."

 The UK law, passed last year, is similar to a cigarette standardization plan Australia enacted in 2012, which also features graphic health warnings and standardized fonts.

 The muddy color -- Pantone 448C -- was chosen after marketing research company GfK Bluemoon was commissioned to develop ideas for unappealing cigarette packing. The agency asked Australian smokers about colors they found unappealing and overwhelming. Pantone 448 C was later named "the world's ugliest color."

 Respondents reportedly associated the color with the words "dirty," "tar" and "death."

 I used to feature so much in all your 70s couches, curtains and wallpapers. What did I do to deserve this? — Pantone 448 C (@Pantone448C) August 17, 2012

 Deterring bathroom breaks

 Cigarette and tobacco packaging is not the first time the murky shade has been used in an attempt to turn people away from certain behaviors. According to Angela Wright, a color consultant and author of "The Beginner's Guide to Colour Psychology," the technique has been around for decades.

 She cites American color consultant Faber Birren, who in the 1960s devised a way to stop department store employees from taking lengthy bathroom breaks.

 "The company asked him, 'Can you improve the working area so they don't have to leave all the time and use the restrooms?' " Wright said.

 "Birren actually took a different view and painted the restrooms in a color similar to Pantone 448C. And nobody wanted to spend time in the restrooms after that."

 This is just one of the many examples that the "world's ugliest color" has been used to minimize appeal to control human behavior.

 Is Pantone 448C really that bad?

 What makes Pantone 448C so off-putting? Wright said she believes it's the association with human waste.

 "It makes perfect sense that smoking packets would use a vile green that looks like bodily fluids and makes people feel slightly nauseated," she said.

 But not everyone agrees.

 France will also introduce plain cigarette packaging.

 "I actually quite like the color," said psychologist Dr. Carolyn Mair of the London College of Fashion, UAL. "It's an earthy, muted, rich color, very much of nature. But then I also don't smoke."

 Color in advertising

 The use of color can play a key role in brand perception among the public.

 "Blue is often used in services such as banking and law because of its association with loyalty, honesty and reliability," Mair said. Red meanwhile "raises the pulse rate ... and communicates strength and high energy," Wright said.

 Color associations Red: Strength, energy, passion Blue: Focus, loyalty, calmness Yellow: Ego, optimism, openness Green: Balance, youth, eco-friendly Purple: Luxury, femininity, glamour Sources: Angela Wright, Carolyn Mair

 "Football teams who have red uniforms are giving themselves more physical energy but also communicating to the opposite team that they are powerful and strong."

 And purple has connotations with luxury, Mair said.

 "Think of Cadbury chocolate (which has a purple logo). At least when it started out, it had the association with a glamorous, smooth, feminine brand," she added.

 Color combinations can also have powerful connotations.

 In the UK, the Esso petrol logo features red, white and blue -- much like many national flags, including those of the United States, Great Britain and France.

 "So this combination can result in an instinctive loyalty," Wright said.

 The eye of the beholder

 That said, perception also plays a huge role -- as seen in Wright's and Mair's different responses to Pantone 448C.

 "Red could be seen as aggressive and demanding -- or as exhilarating and exciting," Wright said. "Similarly, blue could be perceived as calming and well-thought-through -- or excessively bureaucratic and emotionless."

 Wright sees the overwhelming color of our times as a bleak gray.

 "Gray is the color of austerity," Wright said. "And we're going to keep wearing gray until we feel better financially."

 That is, unless you feel compelled to lighten things with a splash of Pantone 448C. ||||| It’s none of these. They’re too pretty (Picture: Getty)

 A team of experts spent three months trying to determine the world’s ugliest colour.

 And, after detailed research into which colours generated the most negative reactions among the general public, the dubious honour goes to Pantone 448C, also known as opaque couché – a sludgy brown colour that was alternately described by respondents as ‘tar’, ‘dirty’ and even ‘death’.

 Charming.

 But why, you might well ask, are a team of experts throwing so much shade at a colour that was already pretty dreary to begin with?

 The world’s most off-putting colour (Picture: Getty)

 Well, because researchers believe it may be the key to cutting cigarette sales.

 Back in 2012, researchers at Gfk Bluemoon were commissioned by the Australian government to design new packaging aimed at discouraging people from buying cigarettes.

 So, they set out to find the most offensive and unappealing shade in the colour spectrum to put on the packets.

 Over 1,000 smokers took part in seven studies over a period of three months to identify the ugliest colour, with opaque couché coming out on top (or bottom, depending on how you look at it).

 World's ugliest colour, Pantone 448C (opaque couché), helps reduce smoking rates down under: https://t.co/jvTGv8wfiu pic.twitter.com/ImE6ZKASpi — SPHR@Cam (@SPHRcam) June 1, 2016

 Other colours that turned smokers off included lime green, beige, white, mustard and dark gray. Medium olive was also considered a front-runner until it was rejected in the final stages for being ‘too classy’.

 But, after three months, Pantone 448C was judged the ultimate turn-off and used to cover cigarette boxes across Australia.

 And now, after the use of the new and very unexciting packaging has shown early success in curbing cigarette sales Down Under, the UK, Ireland and France have all developed plainer cigarette packaging, featuring, you’ve guessed it, Pantone 448C.

 The new packaging, featuring the world’s ugliest colour (Picture: Getty)

 The new packets launched on May 20.

 Proving, once again, that beauty is very much in the eye of the beholder.

 MORE: Finally, the world’s favourite colour has been revealed |||||

– In 2012, a marketing research company determined Pantone 448 C (aka "opaque couché") was the world's ugliest color—and it's been used to try to save lives ever since. Per the Guardian, GfK surveyed 1,000 smokers back then to find out which hue turned them off the most, and this Pantone pick—a greenish-brown blend that survey participants said reminded them of "death" and "tar"—emerged the winner. Time notes the agency had been commissioned by the Australian government to find a color so repellent it could be used on cigarette packaging to discourage people from lighting up. The new color was found to have the most ability to "minimize appeal" and "maximize perceived harm" and was implemented on plain cigarette packs with health warnings across Australia, the Brisbane Times reported at the time. Early results are now in, and it appears the color that CNN describes as "sludge-like" may have made an impact: Cigarette sales have fallen, and now other countries such as the UK, France, and Ireland are following suit, per Metro. So what is it about the color that makes it such an effective sales deterrent? A color consultant tells CNN it may be the strong resemblance to, well, poop. But not everyone's on board with trashing opaque couché. Pantone sniffs to the Guardian, "At the Pantone Color Institute, we consider all colors equally," noting that the color's "deep, rich earth tones" make it a oft-chosen pick for sofas. But perhaps the saddest entity of all? The long-silent Pantone 448 C Twitter account, which back in 2012 reacted to the news of its denigrated status by tweeting, "I used to feature so much in all your 70s couches, curtains, and wallpapers. What did I do to deserve this?" (Speaking of ugly, this dating site rejects ugly people.)


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– With the Trump administration planning to slash the National Park Service's budget, a new proposal could see entrance fees for 17 of the most-visited national parks in the country more than double during peak months. In an effort to boost revenue to pay "for improvements to the aging infrastructure of national parks," the Department of Interior has proposed increasing entrance fees from $25 to $30 for a private non-commercial vehicle to $70 during the busiest five-month period at parks including Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Joshua Tree, Glacier, Denali, and Mount Rainier, reports KTLA. Pedestrians would be charged $30, up from $10 to $15, increasing revenue by an estimated $70 million per year, according to a release. Under the proposal, which would be instituted beginning in 2018, an annual park pass would cost $75, while a pass permitting entry to all US national parks would remain at its current $80 fee. The park service is accepting public comments on the proposal until Nov. 23 but has already come under fire. Noting the Trump administration "just proposed a major cut to the National Park Service budget," the president of the National Parks Conservation Association says administration officials must "work with Congress to address the maintenance backlog." The costs of repairs to a park "cannot and should not be largely shouldered by its visitors," she adds in a statement, per CNN, expressing concern that the change would make parks "unaffordable."

Rehabilitation of a trail in Grand Canyon National Park by NPS and American Conservation Experience personnel was funded in part by entrance fees. NPS Photo

 News Release Date: October 24, 2017

 Contact: NPS Office of Communications, 202-208-6843

 Public invited to provide comments on proposed peak season fee increases at 17 highly visited parks

 WASHINGTON – As part of its commitment to improve the visitor experience and ensure America’s national parks are protected in perpetuity, the National Park Service (NPS) is considering increases to fees at highly visited national parks during peak visitor seasons. Proposed peak season entrance fees and revised fees for road-based commercial tours would generate badly needed revenue for improvements to the aging infrastructure of national parks. This includes roads, bridges, campgrounds, waterlines, bathrooms, and other visitor services.

 “The infrastructure of our national parks is aging and in need of renovation and restoration,” said U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke. “Targeted fee increases at some of our most-visited parks will help ensure that they are protected and preserved in perpetuity and that visitors enjoy a world-class experience that mirrors the amazing destinations they are visiting. We need to have the vision to look at the future of our parks and take action in order to ensure that our grandkids' grandkids will have the same if not better experience than we have today. Shoring up our parks' aging infrastructure will do that.”

 Under the proposal, peak-season entrance fees would be established at 17 national parks. The peak season for each park would be defined as its busiest contiguous five-month period of visitation.

 The proposed new fee structure would be implemented at Arches, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands, Denali, Glacier, Grand Canyon, Grand Teton, Olympic, Sequoia & Kings Canyon, Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Zion National Parks with peak season starting on May 1, 2018; in Acadia, Mount Rainier, Rocky Mountain, and Shenandoah National Parks with peak season starting on June 1, 2018; and in Joshua Tree National Park as soon as practicable in 2018.

 A public comment period on the peak-season entrance fee proposal will be open from October 24, 2017 to November 23, 2017, on the NPS Planning, Environment and Public Comment (PEPC) website https://parkplanning.nps.gov/proposedpeakseasonfeerates. Written comments can be sent to 1849 C Street, NW, Mail Stop: 2346 Washington, DC 20240.

 If implemented, estimates suggest that the peak-season price structure could increase national park revenue by $70 million per year. That is a 34 percent increase over the $200 million collected in Fiscal Year 2016. Under the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act, 80% of an entrance fee remains in the park where it is collected. The other 20% is spent on projects in other national parks.

 During the peak season at each park, the entrance fee would be $70 per private, non-commercial vehicle, $50 per motorcycle, and $30 per person on bike or foot. A park-specific annual pass for any of the 17 parks would be available for $75.

 The cost of the annual America the Beautiful- The National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Pass, which provides entrance to all federal lands, including parks for a one-year period, would remain $80. Entrance fees are not charged to visitors under 16 years of age or holders of Senior, Military, Access, Volunteer, or Every Kid in a Park (EKIP) passes. The majority of national parks will remain free to enter; only 118 of 417 park sites charge an entrance fee, and the current proposal only raises fees at 17 fee-charging parks

 The National Park Service is also proposing entry and permit fee adjustments for commercial tour operators. The proposal would increase entry fees for commercial operators and standardize commercial use authorization (CUA) requirements for road-based commercial tours, including application and management fees. All CUA fees stay within the collecting park and would fund rehabilitation projects for buildings, facilities, parking lots, roads, and wayside exhibits that would enhance the visitor experience. The fees will also cover the administrative costs of receiving, reviewing, and processing CUA applications and required reports.

 In addition, the proposal would include a peak-season commercial entry fee structure for the 17 national parks referenced above. All proposed fee adjustments for commercial operators would go into effect following an 18-month implementation window.

 Information and a forum for public comments regarding commercial permit requirements and fees is available October 24, 2017 to November 23, 2017 on the NPS Planning, Environment and Public Comment (PEPC) website at http://parkplanning.nps.gov/commercialtourrequirements. Written comments can be sent to National Park Service, Recreation Fee Program, 1849 C Street, NW, Mail Stop: 2346 Washington, DC 20240.

 www.nps.gov

 About the National Park Service. More than 20,000 National Park Service employees care for America's 417 national parks and work with communities across the nation to help preserve local history and create close-to-home recreational opportunities. Visit us at www.nps.gov, on Facebook www.facebook.com/nationalparkservice, Twitter www.twitter.com/natlparkservice, and YouTube www.youtube.com/nationalparkservice. ||||| Visitor fees to America’s most popular national parks, including Yosemite and Joshua Tree, could more than double to $70 during five peak months under a proposal unveiled Tuesday.

 The plan was announced by the U.S. Department of Interior, which said the increase was needed to pay for “improvements to the aging infrastructure of national parks.”

 Fees would rise during “peak season,” defined as the busiest five-month period of visitation at each park, the National Park Service said in a news release.

 The plan would increase fees at each of the following national parks:

 Acadia

 Arches

 Bryce Canyon

 Canyonlands

 Denali

 Glacier

 Grand Canyon

 Grand Teton

 Joshua Tree National Park

 Mount Rainier

 Olympic

 Rocky Mountain

 Sequoia & Kings Canyon

 Shenandoah National Park

 Yellowstone

 Yosemite

 Zion

 Those parks currently charge $25 to $30 for a private noncommercial vehicle entry.

 The new fees would be $70 for a private noncommercial vehicle pass, $50 for a motorcycle, and $30 for a pedestrian or cyclist. An annual pass at any of the 17 parks would be $75.

 The $80 annual America the Beautiful pass that allows entrance to all federal recreation lands would not be affected.

 “The infrastructure of our national parks is aging and in need of renovation and restoration,” U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke said in the release. “Targeted fee increases at some of our most-visited parks will help ensure that they are protected and preserved in perpetuity and that visitors enjoy a world-class experience that mirrors the amazing destinations they are visiting.”

 The increased fees would bring in $70 million in new national park revenue, a 34 percent increase over 2016, the release stated.

 A 30-day period during which public comment is invited opened Tuesday. The link the National Park Service provided for people to comment appeared broken Tuesday evening.

 Comments can also be sent in writing to 1849 C Street, NW, Mail Stop: 2346 Washington, DC 20240. ||||| (CNN) — The National Park Service proposes more than doubling the entrance fees at 17 popular national parks, including Grand Canyon, Yosemite, and Yellowstone, to help pay for infrastructure improvements.

 Under the agency's proposal, the entrance fee for a private vehicle would jump to $70 during peak season, from its current rate of $25 to $30.

 The cost for a motorcycle entering the park could increase to $50, from the current fee of $15 to $25. The cost for people entering the park on foot or on bike could go to $30, up from the current rate of $10 to $15.

 The cost of the annual pass, which permits entrance into all federal lands and parks, would remain at $80.

 The proposal would affect the following 17 national parks during the 2018 peak season:

 Arches

 Bryce Canyon

 Canyonlands

 Denali

 Glacier

 Grand Canyon

 Grand Teton

 Olympic

 Sequoia & Kings Canyon

 Yellowstone

 Yosemite

 Zion

 Acadia

 Mount Rainier

 Rocky Mountain

 Shenandoah

 Joshua Tree

 Peak pricing would affect each park's busiest five months for visitors.

 The National Park Service said the increase would help pay for badly needed improvements, including to roads, bridges, campgrounds, waterlines, bathrooms and other visitor services at the parks. The fee hikes could also boost national park revenue by $70 million per year, it said.

 "The infrastructure of our national parks is aging and in need of renovation and restoration," Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke said in a statement.

 Of the 417 national park sites, 118 charge an entrance fee.

 The proposal was blasted by the National Parks Conservation Association, a nonpartisan advocacy group.

 "We should not increase fees to such a degree as to make these places -- protected for all Americans to experience -- unaffordable for some families to visit," the group's president and CEO Theresa Pierno said in a statement. "The solution to our parks' repair needs cannot and should not be largely shouldered by its visitors."

 l e v a r t

 "The administration just proposed a major cut to the National Park Service budget even as parks struggle with billions of dollars in needed repairs," Pierno said. "If the administration wants to support national parks, it needs to walk the walk and work with Congress to address the maintenance backlog."

 On the National Park Service's Facebook page, some commented that the proposal was reasonable since it was going to improve and maintain the parks. Others lamented that it would price working class people out of making trips that they had saved up for.

 Entrance fees at several national parks, including Mount Rainer, Grand Teton and Yellowstone, went up in 2015 to their current price.

 Those fee increases didn't seem to deter visitors. In 2016, National Park Services received a record-breaking 331 million visits, which marked a 7.7% increase over 2015. It was the park service's third consecutive all-time attendance record.

 Most popular National Parks in 2016 (59 total)

 Great Smoky Mountains National Park -- 11,312,786 million visitors

 Grand Canyon National Park -- 5,969,811

 Yosemite National Park -- 5,028,868

 Rocky Mountain National Park -- 4,517,585

 Zion National Park -- 4,295,127

 Yellowstone National Park -- 4,257,177

 Olympic National Park -- 3,390,221

 Acadia National Park -- 3,303,393

 Grand Teton National Park -- 3,270,076 |||||


Here is a news article: Don't worry, be snappy: Stop complaining about your digital camera When one has done something long enough (and, for the sake of this particular argument, let's say living can be reasonably counted among them) there's a tendency to take the long view--we have some notion of where we've been as well as how things are now. Recent complaints about the state of Apple and photography have compelled me to take a journey down the historical highway in the hope of gaining some perspective on just where we stand in regard to taking and making images with our cameras.

 Why you should care about CloudKit If you've lived through the last couple iterations of OS X and iOS, you've probably had the opportunity to develop a special love/hate relationship with iCloud. Apple's cloud service suite is made up of many different parts and systems, and while it's great when it works, it also has a history of being prone to hard-to-diagnose outages and, for developers, obscure error messages.

 With Yosemite public beta, Apple's more open than ever Just a few years after a big leadership transition, Apple announced not only a brand new operating system but said they would be offering a public beta to interested customers. Sound familiar? The year was 2000 and the OS in question was the very first version of OS X. Now, 14 years later, Apple's once again inviting users to come and check out the Mac's latest and greatest operating system before its impending release. ||||| Article Excerpt

 HONG KONG--Samsung Electronics Co. and Google Inc. on Wednesday jointly unveiled a new smartphone they developed together running on a new version of the Android operating system as the South Korean company pushes out new models in its attempt to gain more ground in the highly competitive and litigious smartphone market.

 The launch of the Galaxy Nexus smartphone comes just days after Apple Inc. unveiled its new iPhone 4S in several markets across Europe, the U.S. and Asia on Oct. 14. Samsung and Google originally planned to launch the device in San Diego on Oct. 11 but the event was ... |||||
A summary of this is?

– Only hours after Motorola rolled out its new Razr, Samsung and Google unveiled a new Android smartphone of their own. The high-end Galaxy Nexus—which is set to retail for more than $700—would have launched more than a week ago, but the companies decided to reschedule after the death of Steve Jobs, the Wall Street Journal reports. The phone runs Android's new Ice Cream Sandwich platform, designed to run on both smartphones and tablets. "We're targeting the premium segment of the mobile handset market with this handset," says a Samsung exec. New features in the latest version of Android include facial recognition software that allows a user to use his face to unlock his phone, although when demonstrated onstage at the Galaxy Nexus launch, the phone failed to recognize its owner, PC World notes. Google says the new phone—which analysts believe will help Samsung in its quest to overtake Apple—also has tighter integration with Google+, allowing users to have video chats with as many as nine contacts.