WASHINGTON—The Senate passed sweeping revisions to the U.S. tax code past midnight Saturday after Republicans navigated a thicket of internal divisions over deficits and other issues to place their imprint on the economy.

 The bill, which included about $1.4 trillion in tax cuts, would lower the corporate rate to 20% from 35%, reshape international business tax rules and temporarily lower individual taxes. It also touched other Republican goals, including opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling and repealing... ||||| 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 ||||| Senate Majority Leader Senator Mitch McConnell walks to the Senate Floor on Capitol Hill on Dec. 1. | Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images Senate passes sweeping tax overhaul Debate spilled into the wee hours after a day of horse trading.

 The Senate narrowly passed a massive tax overhaul early Saturday morning, putting Republicans on the cusp of revamping the U.S. tax system for the first time in more than three decades.

 The 51 to 49 vote came after Senate Republicans frantically rewrote the multi-trillion dollar legislation behind closed doors to win over several final holdouts, and left congressional Republicans just a few steps away from sending legislation to President Donald Trump’s desk. The House passed its own plan in November.

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 Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee was the only Republican to oppose the measure, in what’s also a big victory for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who repeatedly fell short in his efforts to push through an Obamacare repeal measure this year.

 “I think one reason we were able to get there was because there’s widespread interest,” McConnell said in an interview with POLITICO. “Every single member of our conference wanted to get to yes, and all but one did.”

 President Donald Trump praised McConnell and Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch in a tweet after the bill passed, adding, “We are one step closer to delivering MASSIVE tax cuts for working families across America.”

 McConnell and GOP leaders were able to score the necessary votes on Friday by acceding to demands by Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and others for expanded tax breaks for small businesses, homeowners and others. That gave leadership the breathing room to reject conflicting demands by Corker and others to rein in the cost of the plan.

 Democrats harshly condemned the legislation and the way it came together.

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 "Millions of Americans must be watching in stunned disbelief tonight as the Republican Senate betrays the middle class for the benefit of faceless multinational corporations," Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the tax-writing Finance Committee, said on the Senate floor shortly before the bill passed.

 Democrats also ridiculed the GOP scramble to get the bill passed and the frequent rounds of horse trading required. Minority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois posted a picture on Twitter that showed hand-scribbled changes on a page from the initial version of the lengthy Republican amendment to the legislation.

 “Trying to review the #GOPTaxScam but they are making hand-written changes to brand new text as we speak – can anyone else read this?” Durbin jabbed.

 Debate on the legislation spilled past midnight as the Senate debated numerous amendments, including one from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) that would extend tax-advantaged “529” college saving accounts to public, private and religious K-12 schools. It was adopted on a 51-50 vote after Vice President Mike Pence broke a tie.

 The Senate struck a controversial provision from Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) that would have exempted Hillsdale College, a prominent conservative institution led by a Heritage Foundation board member, from a controversial new tax on university endowments. The school also has close ties to the family of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

 House and Senate Republicans still have to settle the differences between their tax bills before Trump can sign a final bill, which would give the GOP the legislative achievement they’ve sought throughout their first year of regaining full control in Washington.

 The House plans to vote Monday to formally set up a conference committee to hash out a final compromise, though some of the changes that Senate Republicans agreed to Friday also brought the two measures closer together.

 “Now it’s time to take the best of both the House and Senate bills, make them even stronger in a conference committee, and finalize one piece of legislation that will dramatically improve the lives of Americans for generations to come,” Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas), chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, said in a statement after the Senate vote.

 However, Senate leaders haven’t publicly committed to a formal conference.

 Republicans are using powerful budget procedures to evade a Democratic filibuster of the bill, which allowed McConnell to lose up to two GOP votes and still pass the bill. After struggling all week to corral at least 50 votes for the tax measure, Senate GOP leaders ended up appeasing all but Corker.

 Tax Reform: Who Pays What? poster="http://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201708/2289/1155968404_5544094581001_5544019579001-vs.jpg?pubId=1155968404" true

 Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) won a string of concessions for her vote, including a provision that would allow taxpayers to continue writing off property taxes, albeit with a $10,000 limit, and an expanded deduction for medical costs.

 “As revised, this bill will provide much-needed tax relief and simplification for lower- and middle-income families, while spurring the creation of good jobs and greater economic growth,” Collins said.

 In a particularly big victory for leadership, Johnson and Steve Daines (R-Mont.), both of whom had announced in recent weeks that they couldn’t support the bill, were won over by a proposal that would increase a tax deduction for pass-through businesses. They had complained that the Senate bill offered more tax relief to corporations than to pass-throughs, which are businesses – often small ones -- that pay taxes as individuals.

 Those businesses would see a deduction included in the Senate bill for them rise from 20 percent to 23 percent, a boost financed by increasing a proposed one-time tax on multinational corporations’ offshore earnings. The multinational provision also puts the Senate bill in line with the House measure, by charging 14 percent on those companies' liquid assets and 7 percent on illiquid ones like facilities, up from the 10 percent and 5 percent the Senate had been considering.

 “We’re going to have to reconcile that anyway, and might as well reconcile up front here to take care of our issue,” Johnson told reporters.

 Though Johnson’s vote was likely never truly in doubt, he could have held out for more changes, which would have further handcuffed leaders as they tried to satisfy a duo of stubborn fiscal hawks alarmed that the measure would blow up federal budget deficits. A Joint Committee on Taxation report on Thursday found the proposal would add an extra $1 trillion to the federal debt over the next decade, even after considering economic growth.

 Both Corker and Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) pushed for a trigger mechanism that would have forced automatic tax increases if the bill didn’t jog the economy as much as Republicans hope. The Senate parliamentarian found that such a mechanism would violate complicated procedural rules, scotching a vote on the bill Thursday night and sending Republicans scrambling for alternatives.

 Corker said Friday that he had “wanted to get to yes,” thanked GOP leaders and Trump for working with him in good faith and maintained that he would take another look at whatever measure might emerge from a conference committee. But he added that while “it would have been fairly easy to alter the bill in a way that would have been more fiscally sound without harming the pro-growth policies, unfortunately, it is clear that the caucus is in a different place.”

 Unlike Corker, Flake supported the bill in the end, after securing language that phases down write-offs for business investments that had been slated to abruptly expire at the end of 2022. The Arizona Republican also got a “firm commitment” by party leaders to “work with me” on “fair and permanent protections” for undocumented immigrants threatened with deportation by Trump’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

 “Having secured both of these objections, I am pleased to announce I will vote in support [of] the tax reform bill,” he said in a statement.

 GOP leaders also had to make changes elsewhere in the bill to fund some of the policy promises they had made. That included dropping plans to repeal the alternative minimum tax -- a complicated batch of rules designed to prevent people from dodging taxes -- that had been a key part of Republican plans to radically simplify the code.

 Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said they needed the money to finance other last-minute changes to the bill, including the expanded tax cut for pass-through businesses and the property tax deduction.

 “Most members felt very strongly that we wanted a property tax exemption for individuals,” Rounds said. “The trade-off is there.”

 Congressional Republicans have said in recent weeks that they don’t want to go into the 2018 midterm elections without a tax cut to show to voters. But it’s an open question just how much a victory on taxes will help Republicans politically.

 The GOP proposals, which feature a large permanent cut in the corporate tax rate and temporary tax relief for individuals, have consistently polled poorly with voters.

 Democrats have predicted that Republicans will end up paying a steep political price. But on Friday, Democratic leaders were mostly enraged by both the substance and process of the tax push. Most Democrats even voted against an amendment from Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), which was rejected, that would have further expanded the child tax credit while pushing the proposed corporate rate up from 20 percent to almost 21 percent.

 Aaron Lorenzo, Jane Norman and Michael Stratford contributed to this report.

  ||||| Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., walks from the chamber to his office as the GOP overhaul of the tax bill nears a vote, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, Dec. 1, 2017. (AP Photo/J.... (Associated Press)

 WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans pushed a nearly $1.5 trillion tax bill through the Senate early Saturday after a burst of eleventh-hour horse trading, as a party starved all year for a major legislative triumph took a giant step toward giving President Donald Trump one of his top priorities by Christmas.

 "Big bills are rarely popular. You remember how unpopular 'Obamacare' was when it passed?" Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said in an interview, shrugging off polls showing scant public enthusiasm for the measure. He said the legislation would prove to be "just what the country needs to get growing again."

 Trump hailed the bill's passage on Twitter, thanking McConnell and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. "Look forward to signing a final bill before Christmas!" the president wrote.

 Presiding over the Senate, Vice President Mike Pence announced the 51-49 vote to applause from Republicans. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., was the only lawmaker to cross party lines, joining the Democrats in opposition. The measure focuses its tax reductions on businesses and higher-earning individuals, gives more modest breaks to others and offers the boldest rewrite of the nation's tax system since 1986.

 Republicans touted the package as one that would benefit people of all incomes and ignite the economy. Even an official projection of a $1 trillion, 10-year flood of deeper budget deficits couldn't dissuade GOP senators from rallying behind the bill.

 "Obviously I'm kind of a dinosaur on the fiscal issues," said Corker, who battled to keep the bill from worsening the government's accumulated $20 trillion in IOUs.

 The Republican-led House approved a similar bill last month in what has been a stunningly swift trip through Congress for complex legislation that impacts the breadth of American society. The two chambers will now try crafting a final compromise to send Trump.

 After spending the year's first nine months futilely trying to repeal President Barack Obama's health care law, GOP leaders were determined to move the measure rapidly before opposition Democrats and lobbying groups could blow it up. The party views passage as crucial to retaining its House and Senate majorities in next year's elections.

 Democrats derided the bill as a GOP gift to its wealthy and business backers at the expense of lower-earning people. They contrasted the bill's permanent reduction in corporate income tax rates from 35 percent to 20 percent to smaller individual tax breaks that would end in 2026.

 Congress' nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation has said the bill's reductions for many families would be modest and said by 2027, families earning under $75,000 would on average face higher, not lower, taxes.

 The bill is "removed from the reality of what the American people need," said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. He criticized Republicans for releasing a revised, 479-page bill that no one can absorb shortly before the final vote, saying, "The Senate is descending to a new low of chicanery."

 "You really don't read this kind of legislation," Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told home-state reporters, asked why the Senate was approving a bill some senators hadn't read. He said lawmakers needed to study it and get feedback from affected groups.

 Democrats took to the Senate floor and social media to mock one page that included changes scrawled in barely legible handwriting. Later, they won enough GOP support to kill a provision by Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., that would have bestowed a tax break on conservative Hillsdale College in Michigan.

 The bill hit rough waters after the Joint Taxation panel concluded it would worsen federal shortfalls by $1 trillion over a decade, even when factoring in economic growth that lower taxes would stimulate. Trump administration officials and many Republicans have insisted the bill would pay for itself by stimulating the economy. But the sour projections stiffened resistance from some deficit-averse Republicans.

 But after bargaining that stretched into Friday, GOP leaders nailed down the support they needed in a chamber they control 52-48. Facing unyielding Democratic opposition, Republicans could lose no more than two GOP senators and prevail with a tie-breaking vote from Vice President Mike Pence, but ended up not needing it.

 Leaders' changes included helping millions of companies whose owners pay individual, not corporate, taxes on their profits by allowing deductions of 23 percent, up from 17.4 percent. That helped win over Wisconsin's Johnson and Steve Daines of Montana.

 People would be allowed to deduct up to $10,000 in property taxes, a demand of Sen. Susan Collins of Maine. That matched a House provision that chamber's leaders included to keep some GOP votes from high-tax states like New York, New Jersey and California.

 The changes added nearly $300 billion to the tax bill's costs. To pay for that, leaders reduced the number of high-earners who must pay the alternative minimum tax, rather than completely erasing it. They also increased a one-time tax on profits U.S.-based corporations are holding overseas and would require firms to keep paying the business version of the alternative minimum tax.

 Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz. — who like Corker had been a holdout and has sharply attacked Trump's capabilities as president — voted for the bill. He said he'd received commitments from party leaders and the administration "to work with me" to restore protections, dismantled by Trump, for young immigrants who arrived in the U.S. illegally as children. That seemed short of a pledge to actually revive the safeguards.

 The Senate bill would drop the highest personal income tax rate from 39.6 percent to 38.5 percent. The estate tax levied on a few thousand of the nation's largest inheritances would be narrowed to affect even fewer.

 Deductions for state and local income taxes, moving expenses and other items would vanish, the standard deduction — used by most Americans — would nearly double to $12,000 for individuals and $24,000 for couples, and the per-child tax credit would grow.

 The bill would abolish the "Obamacare" requirement that most people buy health coverage or face tax penalties. Industry experts say that would weaken the law by easing pressure on healthier people to buy coverage, and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has said the move would push premiums higher and leave 13 million additional people uninsured.

 Drilling would be allowed in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Another provision, knocked out because it violated Senate budget rules, would have explicitly let parents buy tax-advantaged 529 college savings accounts for fetuses, a step they can already take but which anti-abortion forces wanted to inscribe into law. There were also breaks for the wine, beer and spirits industries, Alaska Natives and aircraft management firms.

 ___

 Associated Press writers Andrew Taylor in Washington and Scott Bauer Milwaukee contributed to this report. |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– It passed in the wee hours, and by a wee margin: The Senate passed the biggest tax overhaul in more than 30 years Saturday morning 51-49. Tennessee's Sen. Bob Corker was the only Republican to side against the bill. With the House having passed its bill in November, Congress is just a few steps away from getting something on President Trump's desk. He tweeted in part, "Look forward to signing a final bill before Christmas!" Politico reports the final hours before the vote were filled with "horse trading" and some ridicule from Democrats: Minority Whip Dick Durbin tweeted a photo showing a page of the bill with semi-legible handwriting scrawled in the margin, saying, "Trying to review the #GOPTaxScam but they are making hand-written changes to brand new text as we speak – can anyone else read this?" Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer swung at Republicans for releasing a revamped 479-page bill that senators didn't have time to review. GOP Sen. Ron Johnson's take, per the AP: "You really don't read this kind of legislation." Among the numerous last-minute amendments that were debated: A controversial provision by GOP Sen. Pat Toomey that would have given Michigan's conservative Hillsdale College a pass on a new tax on university endowments was axed. Politico reports the House will on Monday formally assemble the conference committee that will work to get the House and Senate measures to jibe; the Senate hasn't commented on a formal conference yet. The Wall Street Journal offers a chart that illustrates key differences between the two bills.


Write a summary based on this article:

Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. ||||| New scientific tests have turned up no evidence of modern forgery in a text written on ancient Egyptian papyrus that refers to Jesus as being married, according to a long-awaited article to be published Thursday in the Harvard Theological Review.

 The findings support the argument of Harvard professor Karen L. King that the controversial text, the first-known explicit reference to a married Jesus, is almost certainly an authentic document.

 The “Gospel of Jesus’s Wife” was introduced to the world by King at a conference in Rome 18 months ago. The announcement made headlines around the world, and many of King’s academic peers, as well as the Vatican newspaper, swiftly dismissed it as a fake.

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 King maintains the document was probably part of a debate among early Christians about the role of women, family, and celibacy in spiritual life.

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 The results of a carbon dating test found that the papyrus probably dates to eighth-

 century Egypt, about 400 years later than King originally thought, but still in ancient times.

 Other tests found the ink’s chemical composition consistent with carbon-based inks used by ancient Egyptians. And microscopic imaging revealed none of the suspicious ink pooling that critics thought they saw in lower-resolution photographs of the fragment. Such pooling could have offered evidence that the ink was applied in modern times.

 “I’m basically hoping that we can move past the issue of forgery to questions about the significance of this fragment for the history of Christianity, for thinking about questions like, ‘Why does Jesus being married, or not, even matter? Why is it that people had such an incredible reaction to this?’ ” King said in an interview.

 King has never argued that the fragment is evidence that Jesus was actually married. It would have been composed much later than the gospels of the New Testament, which are regarded as the earliest and most reliable sources on the historical Jesus and which are silent on that question.

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 Still, the latest tests do not prove definitively that the text was written in ancient times. Specialists said, hypothetically, that a highly skilled modern forger could have obtained the right kind of ink and meticulously applied it to a blank piece of ancient papyrus.

 Determining the age of the ink using conventional testing methods would destroy the tiny document, roughly the size of a business card. Groundbreaking work by Columbia University researchers may soon uncover a way to date the ink without harming the fragment, which would offer a more definitive verdict about its authenticity.

 Meanwhile, the controversy over the fragment seems likely to continue.

 Critics have dismissed the fragment as a ham-handed pastiche of bits of the Gospel of Thomas, a noncanonical gospel, mashed together by someone with an elementary grasp of Coptic. One scholar found that the fragment seemed to contain a typo found in an online edition of the Gospel of Thomas, a discovery that some academics said offered powerful evidence of a forgery.

 Leo Depuydt, an Egyptologist at Brown University who offers a rebuttal to King’s thesis in the new edition of the Harvard Theological Review, said none of the test results alter his view that the document is a fraud, a modern-day cut-and-paste job with several glaring grammatical blunders that a native speaker of Coptic would never commit.

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 He believes the forger may have “wanted to put his or her own spin on modern theological issues,” such as the role of women and celibacy in Christianity.

 ‘I’m basically hoping that we can move past the issue of forgery to . . . the significance of this fragment for the history of Christianity.’

 “Nothing is going to change my mind,” he said in an interview this week. “As a forgery, it is bad to the point of being farcical or fobbish. . . . I don’t buy the argument that this is sophisticated. I think it could be done in an afternoon by an undergraduate student.”

 Bill Greene/Globe Staff Harvard professor Karen L. King introduced her finding in Rome 18 months ago. Her paper is being published Thursday.

 Harvard Divinity School granted the Globe, The New York Times, and Harvard Magazine advance access to the forthcoming Harvard Theological Review articles. The three news organizations were allowed to contact researchers involved with the articles, on the condition that they hold publication until Thursday morning, when the Theological Review will be published online, and that they contact no outside sources for comment beforehand.

 King began examining the fragment in 2011 at the request of its owner, who wishes to remain anonymous. Its provenance remains mysterious; the owner told King he bought it and five other papyri in 1999 from a collector who said he acquired them in the 1960s in East Germany. An undated, unsigned photocopied note in German accompanying the fragment said that a professor Fecht had examined the papyrus and thought it could be the only text in which Jesus speaks of having a wife.

 The fragment appears to be cut from the middle of a larger document; it contains just eight partial lines, written in a crude hand, one of which says, “And Jesus said to them, ‘My wife,’ ” The next says, “She will be able to be my disciple.”

 The first line, according to King’s translation, says in part: “My mother gave me life.”

 King believes the document may have been copied from a much earlier Greek text, perhaps composed in the second century, and sees it as an important addition to the study of the development of Christianity as it spread through the Mediterranean world.

 King said in the interview this week that her thinking about the meaning of the document has evolved somewhat. She originally hypothesized it concerned debates about discipleship, and whether becoming a Christian meant giving up one’s family to join a spiritual family. But in researching what early Christians said about whether Jesus was married or not, she recognized the importance of early Christian controversies about the spiritual advantages of celibacy. If Jesus were celibate, were Christians who were married or sexually active less fully human, or lesser in the eyes of God?

 “Now when I come back and read the fragment, it seems the major issue being talked about was that Jesus was affirming that wives and mothers can be his disciples,” King said.

 In her Theological Review article, the publication of which was delayed by some 15 months amid a storm of criticism and pending the results of scientific tests, King answers some of the major issues raised by critics.

 Depuydt makes the case that there is only an infinitesimal possibility that the similarities between the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife are coincidental.

 But King replies that the parallels are not nearly as close as Depuydt and others contend, and that some overlap is not surprising because they address similar topics and because many ancient Christian texts relied upon and responded to one another.

 Depuydt says the grammatical blunders he sees in the text could not have been made by a Coptic speaker. One line, he said, appears to read, “An evil man does not he brings.”

 “You can’t make sense of it as a fluent Coptic text,” he said. “Then you find out it’s all coming from Gospel of Thomas. Well, case closed.”

 But King argues that the grammatical issues Depuydt raises are either errors of his own analysis or that similar grammatical constructions, including the same mistake as the apparent typo in the online Gospel of Thomas, exist in other Coptic texts whose authenticity is undisputed.

 In sum, King said, it does not make sense that a forger with poor Coptic and scribal skills could also manage to acquire the right kind of papyrus and ink, and leave no ink out of place at the microscopic level. “In my judgment, such a combination of bumbling and sophistication seems extremely unlikely,” she wrote in her article.

 The Theological Review was supposed to have published King’s findings in January 2013. King said it took longer than expected to complete the testing, particularly because she had no budget.

 The original carbon-dating test of the papyrus, conducted by the University of Arizona Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Laboratory, gave a date of 400 to 200 years before the birth of Jesus. Researchers concluded that the result may be unreliable because the sample size was too small.

 A second carbon-dating test was conducted by Noreen Tuross of Harvard and produced a mean date of 741 A.D.

 The ink testing was done by a team of Columbia University researchers using a technique called micro-Raman spectroscopy to investigate the ink’s chemical composition. The researchers have also studied the ink in many of the ancient papyri in Columbia’s vast collection.

 “This looks qualitatively virtually like every other papyrus manuscript we’ve looked at,” said James Yardley, a professor of electrical engineering who helped lead the team.

 Roger Bagnall, director of New York University’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World and one of the world’s top papyrologists, assisted King with her initial analysis of the fragment.

 “I haven’t seen any argument that I find at all compelling that would indicate that it’s not genuine, it’s not ancient,” he said.

 Lisa Wangsness can be reached at lisa.wangsness@globe.com |||||

– To call it controversial is putting it mildly: Harvard professor Karen L. King in September 2012 debuted an ancient papyrus now known as the "Gospel of Jesus' Wife" at a conference in Rome. The papyrus makes an explicit reference to the woman's existence with the line, "Jesus said to them, 'My wife...'" Now, extensive testing by professors from Columbia, Harvard, and MIT in the fields of electrical engineering, chemistry, and biology has found no indications that it is a modern forgery, per an article by King published today in the Harvard Theological Review. The Boston Globe says it most likely dates to eighth-century Egypt, and the chemical composition of its ink is in line with the carbon-based inks the people of that country used at the time. But the Globe cautions that a master forger could have accessed the proper materials, and that traditional ink-dating methods couldn't be used because the papyrus is so small: a fragment roughly 1.5-by-3 inches in size bearing just eight incomplete lines (translation here). The Review also published a rebuttal by Brown Egyptology professor Leo Depuydt, who points to "gross grammatical errors" he says no native speaker of Coptic would make, the New York Times reports. (More criticism of the papyrus here.) The new findings certainly don't prove that Jesus was married, a point that King has never challenged; she'd like to see the debate shift to discussions of the document's significance, and "questions like, 'Why does Jesus being married, or not, even matter?'" King was in 2011 asked to review the fragment at the request of its anonymous owner, who says he bought it more than a decade earlier from a collector who said he purchased it, along with five others, in East Germany in the '60s.


Here is a news article: Tomorrow is the day LeBron James becomes the most unlikable person in the NBA, and perhaps all of American sports. I used to think he was okay a year ago. No more. He's the villain now.

 It doesn't matter where he opts to go. If he goes to Chicago, he's a cocksucker. If he goes to Miami, he's a cocksucker. Even if he goes back to Cleveland, he's a goddamn cocksucker. He's a self-aggrandizing sack of shit, and ESPN is a bunch of pussy-whipped enablers for giving him a free hour of airtime tomorrow night and inevitably using 55 minutes of it to let Stu Scott give him a rimjob.

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 Look at what Kevin Durant did today. He signed an extension well before he could have filed for free agency, announced the signing, and then went back about his business. He didn't need all this dog-and-pony show bullshit. James does, and that means he's a dipshit. People have been kissing this man's ass SINCE FUCKING MIDDLE SCHOOL, and he still needs this hourlong AFI tribute special? Bullshit. BULLSHIT.

 And I don't care that he asked ESPN to use the commercial airtime tomorrow night to go to charity. That's the most transparent use of charity for the sake of self-glorification I've seen since I saw some actor do it yesterday. "Hey ESPN, why don't you spend an hour kissing my ass? Oh, don't worry. We'll give the money to AIDS babies. That totally makes me selfless." No, it doesn't.

 And FUCK YOU to ESPN for going along with this "Bonds on Bonds" redux. If an ESPN reporter found concrete proof tomorrow morning that James was going to Cleveland or somewhere else, do you think ESPN would let him run with it? FUCK AND NO. They'd stick him in a fucking Lucite box and throw him in the cellar until 10PM. They're the whoringest whores that have ever whored. I heard they offered LeBron's crew free blowjobs if he wins a title next year. Wilbon asked to blow him JUST A LITTLE BIT. Not much. Just a little bit.

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 LeBron is now the guy you openly root against. If he leaves Cleveland tomorrow night, he'll have needlessly strung along an entire fanbase and given them the middle finger by making their breakup spectacularly public. If he stays, he'll have spent two years cockteasing the rest of the world about going somewhere else when he probably never wanted to leave Ohio to begin with. There's no end result tomorrow that makes LeBron a sympathetic figure. He's already gone past the point of no return. He's a cocksucker. Fitting that his most memorable career moment will come when he doesn't even take a fucking shot. He's a guy that cares more about the end result of playing basketball – massive, unending adulation – than he does actual basketball.

 I don't begrudge him that attitude. I'd be the same way if I were a basketball player. All I'd give a shit about would be what I make and where I'm drinking tonight. And I don't begrudge him the right to play somewhere other than Cleveland. It's Cleveland. It blows. There's nothing to do in that town except masturbate and cry. But there's a normal way of doing things, and there's the dick way of doing things, and making your own free agency a two-year drama capped off with an infomercial directed by Senor Spielbergo falls squarely in the purview of FLAMING FUCKING DICK MOVES. James is trying to bullshit the world into believing this whole process is some great entertainment he's lavishing upon you. It's not. It's a con. Right now, a lot of people aren't buying the shit this man is selling. And really, that's all LeBron James is these days: a fucking salesman. ||||| Some scoff at LeBron James turning the formal announcement of which NBA franchise will pay him his millions next season into a one-hour prime-time ESPN special Thursday. Because he has yet to earn a championship ring, they say he has not earned center ring in this circus that he and the media created.

 Like so much of the chatter fueling and fueled by the saga of James' free agency — a distraction of late for even marginal basketball fans — this is just wrong.

 As was the case in Game 5 of his Cavaliers' ill-fated playoff series against the Celtics, James isn't doing enough.

 "The Decision," as ESPN and James' LRMR Marketing outfit have branded this 8 p.m. extravaganza, should be bigger. And there's no injury to blame this time, just not enough media savvy from people who no doubt think they're geniuses for figuring out how to embellish this as much as they have.

 "This is unique, but it's unique because I think there's an insatiable appetite for LeBron," Norby Williamson, ESPN's executive vice president of production, told reporters. "People want to know."

 News of James' choice may well leak out first without a spoiler alert. But "The Decision" promises to resolve the cliffhanger of whether James is bound for Chicago, New York, New Jersey or Miami, or will stay in Cleveland or decide he will play minor league baseball.

 ESPN vows to cover James' big reveal to hand-picked interviewer Jim Gray as a news event it will supplement with analysis, reports and its own interview of James by Michael Wilbon.

 In terms of spin, the James gang likely wants to placate jersey-buyers in cities where hopes of him wearing their team's colors will be dashed. And ESPN has allowed James' LRMR to line up its own sponsors with proceeds earmarked for the Boys & Girls Club of America.

 But James, his marketing team and perhaps even the Boys & Girls Club would have fared better if he and LRMR had seized control of the drama from the start.

 It's as if no one in James' camp watches "The Bachelor" or "The Bachelorette," which wouldn't be much of a franchise if ABC and the producers left it to others to let people know what was going on among the competing suitors and build interest for the final rose ceremony.

 That's where — see if this sounds familiar — much airtime is milked out of finishing the dirty work of kissing off everyone but that special someone. (That final breakup usually comes after the show. Finding true love on reality TV is even more elusive than an NBA title.)

 If James and company had been on top of this, his Web site would have tracked his whole courtship process. He could have kept an ad-supported video diary, including behind-the-scenes video of meetings with franchises.

 Of more importance from a business standpoint, fans would have been invited to register to vote for their team and receive updates through e-mail and Twitter, creating a valuable marketing database.

 Just one problem: James has owned the domain LeBronJames.com since 2002 but hasn't done much with it until recently. Until Tuesday, James also had not used Twitter to address the public directly. So much for a New Media offensive.

 The Cleveland Plain Dealer has reported its sources said a special had been in the works for months. But Williamson, who indicated he expected James' announcement early in the hour, said James' people approached ESPN only last week.

 Let people complain this is all out of proportion to its actual importance. This whole story has been. But if news consumers are interested demonstrably in something, far be it for media hoping to remain viable to tell them to go look for it somewhere else.

 Similarly, whenever Michael Jordan was given a golden opportunity to score, he rarely hesitated to take it.

 This is something the player who hopes to become America's Next Michael Jordan is only starting to learn.

 philrosenthal@tribune.com |||||
A summary of this is?

– LeBron James is taking plenty of flak over tonight's big announcement in the who-does-this-guy-think-he-is vein. (Witness Drew Magary's rant at Deadspin, where he refers to James as a "self-aggrandizing sack of shit" and doesn't think much better of ESPN.) But Phil Rosenthal at the Chicago Tribune thinks James hasn't milked this enough. There's clearly a public appetite for this, he argues, but the James camp mobilized too late to truly capitalize on it. Haven't they ever watched The Bachelor? This is like showing only the final rose ceremony. "If James and company had been on top of this, his web site would have tracked his whole courtship process. He could have kept an ad-supported video diary, including behind-the-scenes video of meetings with franchises." Let people scoff. "If news consumers are interested demonstrably in something, far be it for media hoping to remain viable to tell them to go look for it somewhere else."


Article:
Image copyright AFP Image caption "Fidelito" (right) lived in his famous father's shadow

 The 68-year-old son of Cuba's former leader Fidel Castro has killed himself in Havana, according to Cuban state media.

 Fidel Ángel Castro Díaz-Balart was found on Thursday morning and is said to have suffered from depression.

 The first-born son of the late president was nicknamed "Fidelito", or Little Fidel, after his father.

 He was a nuclear physicist, trained by the former Soviet Union.

 "Fidel Castro Díaz-Balart, who had been treated by a group of doctors for several months due to deep depression, took his life this morning," Cuba's official newspaper Granma reported - little more than a year after the death of his father.

 State television said he had been receiving medical treatment as an outpatient in recent months, following a hospital stay.

 Depression in the spotlight - Will Grant, BBC News, Havana

 Image copyright AFP Image caption Fidelito's work for the Cuban regime came to an end with the collapse of the Soviet Union

 Fidel Ángel Castro Díaz-Balart had taken his own life after suffering with deep depression which doctors had been treating him for over several months, state TV said.

 As much as the death itself may shock ordinary Cubans, it was those unexpected circumstances which caught them by surprise.

 As the personal lives of members of the Castro family are generally kept away from the public eye, almost no-one will have known he suffered mental health issues prior to the announcement of his death.

 Did Fidel Castro's name kill his son?

 At the time of his death, he was a scientific adviser for the Cuban Council of State and he served as vice president of Cuba's Academy of Sciences.

 He headed the island's nuclear programme from 1980 to 1992, before it was suspended after the Soviet Union's collapse.

 He was married to María Victoria Barreiro and had three children from his previous marriage - Fidel Antonio Castro Smirnov, Mirta María Castro Smirnova and José Raúl Castro Smirnov.

 Image copyright AFP Image caption Fidel Ángel Castro Díaz-Balart (centre) attends a ceremony with his father's ashes in an urn in December 2016, days after the elder Fidel's funeral

 Image copyright Reuters Image caption Fidel Ángel Castro Díaz-Balart poses with socialite Paris Hilton during the Habanos Festival in Havana in 2015

 Fidel Castro Díaz-Balart was born in 1949, during his father's brief first marriage to Mirta Díaz-Balart, the daughter of a prominent pre-revolution politician.

 His father went on to overthrow the US-backed dictator, Fulgencio Batista, in 1959 - when his mother's family fled the island and went to Florida.

 His parents divorced and "Fidelito" spent some of his early years in the US before his father managed to bring him back to Cuba.

 This history explains why some of his close maternal relatives are among the most committed critics of the Cuban government - such as his cousin, Mario Díaz-Balart, a US congressman.

 Fidelito himself was loyal to the ideals of the Cuban revolution, but was said in recent years to have grown weary - both of living in his father's shadow and having been sidelined from Cuban decision-making on energy resources, said reports.

 His ideas for developing renewable energy on the island were not incorporated into state policy, an academic colleague, Jonathan Benjamin-Alvarado, told Reuters.

 "I imagine that was disappointing for him," Mr Benjamin-Alvarado said.

 The TV announcement said his funeral would be planned by his family, but no further details were given.

 His father, Fidel Castro, a revolutionary figure and one of the world's longest serving political leaders, died aged 90 in 2016. ||||| HAVANA (Reuters) - The eldest son of late Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, Fidel Castro Diaz-Balart, committed suicide on Thursday aged 68 after being treated for months for depression, Cuban state-run media reported.

 The nuclear scientist, also known as “Fidelito”, or Little Fidel, because of how much he looked like his father, had initially been hospitalized and then continued treatment as an outpatient.

 “Castro Diaz-Balart, who had been attended by a group of doctors for several months due to a state of profound depression, committed suicide this morning,” Cubadebate website said.

 Fidelito, who had the highest public profile of all Castro’s children, was born in 1949 out of his brief marriage to Mirta Diaz-Balart before he went on to topple a U.S.-backed dictator and build a communist-run state on the doorstep of the United States during the Cold War.

 Through his mother, Castro Diaz-Balart was the cousin of some of Castro’s most bitter enemies in the Cuban American exile community, U.S. Representative Mario Diaz-Balart and former U.S. congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart.

 He was also the subject of a dramatic custody dispute between the two families as a child.

 Cuba scholars say his mother took him with her to the United States when he was aged five after announcing she wanted a divorce from Castro, while he was imprisoned for an attack on the Moncada military barracks in Santiago.

 Castro was able to bring Fidelito back to Cuba after the 1959 revolution.

 A multilingual nuclear physicist who studied in the former Soviet Union, Castro Diaz-Balart was head of Cuba’s national nuclear program from 1980 to 1992, and spearheaded the development of a nuclear plant on the Caribbean’s largest island until his father fired him.

 FILE PHOTO: Fidel Castro Diaz-Balart, son of Cuba's President Fidel Castro, talks to Argentine human right activist and member of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo group Hebe de Bonafini during the inauguration of the International Book Fair in Havana February 8, 2007. REUTERS/Claudia Daut/File Photo

 Cuba halted its plant plans that same year because of a lack of funding after the collapse of Cuba’s trade and aid ties with the ex-Soviet bloc and he largely disappeared from public view appearing at the occasional scientific conference or diplomatic event.

 Fidelito had been working for his uncle President Raul Castro as a scientific counselor to the Cuban Council of State and Vice-president of the Cuban Academy of Sciences at the time of his death.

 A former British ambassador to Cuba, Paul Hare, who lectures at Boston University’s Pardee School of Global Studies, said Castro Diaz-Balart had seemed “thoughtful, rather curious about the world beyond Cuba” at a dinner in Boston two years ago.

 “But he seemed a bit weary about having to be a Castro, rather than himself,” Hare said.

 Jonathan Benjamin-Alvarado, a Cuba expert at the University of Nebraska in Omaha, said Fidelito had provided him with invaluable help in the 1990s while he was writing a book on Cuba’s nuclear program.

 In 2000 they met again at a conference in Moscow and Fidelito worked “the room full of international nonproliferation experts, diplomats and journalists with aplomb, speaking no less than four languages -Spanish, English, Russian and French.”

 Benjamin-Alvarado said he suspected Fidelito’s title as scientific advisor was largely ceremonial as his views on energy development were not incorporated into national policies.

 “He had written extensively on Cuba’s need for developing renewable energy resources,” Benjamin-Alvarado said. “And yet almost all efforts by the Cuban government were geared to maintaining the status quo of oil dependency.”

 “I imagine that was disappointing for him.”

 Fidelito’s death came just over a year after that of his father on Nov. 25, 2016, aged 90.

 Slideshow (3 Images) |||||Summary:

– The eldest son of former Cuban leader Fidel Castro has taken his own life after months of being treated for "profound depression," according to state-run media in Cuba. Fidel Castro Diaz-Balart, nicknamed "Fidelito," was 68. Castro-Diaz Balart, who was born during Castro's brief, pre-Cuban Revolution marriage to Mirta Diaz-Balart, headed Cuba's national nuclear program from 1980 to 1992 and was serving as a scientific adviser for the Cuban Council of State at the time of his death, Reuters reports. Castro Diaz-Balart was born in 1949. His mother took him to live in the US after she divorced Castro in 1953. She sent him to visit his father after he took power in 1959 and he never returned him, CNN reports. Castro Diaz-Balart trained as a nuclear physicist in the Soviet Union and spoke Russian, Spanish, English, and French fluently. Paul Hare, a former British ambassador to Cuba, tells Reuters that Castro Diaz-Balart seemed "thoughtful, rather curious about the world beyond Cuba" when he met him at a dinner in Boston two years ago. "But he seemed a bit weary about having to be a Castro, rather than himself," Hare says. The BBC reports that he was related on his mother's side to prominent anti-Castro regime politicians in the US, including his cousin, Republican Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart. (Fidel Castro died 14 months ago at 90.)


Write an article based on this summary:

– Leigh Ann Arthur taught in Union, SC, for 13 years. Then her decision to leave her unlocked phone on her desk on Feb. 19 put an end to her career. While she was on hall patrol duty for five minutes in between classes, the engineering and computer programming teacher at Union County Career and Technical Center says a 16-year-old student grabbed her phone and found a nude photo she had taken for her husband for Valentine's Day, per NBC News and WSPA. "He took pictures from his cell phone of that and then he told the whole class that he would send them to whoever wanted them," Arthur tells WSPA. After class, the student told her, "Your day of reckoning is coming," Arthur says. It was only later she found out the photo had been seen. The student indeed shared the photo through texts and on social media, superintendent David Eubanks tells WYFF, adding Arthur was given the choice to resign or go through a process for dismissal. She resigned last Tuesday. "I think we have a right to privacy, but when we take inappropriate information or pictures, we had best make sure it remains private," Eubanks tells the State. Arthur says the student hasn't been punished. She plans to press charges and has also complained to the Union Public Safety Department, which is investigating. "The whole premise of my privacy being invaded is being ignored and that's what's wrong," she says. Some 1,000 people have signed a petition to have her job restored, though Arthur says she's not sure if she'd take it. (In neighboring North Carolina, teenagers are the ones facing trouble over racy photos.)

UNION COUNTY, SC (WSPA) — Leigh Anne Arthur, a teacher at the Union Co. Career & Technology Center has resigned after a nude photo of her was spread through the school says the Interim Superintendent for the school district.

 The district says Arthur had nude photos of herself on her phone, and that a student took her phone while she was out of the room and took pictures of her picture.

 The student then shared the photo throughout the school.

 The district became of aware of the incident last Monday, and she resigned on Tuesday, according to the district.

 Arthur reached out to 7News after seeing this article and told us her side of the story.

 She says she the week of Valentines, she had some pictures in the gallery on her cell phone that were intended for her husband.

 She said she left her cell phone on her desk to go out and be a hall monitor between classes.

 In that time, 5 minutes, a student went and took pictures of her phone from his phone and shared them “with anyone in class who wanted them�?.

 She said the kid then said at the end of class “your day of reckoning is coming.�?

 Later, she was told what had happened, and checked with the student’s parents who she said were 100% on her side.

 The kid went to principal and admitted it and two witnesses also went to the principal.

 She says the principal asked for her resignation the next Tuesday.

 She says the district told her there was no policy about “inappropriate material on her cell phone�? but they were firing her for that reason.

 She was also in trouble for “making her phone easily accessible,�? according to Arthur.

 She made a police report and the student’s phone is now in possession of Union County Sheriff’s Office. ||||| UPDATE MARCH 3

 It has come to our attention that interim superintendent David Eubanks has dismissed the petition as "insignificant".

 Also he has said that he has seen evidence that suggest Mrs Arthur routinely allowed students to use her phone. "evidence indicates that students routinely used the teacher’s cell phone with full her permission". This is absolutely false. The evidence that he is speaking of comes from a statement that was made by a fellow student, which the school revised in their statement. The student said he used the phone only once, strictly to order parts for a project, parts that she paid for out of her pocket. Superintendent Eubanks is attempting to dis-credit Mrs Arthur by saying the students "routinely" used her phone, with full permission.

 As far as the petition being "insignificant" we would have to disagree, this petition is the voice of the people, it has garnered a great deal of attention. At this point 8,000 individuals have taken the time to sign it, near and far.

 We would like to stress that the student is under investigation by authorities and will face consequences for his actions. He has expressed nothing but sincere remorse for his actions, we ask that you do not show hatred towards him, he realizes that what he did was wrong. We are not defending his actions by any means, but some of the things that have been said are utterly hateful, we must keep in mind that this is a fellow classmate who still has a life to live and will remember this for the remainder of his life.

 Again we strongly urge you to sign and share this petition, show the superintendent that we are not insignificant!

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 UPDATE MARCH 2

 First and foremost we would like to thank everyone who has signed and shared our petition, never did we think that it would get so much attention. The ultimate goal of the petition is to get Mrs. Arthur reinstated, though we realize that is unlikely to happen.

 The students who are involved in the incident are under investigation. Another thing that you have to realize is that we have went to school with the student responsible for years, the intention of the petition is not to have him absolutely berated, but to have Mrs. Arthur reinstated, everyone makes mistakes.

 We understand that it will be a while before any decisions are made because the situation has to be thoroughly examined and understood by authorities and the school.

 Again, we appreciate your support and strongly urge you to sign and share this petition.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 Leigh Anne Arthur is the victim of a blatant attack of her privacy. Personal photographs were illegally obtained by a student and were sent to other students in the school(Union County High). After being escorted off of school property, we (the students) are left to believe that she has been forced to, or given little choice but to resign. Mrs.Arthur has not only shown tremendous dedication to her students, but also the mechatronics program itself, often reaching out to local businesses and colleges to get materials that would not normally be available for the class.

 With that being said, the student(s) responsible have not received any sort of punishment. The circumstances in which Mrs.Arthur was let go is unacceptable, and must be corrected. We strongly urge you to sign and share this petition.

 Sincerely,

 Jacob Barnett

 Josh Sinclair

 Matthew Caldwell

 And many more students who just want their teacher back

  ||||| A teacher at Union County High School said she has filed a lawsuit after a student spread a nude picture of her, according to school officials.

 Leigh Ann Arthur said in a statement to WYFF News 4:

 "I can confirm that my attorneys, John Read IV and Jessica Salvini filed a lawsuit at Union County Courthouse this morning at 9:00 am. The lawsuit is against Union County School District and David Eubanks (Individually and as a Representative for Union County Schools). I can also confirm the lawsuit is based on the false accusations made by Dr. David Eubanks against me along with policies and due process not appropriately followed by Union County School District."

 Arthur resigned after a student spread a nude picture of her through text messages and social media, according to Union County School District interim superintendent David Eubanks.

 Eubanks said a student got hold of Leigh Anne Arthur's phone and took a picture of a nude picture that was on her phone.

 He said the student then sent the picture out through text messaging and social media.

 The incident happened on Monday and Arthur resigned on Tuesday, Eubanks said.

 Eubanks said Arthur was in the wrong because her phone was unlocked and she made the nude picture available to her students.

 To read release from superintendent that blames Arthur for incident, click here

 Arthur said she took the picture to give to her husband.

 She said the student took the phone from her desk while she was patrolling the halls.

 She feels the student should be held responsible for his actions.

 Arthur said he knows right from wrong, "He had the ultimate decision to take pictures of my pictures and he had the ultimate decision to send them out."

 She said, "He had to hit my apps button and to open up all my apps and then open my gallery."

 The Union County Sheriff's Office is now investigating. Eubanks said the office will determine whether the student is charged.

 To see what has happened to the 16-year-old on Friday, click here.

 For updates on this, click here to get info on how to download our mobile app. ||||| A Union County High school teacher has resigned after a student stole personal pictures off her cell phone.

 Leigh Anne Arthur says one of her students took the pictures while she was out of the classroom and distributed it to other students.

 Arthur has been a teacher in Union county for over 13 years, but that came to an end two weeks ago.

 “He opened up my gallery for my pictures and he found inappropriate pictures of myself and he took pictures from his cell phone of that and then he told the whole class that he would send them to whoever wanted them,” says Arthur.

 Arthur says the student warned her that something bad was coming.

 “The student who actually took my phone and took pictures turned around and told me your day of reckoning is coming,” says Arthur.

 Superintendent David Eubanks says the school has concern that Arthur could be contributing to the delinquency of a a minor.

 Arthur said this wasn’t her fault and that she did not knowingly leave her cell phone sitting on her desk knowing that those pictures were on there.

 She says even though her privacy was invaded by the student, the school district still wanted her to resign from her teaching position, which she did the following week.

 “The whole premise of my privacy being invaded his being ignored and that’s what’s wrong,” said Arthur.

 She says according to school district policy, the student should have been expelled, but to her knowledge, has not happened yet.

 Arthur has one last message for the student who did this: “I forgive you. It don’t make it anymore right. But what’s done is done and I hope you learned your lesson. And I hope that you learned from this mistake and I hope that you have a wife one day that you treat like gold and you won’t want this to ever happen to her.”

 Arthur says parents and students are signing a petition to have her teach again, and the amount of support has been overwhelming.

 Arthur says she plans on pressing charges against the student next week. ||||| Play Facebook

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 A South Carolina high school teacher has resigned after a nude picture of herself was posted on social media — but if anyone deserves blame, it's the student who shared it, she says.

 Leigh Anne Arthur, a teacher at the Union County Career and Technical Center in Union, about 70 miles north of Columbia, said the picture was for her husband for Valentine's Day.

 But on Feb. 19, while Arthur was on hall patrol duty, a student grabbed her phone from her desk, she told NBC affiliate WYFF. The unnamed 16-year-old, realizing the phone didn't have a passcode, allegedly thumbed through it.

 Related: Kindergarten Teacher Fired Over Naked Photo Shoot at China School

 "He had to hit my apps button and to open up all my apps and then open my gallery," Arthur said.

 The nude picture was sent to others via text and social media, prompting the Union Public Safety Department to investigate.

 A department spokesman told NBC News on Tuesday that its review is still ongoing and no charges have been filed.

 While Arthur says she's not entirely sure she even wants her job back teaching mechanical engineering and computer programming, students at the high school have started a petition supporting her.

 Related: NBC Philadelphia: Middle School Naked Photo Scandal at Chester County Charter School

 Union County School District interim Superintendent David Eubanks said that she either had the choice to go through the dismissal process or resign since it was determined she shouldered some of the responsibility to keep those "inappropriate" pictures private.

 Either way, Arthur said, she forgives the student — but he should have known better.

 "He had the ultimate decision to take pictures of my pictures, and he had the ultimate decision to send them out," she said. |||||


– Voters have approved same-sex marriage in Washington state after a tight vote, meaning marriage-equality advocates won all four of their Election Day battles: Maine and Maryland backed gay marriage, while Minnesota nixed a constitutional ban on such unions. Opponents conceded yesterday in Washington: "With additional results showing that we have not closed the gap, it now appears clear that Referendum 74 will be narrowly approved," says the head of one activist group. "But while we are disappointed, we are not defeated." As of mid-afternoon yesterday, Referendum 74 was leading with 51.96% of the vote, compared to 48.04% against it. The majority of counties voted against the measure, but King County, home to Seattle, helped push it through, the Post-Intelligencer reports. Noted Gov. Christine Gregoire: "Voters stood up for what is right and what is just and said that all Washington families are equal under the law." Nine states now recognize same-sex marriage, though Washington, Maine, and Maryland are the only states where it was won via ballot measure, the AP notes.

Expand this summary.

Washington state has approved gay marriage, joining Maine and Maryland as the first states to pass same-sex marriage by popular vote.

 Zach Silk, campaign manager for Washington United for Marriage, is applauded as be begins to speak at a news conference by supporters of Referendum 74, which would uphold the state's new same-sex marriage... (Associated Press)

 Rep. Laurie Jinkins, D-Tacoma, right, leans down to kiss her partner, Laura Wulf, during a news conference by supporters of Referendum 74, which would uphold the state's new same-sex marriage law, Wednesday,... (Associated Press)

 Revelers kiss as they celebrate early election returns favoring Washington state Referendum 74, which would legalize gay marriage, during a large impromptu street gathering in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood,... (Associated Press)

 People celebrate early election returns favoring Washington state Referendum 74, which would legalize gay marriage, during a large impromptu street gathering in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood, Tuesday,... (Associated Press)

 Supporters of Referendum 74, which would uphold the state's new same-sex marriage law, cheer at a news conference Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2012, in Seattle. Supporters of gay marriage in Washington state declared... (Associated Press)

 Supporters of Referendum 74, which would uphold the state's new same-sex marriage law, cheer at a news conference Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2012, in Seattle. Supporters of gay marriage in Washington state declared... (Associated Press)

 Revelers display U.S. and gay pride flags as they celebrate early election returns favoring Washington state Referendum 74, which would legalize gay marriage, during a large impromptu street gathering... (Associated Press)

 Crystal Davis, of Seattle, waves a sparkler as she celebrates the 2012 election with a large crowd in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood, Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2012, in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood.... (Associated Press)

 A large crowd of people celebrates at the conclusion of the presidential election in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood, Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2012. The re-election of President Barack Obama and Washington... (Associated Press)

 With about three-quarters of the expected ballots counted Thursday, Referendum 74 was maintaining its lead of 52 percent. Opponents conceded the race Thursday, while supporters declared victory a day earlier.

 Zach Silk, a spokesman for Washington United for Marriage, called it a "historic day."

 "We have always understood that there are good people on the other side of this issue," he said in a statement issued Thursday. "Yet, we remain confident that once people see how much marriage matters to families, they will realize that the love and commitment that marriage embodies only strengthens families, neighborhoods and communities."

 R-74 asked people to approve or reject a state law legalizing same-sex marriage that legislators passed earlier this year. That law was signed by Gov. Chris Gregoire but has never taken effect. It was on hold pending the election's outcome.

 Washington is one of four states where voters were asked about the issue this election cycle. Maryland and Maine approved gay marriage Tuesday night, while Minnesota voters rejected a proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.

 Six other states _ New York, Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont _ and the District of Columbia already allowed gay marriage. But Maryland, Maine and Washington are the first to approve it by public vote. The other states' laws were enacted either by lawmakers or court rulings.

 In Washington, additional voter returns will continue to be posted daily. Because Washington is a vote-by-mail state, and ballots only had to be postmarked by Tuesday, votes will continue to trickle in for days.

 The measure was losing in 31 of the state's 39 counties. But it had its strongest lead _ 66 percent of the vote _ in King County, which holds about a third of the state's voters and is home to Seattle.

 Gregoire, who announced her support of gay marriage at the start of the legislative session in January, said she was proud of the outcome.

 "Voters stood up for what is right and what is just and said that all Washington families are equal under the law," she said in a statement issued Thursday afternoon. "This is a day that historians will look back on as a turning point for equality."

 Preserve Marriage Washington, meanwhile, issued a statement saying its members were disheartened but will "continue to educate citizens and policymakers on the timeless truth that real marriage is the union of one man and one woman."

 "We are disappointed in losing a tough election battle on marriage by a narrow margin," said Joseph Backholm, the campaign chairman.

 Backholm blamed several factors, saying Washington is a "deep blue state."

 "The election results reflect the political and funding advantages our opponents enjoyed in this very liberal and secular state," he wrote. "The results show only that in a deep blue state, with a huge financial advantage, gay marriage activists can win _ barely."

 About $13.6 million was spent on the initiative in Washington state, with the bulk of it coming from gay marriage supporters. Washington United for Marriage far outraised its opponents, bringing in more than $12 million, including donations from big names like Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos, Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Opponents of gay marriage raised just $2.7 million.

 Many supporters started celebrating early, taking to the streets in a Seattle neighborhood and cheering at election watch parties Tuesday night as early results showed the referendum taking a narrow lead. Police closed off several blocks in Seattle's Capitol Hill area as more than 1,000 people gathered for a late-night, impromptu election celebration, dancing and chanting "74, 74, 74."

 Gay rights supporters in neighboring Oregon said the passage of same-sex marriage measures in other states gives them hope for 2014.

 Domestic partnerships are legal in Oregon, but same-sex marriage was banned by ballot measure in 2004.

 Jeana Frazzini, director of the gay-rights group Basic Rights Oregon, said they considered going to the ballot to overturn the constitutional amendment this year but abandoned the effort in part because there wasn't clear evidence it could pass.

 "Basic Rights Oregon is committed to leading the way to make Oregon the first state to overturn a constitutional amendment banning marriage," she said in statement.

 Gay couples in Washington could start picking up their marriage certificates and licenses from county auditor offices Dec. 6, a day after the election is certified. However, because Washington has a three-day waiting period, the earliest a certificate could be signed, making the marriage valid, is Dec. 9.

 The law doesn't require religious organizations or churches to perform marriages, and it doesn't subject churches to penalties if they don't marry gay or lesbian couples.

 The path to gay marriage in Washington state began several years ago.

 A 2006 state Supreme Court ruling upheld a 1998 law banning same-sex marriage. But earlier that year, a gay civil rights measure passed after the idea had failed for nearly 30 years, signaling a change of mindset in the Legislature.

 The state's first domestic partnership law passed in 2007, granting couples about two dozen rights, including hospital visitation and inheritance rights when there is no will. It was expanded a year later, and then again in 2009, when lawmakers completed the package with the so-called "everything but marriage" law that was ultimately upheld by voters later that year.

 This year, lawmakers passed the law allowing gay marriage, and Gregoire signed it in February. Preserve Marriage gathered enough signatures for a referendum, putting the law on hold before it could take effect.

 State Sen. Ed Murray, a Democratic gay lawmaker from Seattle, sponsored the law. He said the election's outcome "rectifies an injustice that was done to gay and lesbian couples" when the state Legislature passed the Defense of Marriage Act banning gay marriage in the state.

 Murray was in his third year as a state representative when that 1998 law passed. At the time, he was the Legislature's lone gay lawmaker.

 "I believe that when the marriages start happening next month, that will be a healing moment for this state," he said.

 ___

 AP writer Jonathan J. Cooper contributed from Portland, Ore. Follow Rachel La Corte at http://www.twitter.com/RachelAPOly or http://www.facebook.com/news.rachel ||||| Washington approves same-sex marriage

 Washington voters have narrowly approved same-sex marriage, completing a four-state sweep of victories on Election Day by marriage-equality advocates. Before Tuesday, gay marriage had never won a statewide vote anywhere in America.

 On Thursday, opponents conceded.

 "With additional results showing that we have not closed the gap, it now appears clear that Referendum 74 will be narrowly approved," Joseph Backholm, head of Preserve Marriage Washington, said in a statement. "We are disappointed in losing a tough election battle on marriage by a narrow margin. But while we are disappointed, we are not defeated."

 Bolstered by getting two-thirds of the vote in populous King County, Ref. 74 held a 96,000 vote lead as of mid-afternoon Thursday. It was capturing 51.96 percent of the vote, to 48.04 percent opposed.

 Zach Silk, campaign manager for the pro-R-74 group Washington United for Marriage, called Thursday a "historic day" for the state, nation and "for families across the state of have dreamed of this day."

 "From the beginning, this campaign told the stories of loving couples and their families who simply want to get married. All of us, from our volunteers, to our staff to the nearly 20,000 donors who invested in the freedom to marry, are enormously grateful to the voters of Washington state. Yes, we made history, but more importantly, we helped protect and defend thousands of families across the state.

 Joel Connelly has been a staff columnist for more than 30 years. He comments regularly on politics and public policy. Joel Connelly has been a staff columnist for more than 30 years. He comments regularly on politics and public policy.

 "We have always understood that there are good people on the other side of this issue. Yet, we remain confident that once people see how much marriage matters to families, they will realize that the love and commitment that marriage embodies only strengthens families, neighborhoods and communities."

 Washington, Maryland and Maine became the first states in America to vote for marriage equality. They will soon become the seventy, eighth and ninth states to permit same-sex marriage. Minnesota voters rejected a state constitutional amendment, heavily prompted by the Catholic Church, defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

 While a majority of the state's counties rejected Ref. 74, its lead in King County totaled 186,629 votes -- with 232,000 remaining to be counted.

 Same-sex marriage also was approved on Tuesday in Maine and Maryland. Minnesota voters rejected a state constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman; as recently as 2004, multiple states enacted such an amendment.

 Supporters of Ref. 74 were giddy even before Wednesday's vote totals confirmed its victory. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jay Inslee described it as "a grand step forward in the arc of the moral universe."

 Same-sex marriage drew the support of 70 percent of the state's voters under 30, according to the Washington Poll.

 Paul Holmes, a Yale student from Seattle, observed: "I don't think I'm being biased when claiming that the positions favored by young people are simply more reasonable . . . Often, that'll mean leaving people alone, ending programs that don't work, and not being too selfish."

 The anti-gay rights National Organization for Marriage had a string of successes until Tuesday, including California's Prop. 8 and Maine's earlier rejection of marriage equality.

 Opponents of gay marriage "significantly outperformed the Republican ticket in nearly every state," NOM president Brian Brown said in a statement. NOM has been ferociously anti-Obama.

 "We were fighting the entirety of the political establishment in most of the states, including sitting governors in three of the states who campaigned heavily for gay marriage," Brown said in a statement.

 "Americans remain strongly in favor of marriage as the union of one man and one woman . . . The election results reflect the political and financial advantages our opponents enjoyed in these very liberal states."

 One vociferous opponent of marriage equality — Yakima's Catholic Bishop Joseph Tyson — tried to put a positive spin on being on the losing side.

 "Voters in Yakima Diocese Reject Referendum 74," screamed a headline on the diocesan web site. It claimed voters "clearly and resoundingly heard our message in Central Washington." (Results from such places as Grant, Benton and Franklin Counties showed anti-74 percentages higher than the support level in King County.)

 "People in Central Washington did affirm marriage between one man and one woman: I'm grateful to many folks in the English-speaking and Spanish-speaking communities who did so much to push out our proposal for the common good of society," Tyson said on the site.

 Seattle's Catholic Archbishop J. Peter Sartain was much more restrained. Sartain faced a lay revolt, and a group called Catholics for Marriage Equality staged a big demonstration outside his cathedral the week before election day. More than 1,000 Catholics signed a newspaper ad supporting marriage equality, and 63 resigned priests signed a pro-Ref. 74 statement.

 "The campaign to preserve marriage as a union between a man and a woman represents a starting point for a long-term effort to educate Catholics about its meaning and purpose," Sartain said in a statement.

 Washington was the first state to vote for civil unions, aka "everything but marriage," when it approved Referendum 71 in 2009. It has now joined two other states, bringing to a total of nine states that will now recognize marriage between partners of the same gender.

 All other states have adopted marriage equality because of court rulings or legislative action. |||||


Write an article based on this summary:

– The makers of Cheerios and Grape Nuts hope to win over health-conscious consumers by ditching genetically modified ingredients in their cereals. The problem is that Food Navigator read the fine print on the new boxes and found that each has fewer vitamins. With Cheerios, for instance, the cereal went from providing 25% of the daily value of vitamin B2 (riboflavin) to 2%. Or as a professor of crop science puts it, the cereal "went from being a major source of vitamin B2 to being almost zip." Grape Nuts, meanwhile, no longer has vitamins A, D, B12, and B2. What's going on? Neither General Mills nor Post offered an explanation, "but the reason likely has to do with the difficulty of sourcing vitamins from non-genetically modified sources," says LiveScience. For example, vitamins are often produced using micro-organisms kept in fermentation tanks that are fed "feed stock" that comes from crops such as corn; it's not always easy to certify that the stock is also GMO-free. (In other genetically modified news, click to read about a new potato.)

The new non-GMO formulations of Original Cheerios and Grape Nuts might be made without ingredients from genetically engineered crops, but they also come with fewer vitamins - although brand owners General Mills and Post Foods won’t say why.

 Post Foods’ new non-GMO Grape Nuts (click here ) no longer include Vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin B12 or vitamin B2 (Riboflavin)*, while the new non-GMO Original Cheerios no longer have Riboflavin on the ingredients list (the old version has 25% of the daily value in a 28g serving while the new version has 2% of the DV).

 Neither firm has responded to questions on why this is, or whether it has anything to do with the costs or challenges of going through the non-GMO Project verification process for the vitamins in question.

 Dr Parrott: Cheerios went from being a major source of vitamin B2 to being almost zip

 Dr Wayne Parrott, professor of crop science at the University of Georgia, said it was depressing to see that the new products are arguably less healthy given the lower vitamin content.

 He told FoodNavigator-USA: “Cheerios went from being a major source of vitamin B2 to being almost zip."

 This was particularly ironic given that a large percentage of people who say they are avoiding GMOs claim to do so for health reasons, he said.

 “It is one thing for General Mills to say they took GM out [of Original Cheerios] due to customer preference.

 "It is another to claim they are more wholesome because of it - something they are doing on the box itself and on their website - [he cites the fact that Original Cheerios’ non-GMO credentials are listed under the ‘Why they are so good’ heading on the website ‘], particularly when they took an important nutrient out of it almost completely.

 “The new version is certainly less nutritious.”

 General Mills told FoodNavigator-USA: "We don’t normally discuss product formulation. But we will note we made no assertion non-GM ingredients were ‘more wholesome.’ That is simply mistaken."

 Before and after: The new reformulated Original Cheerios (on the right) contain hardly any Riboflavin. The old version has 25% of the daily value in a 28g serving while the new version only just 2% of the DV.

 Vitamin production methods

 But why might vitamins be made from or with GMOs in the first place?

 Some vitamins are produced from genetically engineered micro-organisms, or from micro-organisms grown in fermentation tanks using feed stock from sugar beet or corn, which could potentially be from GM crops.

 While many manufacturers - especially in China - are likely not using GM corn as a feedstock, "information on what country the corn in grown in is not standard and this level of documentation rigor has not been typical in the past", Bethany Davis, R&D/Regulatory Project Lead at dietary supplement firm MegaFood, told FoodNavigator-USA.

 "So unless the question is asked and country of origin is confirmed, vitamins will generally be considered high-risk," said Davis.

 Vitamins that can be produced via fermentation include vitamin B12, B2 (Riboflavin), ascorbic acid (vitamin C), and beta-carotene, while some forms of vitamin E can also be produced from soy (which might be GM).

 Sourcing non-GMO vitamins

 So how easy is it to source non-GMO versions?

 They are certainly available, said Davis, who says the Non-GMO Dietary Supplement Working Group and Food Chain Global have helped the industry navigate this issue.

 But it's complicated.

 For example, beta carotene (which the body converts into Vitamin A), can be manufactured from synthetic or natural sources such as the fungus Blakeslea trispora, said Davis. A fermentation process is usually involved and because beta carotene can degrade over time, it is usually micro-encapsulated with corn starch, modified food starch, or glucose syrup (which can be made from corn), or vitamin E elements (which can be made from soy).

 Therefore, she said, "It has proven to be quite difficult to ensure that all of the starting materials and additives in micro encapsulated beta carotene are non-GMO."

 The information required for Non-GMO Project Verification can be quite difficult to obtain

 Meanwhile, if you want a third-party seal of approval for your non-GMO sourcing efforts, there are "completely different requirements which are not industry-standard at this time", added Davis, who has worked with the Non-GMO Project to get its seal on 42 of its products to date.

 "The information required for Non-GMO Project Verification can be quite difficult to obtain as it generally requires information that manufacturers consider proprietary. Vitamin manufacturers hold their formulas close to their heart because it is all that separates them from their competitors."

 According to Hartman Group, among people who claim to be avoiding GMOs, 70% say it is because they are concerned about the impact on their health and well-being, while half say they want to know what goes into their food. 36% are concerned about possible environmental impacts and 30% do not want to support companies that use GMOs

 The supply chain doesn't change overnight

 She added: "[Leading vitamin supplier] DSM has had some success in providing adequate information to Non-GMO Project participants and Food Chain Global, the technical administrators for the Project, to allow their vitamins to be used in Non-GMO Project Verified products...

 "In time we believe the type of information they require will become standardized; however at the moment, it’s a process - ingredient by ingredient."

 Davis could not comment on Post Foods or General Mills, but noted that "for a large manufacturer that uses high volumes of a given nutritional ingredient like vitamins, the demand - and potential sales for the vitamin manufacturer - is high enough that they can likely find ingredient partners that are willing to produce vitamins to their specifications."

 NPD Group: Shoppers won’t pay more for non-GMO

 Her comments came as market researcher NPD Group said a consumer survey had shown that 67% of primary grocery shoppers are not willing to pay more for non-GMO foods, although more than half expressed “some level of concern” about GMOs.

 There is, however, a subset of shoppers who are willing to pay more, which amounts to about 11% of all primary shoppers, claimed NPD Group.

 Hartman Group: No single GMO story line has emerged for consumers

 The number of non-GMO Project verified products approached 15,000 in 2013, up from 4,000 in 2011, according to the Non-GMO Project, with the move by Whole Foods Market to label products containing GMOs in its US and Canadian stores by 2018 proving a key growth driver.

 Trendwatcher Hartman Group, meanwhile, claimed that “if companies do not start speaking more openly about GMOs, they could lose their place in the conversation altogether”.

 It added: “The power of social media, in particular, could quickly overwhelm any message that food companies want to convey once information or misinformation start taking hold."

 Most who claim to avoid GMO say it is for health reasons

 While it acknowledged that what consumers say - and what they do - can be quite different, the anti-GMO trend is “undeniable”, claimed Hartman Group, which polled 2,551 US adults last September about GMOs.

 “The percentage of consumers who deliberately avoid GMOs is 33% and growing quickly. Only 15% avoided GMOs in 2007."

 Among people who claimed to be avoiding GMOs, 70% said it was because they were concerned about the impact on their health and well-being, while half said they want to know what goes into their food. Meanwhile, 36% were concerned about possible environmental impacts and 30% did not want to support companies that use GMOs.

 *Post Foods will not say why the reformulated Grape Nuts contain four fewer vitamins, but sent us this statement: "The recipe was modified slightly, but still contains the signature crunch and 49g of whole grains... Grape-Nuts Original now has 45g of carbs per serving and no longer includes Vitamin A, Vitamin D, Riboflavin, and B12." ||||| Responding to public distrust of genetically modified food ingredients, General Mills and Post have come out with non-GMO Cheerios and Grape Nuts — but the new versions of the cereals appear less nutritious than before.

 Original Cheerios used to provide 25 percent of the daily value of riboflavin, or vitamin B2, per serving, according to the trade publication Food Navigator. Now, a serving offers only 2 percent of the recommended daily value. Non-GMO Grape Nuts lack vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin B12 and vitamin B2.

 The companies declined to explain the vitamin loss to Food Navigator, but the reason likely has to do with the difficulty of sourcing vitamins from non-genetically modified sources. Genetically modified organisms have been altered through genetic engineering to promote certain traits, such as drought resistance in corn or herbicide resistance in rice. (Traditional agricultural modification requires breeding plants for these traits; genetic engineering speeds up the process by plucking beneficial genes from one organism and incorporating them into another.)

 The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), American Medical Association (AMA), the World Health Organization (WHO), among others, have found no health risks from consuming genetically modified foods on the market. Genetic engineering is a tool that can be used to create a variety of products, according to the WHO, so genetically modified ingredients should be tested on a case-by-case basis for safety.

 Nevertheless, public concerns over health and ecology have led to GMO bans in some nations and a few localities in the United States, most recently on the island of Hawaii. Companies seeking to capture this anti-GMO market have begun labeling their products as GMO-free or even altering the ingredients, in the case of Cheerios and Grape Nuts.

 Vitamins are tough to certify as GMO-free, however, according to Food Navigator. They may be manufactured from genetically modified organisms or encapsulated with corn or soy products to prevent them from degrading. These additives might also be genetically modified — as, in fact, are 90 percent of the soy, cotton, canola, corn and sugar beets sold in the U.S.

 Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. |||||