Global
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Unlike most of her classmates at Thomas Worthington High School, senior Julia Valentine wasn’t exactly overjoyed when she found out school was canceled Jan. 28 and 29.
Sure, she loved the chance to stay home from school but as a swimmer, she knows there’s a hefty price tag for each time the Cardinals can’t practice.
“Usually we’ll get that text (saying the morning practices have been canceled) at 4 or 4:30 a.m.,” says Valentine, whose team plays host to a sectional meet on Feb. 8. “It’s kind of nice to sleep in but at the same time, we know if we’re not staying in the water, it is eventually going to affect our performance at the sectional, district and state meets.”
The arctic blast that rolled through Columbus last week threw a gigantic snowball into athletic teams’ planned events. By January, several area high schools have used all five days of the state allotted school cancellations. The time off this year is nearly equal to the total days missed from the past two years.
Even college teams aren’t immune to the winter weather. The Capital University women's basketball team postponed their game at Baldwin Wallace on Jan. 25.
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Sometimes it’s not easy for a great athlete to make the transition from the playing field to coaching ranks. Magic Johnson (5-11 in his brief stint with the Los Angeles Lakers), Elgin Baylor (86-135 with the New Orleans Jazz), Isiah Thomas (56-108 in two seasons with the Knicks) and Wayne Gretzky (143-161-24 with the Phoenix Coyotes) are among the graveyard of great players who struggled to transfer their skills to the coaching field.
John Smith believes his sister Katie has the right stuff to become a great coach. The legendary point guard/small forward will be making her debut as an assistant coach for the New York Liberty in the WNBA this spring.
“Katie’s always been a student of the game,” says John, a football coach at Bexley High School. “She has always understood not just what she’s supposed to be doing but what everyone is supposed to be doing around her. She’s almost been a coach her entire life.”
Katie, the all-time leading scorer in women’s professional basketball with 7,885 career points in 17 years of playing in the ABL and WNBA leagues, seems to be stepping right off the court and onto the bench with the Liberty.
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Cryptocurrency has become serious business. Since late last year the internet has been abuzz with stories of original cryptocurrency Bitcoin’s massive price spike, along with anecdotes about people buying Tesla and Lamborghini sports cars with the digital currency. After spiking up around $1,200 – that’s TWELVE HUNDRED DOLLARS for a single unit of digital money – it’s settled back around the $800 mark.
But where Bitcoin has notoriously become the payment method of choice for online drug dealers, hit men and deep-end Libertarians trying to avoid taxes, there are a lot of people interested in the technical side of cryptocurrency. Some of them have created alternatives to try to spread the idea of digital money not tied to a particular government or banking institution to a wider audience without the worrying associations Bitcoin has acquired. One of those alternatives is trying to be as un-serious business as possible while still remaining a viable currency: Dogecoin.
Created by Billy Markus of Portland, OR and Jackson Palmer of Sydney, Australia, Dogecoin’s identity is based on the popular “doge” meme.
On February 5, NBC published new documents leaked by Edward Snowden that reveal direct cyber attacks on the infrastructure of the hacktivist group Anonymous. The heavily redacted documents also gave insight to research already underway by the Free Press into a campaign of disinformation and harassment of the same group by private intelligence companies that received start up capital from the CIA. Both campaigns seemed to indiscriminately target members of the group engaged in lawful dissent and social welfare activities.
Thanks to a “Progressive,” a well-connected Democratic attorney and four lockstep election officials, the citizens of Columbus remain stuck paying off four rich Columbus families for the Nationwide Arena debt and Columbus City elections will not be as open to independent candidates as it could be with public financing. At a Monday, February 3 hearing, the Franklin County Board of Elections voted 4-0 to keep two petitions off the ballot that could have rescinded the Arena bailout and provided publicly funded Columbus elections.
A century ago, the Progressive Era was coming to an end. But its legacy of citizen initiatives lived on for another century. In the period from 1901 to 1914 there was a tremendous push for municipal reform. At the heart of it were city and state charters that allowed people the right to vote on major public policy issues by initiating an ordinance, a law or a constitutional amendment.
In 1914, Columbus adopted a new charter that gave its citizens the right to initiate and legislate their own policies and take on what were often corrupt municipal political machines.
A century ago, the Progressive Era was coming to an end. But its legacy of citizen initiatives lived on for another century. In the period from 1901 to 1914 there was a tremendous push for municipal reform. At the heart of it were city and state charters that allowed people the right to vote on major public policy issues by initiating an ordinance, a law or a constitutional amendment.
In 1914, Columbus adopted a new charter that gave its citizens the right to initiate and legislate their own policies and take on what were often corrupt municipal political machines.
Fukushima’s missing melted cores and radioactive gushers continue to fester in secret.
Japan’s harsh dictatorial censorship has been matched by a global corporate media blackout aimed—successfully—at keeping Fukushima out of the public eye.
But that doesn’t keep the actual radiation out of our ecosystem, our markets … or our bodies.
Speculation on the ultimate impact ranges from the utterly harmless to the intensely apocalyptic.
But the basic reality is simple: for seven decades, government Bomb factories and privately-owned reactors have spewed massive quantities of unmonitored radiation into the biosphere.
The impacts of these emissions on human and ecological health are unknown primarily because the nuclear industry has resolutely refused to study them.
Indeed, the official presumption has always been that showing proof of damage from nuclear Bomb tests and commercial reactors falls to the victims, not the perpetrators.
And that in any case, the industry will be held virtually harmless.
Japan’s harsh dictatorial censorship has been matched by a global corporate media blackout aimed—successfully—at keeping Fukushima out of the public eye.
But that doesn’t keep the actual radiation out of our ecosystem, our markets … or our bodies.
Speculation on the ultimate impact ranges from the utterly harmless to the intensely apocalyptic.
But the basic reality is simple: for seven decades, government Bomb factories and privately-owned reactors have spewed massive quantities of unmonitored radiation into the biosphere.
The impacts of these emissions on human and ecological health are unknown primarily because the nuclear industry has resolutely refused to study them.
Indeed, the official presumption has always been that showing proof of damage from nuclear Bomb tests and commercial reactors falls to the victims, not the perpetrators.
And that in any case, the industry will be held virtually harmless.
There exists, I suppose, some slight chance of this one making it into the State of the Union address, no doubt in a distorted, bellicose, and xenophobic disguise. Typically, there's no chance of any announcement at all.
We're stopping another war.
There are a million qualifications that need to be put on that statement. None of them render it false. A bill looked likely to move through Congress that would have imposed new sanctions on Iran, shredded the negotiated agreement with Iran, and committed the United States to join in any Israeli war on Iran. This would be a step toward war and has become understood as such by large numbers of people. Efforts to sell sanctions as an alternative to war failed. Tons of pushback has come, and is still coming, from the public, including from numerous organizations not always known for their opposition to war. And the bill, for the moment, seems much less likely to pass.
This is no time to let up, but to recognize our power and press harder for peace.
We're stopping another war.
There are a million qualifications that need to be put on that statement. None of them render it false. A bill looked likely to move through Congress that would have imposed new sanctions on Iran, shredded the negotiated agreement with Iran, and committed the United States to join in any Israeli war on Iran. This would be a step toward war and has become understood as such by large numbers of people. Efforts to sell sanctions as an alternative to war failed. Tons of pushback has come, and is still coming, from the public, including from numerous organizations not always known for their opposition to war. And the bill, for the moment, seems much less likely to pass.
This is no time to let up, but to recognize our power and press harder for peace.
BREAKING News: “Keystone XL Pipeline Clears Major Hurdle; State Department Report Raises No Major Objections.” However, this study was outsourced and was done by a Canadian Company with financial ties to the company building the pipeline.
The Koch Brothers bought the only refinery in North America which can refine heavy oil from Sunoco about two years ago in anticipation of the Pipeline being built. The heavy oil now refined by that specialty plant comes from Venezuela. It costs much more than oil from the Tar Sands. The Koch Brothers are spending large sums to get conservatives who have no interest in the environment, to support building the Keystone XL Pipeline.
Secretary of State Kerry, who has the responsibility of evaluating it, recommends that the Keystone XL Pipeline be built. President Obama will make the decision soon. Secretary Kerry hates Venezuela because the leaders stole his wife's Heinz tomato farms and ketchup factory in Venezuela.
The Koch Brothers bought the only refinery in North America which can refine heavy oil from Sunoco about two years ago in anticipation of the Pipeline being built. The heavy oil now refined by that specialty plant comes from Venezuela. It costs much more than oil from the Tar Sands. The Koch Brothers are spending large sums to get conservatives who have no interest in the environment, to support building the Keystone XL Pipeline.
Secretary of State Kerry, who has the responsibility of evaluating it, recommends that the Keystone XL Pipeline be built. President Obama will make the decision soon. Secretary Kerry hates Venezuela because the leaders stole his wife's Heinz tomato farms and ketchup factory in Venezuela.
BANGKOK, Thailand -- Security forces and six million residents are
worriedly preparing to survive a 19-day "shutdown Bangkok" protest
beginning on Monday (Jan. 13), designed to topple the elected
government amid fears that the military may help the urban
insurrection by staging a coup.
Street clashes have killed at least eight people during the past two months of protests leading to the shutdown which plans to cripple Thailand's government and economy until the end of January.
Tens of thousands of anti-election protesters plan to erect huge stages and makeshift defensive structures at several key intersections, congesting the heart of Bangkok.
"Even demonstrations that are meant to be peaceful can turn confrontational, and can escalate into violence without warning," the American Embassy said on Tuesday (Jan. 7) in an e-mailed "security message for U.S. citizens" describing the upcoming shutdown.
Thousands of people staged a "practice" march in Bangkok on Tuesday (Jan. 7), cheering the stocky protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban, thrusting cash into his hands, and begging for his autograph.
Street clashes have killed at least eight people during the past two months of protests leading to the shutdown which plans to cripple Thailand's government and economy until the end of January.
Tens of thousands of anti-election protesters plan to erect huge stages and makeshift defensive structures at several key intersections, congesting the heart of Bangkok.
"Even demonstrations that are meant to be peaceful can turn confrontational, and can escalate into violence without warning," the American Embassy said on Tuesday (Jan. 7) in an e-mailed "security message for U.S. citizens" describing the upcoming shutdown.
Thousands of people staged a "practice" march in Bangkok on Tuesday (Jan. 7), cheering the stocky protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban, thrusting cash into his hands, and begging for his autograph.
Our national economy should be a vibrant job market for our communities, and not one that benefits wealthy corporations at our expense. This is why I’m urging my elected officials to stop the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
To know the TPP, I had to learn about NAFTA. The North-American Free Trade Agreement, signed by President Clinton in 1994, was to herald job creation and improve trade relations among the U.S., Canada and Mexico. However, 20 years later, American jobs are outsourced, income inequality has increased and Mexican farmers who have subsequently lost their jobs are coming to the US for work, causing immigration tension. This is what happened when regulations were manipulated in the name of “free trade.” The adminstration and corporations are now suggesting another free trade agreement, the TPP.
To know the TPP, I had to learn about NAFTA. The North-American Free Trade Agreement, signed by President Clinton in 1994, was to herald job creation and improve trade relations among the U.S., Canada and Mexico. However, 20 years later, American jobs are outsourced, income inequality has increased and Mexican farmers who have subsequently lost their jobs are coming to the US for work, causing immigration tension. This is what happened when regulations were manipulated in the name of “free trade.” The adminstration and corporations are now suggesting another free trade agreement, the TPP.