NEW YORK TIMES: Kevin Vickers, the sergeant-at-arms ofCanada’s House of Commons who became a national hero in October after an armed attack on Parliament, was appointed the ambassador to Ireland on Thursday. Mr. Vickers’s experience in diplomacy is mainly limited to protecting visiting dignitaries, including members of the British royal family. But Mr. Vickers, formerly […]
Charlie Hebdo Suspects Are Said to Take a Hostage
NEW YORK TIMES: Hundreds of French security forces have converged on an industrial park in a town northeast of Paris where two suspects in Wednesday’s terrorist attack in central Paris appear to be barricaded with at least one hostage at a printing business, the authorities said. A police official said the suspects told negotiators they […]
Lavish ‘Cadillac’ Health Plans Dying as Obamacare Tax Looms
NEWSMAX: …Employees including bankers at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and college professors at Harvard University are seeing a range of moves to shift more costs to workers. Companies are introducing higher deductibles and co-payments, rising premiums and the imposition of wellness programs that carry penalties for people who don’t comply.
Arne Duncan to call for No Child Left Behind revamp
POLITICO: Education Secretary Arne Duncan will call for repealing and replacing the nation’s landmark federal education law, No Child Left Behind, joining Republicans in Congress in pushing what could be the most significant rewrite of federal education law in 14 years… Key congressional Republicans have suggested they will consider paring back the federal testing requirements. […]
Obama calls for free community college
FINANCIAL TIMES: President Barack Obama will roll out an ambitious plan to make two years of community college free for millions of students on Friday, as he wraps up a three-state trip aimed at showcasing new initiatives to boost America’s middle class. The “America’s College Promise” programme would see the government working with states to […]
Revel casino buyer wants to build $108M water park
The water park is part of Straub’s larger vision for the structure, which includes a high-speed ferry and railway between Atlantic City and New York. He previously said he wanted to build a university “for geniuses.”
3 dead, many injured in 18-vehicle I – 80 pileup during whiteout
AOL: An 18-vehicle pileup that occurred in whiteout conditions Wednesday on a western Pennsylvania interstate left three people dead and dozens injured, authorities said… Nine trucks, several of them tractor-trailers, and nine cars were involved in the crash that occurred at 1:40 p.m. in the westbound lanes of I-80 in Clarion Township, state police said. […]
The Drugs That Companies Promote to Doctors Are Rarely Breakthroughs
The information, from a database known as Open Payments, gives the first comprehensive look at how much money drug and device companies have spent working with doctors. What it shows is that the drugs most aggressively promoted to doctors typically aren’t cures or even big medical breakthroughs. Some are top sellers, but most are not…
Study Finds More Reasons to Get and Stay Married
NEW YORK TIMES: A new economics paper has some old-fashioned advice for people navigating the stresses of life: Find a spouse who is also your best friend. Social scientists have long known that married people tend to be happier, but they debate whether that is because marriage causes happiness or simply because happier people are […]
From a Pile of Dirt, Hope for a Powerful New Antibiotic
NEW YORK TIMES: …The method, which extracts drugs from bacteria that live in dirt, has yielded a powerful new antibiotic, researchers reported in the journal Nature on Wednesday. The new drug, teixobactin, was tested in mice and easily cured severe infections, with no side effects . Better still, the researchers said, the drug works in […]
Eurozone tips into deflation, sparking fears of more economic woe to come
According to common economic wisdom, while lowering prices may seem like a good thing for consumers in struggling economy for day-to-day budgeting, full fledged deflation can sap demand and consumption, as people hold off on spending on the expectations that prices will lower yet further…
Former Korean Air Executive Indicted Over ‘Nut Rage’ Incident
NEW YORK TIMES: …The executive, Cho Hyun-ah, the eldest child of Korean Air’s chairman, Cho Yang-ho, was fired from her position as a vice president of the airline and put behind bars last month after her actions on Dec. 5 triggered a national uproar and turned her family and Korean Air into objects of international […]
Diet Rich in Whole Grains Might Extend Your Life
EVERYDAY HEALTH: …[ Dr. Qi ] Sun’s team based the findings on data from two long-term health studies dating back to the mid-1980s involving more than 118,000 nurses and health professionals. In the studies, participants were required to fill out food and diet questionnaires every two to four years, which included questions about their whole […]
Hong Kong “consults public” on political reform, but signals intransigence, arrests
WASHINGTON POST: Hong Kong’s government launched a second round of “public consultations” on political reform on Wednesday, even as it signaled its refusal to yield ground to demands for greater democracy, and as police threatened to arrest the leaders of last year’s protest movement. The Chinese government in Beijing laid out in detail last August […]