ALJAZEERA: This year is on track to be the hottest on record, the UN’s weather agency has reported, and leading scientists say humans are likely to be responsible. After a year of heat waves from Australia to Argentina, provisional data from the UN’s World Meteorological Organization show that if temperatures stay high for the rest […]
Wolf likely to make severance tax an early priority
By making the severance tax a legislative priority, Mr. Wolf would start his term with an issue that has bipartisan and public support. The early focus is telling, considering that Mr. Corbett’s missteps in the first year of his term eventually helped defeat him as he sought re-election…
Good conversation over a Georgetown dinner
U. S. foreign policy with special attention to Syria was the subject of discussion over dinner in a Georgetown restaurant yesterday evening among the publisher, law school student son Benjamin, and friend, a former State Department department head and author who has long been retired.
Putin blasts West in state of nation address
USA TODAY: Russian President Vladmir Putin used his annual state of the nation address on Thursday to defend his nation’s foreign policy and warn Russians of lean economic times ahead. Speaking at the Grand Kremlin Palace in Moscow, Putin said recent actions he has ordered in Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and elsewhere were entirely necessary for […]
Syria’s Assad downplays U.S. strikes on Islamic State
LA TIMES: …“To say that the coalition’s airstrikes are helping us is incorrect,” [Syrian President Bashar ] Assad told the French magazine , which is scheduled to publish the full interview Thursday. “We haven’t sensed any change, especially since Turkey is still providing direct support to ISIS in those areas.”
Moscow Air Pollution; pick your poison
One of the most discussed subjects in Russian media in November was the air pollution in Moscow. During the month Muscovites encountered several different pollution problems.
Taj Mahal casino closes hotel tower, ends credit
CDC GAMING REPORTS / AP: … Trump Entertainment intends to hand itself over to billionaire investor Carl Icahn, who would cancel the $286 million in company debts he owns in return for ownership of Trump Entertainment. Icahn would invest $100 million into the Taj Mahal, but only if he can get significant state and local […]
Pot policy debate unlikely to end soon in Pennsylvania, other states
Cole received a year of house arrest and a year of probation. His criminal record makes it difficult to find a job, he said.
With Russia on Brink of Recession, Putin Faces ‘New Reality’
NEW YORK TIMES: … Every day brings a barrage of woeful economic news. World oil prices just hit a five-year low. The Russian ruble is down 40 percent against the dollar so far in 2014. Inflation is due to rise 9 percent this year and to continue climbing. Capital flight is expected to reach $128 […]
Iraqi Government and Kurds Reach Deal to Share Oil Revenues
“Now the priority really is to confront ISIS,” Hoshyar Zebari, Iraq’s finance minister, said in an interview Tuesday after emerging from the cabinet meeting to complete the deal after several days of talks…
Gallup: More Now Identify as Republicans Than as Democrats
NEWSMAX: The midterm election wave that swept Republicans to a majority in both the Senate and House also shifted Americans’ political allegiance toward the GOP, a new poll shows. According to a Gallup survey, 43 percent of Americans identified as Democrats or leaned toward the Democratic Party before the Nov. 4 elections, while 39 percent […]
Divided Israeli Government Falls Apart
NEW YORK TIMES: In a decisive move after days of intense political bickering, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel fired his centrist finance and justice ministers on Tuesday and called for the dissolution of Parliament and early elections… Mr. Netanyahu has essentially accused Yair Lapid, the finance minister, and Tzipi Livni, the justice minister, of […]
Ashton Carter, likely Pentagon nominee, earned stripes the quiet way
AOL / AP: No household name, Ashton Carter has earned his stripes in the national security trenches the quiet way. For decades he has toiled as a defense thinker and strategist, nuclear expert, three-time Pentagon executive, budget guru and academician… Obama spokesman Josh Earnest stopped short of confirming that the president had made a decision, […]
Why Our Memory Fails Us
When we recall our own memories, we are not extracting a perfect record of our experiences and playing it back verbatim. Most people believe that memory works this way, but it doesn’t. Instead, we are effectively whispering a message from our past to our present, reconstructing it on the fly each time.