text:
Preface;  I have always wanted to be a writer, but I struggle to focus after a few pages or so, so I have taken to writing short stories under 10 pages. Most of them are tragedies, or intensely emotional at the very least.  I went for a new writing style for this, one that is more emotive.

Feedback is appreciated, and thanks for reading.

"Sometimes I believe my life is a tragic novel, written for the amusement of the narcissistic people who don't have to live it.  Maybe when the pen that writes my fate is laid to rest, I will be too.  It's not though.  No writer could be as cruel as the gods that force me to continue breathing.  I don't care.  Pain itself can be comforting when it's all you've known.  It becomes the echo that's left when your voice goes quiet.  And my voice is quiet all the time now.

It's Saturday.  Another Saturday, just like the last, and the next most likely.  Its cold, winter is nearly here.  My blankets smell of flowers and mildew.  Maybe I will wash them today.  I don't remember the last time I did.  I don't remember a lot of things.  Like yesterday.  I don't know what happened yesterday.  Just the sleep that followed.  I think I was dreaming of lying in the snow, becoming still until I could hear my own heart, beating slowly and quivering.  Maybe it was a memory, I don't know.  They are both the same, aren't they?  Both are gone forever.  It's Saturday though, no alarm to wake me.  I still wake up at the same time.  I wish I could sleep longer.  Hibernate like the bears in a nature documentary.  Forget the winter and it's gray sorrow, and wake up when the wet grass sparkles like emeralds and song birds pray for endless summer.  I don't think I will see summer again.  Sometimes I look in the mirror and I don't see myself.  There is a face there, and a body, but not mine.

I changed my mind about the covers.  Another day won't hurt them.  Think I said that last time.  That must have been months ago.  Time is so strange, I don't really notice it's passage anymore.  Just the light and dark, over and over.  It's all the same.  I need some water.  Water to wash my little blue pills down.  They are supposed to make me feel better.  They don't.  I don't think there is a better, just shades of nothing bound by each tick of time.  I take two and pretend they help.

Toast for breakfast.  Only I didn't toast it.  I didn't feel like it.  I don't feel like getting jam either.  Taste seems pointless.  I don't enjoy having to keep myself alive.  Eating shows I have some control.  It makes me wonder why I don't just stop and drift away.  Not yet.  It's not that I want to live.  I just don't feel like dying.  There are still a few days of Autumn left.  Autumn's not so bad.  There are colors and warmth remaining in the world.  It will be gone soon enough.  Like me.

I used to watch TV on Saturday.  I don't remember when, I was much younger.  I still turn the TV on, and I still sit in front of it.  But it's the clock I am watching.  Waiting for night to come, another night and another day.  Another day closer to goodbye.

It's growing dark.  Nearly time for sleep.  Another day gone, another day I won't have to live again.  Sleep is not really respite.  I still dream, or remember.  Yet my nightmares are not of monsters but of waking.  Another two pills and I am waiting to drift away.  And sleep comes, slowly and secretly.  Prowling up behind me and then it pounces and I am no more, for a few short hours.  I was thinking about something, but I don't remember now.

I think today is Tuesday.  I don't know why I think that, it just feels like Tuesday.  The bus is outside.  I may just miss it.  I say that every day, and every day I get on anyway.  Last night I dreamed I was stabbed to death.  At least it wasn't a nightmare.  Sometimes I am afraid, but I am not sure why.  I dress in whatever is closest to me.  That happens to be a pile of clothes beside my bed.  I don't care about clothes.  Before I walk out, I look at the picture frame turned against the wall.  I don't know who's picture it is, or why it's turned away.  I was going to look once, but I like the mystery not knowing.

Someone said it's going to snow.  I don't notice who, I never look at their faces.  I don't see people, just costume masks painted on cold flesh.  They act excited at the prospect of getting to miss school.  I hope it doesn't.  I wish I could fly away from the snow, like the last of the geese flying South.  I can't fly though.  Not yet.  It's night again.  Did a whole day go by?

I hate snow.  It's not just the cold wetness sloping against my face.  It's the color, white and maybe blue in the evening.  I hate white.  And I hate snow.  And now it's snowing.  Again.  I swear I will move somewhere it never snows.  Maybe Florida.  Does it ever snow in Florida?

It's still dark. And snowing.  I can tell by the subtle brushing noise outside my window.  The alarm is yelling at me again.  Morning always comes at the worst time.  Maybe it will stop snowing today.  It won't though, it never does.

School is where the adults make us go so they don't have to look at us.  I am sure of it.  I wouldn't feed my dog this soup.  I wish I had a dog, really.  Maybe I will ask Jak for one.  I never get tired of being told no.  Another alarm, screaming at me because I am not where I should be.  I hate alarms.  Almost as much as I hate snow.

My teacher gave me a note.  I can't look at it, the paper is too white.  I will get sick if I do.  I know exactly how many steps it takes to get to the shrinks office.  Shrinky shrinkster.  49 steps, and 11 stairs.  The top one is higher, so I jump a little.  No one else is here, though I have never seen anyone here.  He smiles.  I wish he wouldn't.  I am fine.  Yes everything is fine at home.  No I don't talk much.  Yes I took my little pills today.  And yesterday too.  I cut myself when I slipped in the shower.  Yes, both arms.  I am fine, really.  Oh look, the bus is waiting.  Maybe I will be alone tonight.  It's getting colder.  And snowing.  God damn.

Not alone.  Not tonight.  There is a car in the drive way.  Jak's car.  He's my father but not really.  I wish he would have stayed over at work.  Sometimes I don't see him, he just sleeps in bed.  I hear the car come and go, and I hide under the covers.  Not that it matters.  If I have to go I go.  It's better that way.  I don't get as many questions at school.  I don't like questions, or brused lips.  When I am in Florida everything will be okay.  Or maybe Mexico. I don't think it snows in Mexico either.  Jak is waiting.

I think I had a mother once.  If I did, this used to be her room too.  Now it's not.  Now it's just empty and cold and white.  Like snow.  Jak doesn't say anything.  He doesn't need to.  Hasn't for a long time.  I slip my jacket and shoes off.  Then my shirt.  It's green, my favorite color.  It seems so long since I have seen grass that green.  Jak looks at my arms.  I lied to Shrinky.  I didnt slip.  I collect scars like other girls collect ribbons.  I think.  Do girls collect ribbons?  I don't have any.

I don't think Jak is bad.  I don't think Jak is anything.  A cold white sheet pulled over a wire frame.  Moving by unseen strings.  It doesn't take long.  It doesn't usually.  14 steps to the shower.  I count them, I don't know why.  The water is warm, warm like summer.  And white.  The tub is white too.  I wash slowly, it makes it better that way.  Knowing what's next, but waiting.  I reach under a flap of caulking.  The razer blade almost bites my finger, but I know exactly where it is.  Slip it carefully from its hiding place.  It's like writing music.  My body the page with the score in blood.  The little red drips in the water, my music.  More and more dripping away.  I have created a symphony of red.  My head hurts.  I try standing up, but I can't.  I flop out of the tub, and drag my body behind me.  14 steps down, and a few more.  I open the door, and just stare at the white.  I will be white soon.

Someone is standing over me.  A women in hideous white.  It's so bright.  She's blinding me with a flashlight.  My head feels like it's been split open.  And something is stuck in my arm.  It's a hospital.  I have been here before, I think.  Maybe.  People are talking in the corner.  I can't really see them.  The nurse says something, I nod.  One of the talking figures walk over.  It's a police officer.  I don't like questions and he asks a lot of them.  He doesn't seem to believe me, either.  At least he doesn't smile like my shrink.  I ask for some water.  I feel sick."

title: [RF]

question: What does the story say about emojis?

question: Summarize the primary source of tension in the story.

answer: The main source of tension in the story is the narrator's mental disorder. She is clearly disturbed and suicidal. She believes her life is a tragic novel written for the amusement of narcissistic people and thinks the gods are cruel for forcing her to continue breathing. According to her, pain is all she has known, perhaps from a tragic event (*speculative) because she mentioned that she had a mother once (maybe she died or left*). The narrator has attempted to kill herself before and is seeing the school psychiatrist, but that doesn't stop her from planning to end her life again. She slashes her wrists again while in the shower and ends up in the hospital.

question: What does the story say about Jak?

answer: Jak is the narrator's father, but she doesn't think he is and calls him by name. He hasn't talked to her for a long time due to some unspecified reason. She doesn't think Jak is bad, but he also doesn't think he is anything (perhaps due to his inaction or indifference). Jak just comes and goes (after work). The narrator says she hides under the covers when she hears his car.


split: test

text:
Reading Time: 5 minutes

If you’re following a low-carb diet, or a diet with low-carb periods, like Carb Backloading or Intermittent Fasting, then you probably drink diet sodas. They’re a convenient, tasty alternative to water, coffee, and tea. And, more importantly, you can enjoy the sweet taste without worrying about the insulin spike that you’d get from a sugary drink. Or can you?

If you’ve done research on Carb Backloading, then you’ll be aware that Acesulfame K (Ace K) is forbidden because it spikes insulin. But does it really?

[]
Don’t even think about drinking it, you might get fat. – (c) http://www.flickr.com/photos/sometoast/
We love Kiefer, so let’s take a quote from part of an interview series with Sean Hyson:

  SEAN: Going back to sweeteners, you make a point in the book about ACESULFAME POTASSIUM RAISING INSULIN LEVELS. I noticed that Coke Zero has a small amount of it, but not Diet Coke. Based on that, would you say that Coke Zero could therefore possibly spike insulin and is a bad diet soda choice?

  KIEFER: Yeah, I WOULD GO WITH THE DIET COKE. Acesulfame potassium definitely causes an insulin response. So many factors can influence that so it’s hard to say how intense it is. I have noticed that people who drink a lot of energy drinks that have acesulfame potassium don’t fare nearly as well on Carb Nite until they cut those out. SO I WOULD SAY THAT THE RESPONSE IS SIGNIFICANT, EVEN WITH A SMALL AMOUNT.

In his Carb Backloading book, Kiefer references three studies. The first study found that infusions of Acesulfame K increased insulin secretion in rats [1]. The second part of that study examined the effects of Acesulfame K on isolated rat pancreatic islets [2]. It found that Acesulfame K had a dose and glucose-dependent effect on insulin secretion; but, most importantly, even without glucose it promoted insulin secretion. The third study found that artificial sweeteners with a bitter taste (including, but not limited to, Acesulfame K) augmented the insulin response from isolated rat pancreatic islets in the presence of glucose.

That appears to be strong evidence that you should avoid Acesulfame K. If you’re a rat.

[]
Don’t let him near your Red Bull Sugarfee! – (c) http://www.flickr.com/photos/uzbecka/
Let’s look at the first study:

  _INJECTION OF ACESULFAME K (150 MG/KG BODY WEIGHT) INCREASED THE PLASMA INSULIN CONCENTRATION AT 5 MIN FROM 27.3 +/- 3.0 MICROU/ML TO 58.6 +/- 4.2 MICROU/ML WITHOUT ANY SIGNIFICANT CHANGE IN THE BLOOD GLUCOSE. Infusion of Acesulfame K (20 mg/kg body weight/min) for one hour maintained the insulin concentration at a high level (about 85-100 microU/ml) during this period, and at the same time blood glucose was gradually reduced from 103.0 +/- 7.3 to 72.0 +/- 7.2 mg/dl. When using different amounts of Acesulfame K, the insulin secretion was stimulated in a dose-dependent fashion._

The human equivalent dose is calculated as follows:

HUMAN EQUIVALENT DOSE (MG/KG) = RAT DOSE (MG/KG) X HUMAN KM/RAT KM

which gives, for adult humans,

HUMAN EQUIVALENT DOSE (MG/KG) = 150MG/KG X 6/37 ~ 24MG/KG.

In particular,  the equivalent dose for a 60kg adult human would be 1440mg. But how much diet soda would you have to consume to achieve that? Let’s make a reasonable estimate using the following information:

  The ADI for acesulfame K is 15 mg/kg body weight per day for children and adults. This means that a 150 pound person can safely consume about 25 12-fluid ounce cans of diet soft drinks sweetened with a typical blend of acesulfame K and aspartame, or 20 tabletop sweetener packets nearly every day over his or her lifetime without any adverse health effect. THE TYPICAL AMOUNT OF ACESULFAME K IN A 12 FL OUNCE BEVERAGE USING AN ACESULFAME K-ASPARTAME BLEND IS 40 MG; THE AVERAGE AMOUNT PER SWEETENER PACKET IS 50 MG.

Assume therefore that for every litre of diet soda there is approximately 140mg of Acesulfame K. That means that you’d have to consume 10 litres of diet soda to produce an insulin response equivalent to the one in the study. But even that might not be true, since the Acesulfame K was infused. We don’t know if it would have the same effect when taken orally. If you can imagine a 60kg person drinking 10 litres in one sitting, then perhaps this study is useful, but otherwise it seems slightly ridiculous!

A review article [4] found that:

  However, data from numerous publications on the effects of low-energy sweeteners on appetite, insulin and glucose levels, food intake and body weight have shown that there is no consistent evidence that low-energy sweeteners increase appetite or subsequent food intake, cause insulin release or affect blood pressure in normal subjects. Thus, the data from extensive _in vivo _studies in human subjects show that low-energy sweeteners do not have any of the adverse effects predicted by_in vitro, in situ_ or knockout studies in animals.

And according to a study [5] investigating the effects of artificial sweeteners on glucagon-like peptide (GLP)-1 in humans:

  The metabolic consequences of increased GLP-1 release after ingestion of both artiﬁcial sweeteners and glucose remain uncertain. IN THE PRESENT STUDY, NO SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES WERE OBSERVED IN EITHER PLASMA GLUCOSE OR INSULIN AFTER DIET SODA VERSUS CARBONATED WATER INGESTION, DESPITE THE SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES IN GLP-1.

Therefore it seems doubtful that Acesulfame K produces an insulin response, and especially not without carbohydrates!

If you enjoy drinking diet sodas then you shouldn’t worry about it. If your goal is fat loss, then you will not derail your progress by including them.

Kiefer responded directly to the article recently, here are his thoughts:

  I made the point distinctly in the book and in interviews that it’s not something to worry about unless things seem off. The direct studies on Ace-K (particularly on ketogenic diets in humans) is pretty much non-existent. There’s evidence to show it can increase insulin release and can shift the time-peak of insulin release in the presence of glucose, which may also happen with any insulinotropic substance (leucine, possibly ketones). So, it’s a possible culprit when things go wrong. To spend so much time on such minutiae when there’s not enough research to answer the question under the conditions being considered is akin to a religious debate that no one can win. I’m sticking with the fact that ace-k has been shown to cause cells of the pancreas to release insulin and the observation of hundreds of clients who, when having trouble, strip sugar-free sodas amazingly no longer have problems. Also, worth pointing out, for those with appreciable amounts of muscle, I’ve never seen sugar-free beverages have any effect whatsoever… it’s only “normal” people who seem to have an issue or, actually, stage athletes as they reach the insanely low levels of body fat.

  (See this post in the Dangerously Hardcore Facebook group.)

  So, in my summation: DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT UNLESS STUFF STARTS GOING WRONG, THEN REALIZE IT’S A POSSIBLE SOURCE OF TROUBLE.

There you have it. If you’re making progress, don’t worry about diet sodas. If you’re not, consider the possibility that you might have to remove them.

Thanks, Kiefer!

[1] “The effect of artificial sweetener on insulin secretion. 1. The effect of acesulfame K on insulin secretion in the rat (studies in vivo).” http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2887500

[2] “The effect of artificial sweetener on insulin secretion. II. Stimulation of insulin release from isolated rat islets by Acesulfame K (in vitro experiments).” http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2887503

[3] “Effects of artificial sweeteners on insulin release and cationic fluxes in rat pancreatic islets.” http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9884024

[4] “Sweet-taste receptors, low-energy sweeteners, glucose absorption and insulin release” http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0007114510002540

[5] “Ingestion of Diet Soda Before a Glucose Load Augments Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 Secretion” http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/32/12/2184.short

question: What is the problem substance in artificial sweeteners and what do they affect diet?

answer: ACESULFAME POTASSIUM RAISES insulin levels. It is hard to tell how intense the response is but people who drink a lot of energy drinks don't lose as much weight unless until they cut those out.

question: How much ACESULFAME POTASSIUM would a person have to drink to spike insulin?

answer: The equivalent dose for an average person is 1440mg. his means that a 150-pound person can safely consume about 25 12-fluid ounce cans of diet soft drinks sweetened with a typical blend of acesulfame K and aspartame, or 20 tabletop sweetener packets nearly every day over his or her lifetime without any adverse health effect. You’d have to consume 10 liters of diet soda to produce an insulin response equivalent to the one in the study.


text:
The hikers had left a map of the area which gave us a vast layout of the land. It wasn't good. There were woods, woods, and  more woods. No place was safe, the dead had already begun to infest the forest as we knew, and hunting became harder and harder. The animals were nearly all gone and we were dangerously low on food, but no one wanted to get that conversation started. Our only option was to look for shelter in one of the surrounding towns. That's when I first heard Ryan's voice. I don't think he'd used it in about a month. He had to give it a couple of tries before the words came out smooth.
“My high-school's in the next town over, it's right at the edge of forest. There's a broken lock on a second story window, the chemistry lab. The cafeteria's full of cans and stuff.”
“There's probably people there already.” I said.
“Gotta try.” Spencer replied, “Ain't nuttin' else to do.”
	And again, he was right. The forest wasn't an option anymore and our food supply would only last another day or two. Soon, we would barely have the energy to stay awake much less trek through the woods hunting for squirrels. I'll skip the journey. It wasn't easy and it wasn't pretty.
	We got there two days after we started walking and had the last bit of rations about ten minutes before we saw the school. The possibility of food almost hurt- and I realized that the point I had made earlier was moot, even if there were people here, we were going to take whatever was inside, anything else would mean our deaths. Spencer and Ryan reached the clearing first. Emily and I fell behind when she had to stop to use the bathroom. I stood guard while the others walked on, I would have told Spencer he should stay with his girlfriend but I would rather have him as far from her as possible. When she came out she thanked me for staying with her, “...You took off your bow tie?” She asked. I had almost forgotten I was wearing a tuxedo. The white shirt had turned yellow and I’d long since ripped off the cummerbund. I took the tie out of my pocket, “I was going to throw it away but thought it might be useful some day. Don't know why I thought that.”
“You should keep it.”
“Why?”
“No reason, I just like it.” She said with a weak smile and walked ahead of me. I had never seen her smile before. It was nicest thing to happen in weeks.
	The school sat quiet. We stayed by the treeline for a few minutes before Spencer passed out the weapons. “Ryan'll go in through the broken window and open the back door for us, Emily, you can be the look out in case any wal-” Spencer stopped himself when he saw her. A girl of no more than sixteen, behind her another girl a couple of years younger. They were both in dirty white dresses, their eyes had sunk and they walked on slow frail legs. It took a minute of watching to see that they were not walkers but starving. The eldest girl bent down and picked up two pale yellow flowers from the ground. She put one behind her ear and the other in her sister's hair. They started to walk back, hand in hand but the youngest stopped- they stood for a moment and looked up a the sky. I looked at Spencer, at Emily, no one seemed quite sure of themselves anymore. The girls disappeared into the school.
	I gave Ryan a boost- he climbed the rest of the way up himself, he was gone a minute before the door clicked open. “See anything?” I asked him. He shook his head. We went in slow and quiet. We had learned the silent walk technique in the woods. Dry twigs were death traps. We were almost to the cafeteria when we heard the shots.
	All weapons went up- the gunfire came from the gymnasium Ryan told us. Five shots, four in quick succession and a space of about ten seconds until the last one. We had to move fast now, walkers would have heard the shots, we kept the doors unlocked behind us in case we had to run. And if there were walkers in the building- either way we had to know what happened. Ryan had to show Spencer the way and Emily was outside on watch. So I went to the gym alone, I was given five minutes before they would be out of there with or without me. I see it now like I saw it then.
	Walking into that gym, that was when I knew. The hope I had for a military rescue, that spark in the middle of your heart that tells you things will be okay eventually- that things are bad now but a day would come when everything would be like it was before, that was the moment my light went out. Five sisters had come to this school for safety. They'd made it as long as they could, they'd eaten all the food but the world outside hadn't changed. They had no one to take care of them. No parents, no policemen. All they had was a gun with five shots left inside. The younger ones had lines up, that ten seconds before the last shot- that was the oldest looking at her family and turning the gun on herself. I've thought about that day every day since. I've thought about running from the clearing and telling that sixteen year old that things would be okay- that she could come with us. And I've had dreams when she did, and Spencer was excepting and Emily was like a mother to the littlest of them. In my dreams we were all alive, we all belonged to the each other and when one of us was sick or hungry the others would take care of them. And those girls would play the games that children play.
	As I stood there and watched their blood spread out and pool together- I prayed for something to happen, anything that could change what I was feeling. I didn't care if it was a bomb going off or a military parade outside, I just needed to feel something other than that hopelessness. And then something did happen. The youngest of the girls stood up. Her sister had aimed for the heart. We thought only a bite could turn someone, but now I saw that that wasn't true. This wasn't an infection, this wasn't a disease. This was Hell, and it was coming for me in a white cotton dress and flowers in its hair.

title:
The Walking Dead: Winter Chronicles
Chapter Four: Five Sisters

question: What does the story say about the five sisters?

answer: The narrator and their companions are in the wood and they are heading to the school, hoping they will find food and shelter there. When they get there, they find five sisters who had come to the school for safety. They had no one to take care of them. No parents, no policemen. All they had was a gun with five shots left inside. The younger ones had lined up, that ten seconds before the last shot- that was the oldest looking at her family and turning the gun on herself. The narrator and their friends stood there and watched their blood spread out. Suddenly, the youngest of the girls stood up. The narrator realizes this was Hell, and it was coming for them in a white cotton dress and flowers in its hair.

question: What does the story say about whether the narrator fins food?


text:
LAW ENFORCEMENT IN AZERBAIJAN comes under the control of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Azerbaijan, which administers the National Police of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Admitted to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) on 30 January 1992, with an OSCE office opening in Baku on 16 November 1999,[1] and as a member of INTERPOL, the National police force is well integrated into the law enforcement network of European countries.[2]

Law enforcement agencies

The Prosecutor’s Office and the Ministry of Internal Affairs are the main law enforcement agencies, which have broad range of responsibilities.[3] Other law enforcement agencies in Azerbaijan are Customs Committee, Ministry of Taxes, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Emergency Situations, and State Border Service.[4] Internal investigation offices of these agencies are responsible for dealing with crimes in specific areas.[5]

The Prosecutor’s Office

The Prosecutor’s office is a part of judicial system in Azerbaijan.[6] In 1999, with the Law “On Prosecutor’s Office” the responsibilities of the office included:[7]

-   investigating criminal acts;
-   participating in the procedures conducted by the courts;
-   protecting public accusations in the criminal procedures;
-   supervising the implementation and operation of laws;

The Law recognizes the Prosecutor’s Office as a single and centralized body.[8] The Prosecutor’s Office reports to Prosecutor General.[9]

The Ministry of Internal Affairs

The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan is the central executive body.[10] The responsibilities of the ministry include filing criminal investigation, protection of public order and security, and prevention of criminal offences.[11]

The institutional structure and the regulations of the Ministry was approved on June 30, 2001, by the Presidential decree.[12]

On November 24, 1992, the Republic of Azerbaijan agreed with the INTERPOL, and the National Central Bureau (NBC) for Azerbaijan was established within the Ministry of Internal Affairs in 1993.[13][14]

The Department of Internal Security was established on June 30, 2004 by the decree of the president of Azerbaijan.[15] The department deals with the activities that are incompatible with police service, exposure of facts about corruption and corrupt officers, and conduction corporate control with the Ministry.[16]

Main Organized Crime Department

Following the decree of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan “On Intensified Combat against Crime and Reinforcement of Law and Order”, which was adopted on August 9, 1994, Organized Crime Department was established within the Ministry.[17] On June 30, 2004, the level of Organized Crime Department was upgraded and became main department by the Decree No. 83 “On Institutional Amendments at the Ministry of Internal Affairs”.[18]

In 2004, the Department on Combating Traffic in Human Beings was established with the Main Organized Crime Department.[19]

Responsibilities of the Department include:[20]

-   fight against robbery, extortion, kidnapping, hostage taking;
-   fight against human trafficking;
-   collecting and storing the information regarding organized crime, studying the performance of local police services, data analysis;
-   exposing, detecting and neutralizing organized criminal groups;
-   information collecting about criminal groups engaged in transnational crimes;
-   studying the preconditions regarding to foundation of organized criminal groups and giving draft proposals to the Ministry of Internal Affairs

INTERPOL Baku

The INTERPOL National Central Bureau (NBC) in the Republic of Azerbaijan was established in 1993.[21] The purpose of NBC Baku is to maintain quick and coherent exchange of criminal intelligence between law enforcement agencies in Azerbaijan and their counterparts in other Interpol member countries and work with them to localize fugitives and missing persons and identify criminals by using INTERPOL criminal databases.[22]

The departments in INTERPOL Baku are followings:[23]

-   Analysis;
-   Supplies;
-   Technical Support;
-   General Crime;
-   Registry.

The number of staffs in INTERPOL Baku is 44 persons and 30 of them are national police officers.[24] The Ministry of Internal Affairs appoints the head of National Central Bureau in Azerbaijan.[25]

Organisation

[Traffic police vehicle in the capital Baku] The National Police force is under the authority of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and regulated by the Internal Investigation Department.[26] The latter supervises the police's compliance with law, human rights and civil liberties, and checks for violations of such and any other illegal activities. Directly subordinate to the Ministers, the IID watches over the activities of the police, with a number of divisions dedicated to complaints and organisation difficulties, always as malfeasance matters.[27]

The police force itself also consists of a large number of divisions and departments, ranging from both specialised and regular police divisions, education, training, medical, a National Central Bureau of Interpol, criminal intelligence, administration, investigation and inquest departments, drug abuse control departments, operations and statistics, transportation, traffic police, human resources, communication and planning departments and press services, financial, logsitcs and civil defence.[28]

Law enforcement in the contested regions

The National Police of the Republic of Azerbaijan are also responsible for enforcing the law in the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic via a specialised department of Azerbaijan's Ministry of the Interior[29] and the Nakhchivan City Police Department.[30] Responsibility of enforcing the law in Nagorno-Karabakh, a region still officially recognised as being part of Azerbaijan, is split between the Azerbaijan police force and the Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army (see Law enforcement in Nagorno-Karabakh).[31]

Training

The Azerbaijan National Police Academy was founded in 1921 in Baku as a training establishment for police officers and commanders, and remained there until 1936 when it was relocated to the village of Mardakan.[32] With the country under the sphere of Soviet influence, 1957 saw the police school was renamed the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs Baku Special Police School, which awarded students law degrees after a two-year course. From 1957 until 1961, the school also trained personnel from Georgia, Daghestan, Kabardino-Balkaria, Altay, Irkutsk, Krasnodar, Kibyshev, Novosibirsk, Kemerovo and Saratov.[33] Following support from Heydar Aliyev, then leader of Azerbaijan, the police school became an Academy on May 23, 1992,[34][35] and now resides in Baku, providing training for personnel of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the National Police Force, as well as offering training programs for foreign organisations on request.

Applicants for full or part-time education in the Academy are given a number of criteria by the police force which must be met before they can be successful. These criteria include physical characteristics (height and fitness) and academic (secondary school graduates, knowledged of literature, history, geography and languages). Successful students who graduate the five-year course are awarded qualifications in law and a promotion to lieutenant in the police force.[36]

Crime rates

Azerbaijan's Ministry of Internal Affairs' three-month analysis in 2006 illustrated that Azerbaijan suffers from extensive narcotics-related crime (one crime from every five criminal events is related to narcotics).[37] The MIA's figures state that this drug trafficking across Azerbaijan's borders is a significant problem, and led to the creation of the National Program for Combating Drug Abuse, Illegal Traffic in Narcotic Drugs, Psychotropic Substances and Precursors.[38] Azerbaijan is a party to a number of United Nations anti-drug-trafficking conventions from the years of 1961, 1971 and 1988, however the MIA states that it fails to intercept 90% of drugs that cross the border, and recorded 10965 drug-related cases from 2000 to 2004, seizing 747 kg of narcotics, as well as 10,000 tablets and more than 3,000 ampoules of psychotropic substances. 1221 cultivations of illicit substances, and 2000 tons of cannabis were also destroyed in the same period.[39]

Despite the growing drugs problem, from 1993 to 2004 Azerbaijan enjoyed an overall drop from 246 to 185 crimes per 100,000 of the population[40] which is a drop of 18145 to 16810 recorded crimes, and a rise from 79.5% to 94.2% in the number of cases solved. Murders in Azerbaijan decreased from 478 to 201 per 100,000 and thefts from 4943 to 1775 per 100,000. Theft of motor vehicles and firearms crimes also dropped in a similar manner, however robbery increased from 216 to 672 per 100,000 through the period.[41] Azerbaijan experienced a major shooting spree on April 30, 2009, when either one or two gunmen entered the Azerbaijan State Oil Academy, killing 13 and injuring another 13.

[1]

[2] Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe profile page retrieved on May 22, 2007

[3] Law Enforcement Agencies in Azerbaijan. http://transparency.az/alac/files/LAW%20ENFORCEMENT%20AGENCIES.pdf

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]  Prosecutor General’s Office of the Republic of Azerbaijan|website=genprosecutor.gov.az|access-date=2018-08-21}}

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

[16]

[17]

[18]

[19]

[20]

[21]

[22]

[23]

[24]

[25]

[26]

[27]

[28]

[29]

[30] Ministry of Internal Affairs of Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic page retrieved on May 23, 2007

[31] Mr David Atkinson, United Kingdom, European Democrat Group, (Rapporteur) The conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region dealt with by the OSCE Minsk Conference , Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, 29 November 2004

[32] Azerbaijan Police Academy pages retrieved on May 22, 2007

[33]

[34]

[35]

[36]

[37] Ministry of Internal Affairs analysis of three months in 2006, retrieved on May 23, 2007

[38] Ministry of the Interior Organizational and practical measures undertaken on narcotics related situation in the Republic of Azerbaija retrieved May 23, 2007

[39]

[40] Ministry of the Interior Comparative Statistics retrieved May 23, 2007

[41]

title: Law enforcement in Azerbaijan

question: Summarize the duties of Azerbaijan's Prosecutor's Office and the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

answer:
The Prosecutor's Office is part of Azerbaijan's judicial system and is responsible for investigating criminal acts, protecting ordinary citizens, and helping the courts with legal procedures.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs, on the other hand, files criminal investigation and prevent criminal offenses by the police service and ministry staff.

question: Explain the structure and functions of Azerbaijan's National Police Force.

answer:
The National Police Force is under the authority of the Ministry of Internal Affairs which monitors it and makes sure it complies with human rights law and civil liberties.
The National Police Force has many divisions, some of which render functions like overseeing the National Central Bureau of Interpol. Other duties include criminal intelligence, drug abuse control, operations, transportation, and civil defense. The police force is also responsible for enforcing the law in the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic.

question: Why is there a growing occurrence of high narcotics-related crimes in Azerbaijan?


text:
-   Aug. 23, 2017

[A sign depicting Bjöern Höecke, a leader of the Alternative for Germany party, with the slogan “Never again” after a protest against the party in Cologne in April.]

Credit...Ralph Orlowski/Reuters

Berlin — To many Germans, the violence in Charlottesville, Va., this month and the American president’s reaction to it came as a shock. Even those who have come to expect little of Donald Trump — he’s a uniquely unpopular figure among Germans — were aghast. “It’s racist, far-right violence, and that requires determined and forceful resistance no matter where in the world it appears,” Chancellor Angela Merkel said.

What a strange moment, when the German chancellor lectures the American president on how to deal with neo-Nazis. But it’s also an instructive one, in that it highlights how the two countries deal with extremism.

In Germany, the very presence of neo-Nazis openly marching through a city bearing swastika-emblazoned flags, as in Charlottesville, is unthinkable. Unlike the United States, Germany places strict limits on speech and expression when it comes to right-wing extremism. It is illegal to produce, distribute or display symbols of the Nazi era — swastikas, the Hitler salute, along with many symbols that neo-Nazis have developed as proxies to get around the initial law. Holocaust denial is also illegal.

The law goes further. There is the legal concept of “Volksverhetzung,” the incitement to hatred: Anybody who denigrates an individual or a group based on their ethnicity or religion, or anybody who tries to rouse hatred or promotes violence against such a group or an individual, could face a sentence of up to five years in prison.

These laws apply to individuals, but they and others are also defenses against extremist political parties. The Constitutional Court, Germany’s highest court, can ban parties it deems intent on impairing or destroying the political order. This year the court came close to banning the extremist right-wing National Democratic Party but determined the organization was too weak to outlaw.

This legal regime is backed by a political culture that effectively bans expression that might pass legal muster but still flirts with racist ideologies. The German right-wing-populist Alternative for Germany is a good example. Though its program and members do not openly embrace or reference Nazism, the party’s program dabbles in ideas that might be construed as racist, and as a result the party is considered untouchable by mainstream voters and politicians.

Germans have long argued over whether this legalistic strategy has worked. On the one hand, Germany’s democratic system is remarkably stable; on the other, it has a severe problem with right-wing extremist violence that again has been rising steeply since the refugee crisis of 2015. And our laws and cultural taboos have not prevented the Alternative party from gaining a small but steady 8 percent of voters ahead of the national election in September.

Furthermore, Germany’s legal ban comes at a cost. Limits on speech are a blunt instrument. Though it seems a legitimate and necessary act of respect toward Holocaust victims and their descendants to outlaw the denial of the Nazi atrocities, the American way of dealing with Nazism and its symbols always seemed to me the more mature way of handling threats to liberal democracy.

When in 1994, the Constitutional Court decided that denying the Holocaust was not covered by the constitutional right of freedom of expression, historians like Eberhard Jäckel argued that a truly liberal democracy should be able to allow for “stupidity” in its public debates. Germany’s ban on the swastika seems like a permanent declaration of distrust in itself, and more important, to argument and to education. It feels like a hasty surrender.

In a way, it is pointless to compare political cultures. Each is unique and deeply rooted in each country’s history. We won’t be able to copy America’s unique liberalism, and the United States probably won’t adopt our legalistic approach. However, there may be some convergence.

Very cautiously, Germany is allowing itself to confront Nazi thought. For decades, Hitler’s infamous book “Mein Kampf” was banned in Germany. But in 2016, when the copyrights owned by the Bavarian government ran out, it appeared in a critical edition for the first time, and it is now sold freely in bookstores.

In the wake of Charlottesville and Mr. Trump’s comments, I’ve heard some Americans bemoan the lack of strict anti-hate laws akin to Germany’s. And indeed, the episode is a reminder that an open and educated discourse cannot be taken for granted, anywhere. But it has also demonstrated the resilience of America’s civil society — for now.

Steffen Kailitz, an associate professor at the Technical University of Dresden’s Hannah Arendt Institute who studies extremism, authoritarianism and failing democracies, said he found the reaction to Mr. Trump’s statement about Charlottesville encouraging, because the broad backlash showed that in the United States, the taboos against racism and extremism remain intact.

But, he added, frequent breaches of that taboo may slowly shift the boundaries between politically legitimate and illegitimate public expressions. Consider the number of Mr. Trump’s supporters who approve of his position; many may not agree with white supremacy, but they are now less willing to condemn it because they are following the president’s lead.

In recent days, people in my Twitter feed have passed around a passage from the Austrian philosopher Karl Popper’s 1945 book, “The Open Society and Its Enemies,” that in essence says that tolerance toward the intolerant cannot be infinite, or the tolerant risk eradication. That’s Germany’s militant democracy in a nutshell. And there may come a day when the United States must embrace it as well. But for now, I have faith in a democratic public’s ability to police itself. I wish Germany did.

question: Summarize how Germans were shocked by Trump's response to the violence in Charlottesville, VA.

answer: Germans were shocked by the Trump's reaction to the violence in Charlottesville even though he is a uniquely unpopular figures among Germans. Chancellor Angela Merkel critiques Trump's response by saying far-right violence needs determined and forceful resistance no matter where it appears. Trump's inability to deal with neo-Nazi's seemed to strike a chord with people. The shock also stems from how they see the presence of neo-Nazis bearing swastika emblazoned flags marching through a city is unthinkable. Also, Germany places strict limits on speech and expression when it comes to right wing extremism.

question: What does the text say about Volksverhetzung?

answer: In Germany, there is the legal concept of "Volksverhetzung". It is a concept that aligns with Germany's strict limits on speech and expression of right-wing extremism. Volksverhetzung is the incitement to hatred. Anyone who denigrates an individual or group based on their ethnicity or religion, or anybody who tries to rouse hatred or or promotes violence against an individual or group, could face a sentence of up to five years in prison. These laws apply to individuals and are defenses against extremist political parties.

question: Summarize how Germany's legal ban comes at a cost.

answer: Germany's legal ban surrounding speech comes at a cost for several bans. This is because limits on speech are a blunt instrument. In Germany, it may seem necessary in an act of respect towards Holocaust victims and their descendants, but freedom of speech seems to come as the price. Germany's ban on the swastika seems like a permanent declaration of distrust in itself, to argument, and to education.

question: What does the text say about white supremacy?

answer: Trump's response to the violence in Charlottesville seems to condone the actions as he doesn't really resist the far-right violence. Many disagreed with Trump's statements. Those who approved his position may not agree with white supremacy, but now may be less likely to condemn it due to the presidents lead. This supports the idea that frequent breaches of taboo against racism and extremism may make it less taboo.

question: What does the text say about Heather Heyer's death?


text:
Alec MacGillis

Mr. MacGillis is the author of a biography of Mitch McConnell.

-   June 28, 2018

[Senator Mitch McConnell during a weekly senate luncheon press conference in March.]

Credit...Tom Brenner/The New York Times

There is an unusual space in the basement of the University of Louisville library, in the large anteroom to the official archives for Senator Mitch McConnell. The space is called the Civic Education Gallery, but it is, essentially, a kind of shrine to the political career of Mr. McConnell, not unlike the exhibits on Babe Ruth or Hank Aaron you’d find at the Baseball Hall of Fame.

The mere fact of the shrine is curious enough, given that it memorializes a politician who shows no sign of leaving the stage any time soon. What’s most unusual, though, is what it chooses to highlight. There are a few artifacts from Mr. McConnell’s youth — his baseball glove, his honorary fraternity paddle — but most of the exhibits are devoted to the elections Mr. McConnell won, starting with high school and on up through Jefferson County executive and the Senate.

When I visited the room while researching my 2014 biography on Mr. McConnell, I was struck by what was missing: exhibits on actual governing accomplishments from the Senate majority leader’s four decades in elected office. That absence confirmed my thesis that Mr. McConnell, far more even than other politicians, was motivated by the game of politics — winning elections and rising in the leadership ranks, achieving power for power’s sake — more than by any lasting policy goals.

Well, that was then. Four years later, it is becoming increasingly clear that Mitch McConnell _is_ creating a legacy for himself, and it’s a mighty grand one.

Mr. McConnell has created the world in which we are now living. Donald Trump dominates our universe — and now has the power to fill the second Supreme Court seat in two years. Mitch McConnell, who has promised a vote on whomever the president nominates “this fall,” is the figure who was quietly making it all possible, all along.

First, there was Mr. McConnell’s vigorous defense, going back to the early 1990s, of the role of big money in American politics, which would help Mr. Trump not so much in terms of funding his campaign, but in helping shape the conditions for his appeal.

While Mr. McConnell has long cast his defense of campaign spending as a First Amendment issue — money is speech — he made no secret of his motivation for fighting so hard on the issue. Namely, that he was well aware that he, as someone lacking in natural campaign talents, and the rest of the Republican Party, as more business-oriented than the Democrats, would need to maintain the flow of large contributions to be able to win elections. “I will always be well financed, and I’ll be well financed early,” he declared after winning his first race for county executive, in 1977.

His crusade against campaign finance reform culminated in the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling eliminating limits on corporate spending on elections, which Mr. McConnell followed up by blocking legislation to disclose the identity of large donors. Even before that ruling, the spread of big money in politics had done so much to sour the public on government, creating a ripe target for the Tea Party and, later, for a billionaire populist running against “the swamp.”

Mr. McConnell laid the groundwork for the right-wing insurgency of 2009 and 2010 in another way, too, with his decision to withhold Republican support for any major Democratic initiatives in the Obama years. This meant that Republicans had less influence on the final shape of legislation such as the Affordable Care Act than they would have had as fully willing negotiators.

But Mr. McConnell, prioritizing elections over policy, calculated that by blocking or delaying Democratic legislation, above all through aggressive use of the filibuster, Republicans would create a tedious gridlock that voters would blame the Democrats for. After all, weren’t they the ones in power?

Mr. McConnell was right. This strategy helped to foment opposition to the health care bill, and to drive huge Republican gains in the 2010 election. But it also fueled the rise of the Tea Party, which was motivated substantially by the notion that Mr. Obama was “ramming things down our throats” — that is, passing legislation on a partisan basis after Mr. McConnell withheld any Republican negotiation. Of course, Mr. McConnell proceeded to have plenty of headaches managing the far-right contingent in his own caucus, but it was a contingent he helped produce.

His role in the election of Mr. Trump was even more direct. Most notable was his refusal to hold a confirmation hearing, let alone a vote on Merrick Garland, Mr. Obama’s nominee to replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, despite the fact that the nomination was made a full 10 months before the end of Mr. Obama’s term. This refusal exploded norms and dismayed Beltway arbiters who had long accepted Mr. McConnell’s claim to be a guardian of Washington institutions. It also provided crucial motivation to Republicans who had grave qualms about Mr. Trump but were able to justify voting for him as “saving Scalia’s seat.”

Mr. McConnell’s other form of aid for Mr. Trump was more hidden. As The Washington Post reported a month after the 2016 election, Mr. Obama had been prepared that September to go public with a C.I.A. assessment laying bare the extent of Russian intervention in the election. But he was largely dissuaded by a threat from Mr. McConnell. During a secret briefing for congressional leaders, The Post reported, Mr. McConnell “raised doubts about the underlying intelligence and made clear to the administration that he would consider any effort by the White House to challenge the Russians publicly an act of partisan politics.” The Obama administration kept mum, and voters had to wait until after Mr. Trump’s election to learn the depth of Russian involvement.

Now, with the retirement of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, it is evident just how much of a lasting legacy Mitch McConnell’s will leave the country: Donald Trump will have at least two lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court. The president has — and will now enjoy — greater latitude in filling those seats as a result of Mr. McConnell’s doing away last year with the 60-vote requirement for Senate confirmation, to get Neil Gorsuch seated. In the day and a half before Justice Kennedy’s announcement, the impact of the Scalia seat was made plain again, as the court issued 5-4 rulings in favor of Mr. Trump’s “travel ban” and anti-abortion groups, and against public employee unions.

The abortion and union rulings had an ironic resonance, as far as Mr. McConnell goes. In the 1970s, when he ran for county executive in Louisville, he secured the pivotal endorsement of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. by pledging to back collective bargaining for public employees (a promise that went unfulfilled), and while in office he worked effectively behind the scenes to protect abortion rights locally.

But that was a long time ago, before Mr. McConnell saw the rightward swing of the Reagan revolution and decided to hop on board for his own political preservation as a Southern Republican. These days, Mr. McConnell has made explicit, with taunting tweets among other things, that he views long-term conservative control of the Supreme Court as his crowning achievement. It’s not hard to see why: Holding a long-term majority on the court greatly aids his highest cause — Republican victories in future elections — as recent rulings on voting rights and gerrymandering demonstrated once again.

Whether Mr. McConnell decides to add an exhibit in the Civic Education Gallery documenting his role in the rise of Donald Trump is another matter. The final historical judgment on that score will not rest with him, in any case.

question: What is in the basement of the Louisville library?

answer: A shrine to Mitch McConnel.

question: What were McConnel's goals as a politician according to the author?

answer: To pursue power for its own sake, not policy.

question: Whose confirmation to the supreme court did McConnel hold up?

answer: Merrick Garland.

question: Which revolution did McConnel hitch his star to?

answer: The Reagan Revolution.

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: The article discusses Mitch McConnell's career and the ways in which his policies have aided a complete Republican takeover of the courts. It discusses the history of his policies and how he has contributed to the Republic reaction during the Obama and Trump years.


text:
Just In

Top 5 atrocities committed by Christopher Columbus

It’s difficult to think of a more perverse hero than Christopher Columbus, the Italian who led Europe’s first landing party in the Americas.

From rape, to pillage, to flat-out murder, Columbus and his men were the first Europeans to commit horrendous atrocities against America’s indigenous people.

The following list describes a sampling of reasons why Columbus was an awful person, with information drawn from Howard Zinn’s "A People's History of the United States."

'We could subjugate them all'

In his journal, Columbus didn’t mince words about his intentions after meeting the Arawak natives in the Bahamas in 1492. He described the encounter thusly: “They ... brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things ... They willingly traded everything they owned ... They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features .... They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane. ... They would make fine servants. ... With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.” Columbus would add: “As soon as I arrived in the Indies, on the first Island which I found, I took some of the natives by force in order that they might learn and might give me information of whatever there is in these parts.”

Slavery and gold

Columbus had two goals in the Caribbean: to find gold and slaves. Columbus returned home to Spain and came back to the Caribbean with 17 ships and 1,200 men. His men traveled from island to island, taking Indians as captives. In 1495, in a large slave raid, Columbus and his men rounded up 1,500 Arawak men, women, and children, and put them in pens. They selected what they considered the best natives and loaded them onto ships back to Spain. Two hundred died en route. After the survivors were sold as slaves in Spain, Columbus later wrote: "Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold."

 Associated Press file

Blood for gold

But slaves weren’t enough for Columbus or the Spanish monarchy. Columbus needed to bring back gold. Columbus and his crew believed there were gold fields in the province of Cicao on Haiti. He and his men ordered all natives 14 years or older to collect a certain amount of gold every three months. Natives who didn’t collect enough gold had their hands cut off. But it was an impossible tasks. There was virtually no gold around; only a little dust in streams. Many natives fled and were consequently hunted down and killed by the Spaniards.

 Associated Press file

Cruelty

If captivity and death weren’t enough, Columbus and his men had a particular reputation for cruelty. Bartolome de las Casas, a young priest who participated in the conquest of Cuba and wrote a history of the Indies, describes the treatment of the natives: “Endless testimonies ... prove the mild and pacific temperament of the natives. ... But our work was to exasperate, ravage, kill, mangle and destroy; small wonder, then, if they tried to kill one of us now and then.... The admiral, it is true, was blind as those who came after him, and he was so anxious to please the King that he committed irreparable crimes against the Indians ...“ Las Casas describes how Spaniards rode on the backs of natives. How the Spaniards "thought nothing of knifing Indians by tens and twenties and of cutting slices off them to test the sharpness of their blades." Las Casas adds "two of these so-called Christians met two Indian boys one day, each carrying a parrot; they took the parrots and for fun beheaded the boys."

 Associated Press file

Mass genocide

Facing extermination, the Arawaks organized and attempted to fight back against the Spaniards. But they were little match against the armor, muskets, swords and horses of the Europeans. The Spaniards hung or burned Indians that they took captive. By this point, the Arawaks began committing mass suicides. They fed cassava poison to their infants to save them from the Spanish. In two years, half of the 250,000 Indians on Haiti were dead, either through murder, mutilation or suicide. By 1550, there were 500 Indians. By 1650, the Arawaks had been wiped out from the island.

 Associated Press file

Related to this collection

question: How many Arawak Indians remained in the Bahamas 58 years after Columbus landed and what happened to the others?

answer: When Columbus landed in the Bahamas in 1492, there were 250,000 Arawak Indians on the islands. Fifty-eight years later only 500 remained. The rest had been taken as slaves, murdered, or committed suicide.

question: Why did the Arawak Indians commit suicide?

answer: Columbus's men had a reputation for cruelty. They committed irreparable crimes against the Indians. They were exporting them as slaves. Many of the Indians died en route to Spain. The Spaniards often hanged or burned any Indians that they took captive. In the end the Arawaks began to commit mass suicides, feeding poison to their babies to save them from the Spanish.


text:
An associate to Roger Stone is challenging Robert Mueller's appointment.

A federal court in Washington, D.C., has denied a bid by a Russian firm to join an appeal brought by an American who is seeking to challenge the legitimacy of Robert Mueller’s appointment to special counsel.

U.S. Court of Appeals Judges David Tatel and Thomas Griffith ruled Thursday that the firm, Concord Management and Consulting, LLC., did not have standing to “intervene” in the appellate case brought by Andrew Miller, a former associate of longtime Donald Trump friend and Republican political operative Roger Stone.

Prosecutors allege Concord financed a St. Petersburg "troll factory" called the Internet Research Agency, which U.S. officials say set up hundreds of fake or automated social media accounts as part of a widespread online influence campaign ahead of the 2016 election. The firm has pleaded not guilty to a charge of conspiracy to commit fraud.

Miller served as an aide to Stone until 2013, according to Stone, who once described Miller as his “wingman” because he helped manage Stone’s schedule, travel and media appearances, and also provided “some I.T. work.” Miller identifies himself as a libertarian and has said he did not support Trump’s candidacy, but he did accompany Stone to the 2016 Republican National Convention.

Miller turned over requested documents to prosecutors but was also subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury in the Russia probe in late June. After an unsuccessful attempt by his attorney last month to quash the subpoena to testify, Miller was held in contempt of court for refusing to comply with it. ABC News reported earlier this month that Miller’s legal fight, now heading to the U.S. Court of Appeals, is being steered by a veteran Washington legal group that has a history of taking on Democrats and is bankrolled, in part, by longstanding Republican donors.

Attorneys for both Miller and Concord have argued that Mueller's appointment as special counsel was unconstitutional -- and both have lost those arguments in lower courts. Miller appealed his loss and, late last week, attorneys for Reed Smith, the American law firm representing Concord, moved to legally join in that appeal.

"Basic fairness therefore dictates that Concord should be permitted to participate in this appeal," Concord's motion said. Concord has also filed its own appeal, but said the “unique circumstances of this case," including the overlapping arguments against Mueller's appointment, should permit the firm to join in with Miller’s.

Miller's attorney did not oppose the move, but the special counsel team did.

In its response filed on Monday, prosecutors said that Concord should not be allowed to join Miller's appellate case because the firm "has not suffered a concrete and particularized injury as a result of the district court's contempt finding against Andrew Miller."

Thursday the court sided with Mueller’s team, but ordered Concord be eligible to file an amicus brief – its own argument presumably in support of Miller’s side -- should it choose to do so.

Concord, which prosecutors say is controlled by a close associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin, is one of three Russian entities, along with 13 Russian individuals, charged in connection with the alleged online influence operation, according to court documents. Concord is the only defendant to engage with the court through its U.S.-based attorneys. The attorneys did not respond to requests for comment for this report.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

[ABC News]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

question: Who is Roger Stone?

answer: He is a Republican political operative and longtime friend of Donald Trump.

question: What is Andrew Miller's relationship with Roger Stone?

answer: Miller served as an aide to Stone, handling the latter's schedule, travel, media appearances, and some IT work until 2013. Stone describes Miller as his "wingman" who accompanied him to the 2016 Republican National Convention.

question: Summarize everything relating to Concord Management and Consulting, LLC.

answer: A Russian firm alleged to have financed a St. Petersburg "troll factory" called the Internet Research Agency that set up hundreds of fake or automated social media accounts as part of a widespread online influence campaign ahead of the 2016 election. Concord is controlled by a close associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin and is one of three Russian entities charged with the alleged online influence operation and the only defendant to engage with the court through its U.S.-based attorneys. Concord was seeking to join Andrew Miller's team currently the legitimacy of Robert Mueller's appointment to special counsel. U.S. Court of Appeals Judges David Tatel and Thomas Griffith ruled that Concord did not have the standing to "intervene" in the appellate case brought by Miller.

question: Who is steering Miller's legal fight now that it is heading to the U.S. Court of Appeals?

answer: A veteran Washington legal group that has a history of taking on Democrats and is bankrolled by longstanding Republican donors.

question: Write a ~4 sentence summary.

answer: A federal court in Washington, D.C., has denied a bid by Concord Management and Consulting, LLC. to join Andrew Miller's legal team that is seeking to challenge the legitimacy of Robert Mueller's appointment to special counsel. Miller is the former aide of Roger Stone, a Republican political operative and longtime friend of Donald Trump. Concord is controlled by a close associate of Russian President Putin and is charged with financing a "troll factory" in St. Petersburg that is responsible for setting up fake social media accounts as part of a widespread online influence campaign ahead of the 2016 election.


text:
ANCHAL COLLEGE is an undergraduate college under Odisha Government in the Bargarh District.[1][2] This college was established in 1965. This university was earlier affiliated to Utkal University, after the establishment of Sambalpur University in 1966 it was later added to later one. This college provides education in Higher Secondary and Degree level in Arts, Science and Commerce.

History

The College is one of the oldest college in western Odisha being established in the year 1965. This College is a fully aided educational institution of the government of Odisha, having many UGC- scale teachers. The College was credited with a “B” grade by NAAC. This college was early afflicted with Utkal University, till when in 1969 Sambalpur University came into existence and afflicted with the new University. It is present in the revenue district of Bargarh.

Department

The college provides teaching in following courses: Botany, Chemistry, Commerce, Economics, Education, English, History, Mathematics, Oriya, Philosophy, Physics, Political science, Sankrit, Zoology, and Information Technology.

NAAC Grade 2016

The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) is an independent autonomous body which works under University Grants Commission (UGC) which was established in the year 1994 with its headquarters in Bengaluru. The overall work of this autonomous body is to improve the quality of education, by visiting college and providing grades it decide the condition of the institution and provides fund. According to latest reports of Meeting of the Standing Committee, list of Institutions Recommended for Accreditation by NAAC 2nd cycle report, Anchal College had ranked Grade B with CGPA 2.21 C.G.P.A. The grade system of N.A.A.C usually lasts for 5 years and after the completion of 5 years the NAAC team again visits the respective college for grading.

N.A.A.C grades institute with 8 grade ladder:[3]

  -------- ----------------------------- -------------- ------------------------
  Sl. No   Range of institutional CGPA   Letter Grade   Performance Descriptor
  1.       3.51 – 4.00                   A++            Accredited
  2.       3.26 – 3.50                   A+             Accredited
  3.       3.01 – 3.25                   A              Accredited
  4.       2.76 – 3.00                   B++            Accredited
  5.       2.51 – 2.75                   B+             Accredited
  6.       2.01 – 2.50                   B              Accredited
  7.       1.51 – 2.00                   C              Accredited
  8.       ≤ 1.50                        D              Not Accredited
  -------- ----------------------------- -------------- ------------------------

[1]

[2]

[3]

title: Anchal College, Padampur

question: Where is Anchal College?

answer: The Bargarh District in Western Odisha.

question: What kind of a college is it?

answer: Undergraduate.

question: What does "NAAC" stand for?

answer: The National Assessment and Accreditation Council.

question: How long would students typically be enrolled at Anchal College before graduating with a degree?

answer: Five years.

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: Anchal College is an undergraduate school in the Bargarh District of western Odisha. It wa was established in the year 1965. An Anchal College education typically consists of five years of study, and has ties to Uktai University.


text:
Scrubs

In a college cafeteria, a young woman (her friends call her Scrubs) sits at a table and eats her lunch with her eyes unfocused and staring ahead. She sits up straight, even though she looks like she’s going to collapse. She chews her food mechanically. Her light blue nurse’s scrubs are clean and wrinkle free; her white shoes are as bright as the first day she proudly bought them. Her Mom and Pop back home in Kansas would be impressed if they could see her now. She comes from a family of farmers whose education never exceeded high school. Ever since she was a little girl, she dreamt of becoming a nurse in the big city. She traveled from her small town in Kansas full of determination and hope; the things that she’s afraid might disappear since the incident at her apartment building.

She pushes the incident out of her thoughts for now. She pretends that it never happened. Her life is going perfectly. She has a job that helps her pay for school and she found a boyfriend. His name is Georgeo. “He’s such a caring person,” she thinks to herself. Her and Georgeo went to an animal shelter when they were first dating, and picked out a dog that could keep her company in her lonely apartment. She’s not sure what breed of dog he is, but he has been a loyal companion, she named him Champion.

She finishes her day at school and is walking towards the bus stop when she gets a call from Georgeo on her cell phone. “Hey, I’m sorry about what happened. I have a surprise that might cheer you up though.” He says.

“An engagement ring!” she thinks to herself.

They had been seeing each other for months now. He is the kindest, sweetest man she has ever known. She knows that Georgeo was the perfect man for her. She can see him and her growing old together and having children. Her life could be perfect with him, she thought, even more perfect than it is now.

“I can’t wait!” She replied.

On her way home, she fantasizes about her bright future. When she enters her apartment, Champion does not greet her at the door like he usually does. “Champ’s getting lazy,” she thinks to herself. She puts down her bag and reclines on the couch. She picks up the remote control, points it at the television and presses the button, but there’s no effect. She pushes the button once more; still no effect. She focuses her eyes away from her daydreaming to the television.
Champion is sitting like a statue before the television in the dark room; his steel-grey eyes are fixed upon her. “What are you doing Champ? Come here boy.” She says. Champion does not move. His eyes are still focused on her in the darkness, unblinking; she can feel him peering into her soul. She turns her head away. “He knows” She thinks, “of course he knows, he was there when it happened.” She slowly opens her mind, letting in the memories of the day of the incident. “Poor Missus Agatha Watson, if only I had paid more attention to her, she might still be alive today. Why did I have such a loose grip?” she repeats over and over in her head. “Maybe if Georgeo hadn’t been flirting with me and my heart was not racing,” she thought. “Only Champion knows that I wasn’t focused while walking Mrs. Watson’s wheelchair. If I were paying more attention, Mrs. Watson wouldn’t have slipped down those stairs. It… it was an accident...”

She replays the incident in her mind. She was leaving her apartment to take Champion for a walk before her date with Georgeo later that evening. She was thinking about the naughty things that he said to her on the phone earlier, and she was unable to calm herself down. Just as Scrubs was coming out of her apartment, Agatha Watson, the elderly woman in a wheelchair from a couple doors down was coming down the hall, with her feeble, quivering arms struggling to turn the wheels. “Be a dear and push my wheelchair for me,” she called out.

“Sure thing Agatha.” Scrubs replied, and she walked over to the wheelchair.

“Don’t call me Agatha, kiddo. It’s Mrs. Watson to you, and don’t you forget it.”

“Oh, I’m sorry Mrs. Watson.” Scrubs says, as she takes the wheelchair handles and starts to push.

“Say, what are you all dolled up for? A girl doesn’t put on her glad rags just to take her pup for a walk.”

“I, uh, just felt like dressing up today.”

“Says you!” cried Agatha Watson, “you look like you’re on cloud nine. I think you’re stuck on that ragamuffin I’ve seen coming into your apartment. I’ve seen you two necking out here in the hall.”

“You mean—my boyfriend?”

“You’re such a pushover. I’ll bet he’s gonna take you to a petting pantry and afterwards you’re gonna play backseat bingo in his old jalopy. Real original! Any swell daddy would take you out to a ritzy joint no matter how many rubes it costs. Back in my day--” old Agatha Watson kept jabbering on, making archaic criticisms and insults about Scrubs and Georgeo all the way down the hall to the elevator next to the stairs.

The strangest thing happened when they got to the elevator, something that she can’t forget no matter how hard she tries, Agatha Watson’s wheelchair started to inch toward the stairs. For some reason Scrubs watched it happen, paralyzed in place, she didn’t reach out to stop it. Agatha screamed out with her weak old lady voice as she and her wheelchair flipped end over end down the stairs. The wheelchair and the old lady took turns slamming against the stairs. The wheelchair created loud metallic bangs against the wooden staircase and the old lady just made dull thumps combined with the sound of fracturing bones. Agatha’s scream abruptly stopped halfway through the tumble when her head impacted a step. It all happened in an instant. At the bottom, the body of Mrs. Watson lay pinned under her wheelchair with the side of her face pressed against the floor. When the police questioned Scrubs about it, she said that she found her, already dead, after she heard a commotion in the hall.

“It was an… accident…” she repeats in the darkened room, “I used extra lotion so my hands would be oh so soft when I held hands with Georgeo on our date and the wheel chair just slipped out of my grasp, that’s all… nobody’s fault…”

The dog was still looking at her. This time he had an incriminatory look in his eyes, as if to say to her, “I know what you did.”

“But it was an accident, Champ. You have to believe me!” She shouted out. She was starting to cry, but Champion’s glare persisted, unblinking.

“Okay, okay, so what if I’m partly to blame?! I didn’t really mean to! I couldn’t move! You were there! You saw! I couldn’t move!” she shouted.

She remembered back, when the rage built up inside of her as Mrs. Watson talked in the hall. “How dare this uppity witch talk to me this way,” Scrubs thought. “What would happen if this lady just fell down these stairs? Would anyone care? The world would be so much better without this wrinkly old snob in it, maybe I should do everyone a favor.” There was supposed to be a separation of thought and action. It was supposed to only be fantasy. In this case, her fantasy dictated her actions. She pushed Agatha Watson down those stairs and only her and Champion knows the truth.

“I did it, Champion!” Scrubs cries, “I confess! It was my entire fault! I hated the old woman and I wished her dead and it happened. Can’t we just forget about it? Our life is perfect, Georgeo wants to marry me; I know it! Let’s forget it ever happened, it doesn’t make a difference. Don’t let this stand in our way of happiness!” Scrubs tearfully pleaded.
The dog’s grey eyes didn’t let up. Champion could see through her, no matter how hard she begged for mercy, he didn’t let go of his hold on her. He sat in the same spot, intently trying to force the evil out of her.

Scrubs broke down. She started crying unrestrained. She knew what she had to do.

She boarded the bus at the stop on the corner. Choking on her tears and shaking with her sobs on the crowded bus, she traveled to the police station where she turned herself in. One policeman was trying to console her, thinking that she was the victim of some horrible crime before she could slow her crying down enough to tell him that she was the one who committed a horrible crime and that she needed to be locked away forever. The police were astounded, but they locked her in a cell nonetheless, based on what she said.

“You get one phone call.” Said a policeman, as he guided her to the phone on the wall. She knew whom she was going to call, Georgeo, to tell him that their future was over. She dialed the number, he picked up, and she explained to him what she had done.

“You what!?” Said Georgeo, completely shocked.

“I killed that old lady in my apartment building… now we can’t ever get married… our future is wrecked, because of me.”

“Whoa there! You killed someone? And what’s this about marriage? Is this some kind of joke? Because it’s not funny.”

“But—that surprise you had for me—wasn’t that an… engagement ring?”

“What!? No. The other day when I came to your apartment and you weren’t there, I found your dog. Dead.”

“That… that doesn’t make any sense. Champion is alive. He’s the reason I’m here in the first place! What does that have to do with my surprise anyway?”

“umm… I thought you knew he was dead at the time… I took the liberty of taking him to a taxidermist, to get him stuffed… as a present. I know how much you loved that dog.”

There was a long pause.

“I… I have to go now…” whimpered Scrubs, as she carefully put the phone back on the wall. She turned around and slowly walked back into her cell. She had a long, long time to think about what happened, and how her life came to this.

title: Scrubs

question: What does the story say about how Scrubs feels about Agatha's death?

answer: Scrubs feel guilty because she was not more careful when she was pushing Agatha's wheelchair and because she hated Agatha and wanted her dead. She goes to the police and tells them she committed a crime.

question: Summarize Scrubs' surprises in the plot.

answer: Scrubs is surprised that her dog does not greet her at the door but seats like a statue in the room with his eyes fixed upon her. Then she is shocked when she sees Agath's wheelchair slipping down the stairs. In the end, she is surprised when she learns that her dog is not alive and that her boyfriend got him stuffed.

question: What does the story say about Georgeo's job?


text:
Nonprofits are often referred to as corporations, but can they also be LLCs? They can, but it isn’t typical. Find out more about how LLCs can act as a nonprofit.

Nonprofit organizations are usually formed as corporations, but can an LLC be a nonprofit? The answer is a resounding: maybe. A limited liability company (LLC) or a Low-Profit LLC can exist as a nonprofit limited liability company, if the LLC is completely owned by the single tax-exempt nonprofit organization and the LLC meets a dozen requirements as set forth in an IRS mandate called: “Limited Liability Companies as Exempt Organization Update.”

LLCs aren’t usually formed as nonprofit (or, technically, tax-exempt) organizations because most people find the process complex and realize forming as a nonprofit corporation is more straightforward.

Because all of the members (owners) of the LLC nonprofit must also be tax-exempt nonprofit organizations themselves, this type of setup doesn’t make a lot of sense for individuals that wanted to start a nonprofit. Each owner would have to incorporate as a nonprofit corporation and then form the tax-exempt nonprofit. It makes more sense for a group of nonprofit corporations to form together as a tax-exempt, nonprofit LLC, but even that is uncommon.

IRS RULES FOR FORMING AN LLC NONPROFIT

When you are forming an LLC nonprofit, the IRS will make the final decision about your tax-exempt status. Each member of the LLC must be a tax-exempt nonprofit organization, and the following twelve rules also apply:

Note: Just like with a nonprofit corporation, the organizing documents used to form an LLC must declare the mission as one that advances a charitable purpose.

The conditions are:

1.  Organizational documents (the documents filed when you are starting a tax-exempt nonprofit) must include an exact statement limiting LLC activities to one or more exempt objectives.
2.  The language in your organizational documents must state clearly that the LLC be operated exclusively to further charitable purposes of its members.
3.  Organizational language must require LLC members to be section 501(c)(3) organizations (nonprofit organizations), governmental units (associated with government related activities), or wholly-owned instrumentalities of a state or political subdivision of it (similar to governmental units).
4.  Organizational language must prohibit any direct (or indirect transfer) of any LLC membership interest to a recipient other than a section 501(c)(3) organization or to a governmental unit.
5.  Organizational language must state that the LLC (interests in the LLC or its assets), may only be transferred to a nonmember other than a 501(c)(3) organization, governmental unit, or instrumentality in exchange for fair market value. In other words, LLC interests must be sold for fair market value to any other business that is not one of those described as a 501(c)(3) organization, governmental unit, or instrumentality.
6.  Organizational language must guarantee that upon dissolution of the LLC, the LLC assets devoted to charitable purposes will continue to be devoted only to charitable purposes.
7.  Organizational language must require any amendments to LLC articles of organization to be consistent with section 501(c)(3).
8.  Organizational language must prohibit the LLC from merging with, becoming, or converting into, a for-profit business entity.
9.  Organizational language must require that the LLC not distribute any assets to members who cease to be organizations - described in section 501(c)(3), governmental units, or instrumentalities.
10. Organizational language must contain an acceptable contingency plan in the event one (or more) members ceases to be a 501(c)(3), governmental unit, or instrumentality.
11. Organizational language must state that the LLC exempt members will  enforce all of their LLC rights to pursue all legal and equitable remedies to protect LLC interests.
12. Organizing document provisions must be consistent with state LLC laws, and enforceable at law and in equity.

If you can meet all of these requirements when starting a nonprofit, the IRS may allow you to form a nonprofit LLC.

_If you are considering forming a nonprofit LLC, you may want to talk to an attorney first. Get legal advice from a business attorney regarding nonprofit LLC formation by signing up for the LegalZoom business legal plan._

question: Can a limited liability company be a nonprofit?

answer: A limited liability company, or LLC, can exist as a nonprofit limited liability company, if the LLC is completely owned by the single tax-exempt nonprofit organization and the LLC meets a dozen requirements set forth in an IRS mandate called "Limited Liability Companies as Exempt Organization Update."


text:
Street Plans places a high value on research, writing, and communicating best practices. Our published work has given shape to a wide range of topics including tactical urbanism, open streets, smart growth, new urbanism, public market design, public space stewardship, resiliency, and more.

Our writing, projects, and advocacy work has been featured in The New York Times, City Lab, NPR, NBC, ABC, Next City, Streetsblog, Planning Magazine, Grist, Salon, Tree Hugger, Momentum Magazine, Forbes, Curbed, The Village Voice, and The Miami Herald among many other other publications.

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[]Asphalt Art Guide

Street Plans, in collaboration with Bloomberg Associates, created the Asphalt Art Guide, a free and comprehensive guidebook for cities looking to transform streets and public spaces with art. The guide features over two dozen case studies around the world of transformative, art-driven street design projects and also provides step-by-step guidance to cities and communities looking to create their own asphalt art project.

 See more about the Asphalt Art Initiative in this Curbed Article, and in the Asphalt Art Website.

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[]Tactical Transit

The Transportation Research Board of The National Academies of Sciences recently published Fast-Tracked: A Tactical Transit Study, a research report produced by Street Plans. The report offers a comprehensive look into projects that use low-cost materials and accelerated timelines to expand transit.

Projects included show improved transit speed, access, and ridership at a fraction of both the cost and time of conventional projects. This is a first of its kind study that focuses on how North American cities are increasingly turning to the Quick-Build methodology to expand transit options, improve existing service, and increase ridership.

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[]The Monocle Guide to Building Better Cities

Street Plans’ Principal Mike Lydon authored an essay for Monocle’s new book titled _The Monocle Guide to Building Better Cities_, published by Die Gestalten Verlag. The essay, titled _Take Small Steps_, uncovers tactical urbanism and offers supporting examples underscoring how short-term action can be leveraged into long-term change.

The book is available for purchase online.

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[]Sustainable Nation: Urban Design Patterns for the Future

Street Plans’ Principal Mike Lydon wrote a chapter in a new book titled _Sustainable Nation: Urban Design Patterns for the Future_, published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and authored by Farr Associate‘s Douglas Farr. The chapter is about deliberating positive neighborhood change quickly through Tactical Urbanism.

The book is available for purchase online and at a variety of bookstores.

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[]The Community Resilience Reader

Street Plans’ Principal Mike Lydon wrote a chapter in a new book titled _Community Resilience Reader: Essential Resources for an Era of Upheaval_, published by Island Press and edited by Post Carbon Institute‘s Daniel Lerch. The chapter is about “Tactical Resilience,” which applies the short-term, low-cost approach of Tactical Urbanism to work towards more resilient cities, streets, and communities.

The book is available for purchase online and at a variety of bookstores.

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Tactical Urbanist’s Guide to Materials and Design

Thanks to funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and review support from NACTO and the Vision Zero Network, we are proud to present the Tactical Urbanist’s Guide to Materials and Design. This new print and digital resource provides high-quality design and materials guidance for citizen-led demonstration, and city-led pilot and interim design projects. In addition, we have begun hosting a workshop series to accompany the Guide, with the goal of expanding participating agency (or agencies) familiarity and comfort with planning and executing collaborative demonstration, pilot, and interim design projects. If you are interested in a workshop or want to get in touch, visit our Contact page.

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[PublicSpaceStewardshipGuide]Public Space Stewardship Guide

Street Plans, in collaboration with the San Francisco Planning Department and MJM Management Group, has released the Public Space Stewardship Guide, a living document that provides community groups and city leaders with models, case studies and ready-to-use tools for funding, programming and maintaining a successful public space.

Successful public spaces require funding, programming, and maintenance; and the most celebrated spaces need community partnerships to implement all three. However, cities and communities have historically lacked the resources to better understand, compare and budget for these essential elements of public space stewardship. The Public Space Stewardship Guide comes at an opportune moment as more neighborhood associations, non-profits and elected representatives seek to support public life in their own plazas, parks and neighborhood spaces.

Check out the full online PDF version of the guide. To learn more visit the guide’s website and SF Planning’s press release.

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[TU-BOOKE-COVER]Tactical Urbanism

Through the publication of six open-source guides and one full-length book, we have become the stewards of the Tactical Urbanism movement. With Island Press, Mike Lydon and Anthony Garcia have written and recently published the highly anticipated book Tactical Urbanism: Short-term Action for Long-term Change. Click here to order the book, or pick up a copy at your local bookstore today!

Prior to publishing the full-length book, Street Plans worked with numerous collaborators, to produce four open-source Tactical Urbanism Guides. The Guides have been translated into four languages, and have been downloaded over 300,000 times. To download all of the guides, please visit the Tactical Urbanism Guides website.

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[]Charter of the New Urbanism, Second Edition

Street Plans’ Principal Mike Lydon contributed to the Second Edition of _Charter of The New Urbanism_, published by McGraw-Hill and edited by Emily Talen. The book consists of writing from 62 of the most influential urbanists addressing the Charter of the New Urbanism’s 27 principles that guide urban planning, design, and public policy.

The book can be purchased online and at bookstores everywhere.

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[TU-Booke-Cover]Open Streets

In partnership with The Alliance for Biking and Walking, and with funding from The Fund for the Environment and Urban Life, The Street Plans Collaborative recently completed a two year research project entitled The Open Streets Project.

Open streets initiatives temporarily close streets to automobiles, allowing residents to walk, bike, skate, dance and utilize the roadways in countless creative and active ways. From Los Angeles to Ottawa, and Missoula to Miami, open streets have become a way for cities to build community, promote active transportation and reconnect neighborhoods divided by traffic.

The project website showcases dozens of current initiatives across the continent and allows municipalities and advocacy organizations to share information and resources on their open streets initiatives as they evolve and expand. The Open Streets Guide features best practices from 67 initiatives across the continent, and serves as a tool for cities looking to start or grow an open streets initiative. A print version is available at www.OpenStreetsProject.org.

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[SGM Cover Image-1000]The Smart Growth Manual

Mike collaborated with Andres Duany and Jeff Speck in writing _The Smart Growth Manual, _ranked by Planetizen as one of the top ten urban planning, design, and development books of 2010.

“The goal of _The Smart Growth Manual_ is clear from page 1: to create a guidebook for smart growth following the pattern of the Charter for New Urbanism. Duany, Speck and Lydon have achieved that in spades (the Charter is included in the appendix, in case we missed the connection). It even clears up some of the architectural arguments that attach themselves to New Urbanists, such as this segment of Section 14.1, Regional Design; “While new buildings should not be compelled to mimic their historic predecessors, designers should pay attention to local practices regarding materials and colors, roof pitches, eave lengths, window-to-wall ratios, and the socially significant relationship of buildings to their site and the street; these have usually evolved in intelligent response to local conditions.” In addition to making the old “traditional vs. modern” argument irrelevant, Duany, Speck and Lydon have truly managed to boil down the best parts of current practices into a highly readable, portable book.” – Planetizen

_The Manual_ is now available for purchase online and at bookstores everywhere.

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[MERCADO-COVER-1000]The Mercado Project

Julie Flynn, a Project Manager with Street Plans, spent five months researching markets in South America. The Mercados Project is the result of her research. An article written for Planetizen provides a nice summary of the work.

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[transitmiami-logo]Transit Miami

From 2008 to 2012, Tony Garcia was the managing editor and publisher of Transitmiami.com, a website dedicated to planning and transportation in South Florida. The site provides a group of passionate professional planners, advocates and every-day citizens with a forum to discuss needed changes in how planning and development occurs in South Florida.

Transitmiami.com pursued a variety of community  and city-wide campaigns, ranging from lowering speeds on Brickell Avenue, to reforming the local Transit Tax. Most recently, Transitmiami.com Utilized a multi-faceted web-based media platform to build grassroots support for the City’s passage of Miami 21, a highly innovative form-based code that now codifies smart growth.

question: What does the text say about the Public Space Stewardship Guide?

answer: The Public Space Stewardship Guide is a living document that provides community groups and city leaders with models, case studies, and ready-to-use tools for funding, maintaining, and successful public space and programming. In the past, cities and communities have lacked the resources to comprehend better, compare, and budget for the essential elements of public space stewardship, which require funding, maintenance, and programming. The Public Space Stewardship Guide is useful for neighborhood associations, non-profit organizations, and elected representatives who want to support public life in their neighborhood spaces, parks, and plazas.

question: What does the text say about Mike Lydon's contribution to the second edition of Charter of The New Urbanism?

question: Summarize what the text says about the research project, The Open Streets Project.

answer: The Open Streets Project is an initiative that temporarily closes streets to automobiles, allowing residents to walk, skate, dance, bike, and use the roadways in numerous creative and active ways. Open Streets have become a way for cities to build community, reconnect neighborhoods divided by traffic and promote active transportation. The Open Streets Guide features best practices from 67 initiatives across the continent and serves as a tool for cities that want to start or develop an open streets initiative.