text:
KPBS previously reported on lobbyist meetings with San Diego city officials that potentially violated state ban

[Radio news logo]

Aired 4/5/17 on KPBS News

California officials said an investigation is still ongoing into whether lobbyists for Sempra Energy's new marketing division, Sempra Services, violated state law by meeting with some San Diego elected officials.

State officials said an investigation is still ongoing into whether lobbyists for Sempra Energy's new marketing division, Sempra Services, violated state law by meeting with some San Diego elected officials.

KPBS previously reported Sempra Services lobbyists met with city of San Diego elected officials, including Mayor Kevin Faulconer and City Councilmembers David Alvarez, Chris Cate and Mark Kersey. At that time, KPBS asked for the calendars of San Diego County Supervisors, but only received the calendar for Supervisor Kristin Gaspar. A county spokesman said the rest would have to be approved as a Public Records Act request.

Now, that request has been filled, and calendars show all four supervisors besides Gaspar met with Sempra Services lobbyists, although some of the meetings were about issues not related to energy.

The reason for the state investigation into Sempra Services revolves around a question of whether it has received full approval from the agency that oversees utilities, the California Public Utilities Commission.

The California Public Utilities Commission has said Sempra and its utility, San Diego Gas & Electric, does not have the final OK to begin lobbying.

RELATED: STATE COMMISSION INVESTIGATING SDG&E FOR LOBBYING AGAINST COMMUNITY ENERGY PROGRAM

The dispute is over an alternative energy program called community choice, which would allow cities and counties to bypass SDG&E and decide on their own where to buy energy, which could allow them to choose more renewable energy sources.

What is community choice aggregation?

Right now, San Diego Gas & Electric provides power through its system of lines and wires to every city in San Diego County and southern Orange County. SDG&E buys the electricity from a variety of sources, including natural gas plants, hydroelectric dams and wind turbine farms.

If a city goes with community choice aggregation, power would still go through SDG&E’s grid, but the city would buy the energy, not the utility. That allows cities to have more control over how much of their energy comes from renewable sources and the cost for that electricity.

State law prevents utilities from marketing or lobbying on community choice aggregation unless they set up an independent organization that is not funded by ratepayers.

That is what Sempra Energy did by establishing Sempra Services. State officials said the organization does not yet have full approval.

However, people working for Sempra Services have been meeting with San Diego elected officials and their staff anyway. They also spoke about community choice at a recent San Diego County Board of Supervisors meeting, where only Supervisor Dianne Jacob spoke in support of studying the feasibility of community choice.

RELATED: SEMPRA MAY HAVE BROKEN STATE RULES BY LOBBYING ON ENERGY PROGRAM

Calendars show that from Jan. 1, 2016 to now, the following meetings with county supervisors took place:

–Supervisor Greg Cox met three times with either Frank Urtasun or Lani Lutar, both Sempra Services lobbyists. But Cox's spokesman said none of the meetings were about community choice or energy-related matters. Instead, they were about homeless issues, San Diego Coastkeeper and the Rancho Guejito development.

–Supervisor Bill Horn met once with Lutar. His spokeswoman did not respond to an email requesting comment, but his calendar notes show the meeting was about "Rancho Guejito update on current agricultural activities and related issues and challenges."

–Supervisor Dianne Jacob met once with Lutar. Her spokesman said the meeting "was not about Sempra or SDG&E," but instead was about "a land-use issue."

–Supervisor Ron Roberts met five times with either Urtasun or Lutar. His spokesman said the meetings were about affordable housing, homelessness, San Diego Coastkeeper, groundwater at Rancho Guejito and "SDG&E’s efforts to install 3,500 electric vehicle chargers at 350 sites."

Lutar is a lobbyist who works on several issues, not just for Sempra Services. Urtasun is the regional vice president for Sempra Services.

SDG&E is being investigated by the California Public Utilities Commission because people affiliated with Sempra Services, including Lutar and Urtasun, are meeting with elected officials and making public comments, according to a spokeswoman for the commission.

She said by email earlier this month that "SDG&E is not in compliance with the California Public Utilities Commission Resolution allowing them to form an Independent Marketing Division with conditions and consequently may not be participating in lobbying activities that could only be performed by the marketing division."

"SDG&E attorneys have argued that under their particular reading of the Resolution they are allowed to lobby," she said. "The California Public Utilities Commission is investigating the facts surrounding their community choice-related communications."

Amber Albrecht, a spokeswoman for SDG&E, said by email that the utility "is not lobbying" on community choice. Instead, she said, their understanding is that the California Public Utilities Commission has approved their independent organization to lobby on community choice.

In August, the California Public Utilities Commission gave initial approval to the organization but said it still needed more information from SDG&E.

Then in December, the commission said marketing and lobbying on community choice was suspended because SDG&E had not given enough information to show the organization is independent enough from the utility.

Albrecht said that proposed changes to SDG&E's independent organization are being reviewed by California Public Utilities Commission staff, but that does not block the organization from operating.

"Staff has no authority to override the California Public Utilities Commission’s resolution," she said. She added that the commission "has no authority" to stop the independent organization "from exercising its First Amendment right to speak, particularly here, where the ban would be applied to control the content of Sempra Services’ speech."

California Public Utilities Commission staff still have not said how long the investigation could last, or what the consequences of it could be.

FEATURED PODCAST

[San Diego News Matters podcast branding]

KPBS' daily news podcast covering local politics, education, health, environment, the border and more. New episodes are ready weekday mornings so you can listen on your morning commute.

-
-
-
-

[Photo of Claire Trageser]

Claire Trageser
Investigative Reporter

[opening quote marks][closing quote marks]As a member of the KPBS investigative team, my job is to hold the powerful in San Diego County accountable. I've done in-depth investigations on political campaigns, police officer misconduct and neighborhood quality of life issues.

To view PDF documents, Download Acrobat Reader.

question: Summarize the source of tension in this news article.

answer: There is speculation that there might have been a violation on the part of lobbyists for Sempra Energy's marketing division. The exact allegation is that they met with San Diego, California elected officials. The lobbyists allegedly sought to discuss the proposed community energy program which allows cities to buy the power source of their choice, which is more environmentally-friendly, without having to pay for the utility. This would allow for the usage of more renewable energy sources. San Diego Gas & Electric currently provides power through its own system, so SDG&E would like to derail this alleged plan of the lobbyists.

question: Describe the larger picture this article paints about society's attitudes toward moving toward using renewable energy sources.


split: train

text:
BARNWELL REGIONAL AIRPORT is a county-owned, public-use airport located northwest of the central business district of Barnwell, a city in Barnwell County, South Carolina, United States. It is owned by Barnwell County.[1] The airport serves the general aviation community,[2] with no scheduled commercial airline service.

History

The airport was built by the United States Army Air Forces and opened in May 1943. BARNWELL ARMY AIRFIELD was a satellite airfield of Columbia Army Air Base, supporting B-25 Mitchell medium bomber training for Third Air Force III Air Support Command. Training was accomplished by 44th Station Complement Squadron which also maintained the facility. After the war, the airfield was turned over to local authorities which converted it into a civil airport.

Facilities and aircraft

Barnwell Regional Airport covers an area of at an elevation of above mean sea level. It has two asphalt paved runways: 17/35 is by and 5/23 is by .[3]

For the 12-month period ending 29 October 2018, the airport had 5,750 aircraft operations, an average of 16 per day: 80% general aviation, 7% air taxi, and 13% military. At that time there were 26 aircraft based at this airport, all of them single-engine.[4]

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

title: Barnwell Regional Airport

question: Where is the Barnwell Regional Airport located?

answer: It is located in Barnwell County, South Carolina, Unites States.

question: When was the airport built?

answer: The airport was built opened in 1943.

question: How many aircraft are based at the airport?

answer: There are currently 26 aircraft based at the Barnwell Airport.

question: What is the usage percentage of the airport based on industry?

answer: 80% of the traffic is general aviation, 7% is air taxi, and 13% is military.

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: The Barnwell Regional Airport is a public-use airport located in Barnwell County, South Carolina, United States. It was opened in 1943.


text:
If you’ve seen one trade unionist on social media, it’s probably been Dave Ward, the 58-year-old boss of the Communication Workers’ Union. His Twitter account turns popular memes into political ones: during the election, a particularly successful series riffed on the “You versus the guy she told you not to worry about” meme, comparing the crowds greeting Jeremy Corbyn as he toured the country versus the controlled environments that Theresa May prepared to campaign in.

Ward’s use of social media, which he credits to his team, particularly Chris Webb, his communications director who sits in on our interview, came about when he was standing for general secretary. He was standing against Billy Hayes, the incumbent, and “when you take on an incumbent, they have control of [union] communications.”

“I'm not saying this is wrong,” he adds, “The union needs to keep communicating about industry issues or political issues, but because they've got a grip on that, we knew we needed to have something different.”

Ward, who started working at the Post Office aged 16, wasn’t “one of those people who got into politics having read stuff, it’s more instinctive to me”. He got involved in the union, after a union rep intervened when he had difficulties with his then-manager. “I thought, well, thanks very much, and I took an interest in the union then, and the comradeship.” There followed what he dubs a “long apprenticeship” as a workplace rep from 1978 onwards, until he became deputy general secretary in 2003.

But when he ran for general secretary in 2015, few expected him to win. His campaign held Q&As on Facebook, and, Ward recalls, “it just took off”. Much to the surprise of others in the labour movement and the parliamentary party, Ward won – and was immediately thrust into the hyper-political world of a Labour leadership contest.

He recognised in Corbyn a kindred spirit. “When Corbyn was talking about a different kind of politics,” he says, “the truth is we were talking privately about a different type of trade unionism”. The CWU was the first of Labour’s big unions to back Corbyn’s 2015 bid and one of the most enthusiastic, though they don’t always agree: Ward, a south Londoner, supports Chelsea, while Corbyn is a follower of Arsenal. “I told Jeremy: you can have that one,” he recalls of Arsenal’s 2-1 defeat of Chelsea in the FA Cup Final on 27 May.

“Our reason for supporting Jeremy initially,” Ward recalls, “was how poor, frankly, New Labour had been in defending our industry.”

Ward’s endorsement, which said that Corbyn would clear Labour of its “Blairite virus”, drew attention at the time and a rebuke from one of Ward’s predecessors at the CWU, Alan Johnson, who wrote in the _Guardian_: “I’ve known Ward for 25 years, during which he has never been a political activist. His interest was always firmly on the industrial side of the CWU. The sad thing is that he obviously felt that the only way he could attract attention as a newly elected general secretary was to slag off the Labour Party. In this respect he was following the example of some other leaders of affiliated unions whose only emotion when talking about Labour seems to be anger, the only volume setting loud.”

Unsurprisingly, Ward has a different interpretation of what drove his endorsement: his own memories of working with the Labour government as a union official. “The reality is Labour put forward a proposal to privatise [the Royal Mail] just before they went out of power, and they also put forward a liberalisation agenda, a competition agenda, that's exploiting terms and conditions, to come in without any protection for workers,” he argues.

I ask him if the other leaders of Labour’s major trade unions, some of whom came to support Corbyn slightly later down the line, ever expressed similar views to Johnson.

“Were there meetings where people were unsure [about Corbyn]?” he asks, “Yeah, of course. You've got to be honest about that as well. Some of that was perhaps legit. Not for the campaign. Obviously for the leadership contest, the first leadership contest there was pretty much, amongst the key union leaders, pretty much unanimous support in the end.”

By the second year, things looked more difficult. “It was clear to me that Jeremy himself didn't command the level of support amongst trade union leaders that he had done previously but I think everyone knows that. It’s no secret that people were positioning [for a leadership contest after an expected heavy defeat].”

I ask him what Corbyn needs to go one better, after his success last month, and take power. “Time,” Ward says without hesitation. “Just time.”

Warming to his theme, he says: “I don't think we need to overplay our hand. I think we need to keep doing what we've been doing, developing policy, getting out and building that movement. Continue to engage, and keep building on your policies. I think the economic stuff needs to come to the fore a bit. I think John McDonnell needs to be given a few platforms.

“I wouldn't personally, as a personal view, I wouldn't get preoccupied with how can we turn the situation where we haven't quite won, into bringing down a Tory minority government. Politics will take care of that, and there will be opportunities along the way to expose how weak that government is, I'm sure.”

But there is another aspect to how Labour can take power that will preoccupy him more: “What are we [the trade union movement] going to do? Jeremy's done a fantastic job. Those around him in the leadership team in Labour, and I think Momentum deserve a lot of credit, they've done a great job. And I'm sitting here now going, what am I going to do as a trade union leader? I'm not going to ride in on their shirttails. We have a responsibility as a trade union movement to do our bit.”

He thinks that trade unions have tended to focus too heavily on politics, particularly foreign policy, in recent years. Although he talks up the “fantastic people” at the TUC, he points out that “if I got all the [TUC] papers that I'd read, I'd have a pile like that on Brexit”, he holds up one hand very high, “and I'd have a pile like that on the world of work”. He holds up the other hand, much closer to the ground.

“I think we got political almost as an excuse for not being in the workplace,” he tells me, “and not influencing that change, because that became too difficult.”

Instead of trying to get a million people out on the streets to protest the Conservative government, he hopes to get “a million people out on the streets for a better deal for workers in this country, and to focus on the future world of work.”

What does the future look like? The picture he paints is not a happy one. “If we don't change the balance of forces, four or five companies in the world are going to gain huge power, financially, economically, politically.”

That’s why for Ward, his early endorsement of Corbyn is already paying dividends. “We thought that Labour needed fundamental change, and we saw Corbyn as the catalyst for that. I think what's fantastic now is he's delivered that in the Labour Party, and he's now become the catalyst for change in the political forces in the country.”

question: Who is Dave Ward?

answer: Dave Ward is the boss of the Communication Workers' Union.

question: Who is Chris Webb?

answer: Chris Webb is the communications director of the Communication Workers' Union.

question: Who put forth a proposal to privatize the Royal Mail?

answer: The Labour party put a proposal forth to privatize the Royal Mail.

question: What is Ward's prediction for the future?

answer: Ward;s predication is that if there is not a change in the balance of forces, four or five companies will have immense power financially, economically, and politically.

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: This article is about Dave Ward, the leader of the Communication Workers' Union.


text:
The Cell

(Tribute to Kafka)

“How did I get here?” I exclaimed.

It was a moderately large room, lit by soft electric light. I was walking along, hand brushing the cold walls.

I noticed a door that I opened when I came upon it.

On the other side was darkness, pure and unadulterated darkness. I peered into it, even leaning my head across the threshold into the blackness of the room. Inside I could see nothing and pulled myself back after a moment. I shut the door.

I continued to circle, hand brushing the wall, for I had nothing else to do. I counted fourteen paces to a side. Twelve well timed breaths and I could encircle the whole room.

Nothing else was here with me.

After the boredom of walking had gotten to me, I returned to the door that led to the darkness and opened it again. Staring into the emptiness I felt an anxiety deep within me. I wondered what the room could contain, could eyes be peering back at me from the other side of the doorway.

I stood there; hands braced against the door frame and continued to wonder what could be concealed in the blackness. I felt a cool breeze blow in from the doorway, or maybe I just imagined it, either way my heart seemed to be chilled by the wonder of what was hidden before me.

I shut the door again and took a seat on the floor in the center of the well lit room that I occupied. From my seat I passed judgment on my surroundings. I was held by cold stone walls, the same rough stone covered the floor and the ceiling. A small light bulb hung from a wire in the center of the ceiling, and the wooden door stood in the center of a wall.

I stood and looked up at the light bulb. It wasn’t anything spectacular, a mere piece of round glass, encasing a fiery filament. But it did shower light down upon the entire room, softening the cold stone walls. The wire that it was attached to seemed to jut directly into the stone above it. I assumed that it was attached to a battery, or possibly directly to an electrical plant. Yet, from my position inside of the room, I could not see where thee wire extended to beyond the ceiling.

I reached up, stood on the tips of my toes, but the bulb was out of my range. I wasn’t sure what I would have done if I had been able to touch it, I don’t know how it would have satisfied my curiosity, yet I still attempted it.

After my evaluation of my source of light, I turned my attention to the door.

It amounted to just that and little more. It was a dark slab of wood with a nob for a handle. The face of the door was as plain as could be; the only detail to be gained by staring at it was to familiarize myself with the pattern of its grain. When I turned the nob a small metal bar pulled inside of the door and allowed it to swing open from the wall, where a small recess remained for when the metal bar was put back into place. There were also two hinges on my side of the door, allowing it to open only in my direction.

I pondered the room, the light and the door for as long as I could sanely ponder anything. Yet my thoughts kept circling upon themselves in a more rapid fashion each time.

I don’t know when exactly, but I do know that there were times I slept. I recall dreams about the light going out, dreams about hands grabbing at me from the inside of the dark room, dreams of beasts salivating while they begged for me to cross the threshold into the darkness of their lair, dreams that I had in fits, dreams that I would wake up from with screams fresh in my throat and sweat on my brow.

Time passed, seconds, hours, weeks, maybe even years. In the room I couldn’t judge the passage of time well at all. I only knew that I had exhausted all of the thoughts that I could possibly have inside of the room.

I kept my sanity as well as I could. I wondered why I was here, but was given no reason. I wondered who was responsible for the creation of the room, who made sure the light kept shining, who had built the door, but my mind held no answers.

I peered towards the doorway with trepidation. I wished there was a way I could secure it in the closed position better than simply with the little bar that was triggered by the nod, but there was nothing to use to slow it from being opened.

Time continued to pass. I could feel old age setting into my body but could do nothing to prevent it from happening. My breaths became shorter and my legs became quickly tired of walking around the room, which took more and more steps to encircle. The light seemed to be further and further from me as days passed. My brain moved slower, trying to evaluate what secretes could possibly be held by the room I occupied.

In the end, I lay on the floor, its hard stone being my only comfort. There I closed my eyes. It felt like the light above me finally went out, yet some part of me that was far away knew that it was the light inside of me that flickered before it was extinguished.

Only then did I wonder why the darkness of death was less fearful than the darkness of the unknown.

title: The Cell (967 words)

question: Where is the narrator?

answer: In a cell that they do not know how to escape from.

question: Why is the narrator in the cell?

answer: The narrator does not know.

question: What is the narrator afraid of?

answer: The narrator is more afraid of the darkness of the unknown than death.

question: Does the narrator ever escape the room?

answer: No, the narrator dies in there after years of imprisonment.

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: The narrator wakes up in a room with no idea how they got there or why they were there. They are unable to escape and spend years trying to get out, eventually dying there.


text:
[U.S. Dept. of Education]

  _“We are true to our creed when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anyone else.”
  – President Barack Obama, Jan. 21, 2013_

One of the Obama Administration’s highest priorities has been to safeguard the access of all students — regardless of their race, ethnicity, religion, national origin, sex, first language, disability status, or any other identifying factor — to a world-class education. To achieve equity and excellence at every level of our education system, in every school, for every student, the Administration reinvigorated enforcement of our nation’s civil rights laws.

[Image for post]

_AS A RESULT, UNDER THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION, THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION’S OFFICE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS (OCR) HAS HAD A PROFOUND IMPACT ON INCREASING EDUCATIONAL EQUITY NATIONWIDE._

  America’s civil rights laws extend to a wide range of recipients of federal funding, such as all state education agencies, approximately 16,900 school districts, about 7,200 colleges and universities, and other institutions that receive financial assistance from the U.S. Department of Education, including libraries, museums, and correctional facilities.

OCR’s comprehensive, data-driven strategy to do this work includes investigating complaints, initiating proactive compliance reviews, monitoring schools’ activities, providing technical assistance, issuing policy guidance, and managing and improving the federal Civil Rights Data Collection, which gathers wide-ranging information on education access and equity from the nation’s public schools.

[Image for post]

Since the beginning of the Obama Administration, OCR delivered justice to countless students and families by conducting a record number of investigations, responding to close to 70,000 civil rights complaints, and entering into more than 5,000 resolution agreements with schools and education programs, from preschool through college.

These numbers represent a reinvigoration of OCR. In 2008, for example, OCR received a little over 6,100 complaints and reached 448 resolution agreements from resolved cases. These increases demonstrate greater awareness in the field about students’ civil rights in education, as well as OCR’s mission and work to enforce them.

Every year, OCR gives technical assistance to schools and communities around the country on both longstanding and emerging civil rights issues, such as school discipline and sexual harassment. In 2015 alone, OCR provided more than 250 technical assistance sessions to schools and districts, state education agencies, colleges and universities, parent groups, nonprofit organizations, and advocacy and legal groups.

[Image for post]

OCR’s policy guidance also has had a widespread, positive impact by guiding states, districts, schools, and others to proactively address civil rights issues, often without any formal federal enforcement action. During the Obama Administration, OCR released more than 30 policy guidance documents, including Dear Colleague Letters, which explain how OCR interprets and enforces the federal civil rights laws protecting students.

These letters have explained how the laws passed by Congress apply to topics, such as providing equitable access to athletics for students with disabilities; responding to and preventing sexual harassment and violence; and supporting students’ equal access to educational resources to promote their academic success. OCR also issued guidance to schools noting their responsibility to respond to bullying and harassment of students, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LBGT) children and youths.

Since 2009, OCR’s enforcement of civil rights laws has had a tangible effect on teaching and learning in schools. For example, by ensuring that an online school affords students who are blind the same access to virtual education as their sighted peers, OCR opened a gateway to education for many other students who had been shut out from this educational opportunity. By reaching a resolution with a school district to ensure a positive school experience for Latino students and staff and to foster better communication between the school and the local Spanish-speaking community, OCR supported improved school climates. And by enforcing transgender students’ rights to access school facilities consistent with their gender identity, OCR promoted a safe learning environment not only for transgender students, but also for every student in school.

OCR is not alone in its federal efforts to improve the lives and educational experiences of our students. The Department of Education also collaborated with the Department of Justice to issue joint guidance, safeguarding the rights of English learners; promoting effective communication for students with speech, vision, or hearing disabilities; clarifying the applicability of civil rights laws in juvenile justice facilities; and advancing nondiscriminatory school discipline practices.

In fact, joint guidance on school discipline from the Departments of Education and Justice spurred a national conversation, a first-ever White House Summit on school discipline, and a movement called #ReThinkDiscipline to reduce exclusionary discipline practices, such as expulsions and suspensions, which disproportionately affect students of color. OCR also furthered a national dialogue about identifying and eliminating sexual violence on college campuses by making publicly available a list of higher education institutions under investigation for violating their responsibilities under Title IX to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex.

_DURING THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION, THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION SHINED A LIGHT ON EDUCATIONAL EQUITY FOR THE BENEFIT OF STUDENTS, FAMILIES, SCHOOLS, AND THE PUBLIC IN NEW WAYS._

OCR issued its richer, more robust Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) during this Administration via three releases, which now offers an array of new indicators that educators and others can use to gauge the “equity health” of schools. The CRDC is a revolutionary tool to analyze opportunity gaps and begin to identify solutions to our most pressing equity challenges. Though the CRDC is a longstanding part of OCR’s work, it was not until this Administration that OCR made the data collected through CRDC publicly available and searchable online. The Department of Education also transformed data from the CRDC into interactive, online story maps that paint an easy-to-access, graphical picture of our challenges, such as chronic absenteeism.

[Image for post]

The data also tell a positive story. Educators, researchers, policymakers, and families can use the CRDC to find districts and schools where, for example, students have equal opportunity to participate in gifted and talented programs, take the full spectrum of rigorous math and science courses necessary for college, and attend a high school where school counselors are available. With this information, we all can learn from schools and districts that are making progress in increasing educational opportunity and student achievement.

_STUDENTS IN SCHOOLS TODAY DO NOT HAVE TIME TO WAIT FOR THEIR RIGHTS, WHICH IS WHY THE WORK TO ENSURE EVEN GREATER EDUCATIONAL EQUITY AND OPPORTUNITY MUST CONTINUE._

The tools and resources the Department of Education created during the Obama Administration will help educators, students, and families for years to come, and provide insights into where even more work must be done.

[Image for post]

The Every Student Succeeds Act, which President Obama signed in 2015, provides an opportunity to enhance equity in education by upholding critical protections for our students. The law dedicates resources and supports specifically for America’s most disadvantaged and vulnerable children. The law also maintains the expectation that, in schools where students are not making progress, action will be taken to improve opportunities for our children.

With everyone involved in the effort to make our schools safer, fairer, and more equitable, we can ensure all students have the chance to achieve their fullest potential.

question: What is Obama administration's aim on the education system?

answer: To have educational equity nationwide.

question: What does OCR stand for?

answer: Office for Civil Rights.

question: What does the Department of Education's OCR do when there are complaints?

answer: It investigates complaints and helps to resolve them.

question: Explain the movement called #ReThinkDiscipline.

answer: It aims to reduce expulsions and suspensions that disproportionately affect students of color.

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: The Obama Administration makes it a top priority that every student has access to a world-class education, ensuring that equity at every level of the education system is achieved.


text:
AFRIQIYAH AIRWAYS FLIGHT 209 was a domestic passenger flight from Sabha to Tripoli, Libya that was hijacked on 23 December 2016 and made a forced landing in Luqa, Malta. The flight was operated by Afriqiyah Airways, Libya's state airline, and carried 111 passengers: 82 males, 28 females and one infant.[1] The two hijackers later released all of the hostages and surrendered to the authorities.[2]

Aircraft

The aircraft involved was an Airbus A320-214, registration 5A-ONB, msn 3236. It had first flown on 29 August 2007.[3]

Hijacking

The aircraft, carrying seven crew and 111 passengers,[4] had taken off from Sabha International Airport at 08:10 local time and was due to land at Tripoli at 09:20.[5] The two hijackers threatened to blow up the aircraft with hand grenades, according to Malta state television.[6] One hijacker declared himself to be “pro-Gaddafi” and that he would release all passengers, but not the crew, if his unknown demands were accepted.[7] The pilots had tried to land in Libya, but the hijackers refused their request.[8] The aircraft was forced to land at Malta International Airport which it did on 11:32 am local time.[9] The aircraft's engines were still running after it was surrounded by the Maltese military.[10] One hijacker was reported to have appeared at the aircraft door waving a large green flag similar to the Libyan flag under Gaddafi.[11] He then put the flag down and returned inside.[12]

Response

Negotiating teams were placed on standby and Maltese military arrived at Malta International Airport.[13] Upon landing at least 25 passengers were released by the hijackers, while negotiations were held.[14] Following the release of all passengers and crew, the hijackers surrendered to the Maltese authorities and were taken into custody.[15] It was subsequently revealed that the weapons used by the two hijackers, named as Suhah Mussa and Ahmed Ali, were replicas.[16]

Aftermath

On 2 December 2020 Suhah Mussa was sentenced to 25 years in jail and fined €9,990 after he pleaded guilty to the charges brought against him[17].

Film

On the day of the hijacking, the airport was being used to film scenes for the movie _Entebbe_, which is about the 1976 hijacking of Air France Flight 139 and Operation Entebbe, which resulted in the release of most of the passengers and the deaths of the hostage takers. Scenes from the hostages exiting the Afriqiyah plane were filmed, edited and inserted in the movie. Producer Melvin Rotherberg has qualified this “real-life event” as a “blessing from the sky on a day of bad acting.” Some passengers were subsequently cast as supporting actors in the movie.[18]

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

[16]

[17]

[18]

title: Afriqiyah Airways Flight 209

question: When was the flight hijacked?

answer: On December 23, 2016

question: How many passengers were onboard?

answer: 111

question: Who were the hijackers?

answer: Suhah Mussa and Ahmed Ali

question: What movie incorporated footage of the flight?

answer: Entebbe

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: Afriqiyah Airways Flight 209 was a domestic passenger flight from Sabha to Tripoli, Libya that was hijacked on December 23, 2016. 111 passengers were onboard, but none were injured. After the passengers and crew were released, the two hijackers were taken into custody.


text:
For 60 years actor Henry Woolf was the intimate friend of Harold Pinter, the Nobel laureate widely judged the greatest theatrical voice Britain has produced in the past 50 years. Now Woolf has revealed extraordinary details of their long and fond relationship in a memoir that tells of the struggle the playwright once had to be alone with broadcaster Joan Bakewell during the love affair that inspired his most popular play, _Betrayal_. It also tells of the painful end of Pinter’s first marriage.

Speaking to the _Observer_ Woolf, who commissioned and directed Pinter’s first play _The Room_ in Bristol in 1957, recalled the “awful shock” it had been to Vivien Merchant, the gifted actress Pinter married in 1956, when the famous writer later fell in love with Lady Antonia Fraser, the second wife who remained with him until his death at 78 on Christmas Eve, 2008. Woolf said Pinter had worried “all the time” about Merchant, who is now best known for her moving screen role in the film _Alfie_ and who died in 1982. Pinter, Woolf said, had always tried to “keep a protective eye over her”.

“Vivien started to drink very heavily; she was determined to kill herself, I suppose,” Woolf writes in his new book. “Not just to punish Harold, but to escape from an unbearable life. Perhaps modern women don’t kill themselves for love; I wouldn’t know. But Vivien certainly did.”

Woolf’s memoir, _Barcelona is in Trouble_, also describes the bus trips Woolf was once forced to take around London in the 1960s while Pinter and Bakewell met clandestinely inside his rented Kentish Town bedsit, a location moved to Kilburn in the play.

“The immediate effects of their visits was that I had to be out when they were in. I found myself taking long bus rides to places like Plumstead, where I had never been before. I didn’t mind. Harold had helped me out often enough in the past; now it was my turn,” Woolf writes. He spoke this weekend about the obviously strong emotional connection the young lovers had: “It was a relationship one felt somehow was of high quality, in the conviction of their emotions I mean.”

[Joan Bakewell, with whom Pinter had an affair in the 1960s.]

Joan Bakewell, with whom Pinter had an affair in the 1960s. Photograph: Popperfoto
Pinter had proposed the unusual arrangement by summoning his schoolboy pal to a London pub to meet Bakewell. “Look, Henry, we’re in a bit of a fix, Joan and I. We’d like to see a bit more of each other, if you see what I mean. But we have nowhere to go,” Woolf recalls Pinter explaining.

But when the amenable Woolf began to date his future wife Susan, keeping the secret became more complicated. The actor told her that he sometimes lent his bedsit out to “star-crossed lovers”. She was later surprised to find out who they were.

Woolf’s book paints a nostalgic but unsentimental picture of his boyhood friendship with Pinter in east London and of the other members of the “Hackney gang” – a small band of firm friends who met at Hackney grammar school in the early 1940s. As Jews, Woolf and Pinter were sometimes set upon by local fascist thugs, Woolf recounts, but Pinter, who was a talented schoolboy sportsman, gave as good as he got.

These memories are to be revisited on Monday when Woolf himself, now 87, performs in a play about his youth with Pinter staged at the British Library in London. Pinter, Woolf said, valued his friendship with his gang very highly, staying in touch as his career progressed and introducing them all to people he judged interesting, such as the American playwright Arthur Miller. Now Woolf, as the only surviving member of the gang, wants to celebrate Pinter’s loyalty.

Pinter captured some of the gang’s youthful escapades in his only novel, _The Dwarfs_, and the new play, _Spider Love_, has been adapted from a script originally written in 1975 by late gang member Mick Goldstein, who had been responding to finding himself a character in _The Dwarfs_. Goldstein’s son Jeremy has reworked the play using letters between the Hackney gang now on public record at the British Library’s Harold Pinter Archive. Monday’s event is preceded by a conversation between Woolf and the _Guardian’s_ theatre critic and Pinter biographer Michael Billington.

Woolf’s book features theatrical revelations including the fact that Quentin Crisp, the eccentric writer and raconteur, was the inspiration for a key character in _The Room_.

[Harold Pinter and his friend Henry Woolf.]

Harold Pinter and his friend Henry Woolf. Photograph: Eamonn McCabe/The Guardian
Both Bakewell and Fraser have since written of their love for Pinter. In 2003 Bakewell, now a dame, released an autobiographical account of their affair in her book _The Centre of the Bed_, briefly upsetting Pinter. Fraser’s own memoir _Must You Go?_ was published two years after her husband’s death and was largely a tribute the happiness they had enjoyed together.

Woolf’s new book recalls Fraser’s devoted care of Pinter during his long final illness and recounts the playwright telling him how lucky he felt to have her. Nevertheless, Woolf clearly still feels sad about the fate of Merchant, the mother of Pinter’s only child, Daniel. She was, he believes, a clear influence on his writing. “One saw her so often in Harold’s plays, under different guises, different bits of herself. Ruth in _The Homecoming_, Kate in _Old Times_. He couldn’t stop writing about her,” Woolf writes.

The old school friends had only a couple of arguments, or “tiffs”, according to Woolf: once when the actor felt his literary skills had been judged to have fallen short when he was invited to complete a couplet in a parlour game, and once when Pinter suspected that Woolf was critical of the difference in the social circles they came to move in.

But when the friends met for the last time, shortly before Pinter’s death, the shared affection was evident. Saying farewell, the pair exchanged catchphrases from their favourite wartime radio show, _ITMA_ (_It’s That Man Again)_, starring Tommy Handley. “TTFN [Ta-ta for now]” were Woolf’s last words to Pinter.

question: What is the memoir titled?

answer: The memoir is titled "Barcelona is in Trouble."

question: Who was Pinter married to?

answer: Pinter was first married to Vivien Merchant and later to Antonia Fraser until his death in '78.

question: Who did Pinter have an affair with?

answer: Pinter had an affair with Joan Bakewell.

question: Who is the last survivor of the gang?

answer: Woolf is the last survivor of the gang.

question: Where is the play staged?

answer: The play is staged at the British Library in London.

question: Write a ~5 sentence summary.

answer:
Henry Woolf reveals his extraordinary relationship with Harold Pinter in his memoir titled "Barcelona is in Trouble." Pinter was first married to Vivien Merchant. He then married Antonia Fraser and had an affair with a broadcaster, Joan Bakewell, around the same time.

Woolf's book reveals his boyhood friendship with Pinter and with the other members of the "Hackney gang."

His memories will be revisited this Monday when Woolf performs in a play about his youth at the British Library in London.


text:
Pale eyes, crewcut after a long stint of length, rounded unabashed nose, strong lips leading to a sag in the very muscle of the face, all pointing to a strong cleft chin, only vaguely hidden by stubble. Eyes of alcohol stained isolation, but not many saw that, only the mirror and those who accompanied him past his strange-focus setup. In all truth, Stockton Miller was a fair and unmoving man, except for sudden outbursts that had seemed to accelerate in occurrence since his final years of high school until a point in life, now twenty-three, where they were on par with his natural and accepted baseline. He was, in all manner speaking, a psychopath (and notably, still is), yet his behaviour was not that prescribed to the word psychopath, and, as his gut told him, was more like a number of other statistics in populations that cast aside the cliche so long-glued to the aura of psychopath and instead chose to live as a productive member of society. An affinity for jeans and blazers, weather permitting, sitting this day aged blue tweed blazer, dark blue cutting through threads of light, blank white T beneath, loosely hanging over thin body, slight rolls in the skin unseen beneath, aged lightblue jeans tight on skin, canvas shoes tightly laced, belt only for purpose, strong stance leaning back against soft fabric couch, dark red against soft blue, legs crossed, hand behind head sorrow eyes looking at the only interest in the room, interest staring back with apprehension, intrigue, thoughts of feelings same as red light running.
Freight train conversations rolling through, eyes fixed, depression interest, she glanced back, eye contact unnerving, both taking sips of red wine, pouring more. Melissa Salaway. Thin brown hair, light voice, face pale and clear, eyes ready to receive information, wide wide pupils, lengthy nose but only obvious on studying her face, gaunt jaw, bones like plumbing. Black dress, loose, modest, dark blue cardigan, dull flats. She sat and listened for the most part, glancing occasionally at Stockton, engaged almost completely, clattering tracks of ideas rolled through. Most of brain attached to conversation, small slither analysing, body language, phrases, watching eyes.
	“Hey uhh… If I die and your hair’s still growing when I do, don’t let anybody pray for me. Tell them to stop it. And uh, if, by this time, you end up saying words about me, that is if you still uh, admire me, by that time enough to say words about me then don’t tell anyone about me, tell them about my ideas. Tell them that I’m just an assortment of well positioned atoms. Tell them about the fact that I’ll only die if my ideas die. Tell them that my ideas will continue whirring as long as people can think them.”
By this time Stockton could feel a rush coming on and decided to keep talking, better judgement notwithstanding.	“And uh, I think that the time may come quite soon. Not soon as in months or day but soon for a twenty-three year old.I think thirty. Yes, thirty,” The rush gaining strength, vision blending into thought, dragging him down into deep depression, bad energy proving immovable, kept from tears only by constant talking.
	“Yes, I’m going to die on that lone highway. I saw it the other day, you see. A car, and I don’t even drive. A car, me propped up against the door frame, dirt slightly shaken, legs splayed out in from of me, toes pointing straight up. And then I remembered that I had just been shot in the head, or had I shot myself? It doesn’t really matter. I died there. I tried to talk myself out of it, only half aware that it was the dream, and these things give you the impression of inevitability anyway, real or not. Well yes I tried to talk myself out of it, slowly, then sharp and harsh, not desperate or insulting, but harsh. I felt myself die. I woke up then, slight adrenalin buzz wore off and I felt nothing. This is why today is about death. I’m sorry. I really am. I never talk well to others. I imagine topics so well in my head and they always fail to be of worth in reality. I’m sorry.” Stockton felt that he was more a person to be talked about than talked to, regardless of how many ideas he tried to give away.
Rush receding, almost a sense of self accomplishment for having withstood, yet grasping onto the draining force, knowing that it won’t come again with any sensible reason, and as worrisome as it was it felt good, felt being the most important term.
Melissa stood up and took another bottle of wine, started pouring in both glasses.
	“I find that interesting, you seem to be admitting and embracing this death yet, in that exact moment, you tried to talk yourself out it.”
	“Well that’s put down to the fact that I was twenty-three in my dream. I wasn’t thirty.”
	“Oh! Well then I suppose it comes down to how far the subconscious is willing to go to make this happen, and subsequently how little your conscious is willing to fight it. Of course I have my own personal response and please re-think this, but I know you well enough to predict that any attempt to convince you otherwise will just strengthen your resolve. So uh, if you do decide to off yourself, do it near me at least.”
	“I don’t know where this is going to take me but I’ll try. I’ve been missing you for a while, even when I’m talking to you. My guess is that it’ll all fold up into one large crunch, and in a mad rush something will happen. Simply put, things will explode. Whether we’ll be together remains unseen. From what I can guess it’ll be in a few years at least but the way things are going..” Stockton trailed off, eyes focusing on the wine slowly streaming down his throat.
	“Stockton I wish you wouldn’t talk like that.”
	“Oh but you know I can’t help it, for, of course, ‘I am a Karamazov!’”
	“Shut up with all your book stuff.”
	“They write for their readers, you know.”
	“You’re not going to die.”
	“Ah, my dear, I’m sorry. I’m afraid you failed to grasp the summary of your 6 years of studying biology. We all die. I’m just going to finish existing sooner than some other people. You’re lucky you didn’t fall in love with some african aids orphan. At least we fucked.”
	“Fuck you Stockton. Somedays you’re so fucking vile. Get a fucking grip. You’re wingeing about your fucked up life and doing nothing but drinking yourself to death and deceiving yourself that your writing is worth anything. Clear up your shit. Every night it’s the same thing. Depression or violence or happiness, you only have three. It’s so simple. They’re just a triangle and you hit them each in series. You’re a fucking loser.”
Stockton laughed. Windows into other worlds flashed through his head while he made up his mind on what kind of emotion he should put in his response. Whilst he was good at dolling out emotions, he still had a tidbit of trouble knowing which ones  were appropriate.

title: 'Pale eyes, crewcut'

question: What does the story say about signs someone is a psychopath?

question: What does the story say about Stockton Miller?

answer: Stockton Miller had pale eyes, a crewcut, and a strong cleft chin hidden by stubble. He's a heavy drinker. Miller was a fair and unmoving man at 23-years old. He was also a baseline psychopath but chose to live as a productive member of society.

question: What does the story say about Melissa Salaway?

answer: Salaway had thin brown hair, a light voice, a pale face, and clear eyes. She had a gaunt jaw and bones like plumbing. Salaway was sipping wine while listening to Stockton talk.

question: What does the story say about Stockton's dream?

answer: Stockton had a dream that he was going to die on a lone highway. He's propped up against the door frame of a car. He remembers being shot in the head but is unsure if he did it or if someone else did. In the dream, Stockton tries to talk himself out of being dead.


text:
[German prepared defensive lines south of Rome.]

During the Italian Campaign of World War II, the BARBARA LINE was a series of German military fortifications in Italy, some south of the Gustav Line, from Colli al Volturno to the Adriatic Coast in San Salvo and a similar distance north of the Volturno Line. Near the eastern coast, it ran along the line of the Trigno river. The line mostly consisted of fortified hilltop positions. The line was broken by the allied army in November 1943 following which the Axis forces withdrew to the defensible positions of the Winter Line.

Western breakthrough (U.S. Fifth Army front)

_Generalfeldmarschall_ (Field marshall) Albert Kesselring—German commander-in-chief Italy- ordered his forces to retreat to the BARBARA LINE on 12 October 1943 after the U.S. Fifth Army crossed the Volturno River, breaching the Volturno defensive line.

By early November the Barbara Line on the Tyrrhenian Sea side of the Apennine Mountains had been breached by the U.S. Fifth Army, and the German Forces fell back to the Bernhardt Line.

Eastern breakthrough (British Eighth Army front)

The Allied Armies in Italy under General Sir Harold Alexander were fighting their way northward in Italy against determined German opposition skillfully directed by Albert Kesselring whose forces had prepared a succession of defensive lines. On the Adriatic front east of the Apennine Mountain spine was the British Eighth Army under General Bernard Montgomery. In October Eighth Army had crossed the Bifurno river and the British Eighth Army had broken the Viktor/Volturno Line defences on 6 October. However, they had had to pause at the Trigno to re-group and reorganise their logistics along the poor roads stretching back to Bari and Taranto and respectively to the rear of the front. Delayed by these logistical problems, the Allies were not able to attack the next line of defences (the Barbara Line) behind the Trigno river immediately. It therefore was not until the early hours of 2 November that the V Corps on the right of the front on the coast and XIII Corps on their left attacked across the Trigno river.

On the V Corps front, British 78th Infantry Division attacked along the coastal road while 8th Indian Infantry Division attacked some inland. Fighting was fierce, but on 3 November, British 78th Division reached San Salvo, some three miles beyond the Trigno, at which point _Generalmajor_ Rudolf Sieckenius—commanding 16th _Panzer_ Division—decided to make a fighting withdrawal to the Sangro river and the formidable Gustav defensive positions overlooking the river from the ridge tops on the far side. Forward elements of Eighth Army moved to make contact with the forward defenses of the German Winter Line on the high ground north of the Sangro River. The Allies were able to move forward without opposition and the Allied advance reached the Sangro on 9 November.[1]

[1] Carver, p. 90

title: Barbara Line

question: What would have happened if the line was not broken by the allied army in November 1943?

answer: If the line was not broken by the allied army in November 1942, then the Axis forces may have advanced towards the Winter Line.


text:
_TUGANA_ is a genus of Caribbean tangled nest spiders first described by R. V. Chamberlin in 1948.[1]

Species

it contains four species, found in Cuba and Hispaniola:[2]

-   _Tugana cavatica_ (Bryant, 1940) – Cuba
-   _Tugana crassa_ (Bryant, 1948) – Hispaniola
-   _Tugana cudina_ Alayón, 1992 – Cuba
-   _Tugana infumata_ (Bryant, 1948) – Hispaniola

[1]

[2]

title: Tugana

question: Which animals does the text describe?

answer: A specific genus of Caribbean tangled nest spiders.

question: When was this genus first described?

answer: In 1948.

question: Who described it?

answer: R. V. Chamberlin.

question: Where are the four species of this genus found?

answer: In Cuba and Hispaniola.

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: The text is about a specific genus of Caribbean tangled nest spiders. Tugana genus contains four species, found in Cuba and Hispaniola.


text:
U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House in Washington October 1, 2015. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration on Monday unveiled new labels for broadband and mobile Internet service, aimed at helping the nation’s web users make price and service comparisons.

The labels from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission are similar to federally required nutrition labels on nearly all U.S. foods or information on credit card billing statements and will include disclosures of all fees and add-on charges and service speed and reliability. The new labels are recommended but not legally required, though firms that use them will not face government investigations into transparency rules.

The FCC said there are 97.8 million American households and business subscribers to fixed broadband service and 223 million U.S. mobile phones with internet access, according to the most recent data.

More than 85 percent of all Americans use the Internet and typically spend $60 or $70 a month on service, the FCC said, and the new labels could be a big factor in which service consumers choose to buy.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray unveiled the new labels at a press conference in Washington - and were supported by a committee of industry and consumer groups. Wheeler said the key to robust competition was better information for consumers.

“This is industry and advocates coming together unanimously,” Wheeler said. “Customers deserve to know the price they will actually pay for a service and to be fully aware of other components such as data limits and performance factors before they sign up for service.”

Cordray said “consumers deserve to know before they owe, with clear, upfront information about the prices, risks and terms of the deal.”

Scott Bergmann, vice president of regulatory affairs at wireless trade association CTIA, said carriers “already provide disclosure and transparency as part of the consumer code for wireless service. The competitive nature of the wireless broadband market does more for consumers than regulation can hope to achieve.”

The label is part of the 2015 FCC net neutrality order that requires new disclosures by Internet providers. A federal appeals court heard a separate challenge to the net neutrality order in December, but hasn’t yet ruled.

Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Andrea Ricci and Alan Crosby

for-phone-onlyfor-tablet-portrait-upfor-tablet-landscape-upfor-desktop-upfor-wide-desktop-up

question: What are the benefits for the internet companies disclosing add-on charges, speed services, and reliability?

answer: Consumers might see such companies as transparent and sign up for their services.


text:
[]CHRIS JOHNSON is not lacking in confidence. The Titans running back has done anything from announce his plans to run for 2,500 yards to say he would beat Usain Bolt in a race.

Now he says he could post a sub-4.00 40-yard dash time in order to dispatch Bolt.

Johnson ran for a record 4.24 40 at the NFL combine, but he says that wasn’t even his best performance. During an interview with “Pro Football Talk” on NBC Sports Tuesday, Johnson was asked how fast he thought he could run the 40.

“I’m not sure, because when I ran my 40 at the combine, I tripped when I came out a little bit. I stumbled,” he explained. “A perfect start out of the blocks in spikes and all those things, I think I’d break 4-flat. I think I’d probably get like a 3.9.”

Johnson also admitted that last year’s holdout hurt his performance during the season.

“It affected me a lot because I came in not in football shape,” said Johnson. “I needed to get in a groove with my offensive line. Looking at my numbers from last year, I feel like I did a good job toward the end of last year. So it can easily turn around.”

Johnson mentioned 1,600 yards as a number he thought he could achieve this year. He cited his five games with less than 30 rushing yards last year as an example of how much growth he can have.

We’ll see if he can get back to his 2009 form when he ran for 2,006 yards and had 503 yards receiving. I think he’ll rebound this year, but I doubt 2,000 yards are in reach, just like I doubt his ability to run a sub-4.00 40.

Photo credit: Brett Davis-US PRESSWIRE

[Sports News Minute Podcast]

Related Articles

[Seattle Seahawks logo]

Seahawks bettors had such a bad beat in win over Eagles

Those who bet on the Seattle Seahawks to cover the spread against the Philadelphia Eagles on Monday night may have suffered a bad beat.
The Seahawks dominated the game and led 23-9 with 1:13 left. The Eagles got good starting position at t

[DK Metcalf]

DK Metcalf felt motivated by Jim Schwartz’s pregame comment

DK Metcalf says he was motivated by a comment from Jim Schwartz prior to Monday night’s game between the Seattle Seahawks and Philadelphia Eagles.
Metcalf had a monster game with 10 catches for 177 yards in Seattle’s 23-17 win

[Urban Meyer]

Urban Meyer house hunting in Austin, Texas rumor hits the net

Urban Meyer has not coached in college football since the 2018 season and is the best coach available. Texas Longhorns fans have been talking all fall about how he’s the kind of coach who could step in and replace Tom Herman to get t

[Marcus Smart]

Celtics open to Marcus Smart trade?

Marcus Smart is now the longest-tenured member of the Boston Celtics, but apparently he is not an untouchable asset.
The Athletic’s David Aldridge hinted Monday that the Celtics may be open to trading Smart. Aldridge reports that the

[Carson Wentz intentional grounding]

Referees missed this Carson Wentz intentional grounding penalty so badly

The referees in Monday night’s Philadelphia Eagles-Seattle Seahawks game missed what should have been an intentional grounding penalty on Carson Wentz so badly.
The Eagles had the ball down 14-0 at home with just over two minutes rem

[Baltimore Ravens logo]

Ravens-Steelers game has early kickoff time for funny reason

The NFL postponed the Baltimore Ravens-Pittsburgh Steelers Week 12 game until Wednesday so Baltimore would have some time to prepare for the game. But the kickoff time for the contest is an odd one, and that’s for a funny reason.
Bal

question: Who's the narrator?

answer: Unclear, maybe even multiple writers.

question: How many stories does the article cover?

answer: Seven.

question: Why does Chris Johnson believe he can run a 40 under 4.00?

answer: He stumbled and had a bad performance at his last try and still got a 4.24.

question: What does the writer mean by "Seahawks bettors had such a bad beat in win over Eagles?"

answer: That they lost even though they had a strong performance.

question: Write a ~8 sentence summary.

answer: Chris Johnson believes he could run a sub-4.00 40 because his last record of 4.24 was achieved with poor performance and stumbling. The writer does not believe this to be likely. The Seahawks had a bad beat in their win over the Eagles. DK Metcalf felt motivated by Jim Schwartz’s pregame comment, having a monster game. Coach Urban Meyer could be moving to Austin. Marcus Smart may be traded. Referees missed the Carson Wentz intentional grounding penalty. And the Ravens-Steelers game has an early kickoff for a funny reason.


text:
DeKalb, Ill. – A NEW STUDY out of Northern Illinois University appears to confirm what some likely suspected—that the “Take a Knee” movement in the NFL was galvanized by its most prominent detractor, President Donald Trump.

The movement began during the 2016 preseason when, in a protest against racial injustice, San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick sat down during the national anthem. A few games later, after consulting with a fellow NFL player who is a military veteran, he changed his protest to taking a knee.

[]

Source: Contexts.org

Scarcely noticed at first, those actions spread to other players and teams and began what the study authors call “one of the most visible protests for social justice in modern sports history”—with echoes of the “Black Power Salute” by American runners Tommy Smith and John Carlos after medaling in the 1968 Olympic Summer Games.

Published this month in the journal Contexts, the new study analyzed the number of NFL protests on a week-by-week basis over the last two seasons.

The demonstrations “were smaller than the media coverage suggested” but increased when efforts were made to discredit protesting players, said lead author SIMÓN WEFFER, an NIU sociologist who teaches courses on social movements, as well as sports and society.

Weffer said only a handful of teams had players who participated in protests during the 2016 season, with no more than 36 of nearly 1,500 NFL players protesting in any week. Protests during the first two weeks of the 2017 regular season also were minimal. Only nine players protested in that second week of the season, suggesting the demonstrations “were losing steam,” Weffer said.

[]

Simón Weffer

Just prior to the third weekend of that season, however, Trump stepped into the fray during a political rally in Alabama, saying, “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! He’s fired. He’s fired!’ ”

Following the comment, more than 400 players across 26 of 32 teams protested that weekend —more players than in all the previous protests combined, according to the study. “The comments by Trump really reinvigorated the protests, and made them rocket up,” Weffer said.

The next week, the number of players protesting fell by nearly half, to 213 players. The following week only 37 protested.

Before games during Week 7, news leaked that Bob McNair, the owner of the Houston Texans, had told other owners in a meeting that “we can’t have the inmates running the prison,” a comment that infuriated many of the players whose protests were in part aimed at inequality in the criminal justice system. (McNair later TOLD A NEWSPAPER that he used the phrase in reference to league executives, and not in reference to players.)

McNair’s comments led to a small upsurge in demonstrations during the seventh week of games, with 57 players on 13 teams protesting. The number of protests declined some and stabilized for the remainder of the season. (Five teams saw no protests over the two-year span.)

The researchers built their dataset primarily from ESPN.com’s reporting and running lists of players engaged in protest. They cross-checked information with other publications and consulted media photographs of players on the sideline as well. Incidents of protest were counted when players sat on the bench, knelt, raised a fist in the air, remained in the locker room or stayed in the tunnel during the national anthem.

When the protests first began in the fall of 2016, Weffer was teaching a sociology of sports course that included a discussion of the 1968 “Black Power Salute.” He and study co-authors Rodrigo Dominguez-Martinez and Raymond Jenkins, who have since earned their graduate degrees at NIU, came up with the idea to closely examine the NFL protests. Weffer said they intend to continue to track the protest numbers. (The 2018 preseason has already seen some player protests.)

He also noted that the movement has perhaps had a desirable effect both for the president and for the protesters. Weffer said Trump’s stance has appealed to his voter base, while the NFL and its Players Coalition established a partnership this past spring TO COMMIT $90 MILLION FOR EFFORTS AND PROGRAMS COMBATING SOCIAL INEQUALITY.

“I don’t think the players could have leveraged the millions of dollars that they’ve gotten from the NFL without having Trump there as the bad guy,” Weffer said.

###

ABOUT NIU

Northern Illinois University is a student-centered, nationally recognized public research university, with expertise that benefits its region and spans the globe in a wide variety of fields, including the sciences, humanities, arts, business, engineering, education, health and law. Through its main campus in DeKalb, Illinois, and education centers for students and working professionals in Chicago, Hoffman Estates, Naperville, Oregon and Rockford, NIU offers more than 100 courses of study while serving a diverse and international student body.

MEDIA CONTACT: TOM PARISI

[Print Friendly, PDF & Email]

question: What is the "Take a Knee" movement?

answer: The "Take a Knee" movement in the NFL is a protest against racial injustice, started by San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick, in which he took a knee during the national anthem before games.

question: What did the study from Northern Illinois University analyze?

answer: The study analyzed the number of NFL protests on a week-by-week basis over the last two seasons.

question: What did Bob McNair do that reignited the protests?

answer: Bob McNair, the owner of the Houson Texans, said to the other owners, "we can't have the inmates running the prison," which angered many players who were also protesting criminal injustices as well.

question: What are the NFL and Players Coalition establishing?

answer: The NFL and the Players Coalition are establishing a partnership to commit $90 million for efforts and programs to combat social inequality.

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: A new study from the Northern Illinois University confirmed that the "Take a Knee" movement in the NFL, in which players kneeled during the national anthem to protest racial injustice, was galvanized by its biggest detractor, Donald Trump.


text:
[]

Bandai Namco Holdings is a Japanese holdings company that specializes in video games, toys, arcades, anime and amusement parks, and is headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo.[1] They were formed after the merge of Namco and Bandai on September 29, 2005, with both companies' assets being merged into a single corporate entity. The video game branch of the company is Bandai Namco Entertainment, producing games for home consoles, arcade hardware and mobile phones. Bandai Namco creates several highly successful video game franchises, including _Tekken_, _Pac-Man_, _Gundam_ and _Tales_, as is Japan's third largest video game company and the seventh in the world by revenue, as well as the largest toy company in the world by 2017.[2][3]

Since 1990, Bandai Namco has produced compilations containing their games, notably their arcade titles from the 1970s and 1980s, for various home video game systems, handhelds, personal computers and arcade boards. Out of these compilations, the _Namco Museum_ series has been the most successful, selling a total of 9.113 million copies total across all platforms.{{#tag:ref|_Namco Museum_ series:

-   _Namco Museum Vol. 1_ sales: 1.65 million units[4]
-   _Namco Museum Vol. 3_ sales: 2.24 million units[5]
-   _Namco Museum 64_ sales: 1.04 million units[6]
-   _Namco Museum_ (GBA) sales: 2.96 million units[7]
-   _Namco Museum_ (PS2) sales: ≈1.80 million units[8]
-   _Namco Museum Battle Collection_ Japan sales: 79,527 units[9]
-   _Namco Museum Vol. 2_ (PSP) sales: 24,934 units[10]
-   _Namco Museum DS_ Japan sales: 33,393 units[11]
-   _Namco Museum Virtual Arcade_ Japan sales (first week): 5,912 units[12]

|group=n|name=Namco Museum}} Some of these compilations would be outsourced to other game developers, including Microsoft, Mass Media, Digital Eclipse, M2, and Cattle Call.

List of compilations

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

title: List of Bandai Namco video game compilations

question: What is Bandai Namco?

answer: A Japanese holdings company that specializes in video games, toys, arcades, anime and amusement parks, headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo.

question: How was it formed?

answer: By merging Bandai and Namco in 2005, both companies' assets were merged into a single corporate entity.

question: What has been their most successful venture?

answer: The "Namco Museum" series of compilation video games

question: Do they produce new video games or just old ones?

answer: Doesn't say.

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: Bandai Namco Holdings is a Japanese holdings company that specializes in video games, toys, arcades, anime and amusement parks, headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo. It formed by the merging of Bandai and Namco in 2005, with both companies' assets merged into a single corporate entity. To date, their most successful venture has been the compilation video game "Namco Museum."


text:
As President Trump checks off tax reform, none of the legal immigration reforms the White House pushed Congress to enact are projected to see the light of day before the end of the year.

After being elected on the promise to end illegal immigration by building a border wall — which has stalled in the development stages — along the U.S.-Mexico border, reducing legal immigration levels to relieve America’s blue-collar workers and middle class, and stemming the flow of foreign refugees, the Trump administration has had to grapple with a Republican-controlled Congress that remains uninterested in enacting pro-American immigration reforms.

In August, Trump stood alongside Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) as he endorsed their legal immigration-cutting RAISE Act legislation. Under the RAISE Act, legal immigration would be reduced from more than 1 million arrivals a year to 500,000 arrivals a year, while also ending the process known as “chain migration” where newly naturalized immigrants are allowed to bring an unlimited number of foreign relatives to the U.S. with them.

The RAISE Act would replace chain migration with a merit-based immigration system that gives highly-skilled and English-proficient foreign nationals priority over low-skilled foreign nationals.

  #RaiseAct would:
  >Relieve US workers from immigration burden
  >Raise wages for US workers
  >Stop big biz pipeline of cheap, foreign labor

  — John Binder 👽 (@JxhnBinder) August 13, 2017

“[This RAISE act] will give Americans a pay raise by reducing immigration… [and] it will restore the sacred bonds of trust between America and its citizens,” Trump said when he endorsed the plan.

Despite being filed in Congress nearly a year ago, Cotton’s Trump-endorsed RAISE Act sits in the U.S. Senate with no plans yet for it to be voted on by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

In September, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) introduced the House-version of the RAISE Act, titled the “Immigration in the National Interest Act,” which would follow through on the numerous Trump-endorsed pro-American immigration reforms.

Like the RAISE Act, Smith’s legislation has not moved and remains sitting before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security.

  >Cuts legal immigration in half
  >Ends family-chain migration
  >Caps refugees at 50K
  >Also includes mandatory E-Verify https://t.co/YHfUuV7fTI

  — John Binder 👽 (@JxhnBinder) September 13, 2017

In the beginning of October, the Trump administration laid the groundwork for its immigration agenda, detailing an extensive 70-point list of pro-American reforms to give relief to America’s working and middle class.

The reforms include:

-   Construction of a border wall
-   Deporting unaccompanied alien children who are not at-risk in their native country
-   Preventing criminal illegal aliens and gang members from receiving immigration benefits
-   Mandating E-Verify, which weeds out illegal aliens from taking U.S. jobs
-   Eliminating the diversity visa lottery
-   Classifying overstaying a visa as a misdemeanor
-   Restricting certain federal grants to sanctuary cities that refuse to detain criminal illegal aliens
-   Ending family-based chain migration
-   Enacting a merit-based legal immigration where only qualified immigrants can enter the U.S.

Following the reforms’ release, Congressional Republicans continued to ignore the popularity of the White House’s immigration agenda, instead opting for a year-end schedule that led with tax reform.

  "Cuts to legal immigration is the most popular with Ohio’s working-class and union workers…" I wonder why… https://t.co/l3VdIZx1rl

  — John Binder 👽 (@JxhnBinder) September 1, 2017

At the end of October, Uzbek national 29-year-old Sayfullo Saipov allegedly mowed down and killed eight pedestrians in the Tribeca neighborhood of New York City in an ISIS-inspired terrorist attack.

After it was revealed that Saipov had entered the U.S. on the Diversity Visa Lottery, an immigration program which Trump demanded the end of just weeks before, the Republican-controlled Congress had more leverage to work with Democrats to end the Visa Lottery.

The Diversity Visa Lottery gives out 50,000 visas every year to foreign nationals from a multitude of countries, including those with known terrorist problems – such as Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Syria, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela, Yemen, and Uzbekistan.

Days after the attack, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) filed legislation to end the Visa Lottery. The legislation has yet to go before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

  Expert: Diversity Visa Lottery Used by NYC Terror Suspect ‘Ideally Suited For Terrorists’ https://t.co/q7k9fAMyHK

  — John Binder 👽 (@JxhnBinder) November 3, 2017

At the end of November, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell broke with the Republican establishment and declared his support for ending chain migration, which has imported more than 9 million foreign relatives of immigrants to the U.S. in the last decade.

  “I agree with [GOP Sen. Tom] Cotton and [GOP Sen. David] Perdue” who drafted the Raise Act, McConnell told Laura Ingraham on her Fox News show on November 29. “I think the kinds of things … that Cotton and Perdue are pushing are exactly what ought to be part of a solution,” he said, one year after Donald Trump’s shocking immigration-powered victory in November 2016.

  “I think the mood on our caucus is that ending chain migration is a top priority,” Sen. Perdue told Breitbart News on November 30. “The majority leader’s statement … is a milestone,” he said, adding that “this is going to set America up to be competitive again with the rest of the world.”

McConnell’s support to end chain migration has been useless thus far as the leader of the Senate has yet to push any of Trump’s immigration initiatives forward in the Senate.

  Majority Leader McConnell endorse cuts to chain migration & immigration levels. 'Milestone' says Sen. Perdue. It is a huge change, but it is not clear how hard he will push as business pushes back by demanding more immigrant workers & consumers. https://t.co/TUbT2LGXwK

  — Neil Munro (@NeilMunroDC) December 1, 2017

This month, a group of Senators led by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) released legislation that attempted to compromise with Democrats and the Republican establishment by giving amnesty to the nearly 800,000 illegal aliens covered by the President Obama-created Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program while ending chain migration and slashing legal immigration levels in half.

The SECURE Act, as the legislation is known, though was immediately rebuked by Senate Democrats while members of the GOP establishment began touting ways to water-down the bill’s most pro-American reform components.

The legislation was placed on the Senate Legislative Calendar but has not yet been moved on.

Less than a week later, 27-year-old Bangladeshi national Akayed Ullah allegedly attempted to detonate a suicide bomb in New York City, injuring three individuals. Ullah entered the U.S. as a chain migrant of a newly naturalized immigrant who was able to enter the U.S. through the Visa Lottery.

  Only reason Diversity Visa Lottery stopped for Bangladeshis after 2012 was bc Bangladesh nationals began dominating the immigration system, ie chain migration.https://t.co/Vp1vwGGSEM

  — John Binder 👽 (@JxhnBinder) December 11, 2017

At the time of the attack, Trump had been lobbying Congress for nearly five months to end both chain migration and the Visa Lottery.

After the botched attack, Republicans once again had the momentum to push through legislation that would officially end chain migration and end the Visa Lottery program with some Democratic support. Instead, the Republicans’ tax reform agenda continued to take precedence.

Even for officials inside the Trump administration, the last few months of 2017 were consumed with tax reform. Trump’s Director of Legislative Affairs Marc Short, for instance, joined Twitter in November, seemingly for the purpose of promoting the tax agenda while ignoring the White House’s immigration agenda.

https://twitter.com/Marcshort45/status/943560399974223872

https://twitter.com/Marcshort45/status/940684757775585281

https://twitter.com/Marcshort45/status/937765250983780354

Short has a long history of opposing Trump’s “America First” agenda, which largely revolved around immigration, infrastructure, and trade. Before the 2016 presidential election, Short worked alongside anti-Trump, pro-immigration billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch.

In May 2016, during the height of the Republican presidential primary, where Trump was taking the country by storm on his populist-nationalist agenda, Short was heading an effort to derail the then-front-runner. Short led an effort inside the Koch brothers’ organizations to take down Trump, partly by supporting Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL). But the plan failed to come to fruition and, the following year, he joined the Trump administration.

In the final weeks of 2017, the White House released a public campaign seeking to galvanize Americans behind ending chain migration and the Visa Lottery, including statistics revealing that more than 70 percent of immigrants to the U.S. in the last decade have entered simply to reunite with family and not on the basis of skills.

The launch of the campaign was largely met with silence from the Senate and House Republican leadership.

_JOHN BINDER IS A REPORTER FOR BREITBART NEWS. FOLLOW HIM ON TWITTER AT @JXHNBINDER. _

question: What promise has Trump failed to keep?

answer: Building the wall.

question: Where was the man who committed the alleged ISIS-inspired attack in Tribeca in October from?

answer: Uzbekistan.

question: Why are these items known as pro-American reforms?

answer: They forget that America is a country founded on immigration and colonization.

question: What is it called when immigrants legally and randomly are granted permission to live and work or study in the US?

answer: The visa lottery.