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Mr. Speaker, today I want to pay special tribute on the 10th anniversary of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. During the past decade, the institution and its dedicated staff members have worked tirelessly to promote remembrance of the Holocaust and to draw lessons for the future from this very dark chapter of mankind's recent history. When the Museum was dedicated and formally opened in late April 1993, this event culminated over 10 years of preparation that started in 1980 with the chartering of the institution by a unanimous Act of Congress. Recognizing the work of the Museum this week is very fitting, as it is the week of Holocaust Remembrance Day, a time for honoring the millions of Jews who died almost 60 years ago under Nazi tyranny.
As set forth in its mission statement, the Holocaust Memorial Museum has become America's national institution for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust history, and is this country's memorial to the millions of people murdered during the Holocaust. The Museum and its International Archives Project focuses on all individuals who suffered during the Holocaust, in addition to the six million executed Jews, the horrific Nazi treatment of millions of Roma, disabled, religious and political prisoners, and prisoners of war. The Museum plays a critical role in advancing and disseminating information, documenting the historicity of the Holocaust, while also preserving the memory of individuals who suffered.
While insuring that the lessons of the past will not be forgotten, the Museum has actively and creatively developed ways to work towards a better future. The institution's dedication to dealing with the horrors of genocide, whether in Nazi Germany, Bosnia, Rwanda or Cambodia is a critical part of the effort to mobilize international action against this plague on all humanity. The Committee on Conscience plays a particularly significant role in bringing timely attention to acts of genocide or related crimes against humanity.
The Museum has rightfully become one of Washington's most revered attractions. The hundreds of thousands of visitors who have toured the Museum since its opening have left with an unforgettable experience and the opportunity to reflect on the deep moral questions stemming from the tragedy of the Holocaust. The Museum's research center has served as a critical resource for scholars who try to help us better understand the lessons of this terrible chapter of human history. The creation of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has also encouraged other countries to move to establish comparable institutions including, most significantly, in Berlin, Germany.
The U.S. Helsinki Commission, which I co-chair, has worked with the Museum on several occasions, from pushing for the release of documents from the Romani concentration camp in Lety, Czech Republic, to urging Romania to give greater meaning to its stated commitment of rejecting anti-Semitism by removing Antonescu statues from public lands. In response to the alarming spike of anti-Semitic incidents found last summer in Europe, myself and other Members of the Commission have been very active in urging governments and elected officials to denounce the violence and ensure their laws are enabled to prosecute the perpetrators. In support of this effort, I have introduced H. Con. Res. 49, urging, among other things, European states to "promote the creation of educational efforts throughout the region encompassing the participating States of the OSCE to counter anti-Semitic stereotypes and attitudes among younger people, increase Holocaust awareness programs, and help identify the necessary resources to accomplish this goal." It is my hope that other countries will copy the unique and effective model of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Congress has designated April 27th to May 4th as "Days of Remembrance," when our nation will commemorate again the victims of the Holocaust. May we use this time of reflection that will reinforce our common determination to learn from history's harsh lessons.


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Borrowing for tuition, housing and books would be less expensive for students this fall, but the costs would start climbing almost immediately under a deal the Senate was poised to pass Wednesday.
The bipartisan proposal lawmakers were considering would link interest rates on federal student loans to the financial markets, providing lower interest rates right away but higher ones if the economy improves, as expected. Senate aides said lawmakers were on track to finish work by late Wednesday afternoon.
Liberal Democrats labeled the White House-backed proposal a bait-and-switch measure that would lure in new borrowers with low rates now but would cost future students.
"The bill before us today offers students and families lower student loan interest rates in the near-term, but we can fully expect higher student loan interest rates in the years to come," said Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis. "Why on earth would we want to expose our students to higher rates?"
The White House and its allies said the new loan structure would offer lower rates to 11 million borrowers right away and save the average undergraduate $1,500 in interest charges.
But there was no denying the new structure could cost future students if the economy improves as expected and interest rates climb. The White House's allies instead suggested the new formula is better than the status quo.
"At the end of the day, we have a very clear choice to make: stick with the 6.8 percent interest rate or lower it," said Sen. Dick Durbin, the Illinois Democrat who oversaw the negotiations.
Durbin said senators' concerns could be part of talks this fall on the Higher Education Act. But for students right now, he said, students needed the compromise to pass in order to dodge higher costs.
Rates on subsidized Stafford loans doubled to 6.8 percent July 1 because Congress could not agree on a way to keep them at 3.4 percent.
Under the bipartisan deal, undergraduates this fall could borrow at a 3.9 percent interest rate. Graduate students would have access to loans at 5.4 percent, and parents could borrow at 6.4 percent. Those rates would rise as the economy picks up and it becomes more expensive for the government to borrow money.
The compromise could be a good deal for students through the 2015 academic year. After that, interest rates are expected to climb above where they were when students left campus in the spring, if congressional estimates prove correct.
As part of the compromise, Democrats won a protection for students by capping rates at a maximum 8.25 percent for undergraduates. Graduate students would not pay rates higher than 9.5 percent, and parents' rates would top out at 10.5 percent.
Using Congressional Budget Office estimates, rates would not reach those limits in the next 10 years.
But even among those who planned to vote for it, frustrations remained evident.
"The bill that is before us represents a number of compromises that were made on both sides," said Sen. Tom Harkin, the Iowa Democrat who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
Harkin said the legislation is not what he would have written if he had the final say, but he also said that he recognizes the need to restore the lower rates on students before they return to campus for classes.
"It's the best that we can do," Harkin said on the Senate floor. "If we don't pass this today, there will be one sure effect: student loans will be almost twice what they would be under this bill."
Most Senate Republicans who pushed for interest rates to be linked to the financial markets were likely to vote for the measure. It was negotiated by Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and GOP Sens. Richard Burr of North Carolina and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the top Republican on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
"They may come from different political parties, but they all really care about students. And this bill proves it," said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. "And there's something else this bill proves, too: that Democrats can work with Republicans when they actually want to do it, when they check their partisan, take-it-or-leave-it approaches at the door and actually talk with, rather than at, us."
The compromise negotiated in the Senate closely hews to what House Republicans passed this year, and that's a sticking point for some liberals.
Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., pushed for an extension of the current 3.4 percent rate so lawmakers could address the subject this fall during the revision of the Higher Education Act. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has objected to students paying higher interest rates than the Federal Reserve offers to big banks.
"I understand that compromise isn't always pretty, but there isn't any compromise in this bill," Warren said last week when the deal was announced.
"In fact, I think the whole system stinks," she added during a Senate speech.
Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Al Franken, D-Minn., planned amendments that would redirect any profits made through the bill to help low-income students.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated the bill, as written, would reduce the deficit by $715 million over the next decade. During that same time, federal loans would be a $1.4 trillion program.
"We've got to get out of the business of making profits of struggling families who want nothing more than to be able to send their kids to college," said Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with Democrats. "This legislation only makes a bad situation worse."

subset: commoncrawl


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In addition to holding and cuddling the infants, our teachers are always interacting with them to encourage their mental and physical development. They will also introduce your child to our baby sign language program. Your child will learn to grasp toys, vocalize sounds, recognize pictures of familiar objects, and acquire a variety of other skills.
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Martin Creed: Works
Intro by Martin Creed
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Turner-Prize winning artist, Martin Creed presents the first compilation of 600 works, which start in 1986. With a very intimate introduction, Creed lets the readers know his insecurities. He says: "I don't think I want to make a book of my work. I am scared to look at what I have done in case I don't like it, and I'm scared to show others in case they don't like it." With this note, Creed has transformed from the award-winning artist, to the "everyman."
Some aspects of Creed's work are evident, he's known for making art out of the objects and activities of everyday life, but when you examine them further, more questions arise, and slowly, the layers are revealed. Creed is honest, and that aspect of this book gives it substance.
You want to read it, explore the works, and form your opinion – Creed wants you to do that, he's not telling, he's offering. It's rather democratic. With texts also by Germaine Greer, Barry Humphries and Darian Leader, who provide valuable interpretations on the artist's works. It's an insightful collection.
Shirley Stevenson


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- Planned Parenthood Austin
- Doctors Without Borders
- Capital Area Food Bank
- Atheists Helping the Homeless
As I mentioned on the show today, the idea that some reward awaits the faithful in the afterlife is one of the religious doctrines that impairs our ability to solve the problems that plague humanity. It makes it easier to ignore suffering if you think some people are better off dead. Well, it's not okay with me for people to go without medical care because they're poor. It's not okay for people to go hungry in a country where obesity is a major health concern. It's not okay for women to be pregnant year after year until they die of exhaustion. The organizations above are doing what they can to solve these problems. If you can help, please do, and thank you.
And now, open thread - have at it.


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As always, if you're among those who don't want to know who's won what until NBC-TV's primetime show is on the air, stop reading now. For those who do like to know what's happening, here's a quick look at the medals already awarded today and some of what's coming later on:
Germany's Maria Hoefl-Riesch won the gold medal in the women's super-combined Alpine skiing event Monday. As The New York Times reminds us, it's her third career gold. The silver went to Nicole Hosp of Austria, while Julia Mancuso of Team USA won bronze.
USA Today notes that this is Mancuso's fourth Olympic medal and that "no other American woman skier — not Lindsey Vonn (who is not competing here because of recent knee surgery), not former great Picabo Street — has more than two Olympic medals."
Also Monday, Charles Hamelin of Canada won the men's 1500-meter short track speed skating event. The CBC says it's his "fourth career Olympic medal ... first of the 2014 Games" and that "Hamelin is three medals away from becoming the most decorated Canadian Olympian ever."
Meanwhile, Team USA's women's hockey team dominated Switzerland on Monday, winning 9-0. Team USA's main rival, Canada, takes on Finland as the tournament continues.
Russia is basking in the team figure skating victory. Russian state television showed President Vladimir Putin shaking hands and congratulating the skaters. That victory was clinched by the performance of the 15-year-old Julia Lipnitskaia.
In speed skating, long track star Shani Davis of the U.S. takes to the ice Monday. Davis is competing in the 500-meter race. The 31-year old, who won gold in each of the two previous games in the 1000-meter races, is not expected to win the 500.
Update at 11:45 a.m. ET. Sweep For The Dutch In 500-Meter Race:
"Michel Mulder of the Netherlands won the men's 500 meters Olympic speed skating title Monday in another Dutch clean sweep of the medals, with his twin brother Ronald grabbing bronze," Reuters reports. "Mulder clocked a total time of 69.31 seconds for his two 500 metre races, just 0.01 seconds ahead of compatriot Jan Smeekens who had to settle for silver."
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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Next we're going to report on scientific research, in particular on the way that reporting on scientific research might actually warp the findings. Scientists face pressure to publish new discoveries, which in turn might influence what they study, and that, of course, is not necessarily a good thing. There's work being published today that's part of an effort to fix this problem. NPR's Shankar Vendantam joined our colleague, Steve Inskeep, to talk about it.
Shankar, welcome back.
SHANKAR VEDANTAM, BYLINE: Good morning, Steve.
INSKEEP: Okay. So what's wrong with a pressure to publish particular findings as you discover them?
VEDANTAM: Well, the problem is that the incentives in science today are all about breaking new ground, and there's much less incentive to making sure that the ground you're standing on is actually solid. Most people think about science as being about breakthroughs, but science really is about the gradual accumulation of knowledge and retesting what we think we know.
I spoke with psychologist Brian Nosek of the University of Virginia. He's been working on this issue for a while.
BRIAN NOSEK: The issues are pervasive in every science. Scientists are rewarded for publication over accuracy. There isn't a culture of replication across most disciplines. We're not rewarded for redoing what someone else does. The main reward is for doing something novel.
INSKEEP: Rewarded for publications over accuracy. I guess we should explain that scientific findings are published in prestigious journals and it's a big deal when your findings are published there.
VEDANTAM: It can make or break your career, and so especially if you're a young researcher the pressure to come up with a publication is extraordinary. Now, Nosek is the editor of a journal called Social Psychology and this is a field where some recent results have been called into question. And the way that journals typically work is the scientist does a study, writes it up, sends it to the journal, journal sends out the study to peer reviewers who review the study.
And if they give the okay, the journal considers it for publication. Nosek thinks this model creates perverse incentives, because if a study confirms an older result, the journals tend to say, well, we knew that already, it's not a novel finding and they're less inclined to publish it. Now, if the replication contradicts an earlier finding, where the journal sends out the study to the peer reviewers, some of the peer reviewers might have been the researchers who conducted the original study and they can now find ways to shoot down the study and reject the study and say we shouldn't be publishing it anyway.
And so what this does is it creates a disincentive for researchers to conduct replications at all.
INSKEEP: And this is how you're supposed to figure out that science is true, by doing the experiment again and again and again.
VEDANTAM: That's exactly right. So in this current issue of the journal Social Psychology, Nosek turns this model on its head. Every article that's in the journal is focused on replicating an earlier study. And as a second innovation, all the replications were accepted for publication before they were conducted, so the peer reviewers only looked at the methodology of the study and if the science were solid, the study was guaranteed publication.
Nosek thinks that this creates the incentives to do the best science, not just come up with the sexiest result.
INSKEEP: Okay. So they're trying to repeat old experiments and see if they discover anything. Did they find anything new?
VEDANTAM: They found lots of things that are interesting, Steve, but let me give you one specific example. In 1999, the researchers Margaret Shea(ph), Todd Patinski(ph) and Alini Ambadi (ph) came up with a classic experiment. They were looking at how stereotypes affect how people behave. Not the people who hold the stereotypes, but the people who are affected by the stereotype. This study was looking at how Asian women perform in math tests.
There's a common stereotype that Asians are good at math and there's also a common stereotype that women are not good at math. When the researchers reminded the volunteers of either their Asian or their female identity, distinct differences in performance emerged. Here's Nosek again.
NOSEK: Asian women who were reminded that they were Asian performed better on the math test. Whereas Asian women reminded that they were women performed worse on the same math test. Something that seems like it shouldn't be flexible, how well we perform in math, is flexible as a function of the identities that we have in mind and stereotypes associated with those identities.
INSKEEP: Wow. That's an amazing finding. But you're saying that under this new model, someone went back and tried that experiment again. What did they find the second time?
VEDANTAM: Well, that's exactly right. Alice Moon(ph) and Scott Reader(ph) at UC Berkley re-did the study in Northern California and they found the effect did not hold. Now, our first reaction is to say, look, the original study was debunked, but it turns out the answer is actually more complicated than that because there was a second replication. At Georgia Southern University, Carolyn Gibson(ph), Joy Losi(ph), and Christine Vitiello(ph) confirmed the original study.
You know, a tendency, Steve, when we hear scientific results is to draw simplistic conclusions. Look, we have a breakthrough. Look, the breakthrough has been debunked. To me, what the replications are doing is open up questions we actually hadn't considered. In this case the fact the replication failed in Northern California but worked in the Deep South raises questions. Is the effect due to demographics? Is it because of geography? Is it something else?
And now we are forced to be curious rather than judgmental.
INSKEEP: I guess this is a reminder that you need to keep an open mind and how subtly you can close your mind without realizing it.
VEDANTAM: And in many ways, Steve, that's the point of science, to recognize that beneath what we think we know there are layers and nuances that are waiting to be discovered.
INSKEEP: Shankar, thanks very much.
VEDANTAM: Thank you, Steve.
INSKEEP: That's NPR's Shankar Vendantam. You can follow him as always on Twitter at HiddenBrain. You can follow this program @MorningEdition and @NPRInskeep as well as @NPRGreene. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.


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Mass Abduction In Nigeria Suspected Of Being Militant Group's Latest
Mass Abduction In Nigeria Suspected Of Being Militant Group's Latest
Pascal Fletcher, the Africa bureau chief of Reuters, explains a recent incident in Nigeria, during which suspected Islamist insurgents raided a school and abducted Nigerian schoolgirls.
In Nigeria, all but eight girls kidnapped from a boarding school earlier this week have been rescued, according to the Nigerian military. As many as 100 girls have been missing after heavily-armed militants from the Islamist group known as Boko Haram raided their dorm. Boko Haram, whose name in the local Hausa language translates roughly as Western education is sinful, has been waging a campaign of violence in northern Nigeria. The students' kidnapping comes on the heels of a bus bombing out the outskirts of Nigeria's capital that killed some 70 people early Monday.
We're joined now by NPR's Africa correspondent, Ofeibea Quist-Arcton. And Ofeibea, let's start with the rescue. What details have you learned about it and what's known about how the kidnapping happened in the first place?
OFEIBEA QUIST-ARCTON, BYLINE: Audie, it's a very short statement from Nigeria's military quoting the school principal, saying that eight girls remain unaccounted for and it has rescued the others, but very few details. How the girls became free, whether they were rescued by soldiers, and what condition they're in. Now, we're told that late overnight, on Monday, the girls had gone back to school because they are taking their final exams. Schools have been closed in Borno state. But from the descriptions of some of the girls who were able to escape from their abductors, gunmen burst into their rooms. Told them not to panic. And then the girls were piled into an open truck. And it was when the truck had problems that some girls were able to jump down and run into the bush. So it's not clear that the military is talking about the girls who managed to escape themselves, or whether the latest lot of schoolgirls were rescued by the military themselves, who are doing a search-and-rescue operation we're told.
CORNISH: And Boko Haram has waged similar attacks on schools in the past, correct?
QUIST-ARCTON: Absolutely. And in the past, boys have been killed. They have had their throats slit like sacrificial lambs. And that sort of ties in with the name of Boko Haram, Western education is sinful. They say that they want to Islamize northern Nigeria, that they want to impose strict Shariah, Islamic law and true Islamic law, that Nigerian Muslims are not practicing proper laws. But in the past, girls have been spared but with the warning, Audie: Go home. Get married and stop school. So Western education is sinful seems to go through their ideology, although Boko Haram - and they haven't yet claimed responsibility for this attack on the school or the raid on the bus park on Abuja, the capital, they are being blamed by the authorities and President Goodluck Jonathan in particular.
CORNISH: Tell us more about the response from Nigeria's president, Goodluck Jonathan. What does he have to say this week?
QUIST-ARCTON: He went to the sight of the bus park bombing on Monday, but very little has been said by the authorities about this attack on the school, which is in northeastern Nigeria, which has become the zone of operations of Boko Haram. That is where they were set up years ago. So people are saying that government has got to stop this insurgency. They have promised. They have imposed emergency rule in three northeastern states, and yet the bombers and the terrorists, as they're called, are able to attack at will. This must stop.
CORNISH: That's NPR's Africa correspondent Ofeibea Quist-Arcton. Ofeibea, thank you.
QUIST-ARCTON: Always a pleasure.
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When installing a Quartz floor, you should cut the tiles to fit against the walls and objects around them. Since they have a tough surface it cannot be cut with normal hand tool. You can either use a diamond crusted blade i.e. a wet saw.
Here are the steps to cut Quartz Floor tiles – Place the tile on the floor and measure the exact area you need to cut. To get a straight cut, use a square or a rectangle. Place the cardboard on the surface of the tiles and the trace out its edges. Or you can also measure out the surface cuts by using a tape measure and color chalk piece. You can either buy or rent the wet-saw. They are available in all normal home improvement stores and tile shops. Fix the saw according to the instructions given in the manual. Attach the hardware tightly with bolts and nuts. Now fix the wet saw tightly to the stand and make sure it does not come-off and cause harm. Diamond blade is the right tool to cut Quartz because they are stronger than Quartz and they are one among the natural stone. Before turning-on the wet saw, check whether the water reservoir is fully filled with warm water. Cover your face and mouth with protective gear, so that the dust particle thrown off from tiles will not cause any respiration problem. Wear goggles to protect your eyes. Before cutting allow the saw's tip run at high-speed and dip the saw's blade into cooling oil lubricant because Quartz has an extremely dense surface and during cutting, the blade might break. And also by applying the solution on the wet saw's surface make the tool very cool and also it does not get heated while cutting. Now place the tile on the wet saw's table. Gently, move the tile's pencil mark towards the blade and press the tile with your finger so that you cut the Quartz Floor tiles with proper direction. Check the cut piece to fit your space. If it does not fit with the right measurements, cut the tiles again or try doing with fresh piece. If you are confident that you have cut with exact measurement, then continue. Once you have fully completed the task, turn the saw's speed to lower mode and make the diamond blade to run through water to decrease the hotness and once it is cool turn off the saw.
Here are some safety tips during Cutting process.
Wear all necessary protections to safe guard yourself. During cutting keep your children and pets away. Use diamond-tip blade for cutting Quartz Floor tiles.


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3 Benefits of Dental Implants
Missing teeth? You may be trying to decide what replacement procedure is best for you; dental implants, dentures or maybe even another option. When it comes to choosing, we always recommend dental implants. Dental Implants are a permanent solution to a lost tooth (or teeth) and have many benefits over some of your other options. To help make your decision a little bit easier, we've created a list of the top three benefits of dental implants!
1. Dental Implants Act Like Natural Teeth!
One of the most well-known benefits of dental implants is that they look and act just like your natural teeth. When properly placed, dental implants are nearly impossible to detect. Unlike dentures, which are removable and can cause discomfort to the wearer, dental implants are surgically placed into the jaw and provide no discomfort.
When dental implants are implanted to your jawbone, they provide the utmost of stability. This means that you can continue to eat your favorite foods, speak normally, and enjoy your improved self-esteem!
2. Improves Your Oral Health
Losing a tooth can have a big effect on the overall health of your mouth. When a tooth is lost, your gums begin to recede, which then causes the teeth to begin to shift, ultimately weakening your jaw bone which causes major problems for the rest of your remaining teeth. Dental implants provide stability to the jaw and prevent the surrounding teeth from shifting.
3. Reliability
Due to the permanent nature of dental implants, when properly taken care of, the implants can last a lifetime! Luckily, taking care of your implant is simple. Simply treat the implant as you would your other teeth, with the help of proper brushing and flossing.
Taking action to replace your missing tooth sooner rather than later will result in less headaches in the future. If you are considering dental implants as a dental procedure, give our office a call to schedule your consultation at Comfort Dental in Myrtle Beach SC Phone Number 843-448-5757!


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Al-Qaida fighters have been using secretive chat rooms and encrypted Internet message boards for planning and coordinating attacks — including the threatened if vague plot that U.S. officials say closed 19 diplomatic posts across Africa and the Middle East for more than a week.
It's highly unlikely that al-Qaida's top leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, or his chief lieutenant in Yemen, Nasser al-Wahishi, were personally part of the Internet chatter or, given the intense manhunt for both by U.S. spy agencies, that they ever go online or pick up the phone to discuss terror plots, experts say.
But the unspecified call to arms by the al-Qaida leaders, using a multi-layered subterfuge to pass messages from couriers to tech-savvy underlings to attackers, provoked a quick reaction by the U.S. to protect Americans in far-flung corners of the world where the terror network is evolving into regional hubs.
For years, extremists have used online forums to share information and drum up support, and over the past decade they have developed systems that blend encryption programs with anonymity software to hide their tracks. Jihadist technology may now be so sophisticated and secretive, experts say, that many communications avoid detection by National Security Agency programs that were specifically designed to uncover terror plots.
A U.S. intelligence official said the unspecified threat was discussed in an online forum joined by so many jihadist groups that it included a representative from Boko Haram, the Nigerian insurgency that has loose and informal ties to al-Qaida. Two other intelligence officials characterized the threat as more of an alert to get ready to launch potential attacks than a discussion of specific targets.
One of the officials said the threat began with a message from al-Wahishi, head of the Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, to al-Zawahri, who replaced Osama bin Laden as the core al-Qaida leader. The message essentially sought out al-Zawahri's blessing to launch attacks. Al-Zawahri, in turn, sent out a response that was shared on the secretive online jihadi forum.
All three intelligence officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the threat.
Rita Katz, director of the Washington-based SITE Intelligence Group that monitors jihadist websites, said it's all but certain that neither al-Zawahri nor al-Wahishi would communicate directly online or on the phone.
Al-Zawahri's location is unknown, but he was last believed to be in Pakistan, and al-Wahishi is said to be in Yemen. Given the nearly 2,000 miles between the two men, Katz said it's most likely they separately composed encrypted messages, saved them on thumb drives, and handed them off to couriers who disseminated them on secure websites.
Bin Laden, who was killed in May 2011, issued his messages in much the same way.
"These guys are not living in a bubble," said Katz, who has been watching al-Qaida and other jihadi communications for years. "They live in a reality that is facing the American intelligence interception with the best, most advanced technology that can be created. So they always try to find ways to get away from these interceptions to be able to deliver messages."
She added: "I am sure they are delivering messages, through the message boards or by sending emails that are encrypted. But there is no way in my mind that Zawahri or Wahishi have access to the Internet, and I think Wahishi, at this stage of his life, is even afraid of going outside."
Tracking and eliminating al-Qaida operatives in Yemen hasn't been easy for the U.S. It took years for the CIA finally to kill the cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in a drone strike after an intense manhunt. By staying off the grid, al-Wahishi and other senior al-Qaida leaders in Yemen such as Qassim al-Rimi and top bomb-maker Ibrahim Al-Asiri have managed to remain alive. So frustrated was the CIA at one point, the spy agency considered killing the couriers passing messages in an attempt to disrupt the terrorist group's plans, said a former senior U.S. official.
The idea was dropped because the couriers were not involved in lethal operations.
Exactly how U.S. spy systems picked up the latest threat is classified, and Shawn Turner, spokesman for U.S. National Intelligence Director James Clapper, refused to confirm or deny Katz's analysis on how it might have happened. Intelligence officials have suggested that the plot was detected, in part at least, through NSA surveillance programs that have been under harsh worldwide criticism for privacy intrusions in the name of national security.
It's not clear, however, that even the powerful U.S. spy systems would be able to crack jihadists' encrypted messages without help from the inside.
Earlier this year, an al-Qaida-linked extremist propaganda organization known as the Global Islamic Media Front released an encrypted instant-messaging system known as "Asrar al-Dardashah," or "Secrets of the Chat." It was a texting version of the organization's end-to-end encryption program that followers had been using for years. End-to-end encryption means messages are put into code so that only senders and receivers can access the content with secure "keys."
After the NSA programs were revealed in June, jihadi websites began urging followers to also use software that would hide their Internet protocol addresses and, essentially, prevent them from being tracked online. That aimed to add another layer of security to the online traffic.
An Aug. 5 discussion about the U.S. embassy closings on a jihadi forum that is directly linked to al-Qaida underscored the need for "complete secrecy" in plotting attacks even while jeering the American response to the message between al-Zawahri and al-Wahishi.
In a post on the Shumukh al-Islam online forum, a writer who identified himself as Sayyed al-Mawqif noted American news reports that said the terror threat possibly was intercepted though phone calls or surveillance of jihadist chat rooms or message boards. Shumukh al-Islam is not an encrypted site, but it requires a password to access and does not frequently accept new visitors.
"Even if there will not be a jihadi operation, it is sufficient that the mujahideen brothers succeeded in putting fear in the hearts of the disbelievers and the human devils," al-Mawqif wrote, according to a SITE translation of the transcript. "We hope to hear more about psychological wars like this one if there are no actual jihadi operations on the ground."
Encryption technology was once regulated by the U.S. for national security purposes, but it has been available to the public and used globally since the 1990s, including by human rights and free speech advocates.
"You can encrypt things in such a way that you can assume that even the NSA can't undo them — there's no back door," said Dan Auerbach, a technology expert at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is challenging NSA eavesdropping in federal lawsuits.
"We think it is very important to have tools for privacy," Auerbach said. But "when you develop a strong privacy-enhancing tool, it will help everyone — and this may include people considered by many to be 'bad guys.'"
Other technology experts believe the government could access encrypted messages — with the help of Internet providers.
Depending on what software is used, Internet providers theoretically could be compelled to send the coded messages and their decryption keys to the government instead of to the intended recipient. Unknown vulnerabilities in software may also make it possible for hackers to break into computers and obtain messages.
It's also possible that U.S. intelligence officials used a decidedly low-tech method to intercept the message between al-Zawahri and al-Wahishi — by planting a spy in the online forum. That has happened in the past, according to intelligence experts, most recently in a case now in federal court in Miami in which prosecutors say an undercover FBI agent snared two alleged terrorist recruiters in an online chat room by posing as a financial middleman.
Either way, and given al-Qaida's global sprawl and attempts to fly under the radar, it's certain that encrypted chat rooms and online sites are a mainstay for jihadi messages.
"This creates a bit of a cat-and-mouse game between terrorist groups that can buy commercial technology and intelligence agencies that are trying to find ways to continue to monitor," said Seth Jones, a former adviser to U.S. special operations forces and counterterrorism expert at Rand Corp., a Washington-based think tank that receives U.S. funding. "Some of the technology you can buy is pretty good, and it evolves, and it is a game that is constantly evolving."
Associated Press Writer Raphael Satter in London contributed to this report. On Twitter: Lara Jakes: httpss://twitter.com/larajakesAP and Adam Goldman: httpss://twitter.com/adamgoldmanap
Copyright © 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2013 Capitol Hill Blue


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PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Two U.S. drone strikes on northwest Pakistan killed a senior Taliban commander who fought American forces in Afghanistan but had a truce with the Pakistani military, intelligence officials said Thursday.
The commander, Maulvi Nazir, was among nine people killed in a missile strike on a house in the village of Angoor Adda in the South Waziristan tribal region near the border with Afghanistan late Wednesday night, five Pakistani security officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
At least four people were killed in a separate drone strike on Thursday morning near Mir Ali, the main town of the North Waziristan tribal region.
America's use of drones against militants in Pakistan has increased substantially under President Barack Obama and the program has killed a number of top militant commanders over the past year.
But the drone strikes are extremely contentious in Pakistan, seen as an infringement on the country's sovereignty. And while the U.S. maintains that it targets militants, many Pakistanis complain that innocent civilians have also been killed.
Nazir's killing could cause even more friction in the already tense relations between Washington and Islamabad. Pakistan is believed to have struck a nonaggression pact with Nazir ahead of its 2009 military operation against militants in South Waziristan.
Fighters under Nazir's command focused their attacks on American forces in neighboring Afghanistan, earning him the enmity of the U.S.
But many in Pakistan's military viewed Nazir and militant chiefs like him as "good Taliban," meaning they focus attacks only on foreign forces in Afghanistan, keeping domestic peace by not attacking Pakistani targets.
Nazir outraged many Pakistanis in June when he announced that he would not allow any polio vaccinations in territory under his control until the U.S. stops drone attacks in the region.
Pakistan is one of three countries where polio is still endemic. Nine workers helping in anti-polio vaccination campaigns were killed last month by militant gunmen and the killings this week of five female teachers and two aid workers may also have been linked to their work on the polio campaigns.
Residents in Angoor Adda and Wana, the biggest town in South Waziristan, said mosque loudspeakers announced Nazir's death. One resident, Ajaz Khan, said 5,000 to 10,000 people attended the funeral of Nazir and six other people in Angoor Adda.
Ahmed Yar, a resident who attended the funeral, said Nazir's body was badly burned and his face unrecognizable.
Reports of individual deaths in such cases are often difficult to independently verify. Pakistani and foreign journalists have a hard time traveling to the remote areas where many of these strikes occur, and the U.S. rarely comments on its secretive drone program.
Nazir was active in many parts of Afghanistan and had close ties with Arab members of al-Qaida as well as the Afghan Taliban, said Mansur Mahsud, the head of the Islamabad-based FATA Research Centre, which studies the tribal regions.
"His death is a great blow to the Afghan Taliban," he said.
The Taliban is a widely diverse group. The Afghan Taliban is made up mostly of Afghans who fight against U.S. and NATO troops. In Pakistan the group has been divided with some fighting the Pakistani government because of its support for the U.S. Other Taliban groups in Pakistan, such as Nazir's, focus their energies on fighting American and NATO troops in Afghanistan but have a truce with the Pakistani military.
Nazir, who was believed to be about 40 years old, had property in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. He used to be a member of Hizb-e-Islami, a militant Islamist group run by former Afghan prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. The group has thousands of fighters and followers across the north and east of Afghanistan.
Nazir had survived several assassination attempts including at least two previous American drone strikes.
In November, a suicide bomber tried to kill him as he was arriving at an office where he used to meet with local residents and hear their complaints. Nazir and more than a dozen other people were wounded in the attack, and seven were killed.
No group claimed responsibility, but suspicion immediately fell on rival militants including the head of the Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP), Hakimullah Mehsud, who had been jockeying with Nazir for power in South Waziristan. The TTP is an umbrella group of militants formed to oust the Pakistani government and install a hardline Islamist regime. They have been behind much of the violence tearing apart Pakistan in recent years.
Nazir's non-aggression pact with the Pakistani military allowed the army to launch a massive operation in South Waziristan against the TTP which displaced more than 800,000 people and drove Hakimullah Mehsud from the region.
In retaliation for the assassination attempt, Nazir expelled members of the Hakimullah's Mehsud tribe from Wana. Nazir was meeting with supporters to discuss how to deal with the TTP when the missiles struck on Wednesday night, said Mehsud from the FATA center.
Nazir's group quickly appointed his close aide Bawal Khan as a replacement, according to one of Nazir's commanders. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
But it remains to be seen what the new leader's policies will be and whether the tension with the TTP could lead to a power struggle in the region.
"Trouble will follow," said Mehsud.
The former chief of intelligence in northwest Pakistan, retired brigadier Asad Munir, said Nazir's killing will complicate the fight against militants in the tribal region, and could prompt Nazir's group to carry out retaliatory attacks against the Pakistani army in South Waziristan.
It will also raise questions among military commanders here who would like the U.S. to use its firepower against the Pakistani Taliban, which attacks domestic targets, and not against militants like Nazir who aren't seen as posing as much of a threat to the state, Munir said.
He added that the risk now for Pakistan is that the remnants of Nazir's group could join ranks with the Pakistani Taliban in its war with the government and army.
Drone strikes have been on the rise during Obama's presidency.
According to the Long War Journal, which tracks drone strikes, there were 35 strikes in Pakistan during 2008, the last year President George W. Bush was in office.
That number shot up to 117 in 2010 and then dropped the 46 last year. The strike that killed Nazir was the first of 2013.
The program has killed a number of top militant commanders over the past year, including al-Qaida's then-No. 2, Abu Yahya al-Libi, who died in a drone strike in June on the Pakistani village of Khassu Khel in North Waziristan.
In August, another missile strike in North Waziristan killed Badruddin Haqqani, who has been described as the day-to-day operations commander of the Haqqani network, which has been blamed by the U.S. for carrying out some of the most high-profile attacks against American and NATO troops in Afghanistan.


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< Features
SysV to Systemd
Continue porting from sysVinit init scripts to systemd unit file.
- Name: Jóhann B. Guðmundsson
- Email: johannbg AT gmail DOT com
Current status
- Targeted release: Fedora 21
- Last updated: 2014-01-06
- Percentage of completion: 80
- Progress Tracker Bug.
Detailed Description
Coordinating feature regarding conversion of sysvinit init scripts to native systemd service files to ensure the best user experience.
The best outcome is that we manage to convert all services from sysvinit scripts to native systemd unit files preferable in one Fedora release Fedora 17.
Benefit to Fedora
See previous feature page concerning systemd for the benefits this will bring to Fedora which can be found here.
- Review all service files that got provided and potentially shipped in F15 and make sure they meet the packaging guidelines. The list of those packages can be found here.
- Create a wiki page containing all package we ship that contain sysvinit init scripts
- Identify which packages contain sysvinit init scripts that are hardware activated, socket activated and dbus activated
- Divide that page into four sections: regular service activation, hardware activated ones, socket activated ones and dbus activated ones.
- Developers will need to convert the old sysvinit init scripts to native systemd ones and/or review and use ones that have been provided to them and package them as per packaging guidelines which can be found here with sample scriptlet snippet which can be found here no later then beta for inclusions in the release.
How To Test
- Install/update to the package that contains the new native systemd unit file.
- Check if the update process happened cleanly
- Check if the old sysvinit init script did get removed after install
- Check if the service starts cleanly after install
- check if the service stops cleanly after and install
- Check if the service reloads cleanly correctly if applicable
- Enable the service then restart
- check if the shutdown process happened cleanly with the service enabled
- check if the service started cleanly at startup
User Experience
Native systemd service configuration files are much easier to understand and configure compared to sysvinit scripts and the bootup process should get faster.
Depends on present of systemd being installed which is the case for Fedora 15 and onwards.
Contingency Plan
Continue to ship the old sysvinit init script.
- It's recommended that documentation is updated to reflect usage of the native systemd commands instead of service and chkconfig commands although that service and chkconfig commands will continue to work and are backwards compatible up to a certain extent.
- An example usage of systemd commands usage compared to service and chkconfig ones can be found here.
- Some documentation regarding starting and stopping some service might need to be updated since the sysvinit init script might have been split into more then one service files. Note that should not be the general case.
Release Notes
There shouldn't be anything we need to specifically say other than highlighting the change as we have done for previous releases.
Comments and Discussion


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Cero grew up on a 900-acre farm in West Virginia in a community with about 15 other kids. Instead of going to a regular school, they were homeschooled together in groups split by age. Some of their teachers were officially trained. Others were parents. Some classes were traditional, but not all were: Science classes were sometimes held at the local fish farm. A biology class might be a nature walk. English class might mean seeing a local play or visiting the library.
The kids had a lot of input into their own schooling — which meant their teachers were flexible. Discussions would go on as long as the kids were learning. And although there was a rough schedule, if a lesson was leading somewhere, the teacher wouldn't suddenly stop at a set time to teach another subject.
Cero and his classmates didn't always know what to expect. And sometimes they had to do extra work themselves to fill in the gaps. But it paid off: Cero went on to college at the University of Wisconsin.
Why Do Parents Homeschool Their Kids?
Believe it or not, attending school is not a legal requirement in the United States. It is a legal requirement that all kids be educated, though. When parents believe they can give their children a better education — or have other reasons for not wanting to send their kids to a local school (such as wanting to provide them with religious instruction) — they may choose homeschooling.
Homeschooled students can learn just as much as they would in regular schooling, provided they and their instructors (usually parents) work hard to cover all the subjects and experiences necessary. Overall, parents who homeschool tend to have higher levels of education than parents who do not. They already have a grasp of numerous subjects and the skills to educate themselves about teaching their kids.
It's been a while since most parents sat in an algebra class or a bio lab. So they have to know how to find the information necessary to teach their kids. Public schools or school districts often provide homeschooling parents with a curriculum, books and materials, and places to meet. Some public schools will point parents to tutors and other resources for brushing up on forgotten subjects. Or parents may enroll in continuing education courses at local colleges or universities.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Homeschooling
The more than 1 million kids who are educated at home know that it has a lot going for it. Students who are homeschooled may benefit from the one-on-one attention. For instance, if you don't understand something in math, the whole class won't be moving on without you — you might be the whole class! And if you really excel at something, you can keep learning more at your own pace.
Students who are homeschooled also may get out in their communities more than other kids their age. They may get to experience hands-on education at museums, libraries, businesses, marinas, and other community resources. They also might volunteer or participate in "service learning" where they take on local projects.
But homeschooling isn't as simple as sitting down with mom or dad and opening whichever book you feel like. Laws and requirements vary across the United States, and it's up to homeschoolers to comply with local regulations. So homeschooling can be a lot of work for parents: They need to know what the law requires them to teach, research resources on those subject (and learn more about the subjects if there are gaps in their knowledge), and then do the actual teaching.
It's not just parents who need to do more work when it comes to homeschooling: Often the students do too. As homeschooled kids become teens and old enough to guide their learning, they may be left more on their own to find resources and do their own research. (It may be challenging at the time, but working independently like this can put homeschooled kids ahead of the game when it comes to preparing for college life!)
A kid who's homeschooled may not have the convenience of some school facilities, such as a gymnasium, science lab, or art studio. These may be less important for little kids, who can do their science projects in the kitchen or have art class outdoors. But when it comes to teaching teens, homeschooling parents may need to find a way around such limitations.
Some parents who homeschool their kids form groups so their students can join together for art classes or group learning activities, like field trips. And some public schools let homeschooled kids participate in certain classes or extracurricular activities. Sharing lesson time can be good for homeschooled students for another reason: It provides social interaction that they might not have if they're not part of a class.
Finding Social Outlets
Homeschooled kids might feel cut off from other students their age — especially during the teen years when friendships are so important. The good news is that, with homeschooling a growing trend, there are plenty of other homeschooled kids out there to connect with either in person or virtually. Local libraries sometimes have information for homeschooled students and can put them in touch with one another.
Libraries and local public schools also may offer extracurricular activities, groups, or clubs for teens that are open to all. Local rec centers or teen centers are another good resource for meeting people your own age if you are homeschooled. Check with local colleges, too, to see if any of their activities or programs are suitable.
There's a myth that homeschooled kids are somehow "weird." Of course, that's not true: Colleges and universities recognize homeschooling as a legitimate education. In fact, some have special application and enrollment avenues for students who are homeschooled. (Homeschooled students still have to take college entry tests like SATs.)
Homeschooling gives students lots of advantages — such as more flexibility than local schools to focus on specific subjects needed for a future career. So if you attend a local school and know or have a chance to meet a homeschooled student, you guys could learn a lot from each other!
Note: All information is for educational purposes only. For specific medical advice, diagnoses, and treatment, consult your doctor.
© 1995-2024 KidsHealth ® All rights reserved. Images provided by iStock, Getty Images, Corbis, Veer, Science Photo Library, Science Source Images, Shutterstock, and Clipart.com


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Speaking at his fifth National Prayer Breakfast since taking office, President Obama said Thursday morning that the annual gatherings are always "wonderful." But he worries, Obama told the lawmakers and clergy gathered in Washington, D.C., that "as soon as we leave the prayer breakfast, everything we've been talking about the whole time at the prayer breakfast is forgotten ... on the same day as the prayer breakfast."
"It's like we didn't pray," he added.
What he hopes, said Obama, is that he and other leaders retain the humility they express each year at the prayer breakfast, "not just during this hour, but for every hour." Those with the "most power and influence," he said, "need to be the most humble."
C-SPAN has video of the prayer breakfast here.
Copyright 2013 NPR. To see more, visit www.npr.org.


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This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan.
In a piece for The New Yorker, David Remnick notes that some institutions mirror important aspects of society: the office of heavyweight boxing champion from Jack Johnson to Mike Tyson here in the United States and in Moscow, the Bolshoi Ballet, from its establishment under the czars of the Soviet era and now in Vladimir Putin's Russia where a dancer and two other men stand accused of an acid attack on the ballet's artistic director. Remnick's piece is called "Danse Macabre: A Scandal at the Bolshoi Ballet." And New Yorker editor David Remnick joins us from our bureau in New York. Nice to have you with us today.
DAVID REMNICK: Hi, Neal.
CONAN: And your readers will remember, of course, you covered Moscow before and during the collapse of the Soviet Union. How, in those days, did the Bolshoi mirror its society?
REMNICK: Well, it's falling apart like the Soviet Union was. The Bolshoi Ballet in those days had lost many of its best dancers to the West through defection and the rest, and just as the Kirov Ballet did in St. Petersburg. But it was also being slowly defunded because the country was being slowly defunded as it went into a state of economic and - disintegration, especially in the early '90s.
CONAN: There was...
REMNICK: And then you had a budget for the entire Bolshoi Ballet and opera - a huge complex of employees and performances and productions - of no more than $10, $12 million. Now, you're up - just for the ballet company, it's $120 million.
CONAN: You also wrote that it was a - mirrored the stultification of society in the end old - at the end of the Soviet empire.
REMNICK: Well, during the Soviet period, the greatest choreographer of all, Valentin, was not being danced on the stages of the Bolshoi and the Mariinsky or Kirov in St. Petersburg for the same reason that you weren't reading Solzhenitsyn or Grossman or Mandelstam. It just hadn't broken through. It took Gorbachev and perestroika and glasnost - you remember all those ancient words in the late '80s - to have that happen. And so it's no mystery why the street would be reflected on the stage.
CONAN: And now, how is the reflected on the stage?
REMNICK: Money.
REMNICK: If you go to Moscow today - I'm not talking about the provinces and I'm not talking about provincial cities, but Moscow, the very center of Moscow - is in some ways Riyadh or a kind of oil-rich capital. That's what Russia is today in terms of its economy at the highest levels. The very high elites, which all congregate in downtown Moscow and have their country homes in - outside, have enormous amount of money. The highest concentration of billionaires in any city in the world is in Moscow of all places, and when I lived in Moscow, you could barely buy a potato or an onion or get a box of matches, and this is reflected in the most glamorous state-controlled theater of all, the Bolshoi.
CONAN: Just to interrupt our conversation for a moment, we are seeing black smoke emerging from the Vatican, which means there was no pope selected in the most recent vote, so onto tomorrow. But in any case, on back to the Bolshoi Ballet.
CONAN: And, David Remnick, as you look at the influence of all that money, one of the accomplishments of the Bolshoi, you say, is that it has managed to make itself ideologically independent.
REMNICK: Well, this is a great thing. I mean, the days of any ideological control over the arts are more or less over. It's not the case with the media. I should be very, very quick to say. Ideological control over television, in particular, is - could not be tighter around the neck. But when it comes to the arts, when it comes to literature, when it comes to theater, there is really - it's quite open, and you can see and hear and do pretty much what you'd like to do.
CONAN: And that's quite a change from the days of the Soviet era.
REMNICK: Well, in the late Soviet era, in the Brezhnev era, there was a man named Yuri Grigorovich, who ran the Bolshoi Ballet, and he ran it with no more - no less a sure hand than Brezhnev ran the Soviet Union, probably even surer hands since he wasn't falling apart the way Brezhnev was. And Grigorovich's own ballets were these kind of agitprop, heroic, pompous productions like "Spartacus" and "Ivan the Terrible." And as I say, the great genius of the 20th century, Russian-born, of course, George Balanchine was - his choreography was nowhere to be seen. Where that was performed in all its glory was at New York City Ballet.
CONAN: And now we see this scandal at the Bolshoi. And again, it is - several people in your piece say it's the street coming into the theater.
REMNICK: It's not just one scandal. The most recent scandal is that the artistic director was coming home one night at about 11:00, and he was approaching his apartment building, and a man came up to him behind him and said (foreign language spoken), which is a kind of threatening way to say - in a mob movie here, it would be, you know, Vito Corleone says hello.
REMNICK: And he brought a glass of - a kind of jar out from behind his back, filled with a liquid and flipped it into the face of this man. Sergei Filin is his name, the artistic director of the ballet. And it was sulfuric acid, and it burned and burned and burned. And happily, the only good thing about this is that there was a lot of snow on the ground, and Filin had the good sense to smear the snow into his face, which somewhat limited the burning. But it did terrible things to his eyes.
He immediately went blind on the spot. He couldn't get into the house. He couldn't find - he couldn't use his phone because he couldn't see the numbers. He kept smearing snow and snow into his face. And finally, he stumbled his way to a kind of guard booth near the parking lot, banged on the door and told the man, you know, help me, please. And they called an ambulance and they called his wife. And, you know, and so a mystery began.
But I have to say that this had been preceded by many other small and large scandals. For example, the - when the artistic director's job had come open two years before, there was a certain man who was up for the job. His name is Yanin. And while that job search was going on, thousands of people in the dance community, in the theater community and so on were sent an email with a link with pornographic pictures of this guy Yanin engaged in all manner of sexual congress. And that was the end of Yanin.
There was the incident of the too fat ballerina. I'm not making this stuff up. After all, it's in The New Yorker.
CONAN: That should be true.
REMNICK: And I, you know, it's hilarious on one hand and very dark on the other, which is kind of reflecting - it is kind of a Russian novel in the Putin era.
CONAN: Yet you also say the horrific, pornographic attack against this man - some of these acts depicted were homosexual acts, and that is extremely taboo, at least publicly, in Russia.
REMNICK: I think, in the dance world, it's accepted that there are plenty of gay dancers and choreographers and the rest just as anywhere else. But it's in the larger world of Russia that - especially official Russia - that homosexuality is a really deep taboo. In fact, one dancer, for whatever reason, I had mentioned in my early version of the piece that he was gay. And it was a relevant fact that he begged me, and I quickly acceded to the fact to not mention this because, as he said in his email, this is Russia, David, not where you live.
And, you know, this is no joke that the legislators in any number of cities and now on a national level are trying to pass and, in some cases, have already passed what's called anti-gay propaganda legislation. And it's such a loose definition of what this is. You could be walking down the street with your lover's hand in yours, and that could be considered anti-gay pornography or rather propaganda. Books that are either incidentally about gay life or gay sex can be banned. Any - certainly a gay pride parade would be outlawed by this kind of thing. Russia is really retrograde on this subject, and that's a subplot in this piece as well.
CONAN: Yet these kinds of attacks are not unusual in Russian business, in Russian politics, in Russia itself. And you interviewed Sergei Yurevich Filin, the victim of this attack, who said from the start he knew who did it.
REMNICK: Right. He had some suspicion. He had disputes with people in the company, whether it was over money. Remember, if you're the artistic director of a ballet company and there are 200-odd dancers there, you have their fate in your hands. A ballet dancer has a very short career. He or she is extremely competitive with the other dancers. Everybody wants to be the prima ballerina or the top soloist in the male case, and there's just so many that are going to get that job. And if you're not getting that job, your salary is extremely low. Your chance of stardom is extremely low, and it all happens very quickly, just as it would on a baseball team or a basketball team or anywhere where the career length is very short. So Filin had this power.
And, you know, in the last couple of decades, they have been turning over artistic directors like flapjacks at the Bolshoi. They've had five in little over a decade. That's a lot. And for example, Ratmansky, Alexei Ratmansky, who's now in New York, was probably the best of them, and he went - he left there running, yelling and screaming because he couldn't take this atmosphere of threats from jealous boyfriends and people who wanted to use money for their favorites to get parts. It was an awful situation.
I should say, even though we're talking about Putin's Russia, even though Khrushchev and Stalin and Brezhnev and all the rest used to go to the ballet all the time because this was a centerpiece of Russian high culture, Putin couldn't care less. Putin never goes. He's interested in sports. He's interested in flying with the cranes. He's interested in all kinds of kind of outdoorsman stuff, stripped to the waist. He's not interested in the ballet of the opera. Couldn't care less.
CONAN: Now, we know that one of these frustrated dancers has now been charged with instigating this case along with a friend of his, a thug. I think it's fair to (unintelligible).
REMNICK: I think it's fair to say. Yeah.
CONAN: Yeah. And a getaway driver, yet they've confessed and a lot of people say of course they confessed. They needed to find someone and it's all put-up job.
REMNICK: Well, remember the criminal justice system in Russia, the judicial system in Russia is extremely primitive - extremely prone to bribery, state control. So nobody fully trusts it. Nobody fully trusts it. And because in their everyday lives, they know if they get pulled over by a cop, they might not have done anything and the cop just wanted a bribe and it goes all the way up to the top with these high-profile trials, like for the band Pussy Riot. You know, these young women who did a kind of performance art in a very prestigious cathedral and they were arrested for this. And the next thing you know, they're spending a few years in a prison camp in far eastern - in Siberia.
So people are very suspicious anytime the police or the judicial system says case has now been solved. There's always the thought that there's a puppet master, a grand poobah that's running the, you know, the low-level thugs. But the arrest they made was of a dancer in the troop who is angry with feeling about issues on money and parts and his girlfriend wasn't getting the part in "Swan Lake." I mean, you know, if bodily injury wasn't involved here, the whole thing is hysterically funny, at the same time. I mean, you know, violence, you know, is being expended over "Swan Lake." I mean, it's almost too good to be true.
CONAN: We're talking with David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, about his piece on the Bolshoi Ballet titled "Danse Macabre." You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION, from NPR News.
And as we look at this, there is a darker aspect. There is still this great division, at least one great division in the Bolshoi. There is a sort of institutional opposition, a man who bitterly resents every one of those five directors because none of them were him.
REMNICK: This is Nikolay Tsiskaridze. Let me just correct myself. I don't mean to say that it's too good to be true in the sense that it's this - I'm overlooking the fact that somebody's deeply injured and maybe even blinded. But the details of this are just so bizarre that they seem to go beyond the boundaries of reality. But they are absolutely true. There is dancer Nikolay Tsiskaridze, who is from Georgia, hence the complicated name, and he thinks of himself as the last great star of the Bolshoi.
His career on stage is fading as everybody does after a certain point. He's 40 years old. And he is seen as the big troublemaker at the troop and that people who run the theater thought that in some way he had poisoned the atmosphere of the Bolshoi. So you have characters here who are - and I hope it's told well in the magazine - that really are worthy of some strange combination of "Black Swan" and "Crime and Punishment."
CONAN: Yet, amid these larger-than-life figures and these enormous passions and these jealousies, there is the broader picture of what is happening in Russia and the way it is reflected in what is happening at the Bolshoi. And what was once one of the grand cultural institutions anywhere in the world, well, it's not that anymore, is it?
REMNICK: Well, I think they've gotten some bad publicity now. And I, you know, can't be avoided. When I showed up to start reporting on this piece, the very smart and kind publicity person, press spokeswoman, Katya Novikova, said maybe you should write a story about festival - of the 100th anniversary of the "Rite of Spring." And I said, you know why I'm here. And she said, I know why you're here, and then proceeded to be very available and very straightforward in doing her job. She was not evasive.
I think they recognized this is a big blow to them. I mean, you could imagine. It's beyond reckoning. The notion that say the Metropolitan Opera here in New York or San Francisco Symphony somehow, you know, the first violin is throwing acid in the face of the conductor because he or she is not getting the solo that they want. It's beyond imagining. In Russia, it's in concert with the reality of everyday.
CONAN: And it is - yes, the liberation of the money, there is no longer than ideological fight. There's also the corruption of the money.
REMNICK: Yeah. You know, it's still a state-run institution and the state is a lot richer than it was. But they also now have a board, and the board is dominated by this new and growing class of oligarchs who are in all the obvious businesses. As I say, Russia is - its economy is, in some ways - I don't mean to make a cartoon of it, but not that dissimilar from Saudi Arabia. We're talking about oil and natural gas. That's where all the big money is from and then some other resources as well.
And these people - in the same way that Rockefellers and Carnegies in their time who were pretty roughshod people want to kind of do something for their image by becoming associated with the arts. These people want to do the same as well, although they don't want to wait three generations. They want to do it all in one generation.
CONAN: David Remnick, thanks very much for your time today. Appreciate it.
REMNICK: My great pleasure.
CONAN: David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker. His piece is titled "Danse Macabre: Scandal at the Bolshoi Ballet." There's a link to it at our website. Just go to npr.org and click on TALK OF THE NATION. Tomorrow, Political Junkie Ken Rudin will be here with all the week's political news and that includes former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer on political redemption. It's the TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.


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DENVER (AP) -- The Hershey Co. has sued a Colorado marijuana edibles maker, claiming it makes four pot-infused candies that too closely resemble iconic products of the chocolate maker.
The trademark infringement lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Denver this week against TinctureBelle LLC and TinctureBelle Marijuanka LLC.
It alleges TinctureBelle's Ganja Joy, Hasheath, Hashees and Dabby Patty mimic Hershey's Almond Joy, Heath, Reese's peanut butter cups and York peppermint patty candies, respectively.
TinctureBelle did not immediately return messages seeking comment. The Denver Business Journal first reported about the lawsuit filed Tuesday.
The company's website says its products, which include lotions and balms, are "diabetic safe and delicious" and helpful with a variety of issues, including pain, headaches and insomnia.
The edibles are sold in Colorado's legal pot shops and medical marijuana dispensaries.
Pennsylvania-based Hershey says TinctureBelle products are packaged in a way that will confuse consumers, including children. Hershey's suit says TinctureBelle "creates a genuine safety risk with regard to consumers" who may inadvertently eat them thinking they are ordinary chocolate candy.
The lawsuit was filed as Colorado lawmakers look to tighten safety regulations for largely unmonitored marijuana snacks that can be indistinguishable from regular candies and baked goods.
Parents and doctors have said some children are eating the highly potent gummy bears, cookies, brownies and other items by mistake, sending them to hospitals in increasing numbers.
Hershey wants a judge to order TinctureBelle to stop selling the items. It is also seeking damages.
"Individuals and families the world over trust Hershey and its various brands as signifying safe and delicious treats for people of all ages," the lawsuit says.
More than two dozen people had reported poisonings from marijuana edibles to the Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Center as of April, citing dizziness, nausea and hallucinations. At least six were children who swallowed innocent-looking edibles, the poison center said.
Pot critics' concerns about the marijuana-laced products were stoked by the March death of a college student who authorities said ate more than the recommended dose of a marijuana-laced cookie and jumped to his death from a hotel balcony. In April, a woman told a 911 dispatcher that her husband was hallucinating and talking about the end of the world after he had eaten a marijuana-infused candy and taken pain pills shortly before allegedly shooting her.
Supporters of the new marijuana law and some experts say alcohol causes far more problems among users, and the issues with pot can be largely addressed through better regulations.


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Mobile Wallets: Hype Vs. Reality
Despite the hype, mobile wallets have not yet spread like wildfire among U.S. consumers. Many consumers still haven't yet been convinced that paying with a mobile device is any more convenient than using their credit cards, or even cash.
I recently spoke with Tom Kunz, SVP of digital channels for PNC Bank, about the state of mobile wallets for the upcoming September digital issue of Bank Systems & Technology. He believes mobile wallets will only achieve widespread consumer use when the different players in the mobile wallet ecosystem cooperate on some basic standards in order to bring the technology to scale.
"I do see convergence happening, but it's probably a couple of years away," Kunz says. "I think the plumbing of the cooperation will be laid over the next year or so -- figuring out things such as standards, security, network rules, card not present rules -- and then what will be left is the business arrangement."
Kunz also believes that mobile wallets will catch on with consumers in a greater capacity when providers and merchants more fully take advantage of the technology available in mobile devices to offer functions not available with plastic cards, such as using geo-location technology to alert consumers of deals at nearby retail locations. Kunz also does see the cloud-based wallet as the "end state" and becoming the most popular mobile wallet technology, though he adds that "the QR code has a longer shelf life than any of us expected, and NFC has a longer tail than anyone predicted."
Ultimately, Kunz believes the mobile wallet will become the primary payments method for consumers, simply because mobile is already transforming many other aspects of how people live their daily lives.
"Mobile is a catalyst in every industry to reinvent the way you do business with your customer," he says. "Payments will be a by-product of that."
[Related: The Mobile Wallets Race: Placing Multiple Bets ]
Bryan Yurcan is associate editor for Bank Systems and Technology. He has worked in various editorial capacities for newspapers and magazines for the past 8 years. After beginning his career as a municipal and courts reporter for daily newspapers in upstate New York, Bryan has ... View Full Bio


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What Kids Say About: Worrying
Everyone worries, right? Kids and grown-ups, too. But what do kids worry about most of all? We recently asked 1,154 boys and girls, and they said it was the health of a loved one.
That's right. More than grades or their looks or whether they'd succeed at their sport, kids were most worried about someone they love who was sick or who they thought might have a health problem. That might surprise you — and the adults in your life — but it really makes a lot of sense.
Why You Worry About Loved Ones
The people you love mean a lot to you. If it's a grown-up, like a parent or grandparent, you might worry about something happening to them. Who would take care of you, be there for you, or know just how to make your favorite breakfast on Sunday morning?
Kids count on grown-ups, love them, and want them to be around for a long time. So it's no wonder that kids get scared and sad if one of those special people gets sick. Kids also might worry if a loved one has an unhealthy habit, like smoking cigarettes, which can make people sick later in life.
Even younger loved ones, such as a sister, brother, or friend, can make kids worry if that person gets sick or has to go into the hospital.
What to Do
Is there anyone you're worried about right now? If so, here are some ways to handle it.
Get the facts. You've probably seen movies and TV shows where a person finds out a little piece of information, freaks out or makes some crazy decisions because of it, and then finds out later that he or she didn't know the whole story. "Oh, they were talking about bank robbers who were at a costume party, not real bank robbers!" It's the same with health stuff.
So if you hear a little piece of information, like your mom or dad talking on the phone to someone, don't get yourself all worried. Instead, find out what's really going on. Just ask your mom or dad if something is wrong of if someone is sick. If the answer is no, then you can feel relieved and you can stop worrying about that person being sick.
If the answer is yes, ask your mom or dad to tell you what kind of sickness it is and what the person needs to do. The good news is that there are treatments and medicines for just about every kind of illness.
If a loved one has a certain illness, such as diabetes, you might be tempted to go to the Internet for information. That can be a fine idea, but ask an adult to search with you. There's so much health information on the web that it can be overwhelming. An adult can help you steer clear of unreliable web sites and zero in on information that's written for kids.
Talk it out. About 25% of kids said they'd share their worries with a friend. Another 23% said they'd talk to their mom or dad. But the rest of the kids said they'd just deal with their worries on their own or try not to think about it. That might not be the best plan because some worries can be too much for kids to handle alone.
Talking to someone — especially a trusted adult — can help get you some of the facts we mentioned above. The adult also can be a source of support for you if you need a hug or someone to help you take a break from worrying. A nice walk or a board game could be just what you need. Sometimes the grown-up won't be able to change the thing that worries you, but just getting your worries out of your heart and head can make you feel better.
Other times, talking could help change what you're worried about. For instance, if people you love smoke, you can encourage them to quit. You don't want to be too pushy, but tell them you want them to stop smoking to be healthier. Also say that you'll be their biggest cheerleader if they decide to stop.
Remember that the human body is AMAZING! Sometimes it seems like there are many things that can go wrong with a person's body. But it's good to think about how fabulous the body is and how it usually is very good at getting well. For many illnesses, the body heals itself without any special medicines or medical procedures. How many times have you been sick and gotten better? Thank your immune system for all those recoveries.
Your immune system is like a microscopic army ready to do battle against germs that can make you sick. Or if you do get sick, your immune system can help you get well again. So button up your coat, get a good night's sleep, wash your hands, and eat your veggies. Why? So you can stay healthy. We don't want anyone to worry about you either!
Note: All information is for educational purposes only. For specific medical advice, diagnoses, and treatment, consult your doctor.
© 1995-2024 KidsHealth ® All rights reserved. Images provided by iStock, Getty Images, Corbis, Veer, Science Photo Library, Science Source Images, Shutterstock, and Clipart.com


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September is National Honey Month!
In 1989, the National Honey Board declared the month of September as National Honey Month as a way to promote the beekeeping industry, beekeeping in the United States and, of course, honey! While we all know honey as Mother Nature's sweetener, the many uses of honey is extensive. Take a look at some of favorite uses for honey outside of the kitchen for proof!
At Sioux Honey, we're doing our part to help celebrate National Honey Month and encourage you to do the same. There are plenty of ways to get in on the action starting in the kitchen. Our website has hundreds of different honey recipes for everything from chocolate chip cookies and carrot cakes to beef marinades and beet salads so browse away and don't forget to share your creations with us on Facebook! If you decide to be adventurous and create your own recipes using honey, keep these tips for baking with honey to make sure your finished product is a huge success. Oh, and we've got plenty more honey hints for you to try, too!
If you're running low on your own personal Sue Bee® honey supply, you can stock up your inventory by visiting our online store. While we only distribute our honey in bulk from the site, keep in mind that honey never goes bad and certain items like our Spun® honey make great gift ideas! Plus, you can even order our Sue Bee® Honey Gift Box for a nice variety of different types of honey to try.
Speaking of different types of honey, be sure to educate yourself on all the varieties that we offer at Sue Bee®, including clover, raw, Spun®, orange and organic! Each one has its own unique flavor. Which one is your favorite?
And while September isn't exactly the best time of year to plant flowers, it's never too early to start planning for next spring. Start by making plans to build your own bee-friendly garden! More and more gardeners are dedicated to helping the bees by adding to the shrinking inventory of flower-rich habitat in their area. Plan on planting native flowers and select single-top flowers, such as daisies or marigolds, that produce more nectar and make it easier for bees to access pollen. Also remember to avoid using herbicides or pesticides in the garden that can be toxic to bees. It's a great way to support the U.S.A. honey bee – something that is very important to us.
Do your part this September to help spread the word about National Honey Month!