Rep. Geran Tarr, D-Anchorage, speaks during a House Floor sessionin April. Tarr and the House majority havent agreed on an oil and gas tax bill with the Senate majority. (Photo by Skip Gray/360 North)

As of late afternoon Thursday, the Alaska Senate and House hadntmade any public progress on oil and gas tax legislation. They met Wednesday, but they still cant agree on how to replace the state system allowing companies to receive tax credits. Lawmakers only have two more days in the special session.

When oil companies that arent major producers spend money to develop new fields, they get tax credits from the state they can trade for cash. Its an incentive for companies that are smaller or newer to the state to do business here.

Both House and Senate members want to get rid of these cash credits. But House members want to delay replacing these credits. Senators want to allow companies to use the losses to reduce the taxes theyll have to pay in the future.

Sitka Republican Sen. Bert Stedman saidcompanies need to know what will happen when they spend in Alaska. He saidthat wont happen under the Houses revisions to the oil and gas tax bill, known as Version X.

If you want to put the industry in the freezer in Alaska literally, shut it down for expansion into these new, fairly colossal fields that have been targeted, this is how to do it, Stedman said. We need to take this Version X and quite frankly put it into the shredder.

Anchorage Democratic Rep. Geran Tarr saidthe state cant afford to give up a similar amount in future taxes than it currently hands out in cash credits. She saidthe money is needed to fill in the gap between what the state spends and what it raises in taxes, fees and oil royalties. Without any changes, she saidPermanent Fund dividends could be cut further.

Every dollar not earned through a reasonable oil tax puts more pressure on the use of the PFD for state government, she said.

Senators saidthe Legislature should make progress with what both sides can agree on: getting rid of cash credits.

Anchorage Republican Sen. Cathy Giessel saidthe state would be in worse shape financially if uncertainty leads to less oil production. That would meanfewer royalties flowing to the state.

We are focused on making sure that we continue production on the North Slope, because this royalty value is significant, she said.

Rep. Andy Josephson,an Anchorage Democrat, raised the possibility of putting setting an end dateon when companies can use or carry forward their losses from spending on oil-field development or leases to lower future taxes. He saidthat would put pressure on lawmakers to make more changes to the tax system.

We dont know how we can have that serious discussion without further discussion to carry-forward lease expenses, he said.

State Tax Division Director Ken Alper agreed with senators who expressed concern about the uncertainty potentially caused by the House bill.

It does create an uncertainty to not know what sort of value youre going to get for your spending, he said. And so I understand why there is some consternation from the Senate side and from some in industry as to why this House compromise bill might not be a completely viable solution.

But Alper saidtheres still room for compromise between the two chambers.

I encourage the two sides to continue to talk to find some sort of middle ground on the valuation of losses on what some will call cost recovery, so that we can all complete this project for 2017 and move on to whats next in passing a fiscal plan, Alper said.

The special session must end by Saturday.

Alaskas Energy Desks Rashah McChesney contributed to this report.

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Special session nears end without public progress on oil taxes - KTOO

Relief was arriving after a rough stretch of wildfires all around the U.S. West, with firefighters slowly surrounding once-fierce blazes and evacuees starting to stream back home.

OROVILLE, Calif. Relief was arriving after a rough stretch of wildfires all around the U.S. West, with firefighters slowly surrounding once-fierce blazes and evacuees starting to stream back home.

Authorities surveying the damage from a blaze in Northern California said Tuesday that at least 41 homes and 55 other buildings had been destroyed near the town of Oroville.

Some residents had returned home after fleeing the flames in the grassy foothills of the Sierra Nevada, about 60 miles north of Sacramento, but thousands remained evacuated as the fire entered its fifth day. The blaze burned nearly 9 square miles and injured four firefighters. It was 55 percent contained.

Crews were making progress against dozens of wildfires across the western U.S.

In Colorado, crews were winding down the fight against a wildfire that temporarily forced hundreds of people to evacuate near the resort town of Breckenridge. Firefighters built containment lines around at least 85 percent of the blaze.

In Arizona, recent monsoon rain has helped stop the growth of a wildfire in mountains overlooking Tucson and an evacuation order for the summer-retreat community of Summerhaven has been lifted.

In Nevada, fire crews were getting the upper hand on a wildland blaze that shut down U.S. Interstate 80 along the Nevada-California line most of Tuesday.

Three new California fires made trouble Tuesday.

One of them, just east of San Jose, destroyed two homes before its growth was stopped.

Another broke out in San Diego County and quickly surged to over half a square mile. It forced the temporary closure of Interstate 8 and the brief evacuation of 15 families in Alpine, a town of 15,000 people about 50 miles northeast of San Diego.

In Northern California, the Placer County Sheriffs Office issued mandatory evacuations along four roads near a 2-acre fire burning north of Auburn.

In Santa Barbara County, at least 3,500 people remained out of their homes due to a pair of fires. The larger of the two charred more than 45 square miles of dry brush and has burned 20 structures since it broke out. It was 60 percent contained. To the south an 18-square-mile wildfire that destroyed 20 structures is 48 percent contained.

Read this article:

Crews make progress against dozens of fires across western US - Las Vegas Review-Journal

Two years into its agreement with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, Rochester Public Schools say the district is making progress.

Superintendent Michael Muoz read through a seven-page, 18-item update to report to the school board that the district is in compliance with the federal office's requirements for monitoring how it handles discipline and other things during a three-year period.

The agreement stems from a September 2015 finding that students of color in the district were disproportionately disciplined compared with their white peers.

Muoz said the district still needs to talk with OCR about how it analyzes discipline data at each school building and has to make additional updates to policies in the student handbook.

While specific details of how both of these will be resolved weren't provided at Tuesday's meeting, Muoz said he's confident in the district's progress.

"We see this as a very good report," Muoz said. "But that doesn't mean our work is done. We'll continue looking forward on the work that we're doing, but it's good to know that we're meeting the requirements of the agreement."

School board members were pleased with the progress, and asked the district to make the letter public by posting it on the district's website.

"I think you get an idea of the depth of reporting ... and how we're doing this systematically throughout the whole district," school board member Gary Smith said. "I think sharing it would be a good thing."

School board members added that even though requirements of the agreement were met, it doesn't mean the work of the district will stop.

"I know that we feel strongly that we're just beginning," said school board member Jean Marvin. "But until we can we can really show that our kids have equity, both in terms of achievement, and referral, that this district is not going to rest."

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District makes progress in discipline equity, superintendent says - Post-Bulletin

10 July 2017: The UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) launched a report that presents baseline data for the regions progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and identifies key development gaps that need to be addressed to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. ESCAP launched the report at a side event co-hosted by Fiji and Pakistan, which took place on the sidelines of the 2017 session of the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF).

The Statistical Yearbook for Asia and the Pacific 2016: SDG Baseline Report presents the SDG baseline at regional and sub-regional levels for selected SDG targets, representing the first regional measurement methodology for establishing a baseline for the SDGs. The report aims to highlight regional gaps and challenges in achieving the SDGs and inform intergovernmental and inter-agency decision-making to support SDG implementation in the Asia-Pacific.

Speaking at the report launch, ESCAP Executive Secretary Shamshad Akhtar, said the region is making progress on SDG 1 (no poverty), SDG 4 (quality education), SDG 8 (decent work and economic growth), SDG 9 (industry, innovation and infrastructure), and SDG 14 (life below water). She cautioned however, that the region is seeing slow progress on ending hunger, achieving food security and delivering agricultural sustainability, as called for in SDG 2 (zero hunger), as well as slow progress on SDG 3 (good health and well-being) and SDG 5 (gender equality). Deputy Permanent Representative of Fiji to the UN, Luke Daunivalu, praised ESCAPs strong commitment to SDG 14, noting this Goal is one in which data is still insufficient to monitor progress on a regional basis. Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the UN, Maleeha Lodhi, highlighted the regions intergovernmental road map to implement the 2030 Agenda, saying the region will review implementation progress on an annual basis to identify areas where cooperation priorities may need to be adjusted over time.

The report launch also highlighted negative trends on SDG 10 (reduced inequalities), SDG 11 (sustainable cities and communities) and SDG 12 (responsible consumption and production), with participants observing these trends must be reversed to achieve the SDGs. The report further highlights SDG 15 (life on land) as a Goal on which the region needs to reverse negative trends, particularly on biodiversity loss and declining areas of natural forests.

The SDG Baseline Report assesses regional progress on each Goal since 2000, when the region began implementing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and identifies areas where the region needs to accelerate its efforts to achieve the SDGs by the 2030 deadline. A dashboard illustrates gaps between a business as usual scenario and the pace of progress necessary to achieve the Goals.

On data and statistics, the report stresses the contribution of regional improvements in the availability and quality of development statistics in assessing the Goals. The report explains, for example, that the baseline report used 50 indicators from the global SDG monitoring framework and supplementary sources, compared with 2000 and 2005 when regional estimates could only be produced for less than half of these indicators. Still, the report cautions that a transformation in statistical systems is necessary for SDG follow-up and review, recalling agreement at the Asia-Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development on the importance of integrating statistical planning into development planning. The report observes that ill-informed policies could be much more expensive than investment in data and statistics. The report identifies several areas where there is insufficient data to measure SDG progress on a regional basis, emphasizing the importance of disaggregated data to ensure no one is left behind.

The report concludes that Asia-Pacific has not completed half of the work it could or committed to do since 2000 on several SDGs.

The report finds that the region has not completed half of the work it could or committed to do since 2000 on several SDGs. Within this context, the report recommends, inter alia: stronger high-level political commitment and synergies by high-level policymakers in the region; right-based and people-centered planning; and effective financing for development (FfD).

The 2017 session of HLPF is taking place at UN Headquarters in New York, the US, from 10-19 July. [ESCAP Press Release] [ESCAP Report Webpage] [UN Press Release] [IISD RS Coverage of HLPF]

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ESCAP Report Assesses Regional SDG Progress - IISD Reporting Services

CalFire firefighter Jake Hainey, left, and engineer Anna Mathiasen watch as a wildfire burns near Oroville, Calif., on Saturday. AP PHOTO

OROVILLE, Calif. Following a searing weekend, slightly cooler temperatures and diminishing winds were helping firefighters Monday as they battled several California wildfires that have forced thousands of residents to flee. Crews also made progress on wildfires in Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico.

Crews in California made progress overnight on a blaze that swept through grassy foothills in the Sierra Nevada, about 60 miles north of Sacramento.

Containment was up to 35 percent, said Mary Ann Aldrich, spokeswoman for the state fire protection agency.

About 4,000 people remain under evacuation orders. But Aldrich said if winds continue to die down, authorities are hopeful some will be able to return to their homes Monday.

The fire has burned nearly 9 square miles of grass, injured four firefighters and destroyed at least 17 structures.

The area burning was southeast of Oroville, where spillways in the nations tallest dam began crumbling from heavy rains this winter and led to temporary evacuation orders for 200,000 residents downstream.

It leaves you feeling like you cant catch a break, said Sharon Reitan, who sought shelter at an evacuation center with her boyfriend Sunday night.

They were in Oroville on Friday when the fire broke out and roads to their hillside homewere blocked. Theylater saw photographs of their home burned to the ground.

The wildfire was one of more than a dozen across California that about 5,000 firefighters battled Monday.

In Southern California, at least 3,500 people remain evacuated as a pair of fires raged at separate ends of Santa Barbara County. The largest of the two has charred more than 45 square miles of dry brush and is threatening more than 130 rural homes. Its 15 percent contained.

The fires broke out amid a blistering weekend heatwave that toppled temperature records and made conditions dangerous for firefighters. Slightly cooler weather was expected to give crews a break in the coming days.

About 50 miles to the south, a 17-square-mile blaze shut down State Route 154, which was expected to remain closed for days. Its just 5 percent contained.

At least 20 structures burned, but officials didnt say if they were homes.

The fire broke out near a campsite and sent hundreds of campers scrambling, including about 90 children and 50 staff members at the Circle V Ranch who had to take shelter until they could be safely evacuated.

Some of the firefighters working to contain the Santa Barbara County blazes were sent to nearby San Luis Obispo County when a fire broke out Sunday and threatened numerous structures near the town of Santa Margarita. Officials said the fire burned less than 1 square mile.

The fight against a wildfire that temporarily forced the evacuation of hundreds of people near the resort town of Breckenridge, Colorado, is winding down.

Firefighters had built containment lines around 85 percent of the blaze as of Monday, and residents of nearby homes were no longer on standby to evacuate. Crews and equipment were starting to be sent to other fires burning around the West.

The fire 2 miles north of the Breckenridge ski area hasnt spread significantly was burning on less than 1 square mile.

Elsewhere, residents who fled a rural Arizona community over the weekend because of a wildfire that destroyed three homes have returned.

The rest is here:

Fire crews report progress - Rutland Herald

When an estimated 50,000 activists, eaters, and food systems thinkers gathered for Slow Food Nation in San Francisco in 2008, it was with the goal of catalyzing a huge shift in how Americans perceive and prioritize food. And, by many accounts, it worked.

Nine years later, farm-to-plate is a household term, but greenwashing and localwashing is nearly as abundant as farmers market kale. Nearly every week we hear examples of the way the food industry has responded to consumers questions about the source of their foodin both real anddisingenuous ways. And after eight years of forward movement in Washington, D.C., the Trump administration is now hard at work to slash regulationsand funding in rural areas, create a climate of fear among immigrant farmworkers, and do away with recent school lunch gains, potentially setting food systems progress back a generation.

Its against this national backdrop that Slow Food USA, the domestic branch of the international group founded by Carlo Petrini, is hosting its latest national gathering. Slow Food Nations will bring together approximately 500 food and farm leaders from around the nation (and several from outside the U.S.) for an internal summit in Denver, Colorado, followed by a three-day street festival on July 14-16.

The plan, says Richard McCarthy, executive director of Slow Food USA, is to reach those whove just come to the table and seek how best to navigate good food choices. And with interactive workshops, tastings, farm tours, educational talks, and hosted meals, the organization will likely reach that goal. But at a time when food is one of the more accessible lenses on justice, the groupand the larger food movementhas higher ideals as well.

Our goal is to present food as a bridge in this age of walls so that visitors can experience food traditions and the people they represent, says McCarthy. The street festival includes several events focused on food sovereignty and food justice, thanks in part to partnerships with groups such as the Turtle Island Slow Food Association, which McCarthy describes as a relatively new assembly of First Nations advocates and experts who are working for food sovereignty.

Alice Waters, chef and owner of the iconic Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, California, and founder of The Edible Schoolyard Project, is going to cook a meal for Slow Food leaders in hopes that she can encourage the group to get on the same page about the value of free, sustainable school lunch for all students K-12.

Im going to pretend theyre in sixth grade, says Waters,who has served as a vice president of Slow Food International since 2002. Im going to serve them a Mexican meal like we could in a local school. Ill buy all the food in Colorado and connect it to the academic study of the three-sisters agriculturebeans, corn, and squash growing together.

The larger goal, she says, is tomake school lunch an academic subject and a part of the curriculum.This provides a nourishing school lunch to all children and, most importantly, gives them time to sit down and eat together.

These are essential places for social justiceat the school cafeteria table and in the fields, she told Civil Eats. When we provide our children with free school lunches and pay the organic farmers and workers fairly and directly, we are focused on ending childhood hunger and supporting the people who take care of the land. I would love for that idea to be embraced by the whole Slow Food movement, so we are all united and were going there together.

Decade of Change

The gathering in Denver will be a place to take stock of the last decade of change and growth in the good food movement. Waters points tothe online Edible Schoolyard Network, which today consists of 5,500 school gardens, kitchens, school cafeterias, and academic classrooms worldwide, as an example of this very real momentum.

McCarthy says the movement should be proud of what it has accomplished. Ten years ago, school gardens, DIY baking and canning, farmers markets as strategic mechanisms to trigger consumer change for vulnerable families these were considered to be boutique, fuddy-duddy, or distractions from the real issues, he says. But, he adds that the combined effects of civil society persistence, growing market pressures, and occasional wise public policies have conspired to aid everyday people make the cultural shift to begin to value food differently in our lives. These changes are especially remarkable given how little funding has gone into the effort, says McCarthy.

Chef and author Deborah Madison, who is participating at Slow Food Nations, has also seen an expansion. There are competitive cooking shows, school gardens, more home gardens, greater awareness of GMOs and the dangers they represent to us and other living creatures, she says. There are now over 9,000 farmers markets, and for some there is much more awareness about where our food comes from and a keenness to know; for others, there is still a big disconnect.

Waters agrees that not all the awareness is positive. She sees greenwashing from fast-food companies that are trying to take the value of our movement and apply it to the way theyre selling food thats not real, with an effort to deceive rather than inform.

Moving Forward

Slow Food began in 1986 when Petrini and a group of activists staged a protest at the planned site of a McDonalds at the Spanish Steps in Rome. That history of resistance, says Ricardo Salvador, director of the Food & Environment Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), offers an opportunity to continue thinking about whats behindthe curtain.

That self-awareness and alternative worldview rooted in egalitarianism and ecology is needed now, as ever, says Salvador, who will be speaking on two panels with his colleagues Jos Oliva of the Food Chain Workers Alliance (FCWA) and Navina Khanna of the HEAL Food Alliance. Both UCS and FCWA are members of the burgeoning alliance, which seeks to transform the food system from a perspective that is rooted in social and racial justice.

As Salvador sees it, the U.S. is at a crossroads and must decide whether government exists to serve the public good and well-being, or to concentrate wealth and protect the interests of a plutocracy. Issues as fundamental as the survival of any semblance of democracy are at play in the evolution of the food system. Slow Food Nations should provide us all an opportunity to discuss these existential matters and develop shared strategies appropriate to our times.

FCWAs Oliva agrees. Slow Food has grownideologically and materiallytremendously since its beginnings and is now poised to take on larger issues of inequity, ecological devastation, and overall health created by our current food system, he says. With its hundreds of conviviums (chapters) around the nation, he believes the organization has the potential to bring along millions of people into a deeper understanding of what is wrong with our food system and how it can be healed.

Despite that, 86 percent of workers report earning subminimum, poverty, and low wages, resulting food high rates of food insecurity, Oliva adds, the people behind our meals are still not at the forefront of most eaters minds when it comes to issues of equity or fairness in the food system.

This vision would be a far cry from the wine-and-cheese-club image that Slow Food has often been subject to over the years.

This caricature conforms rather nicely with similar arguments intended to discredit proponents of the soda tax, tobacco legislation, and other excesses of the nanny state. So, first of all, its a purposeful and cynical portrait of us as elitists, says McCarthy. And yet, he makes clear that the organization is still focused on promoting the idea of a universal right to pleasure, and the Denver event is clearly an effort to balance foodie culture (or cocktail culture) with more thought-provoking discussion. A group of coffee-focused panelists will look at the beverage through a climate change lens, for instance.

In the end, McCarthy is clear about the fact that the delicious part of Slow Foods work is as important to the organization as the political. [Slow Foods] ideas are more relevant than ever before; and people are thirsting for change, he says.

However, it might actually be in the gentler side of our work where we matter most. People are overworked, overstimulated by technology and the 24/7 world, and desperately lonely. Food should be valued as a source for profound joy; it should be valued as an important sense of identity; and finally, it should be used as a bridge between people whove lost track of what we may have in common, McCarthy says. The growing interest in food as identity and entertainment is an opportunity to forge new ties, new shared history, and a new politics that finds place for people, their dreams, and hope.

Civil Eats is a media partner of Slow Food Nations.

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Slow Food Nations to Take Stock of Progressand Challengesof the Growing Food Movement - Civil Eats

Related Article Wiedmer: Can positive leadership from coach Butch Jones lift the Vols? Read more

HOOVER, Ala. Hundreds of reporters lurked, waiting for Butch Jones, the third and final coach to appear in the main hall on the first day of SEC media days, armed with questions like, "What do you think you've got to do to take that next step, you know, to get to Atlanta?"

One inquiry centered on where the 2017 Tennessee football team will turn for leadership with six NFL draft picks departed from a team that fell short of Atlanta, site of the SEC championship game.

Another question concluded bluntly with "Do you view that last season as a disappointment?"

Jones came prepared with answers from a perspective that reached further into the past than a 2016 season derailed by losses to South Carolina and Vanderbilt that was the subject of many questions Monday on the first day of the annual preseason frenzy at the Wynfrey Hotel.

"I think if you step back and really look at the narrative, there are a lot of great things and a lot of positive momentum that continues to really progress in our football program," Jones said.

The narrative he pitched goes back to December of 2012, after Derek Dooley's three losing seasons as coach. Tennessee, Jones accurately recalled, was perilously close to being penalized for subpar performance in the Academic Progress Rate when Jones accepted the job. He and his staff have corrected the classroom woes.

"And then on the field, we're very proud of the fact that it's very, very difficult to win in the Southeastern Conference, and we're one of only three programs that have won nine games two years in a row," Jones said. "We've been very fortunate to have three straight bowl victories for the first time in 20 years in our great program's history and tradition."

But as Jones enters his fifth season as the Volunteers' coach, nine-win seasons and improved APR scores are not what he sees as the jewels of the Vols' future.

"There's so much more out there to be accomplished, and we've only started," he said. "And that's what I like about this year's football team, is there they're very, very driven, very, very motivated."

He painted a picture of progress, stopped short of calling 2016 a disappointment and laid out an optimistic view of the future that will first be carried out by a 2017 team he described as "blue collar" and "workmanlike."

The players he brought to the media event seemed to fit that description. Defensive tackle Kendal Vickers, a relatively unheralded high school prospect, has been a steady contributor for three seasons. He enters his senior year without the preseason accolades garnered by players such as Derek Barnett last year.

"Those guys are great, but they're not on the team anymore, so we've got to deal with it," Vickers said, referencing Barnett and other departed defensive playmakers. "We've got great players on our team now and guys that can step up and play those roles."

Tennessee's player delegation also included cornerback Emmanuel Moseley and offensive lineman Jashon Robertson and stressed a "next man up" mentality within the locker room.

Last year's team was led by stars. This year's team, Jones, said, will be led by committee.

"Leadership is the key to any successful football team, and we do have to replace some individuals there," he said. "But that's the exciting thing about this football team is it's really been leadership by the entire team. It started with our 17 seniors. They've done a great job of really educating our younger players about the standards and expectations within our football program, and this is probably the best collective leadership that we've had in our football program to date."

Jones apparently avoided any questions about his job security. But Vickers was asked about the sentiment that Jones could be on the "hot seat" this season.

He, too, took a broad view in assessing the job performance of his head coach.

"It's a little disrespectful," Vickers said. "When I got here, we were 5-7 and I was redshirted. Things were bad. For us to win three straight bowl games, us being 9-4, we haven't won every game and we go out there to win every game. He's changed this program so much, and he's done everything he's possibly been able to do to change the culture at Tennessee."

Contact David Cobb at dcobb@timesfreepress.com.

See original here:

Butch Jones, Tennessee players defend program's progress - Chattanooga Times Free Press

The U.S. and Turkey are beginning to rebuild trust and could come to an agreement about northern Syria, where the U.S. backs a Kurdish militia that Turkey considers a terrorist organization, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told staff at the U.S. consulate-general in Istanbul.

I think were beginning to rebuild some of that trust that we lost in one another: they lost our trust to a certain extent, we lost theirs, Tillerson said on Monday while in Istanbul to attend an oil conference. Were making some progress down in Syria, were hopeful that we can replicate that with Turkey on some areas in the north part of Syria.

Tillersons remarks come after a meeting in Hamburg between President Donald Trump and Russias Vladimir Putin delivered a cease-fire in southwest Syria. Putin, the most significant backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, called the deal a breakthrough on July 9. In a tweet the following day, Trump said the cease-fire seemed to be holding and many lives can be saved.

The U.S.-Turkey relationship has been strained by the U.S. partnership with the Syrian Democratic Forces, an umbrella opposition group whose main fighting force is the Kurdish YPG. The U.S. chose to partner with and arm the YPG for an assault on the Islamic States stronghold of Raqqa despite Turkish protests and offers that it could provide an alternative military option. The YPG is affiliated with the PKK, a Kurdish group that has been fighting for autonomy inside Turkey since 1984, and which both Turkey and the U.S. consider a terrorist organization.

Tillerson said he hoped for an improvement in ties between the two allies after some six hours of meetings with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on three different occasions.

Our relationship here in Turkey, which has been under some stress for some time, I hope we are beginning to put it on the mend, he told the consular staff. This is an extraordinarily important relationship to the United States for many, many reasons that you would well understand, from a security standpoint to the future economic opportunities as well, and the important geography just by luck of mother nature that the citizens of Turkey occupy at this crossroads of the world.

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Turkey, the only Muslim-majority member of NATO, borders Iran, Iraq and Syria to its east and Greece to the west, making it the main land buffer between the Middle East and Europe. The nation hosts some 3 million refugees from the Syrian and Iraqi conflicts and has suffered dozens of terrorist attacks since the Syrian war began, prompting the U.S. to draw down consular staff in the country and order families home.

I know were not back to full normalization yet but were working on it," Tillerson told them, thanking them for operating in what he called a challenging post. I want to thank our Turkish nationals who I know in particular are operating under some very difficult conditions as this relationship has been strained.

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Tillerson Says Syria Progress Could Be Replicated With Turkey - Bloomberg

The tenor Paul Appleby (who has also sung the role at the Metropolitan Opera) embodied both Toms eagerness and his blankness, singing with a fresh and sweet lyric tenor that easily projected in the large, mostly outdoor theater. But he was poorly supported by the Orchestre de Paris, conducted by Eivind Gullberg Jensen, whose muddy and imprecise performance, particularly in the first act, failed to complement Mr. Applebys rhythmic energy. (Mr. Jensen was a late replacement for the injured Daniel Harding.)

Toms adventures in London society, more Dionysus than Dickens, get a flashy modern gloss here. With projections and a group of actors, including more tearing through walls, Mr. McBurney creates vivid vignettes of clubs, skyscrapers, a brothel (including the amusing Hilary Summers as madam Mother Goose), a stock market crash and Toms medley of sexual partners (both women and men). The irony and sharp edges of Stravinskys score, as well as the humor of the madcap staging, keep us at a distance from the action, able to witness Toms downfall with a cool, critical eye.

But the soprano Julia Bullock, as Anne, gave the proceedings a beating heart. Though her voice was sometimes lost in the large theater and her high notes sometimes squeezed, Ms. Bullock made her saintly character sincere without being cloying. She was at her best in the haunting final scene, when her slim, nuanced soprano had a simple honesty.

At the insistence of Nick, Tom marries a local freak of nature, the bearded lady Baba the Turk, whose only asset is her fame. (The projections imply that Tom essentially does it for the Instagram possibilities.) The role of a hectoring sideshow attraction is not the operas most ingratiating element, but this production puts a twist on it. Though written for a mezzo-soprano, here the role is performed by the countertenor Andrew Watts in the spirit of Conchita Wurst or a RuPauls Drag Race runner-up, a funny and appropriately campy choice. (Mr. Watts, though, struggled with the roles large range.)

Mr. McBurneys targets may be on the obvious side, but the staging succeeds through its visual wit and sudden swerves into pathos. When Tom sits in front of his bed and sings I wish I were happy, the music is chilly and austere, and the white box surrounding Mr. Appleby seems to offer no comfort at all. As the auctioneer Sellem, the bald and spectacled Alan Oke bore some resemblance to Stravinsky, dispassionately selling off the 18th-century artifacts of Tom and Babas house or relics from the warehouse of music past.

Despite its humor, everything in this production leads to death and loss. As Nick pushes Tom ever further down the path of debauchery, and eventually penury, the tears in the paper walls multiply. By the third acts Don Giovanni-like graveyard scene, in which Tom plays a card game for his soul, the walls are scarred from his ordeals, implying both psychic damage and hard-won experience.

His voice underlined by a creepy harpsichord, Tom wins his soul, but Nick takes his mind. The final scene, in which Tom wanders through Bedlam, is acted with haunting economy by Mr. Appleby on a scarred, bare stage.

The epilogue echoes Don Giovanni as well: The whole cast reminds the audience of their storys moral, and warns against idle hands and hearts and minds. In other words, get off Twitter.

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Review: A 'Rake's Progress' for a Fame-Hungry Internet Age - New York Times

BRISTOL Camille Sene had never seen anything like it before.

The pageantry of hometown floats, military vehicles, the Kenosha County Sheriffs Department color guard and the rhythmic drumming of school marching bands filled the air outside the village hall where she was standing and helping children catch candy tossed their way.

This is so cool, said Sene, a foreign exchange student from Ren, France, who was attending her first Bristol Progress Days Parade Sunday afternoon. Its cute. Im impressed. In France, we dont do anything like this.

Sene said where shes from, they do fireworks, but not a parade, on Frances independence day.

The annual Bristol Progress Days parade, is among the most popular activities of the three-day annual festival touted as the biggest small town celebration in the state. Despite road construction on Highway 45, large crowds attended its events, culminating with fireworks at dusk Sunday night.

Mike Saad, of Bristol, who has been playing host to Sene as she is preparing to attend Kenosha Unified high school classes this fall, said the parade is something he and his family have enjoyed each year.

Weve been coming out here for 15 years now. Its family tradition, he said. This has always been a time for the community to get together and celebrate so we get to see some of the older community members. Its a big kinda family, community get together.

Saad said Sene just arrived a few days ago and thought the gathering would give her an idea of a true hometown celebration.

For Lori Stanford, the Bristol Progress Day parade tops them all.

Its the best parade of the year, said Stanford, of Kenosha. This one is my favorite because its very family-oriented and my kids like the candy.

The candy, of course, is among the highlights for children of all ages.

Ah, this is hilarious, said Elizabeth Johnson, of Pleasant Prairie, who was enjoying the Elvis impersonator in the procession.

She said she was attending her first Bristol Progress Days parade awaiting the Kenosha Unifieds Rambler middle school marching band, where her daughter, Amy Maurina, 14, was performing.

She plays the trumpet and loves it, she said.

Mike Block, of Yorkville, Ill., couldnt wait to see his grandaughter Riley Achteroff, of Kenosha, who was in the parade with her Girl Scout troop.

Its fantastic. Were really having a good time, he said. It moves along and its entertaining and its really nice.

Katie Molinaro of Kenosha said that while the parade is longer than most that she and her kids Hailie, 4, and Haiden, have attended the family was having a good time.

I enjoy it. They enjoy it, she said.

Lisa Hufnagle, who played the trumpet in grade school and was in Central High Schools marching band, was also in the parade last year handing out candy and promoting her church. She said shes loving being a spectator for once.

I think its great. Im really enjoying this, she said.

Excerpt from:

Progress Day impresses with pageantry, sweets and more | Local ... - Kenosha News

Photo: Santiago Mejia, The Chronicle

Damian Jones had an up-and-down rookie year, spending nine stints with the Santa Cruz team.

Damian Jones had an up-and-down rookie year, spending nine stints with the Santa Cruz team.

Damian Jones (left) defends against the 76ers Markelle Fultz on Saturday night in Las Vegas.

Damian Jones (left) defends against the 76ers Markelle Fultz on Saturday night in Las Vegas.

Golden State Warriors' Damian Jones and James Michael McAdoo during practice at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio, on Tuesday, June 6, 2017.

Golden State Warriors' Damian Jones and James Michael McAdoo during practice at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio, on Tuesday, June 6, 2017.

Golden State Warriors' Damian Jones, JaVale McGee and Matt Barnes during NBA Finals Media Day at Oracle Arena in Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, May 31, 2017.

Golden State Warriors' Damian Jones, JaVale McGee and Matt Barnes during NBA Finals Media Day at Oracle Arena in Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, May 31, 2017.

Golden State Warriors' Damian Jones and Zaza Pachulia against Portland Trail Blazers in Game 4 of NBA Western Conference 1st Round Playoffs at Moda Center in Portland, Oregon on Monday, April 24, 2017.

Golden State Warriors' Damian Jones and Zaza Pachulia against Portland Trail Blazers in Game 4 of NBA Western Conference 1st Round Playoffs at Moda Center in Portland, Oregon on Monday, April 24, 2017.

Warriors Damian Jones showcasing progress in Summer League

LAS VEGAS The turning point came Jan. 6 in Santa Cruz. As he posted 13 points, 12 rebounds and four blocks in a 126-124 loss to the Grand Rapids Drive, center Damian Jones on assignment with Golden States Development League affiliate stayed out of foul trouble and didnt commit a turnover in 30 minutes.

Casey Hill, then the Santa Cruz Warriors head coach, smiled each of the three or four times a winded Jones asked to come off the court. Because after weeks harping on the 7-foot, 245-pound rookie to give consistent effort, Hill finally was seeing Jones motor match his physical tools.

That was a great sign, Hill said at the time. If he can go hard like that every night, hell be in the NBA for a long time.

With ideal size, strength and speed for an NBA center, Jones has long wowed scouts with his upside. Now, after a rookie year spent largely in the D-League (now the Gatorade League), he has a shot at cracking Golden States frontcourt rotation.

In the Warriors 95-93 loss Saturday night to Philadelphia in the Las Vegas Summer League, Jones looked like an NBA contributor. He scored 13 points and swatted three shots in 24 minutes. Midway through the third quarter, Jones volleyball-spiked an Aaron Harrison layup attempt into the first row.

The two 18-foot jumpers Jones made reinforced an important development: Anchored to the post in his limited NBA minutes last season, he is at ease enough to attempt the shots in games on which he works in practice. The Warriors hope is that his offensive game will only expand over the next week-plus in Las Vegas.

With free-agent center JaVale McGees status still in flux, Golden State could need Jones to play meaningful minutes next season. The Warriors, who will fill their 15th and final roster spot probably with a big man, want to continue rotating through three centers. After playing only 85 NBA minutes as a rookie, Jones could be the third option behind Zaza Pachulia and David West.

I think that if guys like David West and Zaza start talking to him over the summer and tell him to start preparing, he might slide into a role, guard Patrick McCaw said. I think hell be more than ready for it.

Jones tore his right pectoral muscle while lifting weights 12 days before going 30th overall to Golden State in the 2016 NBA draft. After finally getting cleared for contact work in late November, he logged nine stints in Santa Cruz.

It was a humbling experience for a player who got by on athleticism in his three seasons at Vanderbilt. Many nights, after watching a Warriors home game from the bench, he made the winding ride down Highway 17 to Santa Cruz. In his first few D-League assignments, Jones whose four-year rookie contract is worth up to $5.9 million labored against players earning $19,500 or $26,000, the D-Leagues two annual salary levels.

Hill outlined modest goals for Jones: crash the glass, improve his defensive footwork and, above all else, go hard every play. By that measure, his repeated requests for a breather Jan. 6 against Grand Rapids were a breakthrough. Jones was named the D-League Player of the Month in March and April after averaging 17.6 points and 7.8 rebounds in 12 games.

A week removed from Golden States second NBA title in three years last month, Jones was back at the teams practice facility in downtown Oakland. Now, he is more than a 7-foot project: Jones is a work in progress.

I feel a lot better, Jones said. Everything comes more natural now.

Added Chris DeMarco, the Warriors Summer League head coach: He plays hard. Im really happy about the way hes playing.

Connor Letourneau is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: cletourneau@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Con_Chron

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Warriors' Damian Jones showcasing progress in Summer League - SFGate

A lawful assembly became an unlawful assembly on Saturday afternoon when approximately 50 Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan fulfilled their promise of descending upon Charlottesville in support of its Confederate statues.

For weeks, city officials urged residents to ignore the rally, but that call did not sway the more than 1,000 people who encircled Justice Park with chants, drum circles and signs vehemently condemning the North Carolina-based white supremacy group.

Their rally lasted only 45 minutes, but as the Klan members were escorted by city and state police to their vehicles, they were eclipsed by cohorts of anti-racist groups deriding the Klan and the police in equal measure.

By 4:40 p.m., police declared the scene on High Street an unlawful assembly. After two hours and three canisters of tear gas, authorities had arrested 23 people connected to the protest.

Since Friday, city authorities have been prepping the recently renamed Justice Park for the rally, which Klan members applied for back in May as a response to the citys decision to remove the statues of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from what was then named Lee Park. The decision put Charlottesville in the mix of a nationwide debate over the treatment of Confederate monuments and their racial implications in a modern historical context.

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Business owners, city officials, the Albemarle-Charlottesville NAACP, civic leaders and a coalition of local clergy helped organize the "Unity Cville" events.

City Councils February decision to remove the statue has been a lightning rod for right-wing politicians and pro-white groups from all over the state, who claim the city is overstepping its bounds by taking down elements of Southern heritage. Rallying under that ideology, the Klan applied for a 3 p.m. assembly beside the statue of Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson that was expected to bring more than 100 Klansmen; as expected, the number of protesters outpaced the roughly 50 who showed by the hundreds.

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At 10 a.m. close to 200 officers from the Virginia State Police and local police departments gathered to go over the days operation.

Hours ahead of the rallys start time and not long after city workers had to clear a splash of red paint from the Lee statue scores of members from Black Lives Matter, Charlottesvilles Showing Up for Racial Justice, Charlottesville Solidarity and other activist groups engulfed Justice Park, waving signs, singing chants and dancing in drum circles.

When black lives are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back! one chant rang out.

The rally, well-publicized by local and national media alike, drew non-locals from both sides of the argument. Phil Wilayto, editor of the Richmond-based community newspaper The Virginia Defender, came to Charlottesville to support efforts to remove the Confederate statues and oppose the Klans presence.

For 11 years, weve been calling for the Confederate statues of Monument Avenue to come down, so were out here today to show solidarity with the people of Charlottesville, support their struggle and Charlottesvilles struggle to take down the statues, and ask for their help in getting rid of the ones in Richmond, Wilyato said.

On the other side of the fence, Brandy Fisher of West Virginia said she came to oppose the removal of the statues. She was quickly targeted in a barrage of arguments with anti-Klan protesters offended by her hat bearing the Confederate flag.

I, apparently, am wearing a Confederate flag so theyre mad and calling me racist and calling me a Klan member when all Im doing is protesting the removal of our historical statues, Fisher said. I feel like if we remove the statues, were going to make the same mistakes in the future. If you dont look to your past, youre going to screw up your future.

Asked if she supported the Klan, Fisher said she wouldnt care who was holding the rally so long as it was defending the Confederate monuments, but that she doesnt agree with all of the Klans views because theyre racist, and Im not racist.

I dont have a problem with black people, or Mexicans, or Israelis, or [Afghans] or Asians, she said. A person is a person, I take them each individually. I dont agree with all the white people, either, because some of them are pretty damn ignorant.

As the rallys start time drew closer, the crowd thickened and tensions rose as thickets of protesters stationed themselves in and around the Klans expected entrance point. At 3 p.m., with the Klan still nowhere in sight, police had to pull a Crozet man, draped in the Confederate flag, from the protesting crowd.

Speaking to police outside of the crowd, Chris Dudley remained defiant in his opposition to the protest, stating that Gen. Jackson was a hero, and that if it werent for him, none of yall would be here. Dudley said he and his girlfriend had come to the rally alone, but they were later spotted standing amongst the Klansmen.

It wasnt until 3:45 p.m. that the Klan finally appeared; dozens of state police officers formed a two-sided human wall stretching across High Street, parting the sea of protesters for a troop of Klansmen dressed in black shirts or white robes, clutching Confederate flags and signs bearing their white-supremacist creeds.

As some raised their arms in Nazi salutes and others let out a chant of white power, the Klan group was met with a chorus of dissent from the crowd, who called for them to be removed from the park and the city. The Klans rebuttals were often drowned out by the protesters, with some using whistles and noisemakers to quell the Klans cries.

Asked why they decided to come to Charlottesville, Klan member James Moore again expressed a desire to retain symbols of white supremacy while deriding City Councilor Wes Bellamy, who came under scrutiny last fall when offensive tweets were unearthed from his Twitter page.

These are the kinds of people were electing into the government here in Charlottesville ... Wes Bellamy is racist against white people but the thing is, nobodys worried about what Wes Bellamy is saying if its about white people, Moore said.

Bellamy was out of town, celebrating his one-year wedding anniversary.

Condemning the Jewish press, as well as President Donald Trump, whom Moore wrote off as a puppet, the eight-year Klansman said his group did not hate anybody, but rather identified as a white separatist organization.

By around 4:25 p.m., the cavalcade of Klansmen was escorted back out of the park and to their vehicles by police, drawing ire from the crowd of protesters, aghast that the authorities would be accommodating of such a radical group. High Street and its nearby side streets filled with hundreds who continued to rail against the Klans presence, alighting tensions with the state and city officers, several of whom had donned riot gear.

At 4:40 p.m., police declared the scene an unlawful assembly as officers continued to push the crowd back and allow the Klansmen to leave. Multiple reporters from The Daily Progress witnessed members of the crowd being brought to the ground by police and taken away in hand ties. At one point, a member of the crowd deployed a can of pepper spray, a city official said, and when a large crowd refused to leave High Street, a line of officers in riot gear donned gas masks and set off canisters of tear gas.

They just started grabbing us, telling us to leave, and we couldnt go anywhere, said Sara Tansey, who was arrested on East High Street and said she was charged with misdemeanor obstruction of free passage of others. They started grabbing us when we refused to leave.

By 6:15 p.m., 23 people in total had been arrested, said a city spokeswoman, though she said she was unaware of the exact charges levied against the arrestees, or if they were still being detained. Three individuals had to be transported to the hospital: two for heat-related issues and one for an alcohol-related issue.

Speaking after the rally, former Blue Ribbon Commission Chairman Don Gathers said he was proud of the size of the protest but disappointed with the polices behavior in the aftermath, calling it unnecessary.

Now its just devolved into this. Its truly sad. The police, I was so proud of them up until this point, and now this, Gathers said. They treated the Klan members one way: with respect. But then, the folks who came out to stand up to oppression, this is what you do to them? Our citizens deserve better than this.

The Charlottesville Police Department has not yet released a statement about the arrests or incidents that followed the protest.

In a statement posted to Facebook, Mayor Mike Signer wrote that the police succeeded in executing their strategy of protecting the First Amendment and public safety before and during the rally. He called the aftermath of the rally an unfortunate event.

All in all, I believe that we came out of this difficult day stronger than before more committed to diversity, to racial and social justice, to telling the truth about our history, and to unity, Signer wrote. On a very hot day, we made lemonade out of a lemon from North Carolina, no less.

Video: KKK arrives at Justice Park. #charlottesvillekkk pic.twitter.com/rXmlA9qXVX

— The Daily Progress (@DailyProgress) July 8, 2017

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KKK rally in Charlottesville eclipsed by protests - The Daily Progress

Sen. Ted Cruz said Sunday that Senate Republicans face a rocky path toward replacing Obamacare but can navigate through it if they focus on regulating insurance and driving down premiums.

I think were making real progress. In my view, failure is not an option, Mr. Cruz, Texas Republican, told CBS Face the Nation.

Mr. Cruz is proposing a plan that would let insurers offer plans that do not comply with Obamacares coverage regulations so long as they offer at least one plan that does.

Conservatives say allowing consumers to buy the type of coverage they want is the best way to drive down premiums, particularly for young and healthy customers whove been forced to pay more under the Affordable Care Acts model.

You have millions of people who are winners, straight off, Mr. Cruz said.

However, opponents say consumers will pay less for skimpier benefits, while those who still want or need the type of robust coverage mandated by Obamacare will have to pay more.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican, said over the July Fourth recess there is a real feeling that Mr. Cruzs plan is subterfuge to get around regulations that protect people with pre-existing medical conditions.

Mr. Cruz said it is true that sicker Americans could face higher costs, but it is better to blunt those costs with taxpayer-funded subsidies and stabilization funds than to force everyday Americans in the risk pool to pay more for their own insurance.

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Ted Cruz: Senate is making progress on health care reform and 'failure is not an option' - Washington Times

Looking back on the Detroit riots of 1967 as this exhibit at the Detroit Historical Museum does, Thompson asks: What have we learned?(Photo: Max Ortiz / The Detroit News)Buy Photo

Much of the testimony from eye witnesses and historians over the years about the summer of 1967 in Detroit casts the social unrest as the product of longstanding racial resentment and its impact on the well-being of African-Americans.

That blacks at the time were made to feel inferior and treated like they were under an apartheid system with a Detroit Police Department running amok with its notorious S.T.R.E.S.S (Stop the Robberies, Enjoy Safe Streets) program, which specifically targeted blacks for enforcement.

The late Ron Scott, former head of the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, used to share with me stories of 1967 and why it remained an indelible mark on the conscience of the city and its leaders. Scott always wanted journalists to tell the facts about the unrest and how race was the principal motivating factor.

His argument was that when people are economically alienated and their dignity taken away by unjustifiable and illegal police actions, they feel pushed into a corner. As a result, they are forced to react. Their reaction can sometimes lead to violence, and in Detroit it exploded.

That, in essence, is the story of 1967.

As the city marks the 50th anniversary of that seminal event that led to the loss of lives and the destruction of property and serves as a powerful reminder of the corrosive effects of race and class, we need to ask ourselves the following:

What has changed tangibly in Detroit for the better since 1967?

Have the lives of Detroiters improved significantly?

Have Detroit leaders learned any lessons from that consequential event?

A cursory look at 2017 Detroit will suggest that we are still dealing with some of the challenges that gave rise to that violence.

Lack of economic opportunity is still a present-day reality for many Detroiters. The majority of the citys children live in poverty and are growing up without opportunities.

Since 1967, Detroit often has elected leaders who went to work for themselves alone, instead of the people who put them in office.

The citys population decline, public corruption and continued rewarding of mediocrity over meritocracy, as well as a failure of leadership across the board from bureaucrats and elected officials, have been the hallmark of the last 50 years. And, more importantly, the city went into bankruptcy.

In fact, Detroit was listed among the 50 worst cities to live in, according to a report released last month by 24/7 Wall St., a Delaware-based financial and public opinion research company.

Once the fourth largest city by population and wealthiest by income per capita, Detroits economic decline over the past several decades may be the largest of any U.S. city, the report stated. The number people living in Detroit fell 19 percent over the past 10 years to just 677,124 today, the second largest population decline of any large city over that period. The typical Detroit household earns just $25,980 a year, less than half the $55,755 national median household income.

... Crime and overall urban decay have depressed real estate prices in the city to a fraction of their former value. The typical occupied home in Detroit is worth just $42,600, the lowest median home value of any city other than nearby Flint, Michigan.

This report joins a number of others of late that should give the cheerleaders of Detroits comeback narrative pause. They need to look at the fact that the economic boom that is clustered in downtown Detroit is not shared across the city.

More work needs to be done because conditions have not changed much for many Detroiters who are being asked to join in remembering the summer of 1967.

bankole@bankolethompson.com

Twitter: @bankieT

The writer hosts Redline with Bankole Thompson, which is broadcast at noon weekdays on Super Station 910AM. This column appears Mondays and Thursdays.

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Bankole: 50 years later, Detroit's progress elusive - The Detroit News

In his ongoing search to locate his hitting stroke, Kyle Schwarber took early batting practice Saturday under the watchful eyes of hitting coach John Mallee and manager Joe Maddon.

Schwarber appeared in his third consecutive game Saturday night after being recalled from Triple-A Iowa, where he was sent to jump-start his lagging offensive production this season. In his first at-bat he lined an opposite-field single in the second inning of the Cubs game with the Pirates at Wrigley Field. He followed that with a solo home run to center field in the fourth.

"It's a continuous process," Schwarber said. "I'm really happy with how the performance from down there is transferring up here. You're back in the big leagues and you want to get ahead of things. Now that it's out of the way I just plan on being myself."

Maddon was on the field for another purpose during Schwarber's pregame hitting session and couldn't help stopping to watch and provide additional instruction.

"I just wanted to be an advocate of what's going on and lend another set of eyes to what they're doing," Maddon said. "Being an old hitting coachwhat they're doing and how they're doing it is very interesting to me."

Schwarber said he has focused on slowing down his mechanics and limiting movement.

"Everything looked really good," Maddon said. "Primarily, everything has been based about shorter movements (and) getting ready sooner."

Coming soon: Starter Kyle Hendricks (tendinitis in his right hand) checked out fine a day after his bullpen session Friday and will make a minor-league start Monday for Double-A Tennessee.

"Once we get that done and accomplished and he's well we'll be able then to try to figure out the post-All-Star break rotation stuff," Maddon said.

Minor honors: The Cubs named catcher Victor Caratini and right-hander Thomas Hatch as the organization's minor-league player and pitcher of the month for June, respectively.

Before the Cubs called him up from Triple A, Caratini hit .345 with four home runs and 21 RBIs in 25 games with Iowa.

Hatch went 3-2 with a 0.98 ERA in five June starts with Class A Myrtle Beach.

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Kyle Schwarber's progress on offense 'a continuous process' - Chicago Tribune

MOFFAT COUNTY, Colo. Firefighters are working to protect some ranches from the largest wildfire currently burning in the state of Colorado.

The Peekaboo Fire is burning 44 miles northwest of Maybell, near Dinosaur National Monument. The fire, which was reported to be 12,675 acres in size Saturday night, spread to over 19 square miles after winds pushed it in several directions. So far, about five percent of the fire has been contained.

A Temporary Flight Restriction is still in place to allow fire crews on the air to fight the fire safely.

Thunderstorms are expected to move into the area Sunday afternoon.

The Peekaboo Fire, which has been burning for nearly two weeks on Cold Springs Mountain north of Browns Park National Wildlife Refuge, was started after lightning struck in the area. A total of 267 firefighters are working to put out the blaze.

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Firefighters make progress fighting Peekaboo Fire in northwestern ... - The Denver Channel

Nearly a year and a half after its groundbreaking ceremony and more than eight months after actually clearing the site of trees, there is little more at Home Again St. Johns State Road 207 property than a lot of broken ground, but officials say things may start moving soon.

We are getting ready to do about another $40,000 worth of site work, Mike Davis, vice president of the homeless service providers board of directors, told The Record on Thursday. And then when the new fiscal year for the county opens up, weve got another $150,000 from the county so we will do another $150,000 of site work after that.

He then added, We are also in the process of modifying our PUD (planned unit development) so we can have Ability Housing come in and do the housing component on the back half of the property.

The ultimate goal for the site is to build a homeless services campus, that, once completed, is expected to include up to 100 units of housing, a possible medical clinic and a united services center that will include Home Agains offices as well as office space for other agencies that provide services to the areas homeless. The center will also have a commercial kitchen and cafeteria and shower and laundry facilities.

Price estimates for the whole project have hovered around $10 million to $11 million, but Home Again officials have said it is unclear how much of that they will have to raise as they explore partnerships for the project.

Davis said Thursday that getting Ability Housing a Jacksonville-based affordable housing provider on board is also a step forward because they will seek their own funding stream for the housing component

Which was always our goal was to partner with somebody else to do that, he said. Home Again did not want to become another housing agency.

That leaves the organization on the hook for the united services center, and while leadership is still exploring sources for funding for that, Davis said, the focus right now is to have the site ready for building once funding is secured.

Thats what the nearly $200,000 worth of site work will move them toward.

Now weve got to put in all the underground utilities, weve got to put in the drainage systems, he said. We have to be pad ready for Ability House and everybody else.

Davis said he predicted that most of that could be done by years end.

Thats the thing about site work, its pretty expensive but its pretty quick, he said.

In the meantime, Home Again Executive Director Ellen Walden said the facility they do have on the property is going to be opening up another day during the week to help the homeless from the downtown area and on the north side of St. Augustine.

In a partnership with the St. Vincent de Paul Society, Walden said, they will be providing transportation on Tuesdays to bring in people from those two areas who need shower and laundry services.

That begins this week.

Home Again will also provide a meal to those who visit and help them apply for the benefits they may be entitled to, things like that, Walden said.

And then on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday we have a full-blown drop-in day here where those same services are provided, she said.

Mondays and Thursdays are available for the application services but are not considered full service days.

Walden said the expansion to Tuesday only highlights the need to get the service center built because she is seeing evidence that the homeless population is growing.

We have seen a significant increase in new people that are coming through the door that we havent seen before, she said. And we are still trying to figure out where they are coming from, they are just not the same people that we have been dealing with.

She struck an optimistic tone about the future of the site project, but said she realized that it ultimately comes down to the cash available.

We could have had this thing built two years ago had we had money, she said. Money is a hard thing to come by these days.

I think once this thing gets started, I mean really making progress, she added, its going to take off.

Davis, too, acknowledged the projects slow speed, but said he, and others involved, are hard at work.

I would prefer that this thing was already done as well, he said. But its awful hard when you go through the economic downturn weve gone through to raise money for homeless when people are fighting to keep their own homes.

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Home Again expects progress soon on homeless services campus - St. Augustine Record

Back in 2012, I had the pleasure of visiting the IBM Watson research center. Among the people I talked with was George Tulevski, who was working on developing carbon nanotubes as a possible replacement for silicon in some critical parts of transistors. IBM likes to think about developing technology with about a 10-year time window, which puts us about halfway to when the company might expect to be making nanotube-based hardware.

So, how's it going? This week, there was a bit of a progress report published in Nature Nanotechnology (which included Tulevski as one of its authors). In it, IBM researchers describe how they're now able to put together test hardware that pushes a carbon nanotube-based processor up to 2.8GHz. It's not an especially useful processor, but the methods used for assembling it show that some (but not all) of the technology needed to commercialize nanotube-based hardware is nearly ready.

The story of putting together a carbon nanotube processor is largely one of overcoming hurdles. You wouldn't necessarily expect that; given that the nanotubes can be naturally semiconducting, they'd seem like a natural fit for existing processor technology. But it's a real challenge to get the right nanotubes in the right place and play nicely with the rest of the processor. In fact, it's a series of challenges.

Note that above I said that nanotubes can be semiconducting. Unfortunately, they can also be metallic. (Well, not entirely unfortunatelythat's quite useful for other applications.) Even more unfortunately, when we make a batch of nanotubes, we can't control whether they're going to be metallic or semiconducting. Instead, you just end up with a random mixture of the two.

There have been two approaches to dealing with this. The first is to just put more carbon nanotubes than you need into place, then identify the metallic ones and destroy them. Needless to say, this isn't especially efficient. The alternative is to take a batch of carbon nanotubes and then separate out the semiconducting ones. There are various ways of doing this, but most of them haven't been 100-percent efficient. Which of course means that, at some level, you're going to be putting a piece of metal where you wanted a semiconductor, shorting part of your processor out.

For the new work, IBM relied on a development pioneered at the National Renewable Energy Lab (a facility targeted for massive cuts by the current administration). Some bright people at NREL realized that semiconducting carbon nanotubes would preferentially interact with complicated organic solvents that have nitrogen-containing rings in their structure.

Researchers at IBM decided this would be very useful indeed, so they tested the technique out. A single extraction with the same technique and, 10,000 individual nanotubes later, they can report that over 99.9 percent of the purified tubes were semiconducting. We can consider NREL's work replicated. And, if 99.9 percent's not good enough, there's no reason that the process couldn't be repeated in order to furtherincreasethe purity.

Of course, those semiconducting nanotubes don't do a processor much good if they're still sitting in solution. Ideally, you want a method of placing them in specific locations on your chip. Here, IBM rolled its own solution. The company developed a system in which polymers would only form on specific material on its chips. These polymers would help guide carbon nanotubes out of solution and in to specific locations.

So, we've now got a basic construction kit for carbon nanotube processors. But it's still not enough to do something useful. Modern processors have a complicated mix of p- and n-type semiconductors (which tend to build up positive or negative charges). Carbon nanotubes are naturally p-type, but they can be converted to n-type if they're placed in proximity to certain metals. Unfortunately, those metals tend to oxidize under normal conditions.

So the people at IBM put a cap over this metal layer to try to protect it. Unfortunately, the metal they used (scandium) turned out to like oxygen so much that itstripped it out of another part of the hardware, a hafnium oxide layer. So, that layer had to be replaced.

With all of the hurdles cleared, the team decided to make some individual transistors. These worked extremely well, with every one of the 192 transistors the researchers tested being operational. So, the team went on to try to build actual circuitry. Not useful circuitry, but instead a typical test case for new processor technology: a ring oscillator. This is a series of gates set up so to flip bits; if the gates get a 1, they convert it to 0 and vice versa. By putting an odd number in a ring-shaped configuration, each individual gate will oscillate between 1 and 0 with a timing that depends on the amount of delay involved in each individual gate changing its state.

The good news is that they produced 55 functional ring oscillators, with a performance of up to 2.8 GHz. This is an important demonstration that the process works. Unfortunately, IBM had to build 160 ring oscillators to get the 55 functional ones. So the process isn't mature. In fact, since ring oscillators only really involve five functional gates, it's a long way off from producing anything that might be considered a product.

But, to return to the point this discussion started with, IBMand the rest of the material science communitystill have a bit of space left in their timeline to get this commercialized. And, five years ago, they were still working on getting pure semiconducting nanotubes. Given the progress since, I wouldn't rule things out.

Nature Nanotechnology, 2017. DOI: 10.1038/NNANO.2017.115 (About DOIs).

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More than 1,000 people were in attendance when about 50 members of the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan protested in Justice Park on Saturday, according to a spokeswoman for the city of Charlottesville.

As of 6:15 p.m., 23 people had been arrested. Three people were taken to a hospital, two for heat-related issues and one for an alcohol-related issue.

The spokeswoman said Charlottesville police and Virginia State Police resources "were deployed to secure access to the park and ensure the safety of all involved."

After police allowed the KKK members to leave a parking garage, they began to walk toward Justice Park, she said, and a large group followed. After "a number of incidents," police used pepper spray and state police three three canisters of tear gas to disperse the crowd, the spokeswoman said.

Police and protesters have dispersed from High Street and Justice Park.

Police have used three cans of tear gas on protesters standing in High Street in Charlottesville following the KKK's departure from a protest in Justice Park.

Among those affected were several Daily Progress reporters and a legal observer for the American Civil Liberties Union.

The Charlottesville Police Department has requested assistance from the Albemarle County Police Department, University of Virginia Police Department, Charlottesville Sheriffs Office, Charlottesville Fire Department, Charlottesville Albemarle Rescue Squad and Virginia State Police.

Surveillance cameras were installed near Emancipation and Justice parks within the last couple of weeks, according to Capt. Wendy Lewis, and they are recording on a loop. Footage will only be viewed for evidentiary or investigative purposes, she said.

Having policed similarly large events, such as the Occupy Charlottesville protest in 2011, Lewis said Charlottesville police are confident they can handle the situation.

I think were very experienced at it, Lewis said earlier this week. We find it a privilege to be able to protect peoples right to assemble and free speech in a transparent way.

About 40 members of the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan rallied for less than an hour at Justice Park.

Protesters had tried to stop police from forming a barrier that allowed the KKK to enter their rally area. Several of them were arrested as police created a path.

At about 4:30 p.m., KKK members left the rally to head toward their vehicles in a garage at Fourth Street Northeast and High Street. Protesters gathered to confront them, but police told they would be arrested for unlawful assembly. At about 4:45 p.m., the vehicles left.

Civic leaders have planned events to bring the community elsewhere Saturday, but leftist activists have set up to directly protest the Klan rally at Justice Park, formerly named for the statue of Confederate Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson that stands there.. In the weeks leading up to Saturdays events, the city has been on edge, worrying about the possibility of violence between the Klan members and protesters.

On Aug. 12, a rally that will be attended by far-right and extremist groups that promote racist, white nationalist and anti-Semitic sentiments is expected to draw about 400 participants.

Some are looking at Saturdays event as a dress rehearsal for the Unite the Right rally next month in Emancipation Park, formerly named for its statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

The two rallies are being organized as a protest against the citys efforts to remove the Lee statue. Organizers for the two events see the possible removal of the Lee statue as an affront to White-European and Southern culture.

In a statement on Saturday, the Virginia Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans, which has opposed the removal of the Lee statue in a legal battle, said it "neither embraces nor espouses acts or ideologies of racial or religious bigotry and further strongly condemns the misuse of our sacred flags, symbols, or monuments in the conduct of the same."

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Tear gas used on protesters after 40 KKK members rally at Justice Park - The Daily Progress

KUWAIT British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said on Saturday progress could be made to heal a rift between Qatar and other Arab states, although a solution was unlikely to be found immediately.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Bahrain have cut diplomatic and transport ties with Qatar over accusations it was financing terrorism, claims which Doha says are "baseless".

"My impression is progress can be made and there is a way forward," Johnson said in a televised interview released to media after meeting senior government figures in Kuwait which is attempting to mediate between the two sides.

"But I'm not going to pretend to you now that it is necessarily overnight or this is going to be done in the next couple of days," he said.

Johnson, who held meetings on Friday with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, is due to travel to Qatar later on Saturday for meetings with its emir and prime minister.

"We think the blockade was unwelcome and we hope there will be a de-escalation," Johnson said.

(Reporting by Michael Holden; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

HAMBURG President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday he thought his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump had been satisfied with his assertions that Russia had not meddled in the U.S. presidential election.

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto on Saturday said that the U.S.-Mexico relationship cannot be defined by "murmurs," the day after U.S. President Donald Trump said Mexico would "absolutely" pay for his proposed southern border wall.

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UK's Johnson says progress can be made to ease Qatar tensions - Reuters