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The costly price of an NFL career |
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The costly price of an NFL career  Sally Jenkins, Rick Maese and Scott Clement A Post survey of retired players finds 9 in 10 suffer from daily pain. A career in the National Football League creates echoes good and bad. Some reverberate in medical records, others in luxuries from rich contracts. But the most vivid ones for many former players come when they get out of bed each day and put their feet on the floor. If the NFL confers wealth – a rookie’s base pay next season will be $405,000 – it exacts a heavy price: lifelong hurt. “I’m 40 years old going on 65,” says Roman Oben, another ex-lineman. “God knows what I’ll feel like when I’m actually 65 years old.” |
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US's escape from an economic mess |
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US's escape from an economic mess Larry Elliott America's economic structure, its leaders' ability to make rapid political decisions and cultural memories of the Great Depression have been the engine of its recovery. From a European perspective, the world's biggest economy looks in reasonable shape. It may not be firing on all cylinders but the economy is expanding and jobs are being created. That cannot be said of the eurozone, where unemployment has risen to a record one in eight of the workforce and the economy has contracted for the past 18 months. |
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White House insists Obama was not involved in IRS targeting scandal |
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Jihadist groups seize Syrian oil wells |
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Jihadist groups seize Syrian oil wells  The EU decision to lift Syrian oil sanctions to aid the opposition has accelerated a scramble for control over wells and pipelines in rebel-held areas and helped consolidate the grip of jihadist groups over the country's key resources. Jabhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaida affiliate, consolidates position as scramble for control of wells accelerates 
As opposition groups have turned their guns on each other in the battle over oil, water and agricultural land, military pressure on Bashar al-Assad's government from the north and east has eased off. In some areas, al-Nusra has struck deals with government forces to allow the transfer of crude across the front lines to the Mediterranean coast. |
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You Can't Decide So What Should You Do? |
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You Can't Decide So What Should You Do? Giving yourself permission to stall or do nothing helps decrease stress and allows you a more peaceful platform to think |
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Japan’s Child Kidnapping Problem |
Japan’s Child Kidnapping Problem by Nathalie-Kyoko Stucky, Jake Adelstein Dozens of American children are abducted to Japan every year—not by strangers, but by parents after messy divorces. As Nathalie-Kyoko Stucky and Jake Adelstein report, divorce laws protective of Japanese nationals encourage such illegal abductions. Japan has a child-kidnapping problem. It’s not strangers snatching the kids on the playground or at the bus-stop; the problem is that when a Japanese national divorces a foreigner overseas, he or she can abduct their children, bring them back to Japan and the law ensures that the parent left behind has no rights to see the children or take them back home. The U.S. State Department reports that there have been over a hundred such kidnappings since 1994—according to a source, the number is closer to 400. Within Japan itself, divorce often means that one parent may have little or no access to the child. Japan’s inability to deal with child abduction partly stems from archaic family law in Japan that does not recognize joint custody. It’s a winner take all system. The law makes it almost impossible for the other parent to even meet the child, if the Japanese partner objects. |
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Conservative Anti-Immigration Paper by Controversial Scholar Had Basic Errors |
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Jason Richwine's Heritage Foundation study on the costs of immigration reform had far-reaching problems, a new study finds. |
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The troubling substance of “Mad Men” ’s anti-hero. Draper was an immediate hit with audiences: the man who could read symbols but couldn’t be read himself—a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in Jon Hamm. |
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Six ways the GOP could screw up the Obama administration's scandals |
 Republicans could waste the White House's 'worst weeks ever' to a lack of strategy and rogue members of their own party  - 4. Similarly, Rep Louie Gohmert (TX) is a GOP nut just waiting to pop out of the can. He blipped into national consciousness this week for a delightful malapropism, which he made during the interrogation of Attorney General Eric Holder over the FBI investigation of the Boston Marathon bombing: He decried that Holder "will not cast aspersions on my asparagus".
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Rejected film posters go on display |
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 Rejected film posters go on display Gallery to showcase works by Bill Gold and others for movies including Pulp Fiction and The Exorcist As a 21-year-old in the art department of Warner Bros, he was asked to come up with a poster for a vehicle for one of its stars, Humphrey Bogart. His poster for Casablanca became as classic as the film itself: black and white, the other characters in a misty background, Ingrid Bergman looking yearningly towards Bogey, and Bogey in the foreground, hat brim down, looking towards nothing but a bleak future. 
Of the hundreds of directors and actors he has worked with, Gold's favourite is Clint Eastwood, with whom he worked for more than 30 years. "We liked each other, that's all," he said, as laconically as his hero. Often the originals, which are going on display – many for the first time – in an online gallery at the events website Daybees, are starker and more graphic, more striking than the fussier final versions. Gold's design for The Exorcist in 1973 originally had a snapshot of a laughing child on a plain background, a layout rejected again two years later for Sidney Lumet's thriller starring Al Pacino, Dog Day Afternoon. |
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A bad week for Obama is revealing of what really irks voters |
A bad week for the president is revealing of what really irks voters Mr Obama has admitted that American officials died in Benghazi because they were not properly protected and has taken responsibility for those lapses. For proof that Republicans know they do not have enough to hang the president, consider the efforts by members of Congress to improve the scandal. At hearings on the matter in Congress, Republicans have repeatedly asked whether fighter jets or special forces could have been scrambled in time to save lives in Benghazi, but were grounded by faint-hearted superiors. If true, that would indeed be scandalous, but each time the evidence has pointed the other way, leaving Mr Obama’s foes grumbling about “unanswered questions”. More broadly, calling Democrats weak on national security used to be a vote-winner. Two costly wars have altered that. This may be the first lesson of the scandals now lapping at the White House door. Spend months attacking Mr Obama for using America’s might too cautiously, as in Libya, and he shrugs it off. Attack him for government overreach, and he is on the defensive. For supporters of an activist government, these are perilous times. |
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Friendships in Adulthood: Needing, Making, and Keeping Them |
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Friendships in Adulthood: Needing, Making, and Keeping Them Do you have trouble making new friendships due to a busy schedule or sudden life change? Don't worry -- you're not alone. Learn how to find others who are in the same boat as you. |
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Los Angeles Politics Needs More Women |
Los Angeles Politics Needs More Women by John Phillips Los Angeles is the second-largest city in the country and arguably its most diverse. We have beaches and mountains. The superrich and the desperately poor. Beautiful people from all over the planet trying to make it in Hollywood and ugly people here to take 10 percent from them. You name it, we have it. City Hall is not only full of men, it's full of very likeminded men. Of the 15 members of the Council, only one is a registered Republican, and according to a recent study conducted by LA Weekly, in the 5,223 Council votes in 2011, members voted unanimously a whopping 97.5 percent of the time. |
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Google Glass Is Watching—Now What? |
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Google Glass Is Watching—Now What? As Congress frets about privacy implications of Google Glass, one thing is clear: The technology that can redefine what is "public" and link the digital and physical worlds is here. "Owners of wearable Internet-connected devices already face choices about where or when it is appropriate to wear them—while legal experts say there aren't many protections for people whose activities the technology records." While such technology still faces numerous hurdles, the capability to use it for purposes once relegated to science fiction have already been proven in a real-world context, most recently by Carnegie Mellon University researchers in 2011. By combining public information from social networks and facial-recognition technology, the researchers used a webcam on a college campus to identify people by name, and then—by using information from their social-network profiles—also predict sensitive personal data, such as hobbies and Social Security numbers. |
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Obama faces a deficit in trust in government |
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Obama faces a deficit in trust in government  Dan Balz The president said he would make government smarter, but current controversies say otherwise. What has happened since Obama laid down that challenge for his administration? More Americans favor smaller government over bigger government than when he was first elected, according to exit polls from last November. Public confidence in the federal government is as low as it has ever been, according to a Pew Research Center survey released this spring. |
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How Obama Has Contributed to His Own Aura of Scandal |
 Probably Not the Best Way to Handle a Scandal - David Rohde
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In the midst of multiple uproars, the president is remaining aloof and disengaged.  - Obama's woes. Some of his wounds are self-inflicted. For five years the Obama administration has displayed a destructive tendency to try to have it both ways. In a press conference Thursday, the president did so again. In lawyerly responses, Obama said he supported journalists' constitutional right to report but stood by the fact that his administration has carried out more criminal leak investigations than all previous administrations combined . He called for the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad but prevaricated on how the United States would respond to apparent Syrian government chemical weapons attacks.
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The IRS Scandal Started at the Top |
The IRS Scandal Started at the Top The bureaucrats at the Internal Revenue Service did exactly what the president said was the right and honorable thing to do. Was the White House involved in the IRS's targeting of conservatives? No investigation needed to answer that one. Of course it was. But that's not how things work in post-Watergate Washington. Mr. Obama didn't need to pick up the phone. All he needed to do was exactly what he did do, in full view, for three years: Publicly suggest that conservative political groups were engaged in nefarious deeds; publicly call out by name political opponents whom he'd like to see harassed; and publicly have his party pressure the IRS to take action. |
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Controversies show paradox of Obama’s style |
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Controversies show paradox of Obama’s style Philip Rucker and Peter Wallsten His sometimes-bold, sometimes-timid approach to executive clout was on display in recent controversies over IRS actions and the Justice Department’s surveillance of AP journalists. Obama has been willing to push the bounds of executive power when it comes to making life-and-death decisions about drone strikes on suspected terrorists or instituting new greenhouse gas emission standards for cars. But at other times he has been skittish. When immigration activists first urged him to halt deportations of many illegal immigrants, for instance, Obama said he didn’t have the authority to do so. He eventually gave in after months of public protest and private pressure from immigrant and Hispanic advocates, granting relief to certain people who had been brought to the United States as children. |
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As Immigrants Take On American Habits, Their Health Suffers |
As Immigrants Take On American Habits, Their Health Suffers By SABRINA TAVERNISE A growing body of mortality research on immigrants has shown that the longer they live in this country, the worse their rates of heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes. And while their American-born children may have more money, they tend to live shorter lives than the parents. “There’s something about life in the United States that is not conducive to good health across generations” |
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Did the Associated Press blow an Al Qaeda informant's cover? |
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Some officials say the Associated Press scoop on a thwarted terrorist plot by an Al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen harmed the effort to neutralize a master bomb-builder. Does that excuse the Obama administration's aggressive crackdown on national security leaks? |
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Is Powerball a Good Bet? Keep Dreaming |
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Is Powerball a Good Bet? Keep Dreaming Another record lottery jackpot has thousands of Americans dreaming of Powerball riches. But the numbers say that even with a nine-figure potential payout, a ticket still isn't a good bet. The odds of hitting the jackpot are about 1 in 175 million, according to the association. At first blush, that might make a ticket look like a good bet: A 1-in-175 million chance to win $600 million should be worth $3.43—substantially more than the ticket's upfront cost. |
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Obama puts Marines on umbrella duty, irking conservatives |
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Obama puts Marines on umbrella duty, irking conservatives “I am going to go ahead and ask folks, why don’t we get a couple of Marines — they’re going to look good next to us — just because I’ve got a change of suits but I don’t know about our prime minister,” he said as two Marines appeared at the lecterns with umbrellas. “There we go. That’s good.” He gestured to the soggy press corps, adding, “You guys I’m sorry about.” Per Marine Corps uniform regulations, the men are not allowed to carry or use umbrellas while in uniform. Female Marines can carry “an all-black, plain standard, or collapsible umbrella at their option during inclement weather” but not with combat uniforms. |
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Newspaper Monopoly That Lost Its Grip |
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Newspaper Monopoly That Lost Its Grip By DAVID CARR The New Orleans Times-Picayune announced it would return to producing a printed product every day after losing both readers and advertisers and gaining competition. This daily newspaper thing may be catching on. Last week, The Philadelphia Inquirer announced that it would begin selling a Saturday edition on newsstands after a nearly two-year hiatus. The much ballyhooed unmaking of daily newspapering seems to be unmaking itself, and there’s a reason for that. Most newspapers have hung onto the ancient practice of embedding prose on a page and throwing it in people’s yards because that’s where the money and the customers are for the time being. The industry tried chasing clicks for a while to win back fleeing advertisers, decided it was a fool’s errand and is now turning to customers for revenue. But in order to charge people for news, you have to prosecute journalism. |
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You Are What You Eat Most of us try to make healthy choices most of the time because we’re thinking about our future – we want to look good and feel good tomorrow, next year, and decades from now. But sometimes there are exceptions... |
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Advice for Obama: Forget “Bulworth.” Try “Rambo.” |
 Forget Bulworth. Try Rambo. by Michael Tomasky Advice for Obama: Forget “Bulworth.” Try “Rambo.” Obama can’t change Mitch McConnell’s mind. The pundits who write that are just in fantasy land. But he can try to change the public’s mind. |
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On masculinity: My father's generation were better at being men |
On masculinity: My father's generation were better at being men Diane Abbott says the UK is facing a 'crisis of masculinity', with young men brought up on a diet of drugs and pornography, but it's a lack of love that really separates the generations. "Of all the factors that may contribute to Abbott's condition of hyper-masculinity – idleness, drugs, industrial quantities of pornography – the absence of love is surely the most crucial, though whether more of it existed in 1948 than in 2008 is impossible to know." |
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Is the Government Spying on Reporters More Often Than We Think? |
There's evidence that the Justice Department's seizure of Associated Press phone records is far from unprecedented. The Justice Department's rules only say the media must be informed about "subpoenas" for "telephone toll records." The FBI's operations guidelines interprets those rules quite literally, making clear the requirement "concerns only grand jury subpoenas." That is, these rules don't apply to National Security Letters, which are secret demands for information used by the FBI that don't require judicial approval. The narrow FBI interpretation also doesn't cover administrative subpoenas, which are issued by federal agencies without prior judicial review. |
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Feds rooting out 'unwelcome speech' on campus |
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The failure of the University of Montana to respond adequately to sexual assault allegations has led to a broadening of how the federal government defines verbal harassment. Free speech advocates worry that the new policy will chill the right to speak freely on campus. |
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US plane in emergency belly-landing |
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US plane in emergency belly-landing More than 30 passengers escaped unharmed after a US Airways flight was forced to make an emergency “belly landing” at Newark Airport in New Jersey early today. |
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Strongbox and Aaron Swartz |
Before he died, Aaron Swartz was working on an open-source, anonymous in-box for journalists and the public. This week, that project arrived at The New Yorker. |
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