Filed under: Emerging Technologies,Technology,Autonomous
Got a self-driving project in the works?
Continue reading Geohot open-sources his semi-autonomous car technology
Geohot open-sources his semi-autonomous car technology originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 30 Nov 2016 18:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | CommentsNEW YORK -- Giving Tuesday, a 5-year-old phenomenon aimed at encouraging online charitable giving, produced record-shattering donations this week, according to two organizations which tracked the flow of gifts.
The 92nd Street Y in New York City, credited for launching the event in 2012, said Wednesday that contributions reported by organizations in the U.S. and abroad for a 24-hour period total $168 million — up from about $117 million in 2015. It said there were roughly 1.6 million donations, coming from people in nearly 100 countries.
Blackbaud, a software company that serves many nonprofits, reported that it processed $47.7 million in online donations Tuesday for more than 6,700 organizations — a 20 percent increase in giving over last year. It said 22 percent of the donations were made via a mobile device.
In its first year in 2012, under the aegis of the 92nd Street Y, Giving Tuesday generated about $10 million in donations after being pitched as a way to promote charity on the heels of Thanksgiving weekend's big shopping days. In subsequent years, it has mushroomed into a decentralized global movement, with nonprofits of all types soliciting donations, promoting volunteerism and encouraging acts of kindness.
The 92nd Street Y received detailed reports from many of the organizations it serves. Among them:
— A Baltimore nonprofit called Thread organized a "Love Notes to Baltimore" campaign where residents wrote uplifting messages in chalk on streets.
— Volunteers in Bethel, Alaska, stood in below-zero weather to accept donations for local nonprofits.
— The Humane Society of the United States exceeded its target of $200,000, with a total of $350,000 raised.
— The University of Michigan's campaign raised $5.5 million in 24 hours, compared to $4.3 million last year.
Numerous progressive organizations, in their Giving Tuesday appeals, made reference to the recent election victories of Donald Trump and congressional Republicans.
"When I look around today, I see how far we've come — and how far we have left to go now that Donald Trump has been elected," said an appeal from Barbara Miller, who serves on the board of the National Organization for Women.
On the right flank, the conservative Media Research Center appealed for donations to help it counter "the liberal media."
Henry Timms, executive director of the 92nd Street Y and co-founder of Giving Tuesday, said the event's success was due to "the work of ordinary people all over the country."
"For all those things that may divide us, we all share a proud tradition of giving," he said.
WASHINGTON -- Organizers of a planned women's march on Washington said Wednesday they expect high-profile speakers and big-name entertainers to be part of the program for thousands of people heading to the nation's capital on the day after Donald Trump's inauguration.
Bob Bland, a fashion entrepreneur in New York and one of the march organizers, said the idea for the march bubbled up spontaneously around the country in the days after Trump's election, as women felt the need to say that, "women do matter, women are powerful, our voices are strong, and we're better when we do things collectively."
Linda Sarsour, another march organizer and executive director of the Arab American Association of New York, said the march leaders include women who are Muslim American, Hispanic and African American, some of the groups "most targeted" by Trump and his supporters during the campaign.
The march, she said, will send "a big message visually for people in our communities to stand up against this administration and say that women will lead us, women will protect our communities. That's really the vision that we have for this march."
The organizers originally envisioned massing as many as 200,000 people at the Lincoln Memorial but that location is not available. National Park Service spokesman Mike Litterst said other outside groups filed permit applications ahead of the women's march. He said talks were under way to find a workable alternate location for the march and rally.
Filed under: Celebrities,Videos,Chevrolet,Classics,Performance
The new Corvette Grand Sport is faster than the Jenners' 1956 model, but it isn't worth as much.
Continue reading Jay Leno gives Caitlyn and Kendall Jenner a lesson in Corvette value
Jay Leno gives Caitlyn and Kendall Jenner a lesson in Corvette value originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 30 Nov 2016 17:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | CommentsFiled under: Government/Legal,Green,Alternative Fuels,Green Culture,Transportation Alternatives,Emerging Technologies,Technology,Autonomous,Electric,Hydrogen
Build your own autonomous driving system, courtesy of Geohot. NYC will build EV chargers in each borough. London mayor shows off fuel-cell double-decker bus.
Recharge Wrap-up: Comma.ai open-sources autonomous driving, London commits to zero-emissions double-decker buses originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 30 Nov 2016 16:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | CommentsWELLINGTON, New Zealand -- Disney's animated movie "Moana" debuted to critical acclaim and box office success over the Thanksgiving weekend, but some people in the South Pacific dislike how it depicts their culture.
Of particular concern is the movie's portrayal of the demigod Maui, who is shown as enormous and egotistical, albeit with a good heart. That has been jarring for some in Polynesia, where obesity rates are among the highest in the world and where Maui is a revered hero in oral traditions.
Criticism from the Pacific has likely stung Disney, which went to extraordinary lengths to ensure the movie was culturally appropriate after being accused of racism in previous movies such as "Aladdin" (1992). For "Moana," the filmmakers traveled to the Pacific and met with anthropologists, historians, fisherman and linguists, part of what they came to call the Oceanic Story Trust.
The fictional movie takes place 3,000 years ago in the islands of Polynesia, an area that includes Hawaii, Tonga and Tahiti. The star is 16-year-old Moana, voiced by Hawaiian actress Auli'i Cravalho, who goes on an ocean voyage with Maui, voiced by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.
The movie made $82 million over the five-day weekend, placing it behind only "Frozen" (2013) for a Thanksgiving debut.
Disney suffered an early embarrassment when it decided to sell costumes of Maui, which featured brown shirts and long pants with full-body tattoos. Disney put the costumes in stores in time for Halloween, but quickly pulled them after critics compared them to blackface.
Producer Osnat Shurer, speaking by phone from Berlin where she was promoting the movie, said the moviemakers spent five years working closely with people in the Pacific to create what they believe is a beautiful representation.
"The costume fell short of that," she said. "As different things grow around the movie, sometimes they don't hit the same mark."
Shurer said that when it came to figuring out the character of Maui, they found that different islands, villages, and even households, had different impressions of him.
"To some he's a Superman, to others he's a trickster," she said.
In all the stories, she said, Maui was clearly larger than life. At first, however, they envisioned him as a little smaller, and bald. But he just seemed to grow as the movie progressed. She said animators try to find the essence of a character and then exaggerate those features.
"We knew we wanted him to be big and wanted him to be strong," she said. "But he also moves with an incredible lightness."
She said she hopes Pacific Islanders see the movie with an open mind.
"I feel good about the movie we've created and that it can withstand scrutiny," she said. "All I can say is we did it with love and respect."
In New Zealand, the movie does not debut until after Christmas. But Teresia Teaiwa, a senior lecturer in Pacific studies at Victoria University of Wellington, said she was concerned about the portrayal of Maui.
"Before Disney, I've seen a lot of other representations, and Maui is a hero," she said. "I think it's clear from the trailers I've seen that he's a buffoon in Disney. It's a dramatic shift. He was a trickster but not a buffoon."
Teaiwa said if Disney really wanted to be culturally correct they would have paired Maui with a female deity, as he is in most legends, and not with a teenager.
"They wanted to get it right commercially without getting it wrong culturally," Teaiwa said. "But there are some things that they clearly didn't mind getting wrong."
She said there seemed to be a U.S. stereotype of Pacific Island men as huge, perhaps because the main exposure to them seemed to be through activities like NFL football.
Teaiwa said she was appalled by the Maui costume, particularly because some ethnologists from early last century had managed to collect the preserved, tattooed skin of Pacific people who had died.
"I thought it was macabre. I thought it was really creepy," she said of the costume. "It gave me the shudders to see something like that produced so lightly and in such a trivial way."
New Zealand politician Marama Fox, the co-leader of the indigenous Maori Party, said most Disney heroes tended to look far more muscular than Maui.
"I still don't think that's an accurate depiction of what Maui would look like or should look like," she said. "And it's a little bit of cultural misappropriation."
But asked if she planned to see the movie, Fox, a mother of nine, said she had little choice.
"How am I going to keep my kids away from singing Maori people and Polynesians?" she said. "Of course they're going to want to go and see it."
When covering an election, journalists choose a mix of two basic types of reporting — “voter guide” pieces that examine the issue positions and values of the candidates, and “strategy” pieces that analyze campaign tactics and who’s ahead in the race.
Observers often say that the voter guide approach is the higher journalistic purpose, while lamenting that much of the coverage instead focuses on the strategy — treating campaigns more like sports or entertainment rather than civic debates. Because of the prominent focus on candidate and campaign objectives and motivations, this type of coverage has been linked to political cynicism.1
This analysis finds evidence to support that concern — coverage of campaign strategy dominates local election news. Elements of campaign strategy, whether describing the actions that campaigns take like raising money or the state of the so-called ‘horserace,’ are a prominent feature of local election coverage.2 We looked at three indicators of campaign strategy: news mentions of public opinion polls, campaign-related fundraising and spending, and references to the competitiveness of candidates’ campaigns.
Of the news stories examined in this project, 60% contained at least one indicator of campaign strategy. Specifically, 28% of stories contained one of these strategy components, 21% contained two strategy components, and 11% contained all three strategy components.
As seen in the graph below, campaign-related fundraising and spending was featured in 41% of the news stories examined. Horserace references, specifically whether a campaign had a frontrunner, underdog, or was “tightly contested,” appeared in 41% of the stories. Explicit references to public opinion polls associated with a particular campaign were found in 20% of news stories.
American Press Institute
Although the modern fixation with the political horserace coincides with the first media organization-sponsored public opinion polls in the 1970s, newspaper stories dating to the 1800s include journalist discussion of the “likely” outcomes of campaigns.3 Compared to European nations like Germany, Spain, and Sweden, the news in the United States is more likely to focus on the election horserace.4
We looked at whether campaign strategy mentions correlate with user engagement for local election news stories. Each story could have between zero and three strategy-related components tracked as part of this research (polls, fundraising, and horserace mentions). On average, each local election story contained 1.03 strategy components.
As the number of strategy components in a news story increased, so too did the page views associated with the news story.5 Strategy mentions did not influence social referrals or time on page.6
American Press Institute
The post Strategy coverage, such as fundraising and horserace references, appears in over half of articles appeared first on American Press Institute.
MOSS BLUFF — One of three suspects connected to a Wednesday morning burglary and shooting in Moss Bluff is in custody, said authorities.
Austin Jones, 17, of 688 Sioux Drive, Moss Bluff, turned himself in to the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff's Office at 1 p.m. following a search for the three armed suspects, said Kayla Vincent, CPSO spokesperson. She said that he was arrested and charged with attempted first degree murder, armed robbery and armed robbery with the use of a firearm.
Vincent said that three men forced their way into a home in the 2600 block of North Perkins Ferry Road Wednesday morning, shot one resident and then fled on foot with an undisclosed amount of cash and several items. The victim, said Vincent, sustained non life-threatening injuries.
During a search for the suspects, area public schools were put on lockdown. Holly Holland, Calcasieu Parish School Board spokesperson, said that Sam Houston High School, Moss Bluff Middle, Moss Bluff Elementary and Gillis Elementary were locked down from about 10:15 a.m. to 1:45 p.m.
Vincent said that two possible suspects are actively being questioned by deputies. She said that the investigation is continuing and that more arrests are likely.
WASHINGTON -- William Christenberry, an artist renowned for photographs of crumbling buildings and rusty cars that captured the decay of the rural South, has died. He was 80.
Christenberry (CHRIS-en-bear-ee) died Nov. 28 at a nursing home in Washington of complications from Alzheimer's disease, his daughter, Kate Christenberry, told The Associated Press.
Christenberry lived for decades in Washington, where he taught painting and drawing at the Corcoran School of Art. But his work centered on Alabama, where he was born and raised.
He spent much of his childhood in rural Hale County in west-central Alabama, the locale made famous by James Agee and Walker Evans' book "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men."
The book, and Evans' photographs in particular, became a source of inspiration to Christenberry. He ended up making annual summer visits to Hale County to photograph country stores, churches and homes and document the ravages of time.
William R. Ferris, a history professor at the University of North Carolina and the former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, has called Christenberry one of the three most important photographers of the South — alongside Evans and William Eggleston.
"He viewed his art as a prism for understanding both the beauty and the nightmare of the American South," Ferris told AP. "He is among the top, the very top photographers who worked in the South, and in his case it was a lifetime of work."
Christenberry earned bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Alabama and trained as a painter, not as a photographer. He initially took photographs with a cheap Kodak Brownie camera to aid his paintings and sculptures, and it was Evans who encouraged him to view the photographs themselves as art, Ferris said.
He later took pictures with a large-format camera. His photographs were exhibited and included in major collections around the United States and in Europe.
"Like (William) Faulkner and (Eudora) Welty, his life was totally devoted to his craft as an artist, from a very young age until his death," Ferris said.
NEW YORK -- When the first notes of Kaija Saariaho's "L'Amour de Loin (Love from Afar)" are played at the Metropolitan Opera on Thursday night, it will mark only the second staged work by a woman composer in the company's history — and the first since 1903.
"It is staggering," said Jennifer Higdon, one of six women to win the Pulitzer Prize for music. "We're in the 21st century. There are a lot of women composers out there who are writing a lot of music, and some of it is fantastic stuff."
The Pulitzer Prize for Music was first awarded in 1943. In 1983, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich became the first female composer to win the award.
"I actually had someone say to me at one point that they wanted to do an orchestral piece of mine but they already had done a woman that year," Zwilich recalled this week. "There's still a bunch of stuff out there. But generally speaking, the door is open. It's not easy for any composer."
"L'Amour," with a libretto by Amin Maalouf, premiered at the 2000 Salzburg Festival in Austria. It is being shown at the Met in a striking new production by Canadian director Robert Lepage that features some 28,000 LED lights about 1 square millimeter each in 30 rows, including three over the orchestra pit.
Saariaho, a 64-year-old Finn who has long lived in Paris, also wrote "Adriana Mater," which debuted at the Opera de Paris' Bastille auditorium in 2005, and "Emilie," first seen at the Opera de Lyon in 2010. She considers herself a composer who is a woman, not a woman composer.
"I would not even like to speak about it," she said last week after a piano rehearsal at the Met. "It should be a shame."
Ethel M. Smyth's "Der Wald (The Forest)" was the first opera by a woman composer at the Met, receiving just two performances. It was paired with Verdi's "Il Trovatore" for its U.S. debut on March 11, 1903, and with Donizetti's "La Fille du Regiment (The Daughter of the Regiment)" nine days later. And then it disappeared.
"I don't feel like I'm righting wrongs," Met general manager Peter Gelb said. "That Kaija's a female has absolutely nothing to do with my wanting to do this work. This is not part of a female quota system. In my history at the Met, I have no interest in the sex of the composer. My interest is in the quality of the composition."
"L'Amour" will be given eight performances through Dec. 29, and the Dec. 10 matinee will be televised to theaters around the world. Susanna Malkki, a highly regarded 47-year-old Finn who also lives in Paris, will be on the podium — just the fourth woman to conduct the Met following Sarah Caldwell (1976 debut), Simone Young (1996) and Jane Glover (2013).
"I think we have to look at the roots, the grassroot level," Malkki said. "It starts very early on, and there are sort of invisible stages which were not existent earlier. Girls were not being encouraged or taken seriously. So we already have a much smaller number of female composers compared to the men. ... I think it's something that is definitely changing now, and that is really positive. And hopefully at some point we are going to be in a situation where we don't need to talk about this anymore because, of course, the artwork in itself is what is important."
"L'Amour" is part of the Met's commitment to show a contemporary work each season. Thomas Ades' "The Exterminating Angel," based on the 1962 Luis Bunuel movie, will be staged next season. Nico Muhly's "Marnie" has been moved up a season to 2018-19 in place of Osvaldo Golijov's "Iphigenia in Aulis."
"Due to conflicting schedules, the Met and Osvaldo Golijov have decided to part ways in their plans for a new work," the Met said in a statement.
Gelb is also planning the company debut of "Akhnaten," a 1983 opera about the pharaoh by minimalist composer Philip Glass.
Higdon, whose "Cold Mountain" debuted at the 2015 Santa Fe Opera, had a sold-out run of the staging this year at Opera Philadelphia. That company premiered Missy Mazzoli's "Breaking the Waves," an adaptation of the 1996 Lars von Trier film, in September, and its composer in residence this season is Rene Orth.
But in many places, the gender gap in classical composition remains an issue.
"Women, I think they're hesitant to talk about it," Higdon said. "A lot of times administrators are just not as aware of all the women composers that are out there working."
LOS ANGELES -- A car shot off the side of a Los Angeles freeway and went about 20 feet down an embankment where it landed on a homeless encampment, killing a woman Tuesday, authorities said.
Three people inside the car were injured.
The Honda sedan went over the right shoulder of southbound Interstate 405 in Van Nuys after 6 p.m. Tuesday, California Highway Patrol Officer Elizabeth Kravig said.
The scene at the encampment, a dirt area surrounded by trees and brush, was littered with clothing, water bottles and trash.
"A transient or some kind of pedestrian got wedged underneath the vehicle," Kravig said.
The 40-year-old woman was crushed and died at the scene, she said.
Two men were taken to the hospital in serious to critical condition and the driver was hospitalized in fair condition with non-life threatening injuries, according to a Fire Department message.
There was no immediate word on what caused the car to jump the freeway.
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- A Somali-born student who carried out a car-and-knife attack at Ohio State University may have been inspired by the Islamic State group and a former al-Qaida leader, investigators said Wednesday.
Law enforcement officials said it's too soon to say the rampage that hurt 11 people on Monday was terrorism and that they were not aware of any direct contact between the Islamic State and the attacker.
"We only believe he may have been inspired" by the group and Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born cleric who took a leadership role in al-Qaida before being killed in 2011, said Angela Byers, an FBI agent leading the investigation.
The FBI said it was looking to verify whether rantings posted on Facebook about U.S. interference in Muslim lands on the morning of the attack were made by the assailant, Ohio State student Abdul Razak Ali Artan.
Police did say that Artan bought a knife before the attack but do not know if that was the weapon he used.
The 18-year-old was fatally shot by a police officer shortly after driving into pedestrians and then slashing others with a knife.
Ohio State students on Wednesday continued to offer messages of support.
All four panels of a two-sided board in the student union were filled with messages in the morning. Writers using markers have contributed Bible verses, famous quotations and well-wishes to both the victims and police.
A number of students stopped by to check out the board by the information desk in the union. Around them, a tour guide led prospective students and their parents out into the drizzle.
Three of the 11 people injured in the attack remain hospitalized and are expected to recover, according to the Ohio State medical center.
Tuesday evening, a leader of a Somali community association in Columbus said Artan drove his siblings to school as normal beforehand.
Artan's mother said she didn't know anything was wrong until police showed up at her door, said Hassan Omar, president of the Somali Community Association, relating an in-person conversation he had with the mother Monday afternoon.
Nothing seemed different about her son, who she said was enjoying his education, Omar said.
"He woke up and he went to school," Omar said.
WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration has announced a final rule prohibiting smoking in public housing developments nationwide.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development says more than 228,000 public housing units are already smoke-free. The rule HUD announced Wednesday will expand the impact to more than 940,000 units.
The final rule prohibits lit tobacco products in all living units and indoor common areas, and all outdoor areas within 25 feet of housing and administrative offices. The new rule gives public housing agencies 18 months to implement the ban.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the smoke-free policy will save housing agencies $153 million every year in repairs, preventable fires and health care costs. That amount includes $16 million in costs associated with smoking-related fires.
Filed under: Ownership,Honda,Long-Term Garage,Crossover
The world needs ditch diggers too.
Continue reading The time our long-term Honda HR-V didn't get into an accident
The time our long-term Honda HR-V didn't get into an accident originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 30 Nov 2016 14:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | CommentsCAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Consider it a cosmic carousel with countless rings up for grabs.
NASA's Saturn-orbiting spacecraft, Cassini, has begun an unprecedented mission to skim the planet's rings. On Tuesday, Cassini got a gravitational assist from Saturn's big moon Titan. That put the spacecraft on course to graze Saturn's main outer rings over the next five months.
The first orbit of this new venture begins Wednesday night. Then on Sunday, an engine firing by Cassini should seal the deal, with the spacecraft making its first ring crossing.
Launched nearly 20 years ago, Cassini will swoop down through the outer edge of rings every seven days. The spacecraft should make 20 dives through April, observing some of Saturn's many mini moons and even sampling ring particles and gases.
This will be Cassini's last hurrah before a suicide plunge into Saturn next September.
Saturn has five main rings, and other fainter ones, made up of chunks of ice and rock. First spotted by Galileo in 1610, the rings are named alphabetically in order of discovery.
Initially, Cassini will cross a faint ring formed by meteors striking two mini moons, according to scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The spacecraft will venture into the fringes of the considerably more substantial F ring in March and April.
This so-called F ring — a relatively narrow 500 miles (800 kilometers) wide — is Saturn's outermost major ring and appears to be in constant flux.
"Even though we're flying closer to the F ring than we ever have, we'll still be more than 4,850 miles (7,800 kilometers) distant," project manager Earl Maize said in a statement. "There's very little concern over dust hazard at that range."
At the same time, Cassini will pass as close as 56,000 miles (90,000 kilometers) above Saturn's clouds — until its grand-finale death dive.
Cassini rocketed away from Cape Canaveral in 1997, went into orbit around Saturn in 2004, and released the European Huygens lander for touchdown on largest moon Titan in 2005. After logging more than 2 billion miles, the spacecraft is getting low on fuel, thus its intended demise in September 2017.
NASA: http://ift.tt/2fEM4vV
WASHINGTON -- A seemingly divided Supreme Court tried to figure out Wednesday whether the government can detain immigrants indefinitely without providing hearings.
The justices heard argument in a class-action lawsuit brought by immigrants who've spent long periods in custody, including many who are legal residents of the United States or are seeking asylum.
The issue for the court is whether people the government has detained while it is considering deporting them can make their case to a judge that they should be released.
The case pits the Obama administration against immigration advocates, and the court hearing comes as President-elect Donald Trump has said he will step up deportations.
Even as the current administration has pushed for comprehensive immigration reform and tried to help longtime U.S. residents who are in the country illegally, it has moved aggressively to deport more recent immigrants and those who have been convicted of crimes.
The number of people in detention awaiting deportation has ballooned to more than 40,000, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing the immigrants in the Supreme Court.
The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled for the immigrants, including Mexican immigrant Alejandro Rodriguez, who was detained for more than three years without a bond hearing.
Rodriguez is a legal U.S. resident who was brought to the country as an infant. The Homeland Security Department detained him when it began deportation proceedings because Rodriguez had been convicted of possession of a controlled substance and driving a stolen vehicle, according to the appeals court. He spent no time in jail for those criminal convictions.
In another case, an Ethiopian asylum-seeker was kept in detention partly because a DHS officer wrongly labeled him a Somali, the ACLU said.
The 9th Circuit ruled that immigrants generally should get bond hearings after six months in detention, and then every six months if they continue to be held. The government must show why they should remain locked up, the court said.
Justice Stephen Breyer, voicing a sentiment that appeared to be shared by other liberal justices, said it seemed unfair that the law would, for example, allow an immigrant released after a four-year prison term to be held the same amount of time by U.S. immigration authorities. "How can they be punished for four more years?" he asked.
Acting Solicitor General Ian Gershengorn defended the law, saying Congress clearly gave the Homeland Security Department considerable power to hold people in custody while determining whether to deport them. People who are held for unusually long periods can file individual lawsuits, Gershengorn said.
Justice Elena Kagan said that approach would result in haphazard rulings. "Well, wouldn't it be better to set some guideposts that everybody in the country would know to follow, rather than having one suit pop up here and one suit pop up here ... That does not seem like a good immigration system," Kagan said.
Ahilan Arulanantham, the ACLU lawyer representing the immigrants, told the justices the ultimate decision about whether to hold or release people was not at issue before the court. "We're just talking about the need for an inquiry, the need for a hearing," Arulanantham said.
But the court's conservative justices sounded skeptical of Arulanantham's and the appeals court's reading of immigration law. "The problem is, that looks an awful lot like drafting a statute or a regulation. ... We can't just write a different statute," Chief Justice John Roberts said.
The immigrants also argued that they have a basic constitutional right to a bond hearing, that holding them indefinitely without one violates the Fifth Amendment's prohibition on depriving people of "life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."
Justice Anthony Kennedy, whose vote the immigrants probably would need if they were to prevail, was dubious the justices could even take up that question. "We do not have the constitutional issue before us," he said.
If the justices are split when they take an initial vote on the case in a private session on Friday, they can hold the case in the hope of having a ninth, Trump-appointed justice join them before the term ends in early summer. In that circumstance, they could order a second round of arguments before a full bench.
A decision in Jennings v. Rodriguez, 15-1204, is expected by late June.
HAVANA -- Surrounded by white roses and drawn by a green military jeep, Fidel Castro's ashes began a more than 500-mile (800-kilometer) journey on Wednesday across the country he ruled for nearly 50 years.
Just after 7 a.m, an honor guard placed a small, flag-draped cedar coffin under a glass dome on a trailer behind the Russian jeep. Thousands of soldiers and state security agents saluted the 90-year-old leader's remains as they rolled slowly out of Havana's Plaza of the Revolution and the cortege made its way to the Malecon seaside boulevard and east into the countryside.
Tens of thousands of Cubans lined the path of the funeral procession, which retraced the path of Castro's triumphant march into Havana nearly six decades ago. Many waved flags and shouted "Long may he live!"
Others filmed the procession with cell phones, a luxury prohibited in Cuba until an ailing Castro left power in 2006 and his younger brother Raul began a series of slow reforms.
The ashes will be interred Sunday, ending a nine-day period of mourning that saw the country fall silent as thousands paid tribute to photographs of Fidel Castro and sign oaths of loyalty to his socialist, single-party system across the country on Monday and Tuesday.
Wednesday's procession was the first moment in which ordinary Cubans saw the remains of the man who led a band of bearded young fighters out of the Sierra Maestra mountains, overthrew strongman Fulgencio Batista, faced off against the United States for decades and imposed Soviet-style communism on the largest island in the Caribbean.
For many Cubans, seeing the coffin of a man who dominated life here for a half-century made the idea of a Cuba without Fidel Castro real for the first time since his death Friday night.
Juan Carlos Gonzalez, 26, the owner of a private restaurant that serves traditional Cuban food in the central city of Santa Clara, said there was a greater sense of uncertainty without Fidel and he couldn't say whether that was positive or negative.
"The one who ruled the country was Fidel, in my opinion," Gonzalez said. "Now I don't know how things are going to be."
Some slept on sidewalks overnight to bid goodbye to Castro after attending a massive Revolution Plaza rally Tuesday night. The presidents of Cuba, Mexico, Ecuador, Bolivia, Venezuela and South Africa, along with leaders of a host of smaller nations, offered speeches paying tribute.
Castro's younger brother and successor, Raul, closed with a speech thanking world leaders for praising his brother, whom he called the leader of a revolution "for the humble, and by the humble."
The crowds at the rally and along Wednesday's route were a mix of people attending on their own and sent by the government in groups from their state workplaces.
"We love the comandante and I think it's our obligation to be here and see him out," said Mercedes Antunez, 59, who was bused in by the state athletics organization from her home in east Havana along with fellow employees.
Carpenter Rene Mena, 58, said his mother had taken him out of their home on the seafront boulevard as a baby to see Castro arrive that year. On Wednesday he donned a Cuban flag and a military cap outside the same house where he still lives, and saluted Castro's caravan.
"I saw him when he came, and now I've seen him when he left," Mena said.
Outside Havana, the caravan passed through rural communities transformed by Castro's social and economic reforms. Many residents now have access to health care and education. But many towns are also in a prolonged economic collapse, the country's once-dominant sugar industry decimated, the sugar mills and plantations gone.
WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department says it is overhauling its system of halfway houses, where most federal prisoners spend the final months of their sentences before being released.
Officials say the goal is to reduce chances that prisoners will reoffend and help them return to society.
A memorandum issued Wednesday says the Bureau of Prisons will cover the costs of government-issued identification cards, including Social Security cards and birth certificates, that can help them in getting jobs.
The memo also directs the bureau to expand its oversight and monitoring of halfway house contracts, strengthen programs for female inmates and create a semi-autonomous school district within the prison system.
The halfway houses serve more than 30,000 residents a year. The bureau has agreements with 103 contractors to operate 181 facilities across the country.
Filed under: Government/Legal,Green,Chrysler,Fuel Efficiency,Minivan/Van,Hybrid
Plus it has a 566-mile range.
Continue reading 2017 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid scored 84 MPGe in government testing
2017 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid scored 84 MPGe in government testing originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 30 Nov 2016 13:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | CommentsFiled under: Etc.,Weird Car News
No good deed goes unpunished.
Continue reading Motorcyclist gives rude driver a taste of instant justice
Motorcyclist gives rude driver a taste of instant justice originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 30 Nov 2016 13:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | CommentsNEW ORLEANS -- The 2016 Bayou Classic football game which draws fans and alumni of Grambling State University and Southern University to New Orleans hit a post-Katrina attendance record.
In a news release Wednesday, organizers say nearly 5,000 more people attended the 43rd Annual Bayou Classic game on Saturday than did in 2015.
Organizers say nearly 68,000 people attended the game, held at the Superdome. The attendance figures were the highest since the event returned to New Orleans in 2006 following Hurricane Katrina.
Another 30,000 people attended the Battle of the Bands and the Greek Show which was held Friday night at the Superdome.
Bayou Classic features days of events where fans and alumni from the two historically black colleges and universities come to New Orleans.
Grambling defeated Southern during Saturday's game.
DETROIT -- The Obama administration has decided not to change government fuel economy requirements for cars and light trucks despite protests from automakers.
The decision means that automakers will still have to meet strict fuel economy requirements and that companies likely will continue building small cars and electric vehicles still even though people are buying more SUVs and trucks.
The standards had required the fleet of new cars to average 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. But there was a built-in reduction if buying habits changed, dropping the number to 50.8. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy said in a statement that based on the agency's technical analysis, automakers can meet emissions standards and mileage requirements through 2025.
The standards will increase the new-vehicle fleet's average gas mileage requirement from 34.1 mpg this year. That will dramatically cut carbon pollution and save U.S. drivers billions in gas costs, the EPA said in a statement Wednesday.
"Although EPA's technical analysis indicates that the standards could be strengthened for model years 2022-2025, proposing to leave the current standards in place provides greater certainty to the auto industry for product planning and engineering," McCarthy said in the statement.
The EPA will take public comments on the decision until Dec. 30, then McCarthy will make a final decision, a rare speedy move for a government agency. The quick approval means the decision would become final before President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated in January, even though a final decision wasn't required until April 2018. The EPA denied that the rushed timetable was due to Trump's election.
Messages were left Wednesday seeking comment from the Trump transition team.
Trump has stated that he wants to end some government regulations and has said in the past that he wants to get rid of the EPA. Leading Trump's transition team on the EPA is Myron Ebell, director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian think tank that gets financial support from the fossil fuel industry and that opposes "global-warming alarmism."
The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a lobbying group that represents 12 automakers, including BMW, Toyota and General Motors, called the quick decision a "premature rush to judgment."
But Daniel Becker, director of the Safe Climate Campaign environmental group, says the standards pushed average new-vehicle gas mileage up by 5 mpg since 2007, reducing America's oil use and helping to drive down gasoline prices worldwide.
The standards were enacted in 2012 with approval of the auto industry and included a midterm review this year.
Janet McCabe, EPA's acting administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation, said in a conference call with reporters that automakers have multiple technological pathways to meet the standards, from direct-injection gas engines to hybrids and electric vehicles. The industry is ahead of schedule on the standards, she said. More than 100 vehicles on the market are already meeting standards set for 2020. But electric vehicles still haven't caught on. Last year EVs were less than 1 percent of U.S. new car sales.
"Leaving the standards as they are would give automakers the time they need," McCabe said.
She added that the estimated cost of the standards has fallen since they were first put in place. The cost per vehicle to meet the 2025 standards is now $825, down from $1,100 in 2012, she said. Owners can easily pay that back in savings at the pump, she said. Auto dealers have said the added cost could put new cars out of reach for some consumers.
The industry has argued that the costs, and consumers' reluctance to buy the smallest, most fuel-efficient vehicles, mean the auto industry will have difficulty meeting the requirements, which get tougher during the next nine years. The Auto Alliance has called meeting the standards "a daunting challenge."
The trade group said Wednesday that it sent a letter to the Trump transition team urging it to review any rules or guidance issued after the election. "The evidence is abundantly clear that with low gas prices, consumers are not choosing the cars necessary to comply with increasingly unrealistic standards," it said. "Wishing this fact away does no one any favors, and getting this wrong has serious implications."
NEW YORK -- Taking the offensive after Election Day setbacks, Planned Parenthood and its allies filed lawsuits Wednesday in North Carolina, Missouri and Alaska challenging laws that they view as unconstitutional restrictions on abortion.
"We are going to fight back state by state and law by law until every person has the right to pursue the life they want, including the right to decide to end a pregnancy," said Planned Parenthood's chief medical officer, Dr. Raegan McDonald-Mosley.
McDonald-Mosley was joined at a teleconference by attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Reproductive Rights, which are partners in the litigation. The attorneys said the lawsuits are a follow-up to a major U.S. Supreme Court decision earlier this year that struck down tough abortion laws in Texas.
The restrictions being challenged in Missouri are similar to those that the high court struck down in Texas. They require abortion clinics to meet physical standards for surgical centers and mandate that their doctors have admitting privileges in nearby hospitals.
Partly as a result of those laws, only one licensed abortion clinic remains in operation in Missouri.
Targets of the other lawsuits:
—Restrictions in Alaska, passed more than 40 years ago, that ban abortion in outpatient health centers after the first trimester of pregnancy. The abortion-rights lawyers said this forces many women to make lengthy out-of-state trips for second-trimester procedures.
—A North Carolina law that prevents doctors from performing abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy with a narrow exception for immediate medical emergencies. The ACLU said this ban forces doctors caring for a woman with a high-risk pregnancy to delay necessary care until her condition imposes an immediate threat of death or major medical damage.
"A woman must be able to make health decisions at different points in her pregnancy that are best for her circumstances, including whether to end a pregnancy, without interference from politicians," said Irena Como, staff attorney for the ACLU of North Carolina.
The lawsuits were announced as supporters of abortion rights brace for renewed anti-abortion efforts at the state and federal level in the aftermath of the sweeping Republican victories on Election Day.
A prominent anti-abortion leader, Marjorie Dannenfelser of the Susan B. Anthony List, said the lawsuits were a sign of panic by abortion-rights advocates.
"They lost big at the ballot box, so now they're looking to the courts to undo the will of state legislatures," she said. "They realize the sense of urgency to head to the courts now knowing that the judicial landscape will change under a pro-life President Trump."
The Republican-controlled Congress is expected to seek a halt to federal funding of Planned Parenthood and also to ban most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. President-elect Donald Trump says he favors both measures, and also has promised to fill Supreme Court vacancies with justices who would consider overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established a nationwide right to abortion.
Abortion-rights groups' concerns deepened with Tuesday's announcement that GOP Rep. Tom Price, a physician from Georgia, is Trump's choice to head the Department of Health and Human Services. Price is a longtime foe of abortion and critic of Planned Parenthood.
At the state level, lawmakers in several Republican-controlled legislatures are planning to propose new abortion restrictions in sessions that convene in January. In some states, such as Iowa, election gains for the GOP improve the prospects for passage of such measures.
Even in Texas, despite the recent rebuff by the Supreme Court, new restrictions are in the offing. One new rule — requiring the cremation or burial of fetal remains — is scheduled to take effect in three weeks.
McDonald-Mosley, the Planned Parenthood medical officer, said the overall political developments add up to "the biggest threat we've seen" in the organization's 100-year history.
She said it was too early to gauge the likelihood — or the impact — of a halt to Planned Parenthood's federal funding, which goes primarily to subsidize contraception and other non-abortion medical services for low-income women.
"We're working to be prepared," McDonald-Mosley said. "We're going to provide care to our patients whether they have insurance or not."
SAN FRANCISCO -- The CEO of Levi's is asking customers and employees not to bring guns into its stores, offices or facilities, even in states where it's legal.
Levi Strauss & Co. President and CEO Chip Bergh writes Wednesday in an open letter posted on LinkedIn that a customer was injured in a Levi's store recently after the customer's own gun inadvertently went off. Bergh says the presence of firearms in stores creates an "unsettling environment" for many of its employees and customers.
He says the San Francisco-based company isn't banning guns, just requesting people not bring them into its places of business. Bergh writes that "trying to enforce a ban could potentially undermine the purpose of the ban itself: safety."
He says the company hopes "responsible gun owners will respect our position."
WASHINGTON -- Steven Mnuchin, President-elect Donald Trump's choice to be the nation's 77th Treasury secretary, has had a long history as a successful financial executive and a shorter but significant period in a job that ushered him into Trump's inner circle: head of Trump's campaign finance operation.
When Mnuchin, 53, was chosen by Trump as his national finance director in May, he told The Associated Press that the two men had been friends for 15 years. Through his work as finance chairman, Mnuchin (pronounced meh-NEW'-chen) is close to Trump's children and son-in-law, Jared Kushner — a top adviser to Trump — and worked with them on fundraising events.
The campaign raised at least $169 million, in addition to the $66 million that Trump spent out of his own pocket. Though that was far short of what Hillary Clinton raised, it represented an impressive haul given that Trump didn't begin fundraising in earnest until the end of May.
Mnuchin and Wilbur Ross, Trump's pick to be Commerce secretary, said in a joint interview Wednesday on CNBC that they were looking forward to working together as the new administration pursues policies to boost economic growth and jobs.
"Our Number One priority is tax reform," Mnuchin said. "This will be the largest tax change since Reagan. ... We are going to cut corporate taxes which will bring huge amounts of jobs back to the United States."
If approved by the Senate, Mnuchin would follow in the tradition of two previous Treasury secretaries — Robert Rubin in the Clinton administration and Henry Paulson in George W. Bush's. All had vast Wall Street experience gained from years spent working at powerhouse Goldman Sachs.
Yet unlike Rubin and Paulson and unlike President Barack Obama's two Treasury secretaries, Timothy Geithner and Jacob Lew, Mnuchin would bring no government experience to Treasury, something that could prove a hurdle in navigating the tricky politics of Washington.
After graduating from Yale in 1985, Mnuchin worked for Goldman Sachs for 17 years. His father, Robert Mnuchin, had himself worked for Goldman for three decades, becoming a partner in charge of equity trading.
The younger Mnuchin amassed his own fortune at the firm and then left in 2002. He worked briefly for Soros Fund Management, a hedge fund led by George Soros, before starting his own investment firm, Dune Capital Management.
As head of this firm, Mnuchin and other investors participated in the purchase of failed mortgage lender IndyMac in 2009 and renamed it OneWest. The failure of IndyMac in 2008 with $32 billion in assets was one of the biggest casualties of the housing bust.
Mnuchin became chairman of OneWest, which was sold to CIT Group in 2015. Before the sale, OneWest faced a string of lawsuits over its home foreclosure practices.
This month, housing advocates filed a complaint asking the Department of Housing and Urban Development to investigate OneWest for possible violations of the Fair Housing Act. The lender failed to place branches in minority communities, provided few mortgages to black homebuyers and preserved foreclosed properties in white neighborhoods while allowing similar homes in minority communities to fall into disrepair, according to the California Reinvestment Coalition and Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California.
CIT declined to respond directly to the complaint but stressed in a statement that it is "committed to fair lending and works hard to meet the credit needs of all communities and neighborhoods we serve."
In his CNBC interview on Wednesday, Mnuchin defended his actions in buying IndyMac.
"One of the most proud aspects of my career was buying IndyMac during the financial crisis. We (bought) it from the government ... and we saved a lot of jobs and created a lot of opportunities for corporate loans."
Mnuchin also became a major investor in Hollywood, helping finance a number of movies, including the 2009 blockbuster "Avatar."
As Treasury secretary, Mnuchin would be the administration's chief economic spokesman, serving as a liaison not only to Wall Street but also to global investors, a critical role given the trillions of dollars in Treasury bonds owned by foreigners. In addition, it would be his job to sell the new administration's economic program to Congress.
Mnuchin will also oversee a sprawling bureaucracy that includes the Internal Revenue Service and the agency that issues millions of Social Security and other benefit checks each month. Treasury also runs the agency that wages the financial war on terrorism.
Even before his nomination was announced, he was being attacked for his ties to Wall Street.
"It's difficult to think of a nominee who better embodies the culture of Wall Street greed than the former Goldman Sachs partner," the Communications Workers of America, a labor union, said in a statement. "Naming Mnuchin as Treasury secretary would be a slap in the face of millions of working families who will be victimized by this Wall Street-rigged economy."
During the campaign, Trump complained about the Dodd-Frank Act, passed in 2010 in response to the 2008 financial crisis and intended to prevent another crisis by tightening financial regulations. He called the increased regulations on banks a "disaster."
Mnuchin told CNBC Wednesday that he believed Dodd-Frank was "way too complicated and it cuts back lending, so we want to strip back parts of Dodd-Frank that prevent banks from lending." He called making changes to Dodd-Frank "the Number One priority on the regulatory side."
LANSING, Mich. -- Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein is expected to request a full hand recount of Michigan's presidential vote, making it the third state where she's asked for a second look at a race narrowly won by Republican Donald Trump.
Stein is expected to submit her request for a Michigan recount Wednesday afternoon. She has already requested recounts of the presidential votes in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
President-elect Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton by 10,704 votes out of nearly 4.8 million ballots cast in Michigan, but Stein alleges that irregularities and the potential for hacking into scanning devices call the results into question.
Michigan's recount could start as early as Friday, though a challenge to the recount by Trump could delay it.
Trump's victory is highly unlikely to be reversed in any of the states, but Stein has said the recount will ensure the integrity of the election.
Republicans have said a Michigan recount would cost taxpayers far more than the $973,000 Stein must pay when filing her recount petition.
Meanwhile in Wisconsin, where Trump defeated Clinton by roughly 22,000 votes, Stein's campaign said Wednesday that it won't appeal a judge's ruling that Wisconsin's recount can be done without counting every ballot by hand.
Stein spokeswoman Margy Levinson said in an email that the campaign decided not to appeal the ruling due to the tight time constraints for completing the Wisconsin recount, which begins Thursday.
The majority of Wisconsin counties planned to do a hand recount of ballots cast even though the judge's ruling means they can choose to feed the ballots into tabulation machines to double check the counts.
Levinson said Stein's focus will be on verifying the vote on the ground and she encouraged counties to voluntarily conduct a hand recount.
Also Wednesday, the Wisconsin Republican Party filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission alleging that Stein's recount effort amounts to illegal coordination with Clinton.
The complaint contends that Clinton is the only person who could benefit from a recount and that she illegally helped Stein raise money for the recounts in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan.
Spokeswomen for Stein and Clinton's campaigns did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Trump defeated Clinton in Pennsylvania by about 71,000 votes, or about 1 percentage point.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- A Charlotte police officer acted lawfully when he shot and killed a black man at an apartment complex, touching off several nights of unrest in the city, and will not face charges, a North Carolina prosecutor announced Wednesday.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg District Attorney Andrew Murray spent 40 minutes during a news conference meticulously outlining the evidence that led him and a team of 15 other prosecutors to determine Officer Brentley Vinson's actions in killing Keith Lamont Scott were justified. He also released his report online.
Lawyers for Scott's family say they still have questions and haven't decided whether to file a lawsuit.
Scott's family has said he wasn't armed.
However, Murray displayed a nearby store's surveillance video showing the outline of what appeared to be a holstered gun on Scott's ankle. He said Scott's DNA was found on a Colt .380-caliber semi-automatic handgun recovered at the scene. He shared a Facebook conversation from the man who said he sold the stolen gun to Scott and recognized him from TV coverage after the shooting and police radio traffic where officers talked about the gun before confronting Scott.
The prosecutor asked the public to review his findings before protesting again. Two nights of protests after the September shooting led to looted stores near the scene and in downtown Charlotte, millions of dollars of damage and more than two dozen injuries to police officers and others, including one fatal shooting.
"The community should read the report. Digest the report. Please do not act viscerally on news snippets," Murray said.
Immediately after the shooting, a video of Scott's final moments recorded by his wife, Rakeyia, was posted on social media. In it, she could be heard shouting to police that her husband "doesn't have a gun." She pleaded with the officers not to shoot before a burst of gunfire could be heard.
Plainclothes officers had gone to the complex about 4 p.m. on Sept. 20 looking for a suspect with an outstanding warrant when two undercover officers saw Scott — not the suspect they were looking for — inside a car with a gun and marijuana, Murray said.
They left to get backup, then returned to arrest Scott. Officers said Scott exited the SUV with a gun, ignored at least 10 orders to drop the weapon and appeared to be in a trance, Murray said.
Vinson told investigators that Scott locked his eyes on him, on each of the other officers and then on Vinson again.
"I felt like if I didn't do anything right then at that point it's like he was going to shoot me or he's going to shoot one of my buddies, and it was going to happen right now," Vinson told investigators the next day.
Scott, 43, died of gunshot wounds to the abdomen and to the back near his shoulder. Murray said the bullets' trajectory showed Scott was most likely shot first in the abdomen, and the shoulder wound happened after he hunched over.
Vinson, who is also black, had been with the department for two years at the time of the shooting.
Scott spent nearly a decade in prison in Texas on an assault with a deadly weapon charge and had warrants out for his arrest from neighboring Gaston County the day he died, Murray said.
Scott's wife had told reporters and investigators her husband had no gun. But in August, the couple had argued on text messages about the weapon, with Rakeyia Scott reminding her husband he could get 25 years in prison because he was a felon who wasn't supposed to have one.
Body camera and dashcam recordings released earlier by police didn't conclusively show that Scott had a gun, and city officials were criticized for how long it took to release police video of the shooting.
The case was among a series across the country since mid-2014 that spurred a national debate over race and policing.
A murder trial is underway in Charleston, South Carolina, for a since-fired white patrolman, Michael Slager, in the death last year of a black man, Walter Scott, who was shot while running from a traffic stop in April.
A Minnesota police officer who shot and killed Philando Castile during a July traffic stop remains free as a manslaughter case against him proceeds.
Deaths of other unarmed black males at the hands of law enforcement officers have inspired protests under the "Black Lives Matter" moniker.
PITTSBURGH -- You probably don't know his name, but you've almost certainly devoured his creation: two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun.
Michael James "Jim" Delligatti, the McDonald's franchisee who created the Big Mac nearly 50 years ago and saw it become perhaps the best-known fast-food sandwich in the world, died Monday at home in Pittsburgh. Delligatti, who according to his son ate at least one 540-calorie Big Mac a week for decades, was 98.
Delligatti's franchise was based in Uniontown, not far from Pittsburgh, when he invented the chain's signature burger in 1967 after deciding customers wanted a bigger sandwich. Demand exploded as Delligatti's sandwich spread to the rest of his 47 stores in Pennsylvania and was added to the chain's national menu in 1968.
"He was often asked why he named it the Big Mac, and he said because Big Mc sounded too funny," his son Michael Delligatti said.
Jim Delligatti told The Associated Press in 2006 that McDonald's resisted the idea at first because its simple lineup of hamburgers, cheeseburgers, fries and shakes was selling well.
"They figured, why go to something else if (the original menu) was working so well?" Delligatti said then.
McDonald's has sold billions of Big Macs since then, in more than 100 countries. When the burger turned 40, McDonald's estimated it was selling 550 million Big Macs a year, or roughly 17 every second. Delligatti received no payment or royalties for coming up with the burger, the company said.
"Delligatti was a legendary franchisee within McDonald's system who made a lasting impression on our brand," the Oak Brook, Illinois-based company said Wednesday in a statement. The Big Mac "has become an iconic sandwich enjoyed by many around the world."
Ann Dugan, a former assistant dean of the University of Pittsburgh's Katz School of Business and an expert on business franchises, said Jim Delligatti's genius was simple: He listened to customers who wanted a bigger burger.
"In franchising, there's always this set playbook and you have to follow it. Jim saw an opportunity to go outside the playbook because he knew the customer," Dugan said. "He persevered and (McDonald's) listened, and the rest is history."
Delligatti headed M&J Management, a four-generation family business and McDonald's franchise organization, for more than 60 years. He opened his first McDonald's in Pittsburgh's North Hills suburbs in 1957. In 1979, he co-founded Pittsburgh's Ronald McDonald House, then the seventh such facility in the country, where families can stay when children travel to Pittsburgh for life-saving medical care, and he was involved in several other charities.
Delligatti also helped introduce breakfast service at McDonald's, developing the hotcakes and sausage meal to feed hungry steelworkers on their way home from overnight shifts in the mills, his family said.
In addition to his two sons, Jim Delligatti is survived by his wife, Ellie, five grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.
The Devlin Funeral Home near Pittsburgh is handling visitation Thursday and Friday. Delligatti's funeral will be held Saturday at St. Joseph's Parish in O'Hara Township.
BATON ROUGE -- Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Foster Campbell's fundraising has spiked ahead of the Dec. 10 runoff, as his campaign is bolstered by Democratic donors from around the nation.
Campbell had brought in $1.7 million for his campaign through Oct. 19 over nearly a year of fundraising — $984,000 from donors and $750,000 in loans. Since then, he's raised $2.5 million from donors, much of it after securing his spot in the runoff.
The Democratic contender's campaign finance report, documenting donations and spending from Oct. 20 through Nov. 20, was released late Tuesday by his campaign. It shows $1.4 million cash on hand for the final stretch of the race.
A member of the Public Service Commission, Campbell faces Republican state Treasurer John Kennedy in the runoff. Kennedy is the front-runner, in a state that tends to choose Republicans for federal offices.
Kennedy's campaign hasn't publicly released a copy of its latest campaign finance report, despite requests.
Campbell's campaign said more than 50,000 people and groups contributed in the latest fundraising period, with contributions averaging about $45 each. The report shows donations from across the country, as Democrats have pushed to rally financial support for Campbell, in an election that will settle the last Senate race among states.
"This is a people powered campaign and we're spending every cent we get focused on issues important to Louisiana voters," Campbell said in a statement.
Filed under: Motorsports,Cadillac,United States,Racing
The car will compete head-to-head with Mazda and Nissan.
Continue reading Cadillac is returning to endurance racing with a new prototype in 2017
Cadillac is returning to endurance racing with a new prototype in 2017 originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 30 Nov 2016 12:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | CommentsWASHINGTON -- Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi faced a reckoning from fellow House Democrats on Wednesday as frustrated lawmakers tried to oust her from the leadership post she's held for over a decade.
The 76-year-old California Democrat, known as a master vote counter, was expected to beat back the challenge from Ohio Rep Tim Ryan as Democrats met behind closed doors.
But she was forced to promise changes to the caucus to answer complaints from lawmakers fed up with being shut out of the upper ranks of leadership, especially in the wake of a devastating election that installed a GOP monopoly over Congress and the White House.
A half-dozen Democrats were slated to deliver testimonials to Pelosi in nominating speeches, but the disenchantment was evident.
"I think Tim Ryan would be a great leader. He's a new generation and I think he would appeal to a lot of millennials and young people in this country," Rep. Steve Lynch, D-Mass., said as he headed into the session. "He brings a certain excitement and also a bit of common sense from Youngstown, Ohio."
"Our base is working people and we've got to talk about that. We've got to tell working people in this country that we care about them," Lynch said.
Leadership elections were originally scheduled to be held before Thanksgiving but were delayed to give Democrats more time to discuss and process the election results and consider a path forward. Many are discouraged after losing the White House and making smaller than expected gains in both chambers of Congress.
"I believe we must do more than simply paper over the cracks," said Rep. Ruben Gallego of Arizona, one of a handful of House Democrats to endorse Ryan. "We can't just say the right things — we must take concrete steps to move our party in the right direction."
The 76-year-old Pelosi has been promising some changes to assuage concerns in her caucus, including adding a member of the freshmen class to her leadership team. But her proposals do little to ensure new blood at the very top or change the seniority system that has key committees led by lawmakers in their 80s at a moment when the party needs to be defending President Barack Obama's health care law and other initiatives.
Nonetheless Pelosi projected confidence heading into the vote. Known for her vote-counting skills, the Californian asserted she had support of two-thirds of Democrats locked up.
"Leader Pelosi is honored to receive the overwhelming support of her colleagues," said spokesman Drew Hammill. "That so many members are so enthusiastic and eager to take active roles in the caucus is music to her ears."
Other top leadership posts are uncontested, with Steny Hoyer of Maryland expected to stay in the No. 2 job of whip, and Jim Clyburn of South Carolina in the No. 3 position of assistant leader. The position of conference chairman is term-limited, and Xavier Becerra of California is expected to be replaced by Joe Crowley of New York.
There is a contest for the position of conference vice chair between two California Democrats, Linda Sanchez and Barbara Lee. Either would become the first minority woman in leadership.
On the eve of the House leadership elections, 85-year-old Rep. Sander Levin, the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, said he will not seek re-election to the panel post, clearing the way for a younger lawmaker to move into the spot on the powerful committee. Becerra and Rep. Richard Neal of Massachusetts told House Democrats they are interested in the position.
Republicans are on track to hold at least 240 seats in the House next year. Democrats, who had high hopes of significant gains in the election, picked up just six seats on Election Day earlier this month and remain in the minority with 194 seats.
Filed under: Etc.,Weird Car News,Audi,Technology,Electric
The flight is scheduled for the end of 2017.
Continue reading Audi's lunar rover is nearly ready for the moon
Audi's lunar rover is nearly ready for the moon originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 30 Nov 2016 12:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | CommentsFiled under: Government/Legal,Green,Fuel Efficiency
The agency could wait until 2018, but it won't.
The EPA is going to finalize its strict 2025 fuel economy targets now while Obama is still in office originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 30 Nov 2016 11:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | CommentsFiled under: Driving
Traffic school used to be an all-day affair.
Continue reading How long does it take to pass online traffic school?
How long does it take to pass online traffic school? originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 29 Nov 2016 09:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | CommentsFiled under: Driving
If you plan on traveling to South America, you should have no trouble at all renting a car and driving with an American driver's license.
Continue reading Traffic rules and regulations if visiting South America
Traffic rules and regulations if visiting South America originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 29 Nov 2016 09:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | CommentsFiled under: Etc.,Weird Car News,BMW
Don't engage in road rage.
Continue reading Road rage devolves into all-out brawl yet again, this time in Southern California
Road rage devolves into all-out brawl yet again, this time in Southern California originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 30 Nov 2016 11:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Traffic school is a sort of "free pass" issued by state governments to first-time or infrequent traffic offenders.
Continue reading What types of violations lead to online traffic school
What types of violations lead to online traffic school originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 29 Nov 2016 09:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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