And so the battle for smart thermostat supremacy wages on. No sooner have we welcomed another warrior to the battlefield than energy provider npower’s decided to start giving Nest thermostats away for free. As you may remember, Nest struck up a…
WASHINGTON — Fewer jobless Americans now receive unemployment benefits than at any other point in the past few decades, according to a new analysis by the Economic Policy Institute.
The liberal Washington think tank reports that as of August, just 25.9 percent of jobless workers were receiving unemployment insurance, the lowest rate since 1987. Unemployed workers are only eligible for benefits if they were laid off after an extended period of employment.
The so-called recipiency rate has declined not because of the economy’s improvement, but because of deliberate decisions by state and federal policymakers.
“With 2.1 job seekers for every job opening, Congress has essentially shredded the safety net while chances of finding work remain distressingly low,” Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute said in a blog post.
Layoff victims traditionally are eligible for six months of state benefits, and Congress usually extends that period with federal benefits when the economy tanks. After lawmakers lengthened the duration of benefits in response to the Great Recession, the recipiency rate peaked at 67 percent in 2010. But in 2012 Congress began shortening the duration of extra benefits, before dropping them altogether at the end of 2013.
The rate of the jobless receiving unemployment insurance has also declined because Republican lawmakers in seven states have cut the duration of state-funded benefits from the typical 26 weeks that prevailed before the economy crashed in 2007.
There were 9.6 million unemployed in August, including 3 million long-term jobless beyond the reach of state benefits. Fewer than 2.5 million receive unemployment insurance, according to the latest data from the Labor Department. The number of long-term jobless, defined as those out of work at least six months, is falling fast but remains higher than at any other time since 1948.
This chart from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the number of long-term jobless Americans over time (the numbers on the y-axis are in thousands).
HuffPost readers: Got a story about unemployment or insufficient work? Share it — email arthur@huffingtonpost.com. Please include your phone number if you’re willing to be interviewed.
HOUSTON (AP) — A cancer researcher in Texas was convicted Friday of aggravated assault for poisoning her colleague, who was also her lover, by lacing his coffee with a sweet-tasting chemical found in antifreeze.
Dr. Ana Maria Gonzalez-Angulo, 43, a breast cancer doctor based at Houston’s famed Texas Medical Center, had been involved in a sexual relationship with her fellow researcher, Dr. George Blumenschein. Prosecutors told jurors that Gonzalez-Angulo was a devious and diabolical person who became obsessed with Blumenschein. They said the affair turned into a “fatal attraction” and she poisoned him with ethylene glycol after Blumenschein spurned her in favor of Evette Toney, his live-in girlfriend of 10 years with whom he was trying to start a family.
Blumenschein told jurors that he became sick Jan. 27, 2013, not long after he and Gonzalez-Angulo had been intimate, and that he immediately suspected his lover of spiking his coffee. Witnesses testified that Gonzalez-Angulo had access to ethylene glycol at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center where she and Blumenschein worked.
Gonzalez-Angulo’s attorneys argued that other people, including Toney, might have been responsible for the poisoning, an allegation that Toney has denied. Toney says she and Blumenschein are working on their relationship.
The defense team also noted a prosecution expert’s testimony that Blumenschein could have ingested the poison two days earlier.
The trial, which began Sept. 15, was filled with plot twists straight out of a soap opera, including prosecutors’ claims that Gonzalez-Angulo lied about being attacked outside her home in an effort to get Blumenschein to leave his girlfriend. Prosecutors also said Blumenschein secretly recorded calls in which he tried to get Gonzalez-Angulo to confess to poisoning him.
Blumenschein said he delayed reporting his suspicions to authorities for fear that Gonzalez-Angulo would try to hurt him or Toney.
He told jurors he now has only about 40 percent of his kidney function.
The punishment phase of the trial began immediately after the verdict was read. Gonzalez-Angulo could face up to life in prison.
Supposing you’ve played one of the many dance-centric video games out in the wild over the past few years and you’ve wanted to play on your own, but don’t own a video game console, you’re now in luck. Ubisoft is releasing a game called Just Dance Now, working with your smartphone and any remote screen with a web connection. The … Continue reading
What’s the current thinking about having neighbors? If I believe the house hunting shows on HGTV (OK, I admit I’m a bit addicted to Love It or List It and Property Brothers), it’s not having them. Or if you have them, it’s important not to see them. On those shows, the kiss of death for a real estate listing is going into a backyard and seeing other homes.
September 28 is National Good Neighbors Day. It seems like the perfect time to share my thoughts about neighbors. And because I actually like having them, those of you hunting for a home in which you see no other house from your open concept main floor windows should stop reading now.
As a former English major, my first association to the word “neighbor” is the poem Mending Wall by Robert Frost.
The most famous line in it, “good fences make good neighbors,” is often misunderstood. Frost describes meeting his neighbor who lives beyond the hill every spring to put back the stones that have fallen from the wall separating their properties.
I beg forgiveness for offering an abridged version of the poem, and hope you follow the link to read the whole thing:
“There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors’…
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down…”
Like Frost, I too wonder what folks are walling out when they don’t want to see neighbors. Having grown up in Detroit on a child-filled block, I loved being able to run free outside with whatever kids showed up that day. Even when my family moved to suburbia, it was a neighbor-filled block. Borrowing the proverbial cup of sugar was no problem at all.
When I started my own family, after living in a couple of apartments, my husband and I looked for a home in our neighborhood. We wanted to be near the friends we had met in our apartment. We wanted our kids to be able to walk to school. We wanted to talk to our neighbors over the fence.
When I think about our neighbors, it’s mostly good. Of course, there was the delinquent boy down the block who broke into our garage. There were the kids who came through our alley and broke the basketball net hanging off the garage. There was the girl down the block who came over every morning and never seemed to need to be home. But my main memories are happy ones:
One of my daughters moved from a lovely house on a quiet suburban street because it was not really a neighborhood. In the six years she lived there, her kids were pretty much the only ones playing outside. Without sidewalks, they had limited opportunity to practice riding bikes or scooters. In all of those years, I never saw the neighbors over her backyard fence. I only knew they existed because their dogs barked when they let them out.
In her new neighborhood, there are some inconveniences. It’s harder to park and noisier (close to the el stop and fire station). But there are sidewalks, front porches, and kids running all over the block, playing with whoever comes outside. People stop to say hello and chat. Play dates just happen without parents needing to record them in their iPhones and drive somewhere. I’m sure she could borrow that cup of sugar if she needed it.
In addition to being a Robert Frost loving former high school English teacher, I was an early childhood educator for 30 years. So my other association to neighbors is Mr. Rogers. I was a huge fan of his neighborhood. I still remember the folks who popped in – Joe Negri, owner of the music shop, and Mr. McFeely, the “speedy delivery” man. There were 18 recurring neighbor roles on the show plus tons of guest stars who showed up in the neighborhood.
When Mr. Rogers donned his famous red sweater and sang,
“It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood,
A beautiful day for a neighbor,
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?”
I always wanted to say “yes.” In our increasingly iWorld, perhaps some actual rather than virtual communities would enrich our lives. What do you think?
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The iOS 8.0.1 update was a rare misstep for Apple. It caused quite a few users to lose cellular connectivity — a bad enough bug on its own — as well as TouchID features. A new report points the finger at one man inside Apple as being responsible, and it may be someone you’re familiar with in a roundabout sort … Continue reading
I KNOW what it is to be bad. I’ve been bad.”
That line in David Mamet’s Speed-the-Plow, spoken by the female character, Karen, has always been difficult to utter, unless you’re–Judi Dench or Meryl Streep. It often evokes titters from an audience.
Back in 1988, when Madonna made her one and only appearance on the legit stage as an actress, the vehicle was this famous play. Madonna was already being criticized (unfairly, I thought) for her film performances, few as they were, at that point. She was fine in Speed-the-Plow, if not inspiring. But when she got to, “I’ve been bad,” snickers abounded.
Now, Lindsay Lohan has made her stage debut, in London with this Mamet play. The long-troubled actress has a lot more riding on this venture than Madonna. She never gave up her “day job” as a pop singer/cultural icon/thorn-in-the-side provocateur.
Lindsay’s initial reviews have been “meh.” She appeared to be shaky on some lines, and didn’t exactly set the stage ablaze. At least one reviewer, noting her nerves, nevertheless said she handled herself “charmingly.” However, as with Madonna, when Lindsay had to utter, “I’ve been bad, etc,” the East End audience hooted.
Look, Lindsay defied the naysayers by simply showing up on opening night, apparently quite sober. This has taken a lot of guts. Maybe things are turning around for this talented girl so beset by life.
•SPEAKING OF Madonna, the writer Matthew Rettenmund is trying to fund an updated 20th anniversary edition of his famous Encyclopedia Madonnica. This is one of the most spot-on erudite, funny valentines from a fan to his idol ever. If all goes as planned, Matthew will update from where he left off in his original Madonnica–quite a task.
Madonna hadn’t yet done Evita, become a mother (four times!), married again, won a Grammy, entered the world of international charity with her Malawi work, divorced again, enraged or delighted fans with her continuing embrace of techno dance music. Matthew is also the author of the well-regarded novel Boy Culture and blogs on BoyCulture.com
•Rosie O’Donnell looked very glamorous when she came onstage at the Marriott Marquis the other night to launch her big successful Rosie’s Kids show fundraiser.
After remarks about how she and wife, Michelle live with four teenagers and a 20-month-old-baby–(Rosie said she had baby to remind herself that she did like children after all.) – Rosie made a few wisecracks satirizing her quarrelsomeness on TV’s The View. This was along the lines of how she “doesn’t get along with anybody, including my good friend, Whoopi Goldberg.” She went on and presented a great show of teenage talent and raised over a million dollars. This is some formidable lady! No wonder ABC wanted her back.
•I HAVE written about Rosie’s Kids before and how amazing Rosie O’Donnell is in giving underprivileged talented New York teens an initiation into theatre. Most of her “students” have never gone to Broadway or off- Broadway. They are usually struggling to get enough to eat, to stay in school, to learn while coping with underpaid, overworked parents; usually mothers.
When Rosie transports them to their first theater musicals, they think they will have to stand in back, or sit in folding chairs to experience the magic of music and dance and drama. They are astounded to sit in what they call “the velvet seats.”
And soon, through Rosie’s friends who volunteer makeup, costumes, choreography, music and direction, they quickly grow “professional.” (It seems to me, they all can really sing and dance!) These very young people put on a wonderful show, filling the stage.
Rosie quickly disposed of the live auction that night (the bane of most charity events) and simply asked audience members to stand and volunteer giving amounts large and small. The audience obliged.
The honorees: Cyndi Lauper, the Medusa of the blonde curly locks and a Tony winner for Kinky Boots, and the wunderkind Jordan Roth, head of Jujamcyn Theaters, were honorees this night.
Big bucks were given by such as Jordan’s brilliant producer mother, Daryl Roth…the multi-Tony-winning director Tommy Tune…the Times’ reporter Jacob Bernstein who has grown a beard…the Theater’s Nederlander clan, generous to the max…Whoopi’s devout manager-producer Tom Leonardis, who said he’ll soon be single for the first time in ages… the super talented actor B. D. Wong…loyal producer Judy Abrams…a Rosie backer, the very rich Leslie Ziff who made a philanthropic name in ballet and with the Kids…and the beautiful Mary Fisher who led the AIDS fight in the “bad old days” when she got AIDS from her husband and it was thought there was no cure. (She suffered some of her best friends shunning her.)
•”COME UP AND SEE me sometime!” is what most movie buffs think Mae West said to Cary Grant in She Done Him Wrong.
I, myself, think I know a lot about movies old and new but I’m not too “buff” about it.
Usually, I am corrected by diligent readers, film historians and even my own aide-writer-helper, Manhattan-born Denis Ferrara.
But in showing Denis a movie postcard this week reading “Why don’t you come up sometime and see me?” He laughed and said, “This card has it wrong. There’s more to the quote.”
Well, what did the divine Mae West say to Cary Grant? The full quote is: “Why don’t you come up sometime and see me. I’m home every evening!”
Later, after the line became famously misquoted, Mae herself used it in a subsequent film and nightclub appearances.
This week the folks at Sony have let it be known that they’re about to hit Vodafone UK with the Xperia Z3 and the Xperia Z3 Compact. For those of you in the United States waiting for these devices – lucky you – this release is a fairly clear indicator that Sony is pushing the whole lot a lot quicker … Continue reading
To anyone who has even a passing degree of familiarity with me this is not going to come as a great surprise, but I don’t watch Fox News on a regular basis. When I heard that Liz and Dick Cheney were going to be on with Sean Hannity Wednesday night, I was curious to hear what the former vice president would have to say now that the U.S. had expanded its military operations against ISIS into Syria. After 30 minutes of watching Hannity in action, it became clear once again why I don’t watch Fox News on a regular basis.
Hannity was just beginning an interview with Pentagon Press Secretary Admiral John Kirby when I switched over to the show. I am routinely disappointed by the U.S. government’s lack of strategic communication abilities, and I have criticized its choice of spokespersons of late. In my view, those speaking on behalf of the administration are sometimes too shallow and flippant in circumstances where a level of gravitas that conveys confidence that the government is on top of things and handling it would provide better optics. While effective messaging is always important, it is particularly important now in the midst of an armed conflict with a group that has proven adept at strategic communication.
I was impressed with Admiral Kirby. Over the course of the seven-minute interview Hannity tried repeatedly to bait him into giving a negative critique of President Obama and the administration’s ISIS strategy. Admiral Kirby did an admirable job of staying on message and not adopting Hannity’s theme that President Bush was prescient and President Obama was a failure who had squandered all of the sacrifices Americans made in Iraq over the past decade.
The Cheney segment began with a video clip from President Obama’s speech that morning at the United Nations where he said the world had noted that at times America failed to live up to its ideals at home — citing Ferguson, Missouri, as an example — and acknowledged that we still have worked to do here. As he introduced the Cheneys, Hannity said, “All right, there’s President Obama, again apologizing for America on the world stage during his address to the U.N. General Assembly earlier today.” Not surprisingly, when Dick Cheney responded to Hannity’s question about what he thought of President Obama’s statement, Cheney used the words “stunned” and “outrageous.” When Hannity asked how Obama could “be getting it so wrong so often on such a big issue like [ISIS],” Cheney responded, “Well, I think it’s deliberate. I think he has a world view. And what he’s found increasingly is that it’s not consistent with reality.” Cheney continued, saying Obama was ignoring the advice of military leaders: “I think it’s a very serious mistake. He clearly lacks the experience, and I think also the respect for our senior commanders.”
Hannity turned to Liz Cheney to ask why President Obama won’t say that the threat facing America is the fundamentalist views of radical Islam. She responded, “You know, it’s not clear to me why he won’t say it, but it’s a real problem that he won’t say it. I think he maybe is worried about, you know, causing offense. But if we won’t name the enemy, we’re not going to defeat the enemy.”
The segment ended with all three sharing their thoughts on President Obama after having observed him in office for nearly six years.
Dick Cheney began: “I honest to goodness don’t know. I vacillate from day-to-day trying to figure out why he does what he does. About the best I can conclude, and Liz has strong views on it, too, is that he has a world view that is inaccurate and doesn’t match the reality out there. And when he comes up against that inconsistency between the way he would like to have the world work and the way it actually does work he doesn’t know what to do.”
Hannity offered: “My take is he’s a rigid ideologue with no capacity to grow, no capacity for a Sister Souljah moment. He only knows what he has been taught, Alinsky, Wright, Flagler, Ayers, and Dohrn, I don’t think he learned anything more than that. That’s his world view and he sticks to it and he’s never going to change.”
And Liz Cheney wrapped up the segment with: “Well, he came into office determined and laid it out here at the United Nations back in 2009, determined to take America down a notch. And sadly he’s been effective at doing that in many ways.”
I wasn’t expecting to hear high praise for President Obama when I tuned into Hannity, but what I heard over the course of about 30 minutes made me stop and think about the cumulative effect on viewers who hear night after night, week after week, month after month, year after year, that the president is either grossly incompetent or pure evil, perhaps both, and that the government is the enemy. I don’t mean to single out Sean Hannity — it just happened that I was motivated to say something while watching part of his show — because there are many others like him who built up fortunes tearing down faith in the country, and many who have willingly followed along. I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising that three-quarters of Americans distrust their government and that many have thrown up their hands and just given up on the political process.
Vigorous debate is the cornerstone of democracy, but surely the total war, scorched earth, no compromise, you’re either with us or against us partisanship that has evolved over the past quarter-century is a cancer that eats away at our collective soul and puts the continued health of the nation at risk. The threat to America’s future isn’t ISIS, it’s us.
Perhaps one of the least understood aspects of queer identity is intersexuality — and now one TV show is attempting to bring this form of identity into the mainstream.
Earlier this month it was reported that MTV’s show “Faking It” would reveal that one of the characters is intersex — a groundbreaking moment for mainstream television. Now, the show’s star, Bailey De Young, and intersex advocate Emily Quinn have teamed up to bring you a video that aims to educate about intersex identity.
According to GLAAD, “One in every 2,000 people is born with reproductive or sexual anatomy and/or a chromosome pattern that doesn’t fit the typical male or female definition. The conditions that cause these variations are intersex traits or Differences of Sex Development (DSD). Lauren’s character on Faking It was born with Androgen Insensitive Syndrome, one of over 30 intersex conditions.”
Check out the video above.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
