Uber is rumored to be preparing for a new undertaking: Uber Merchant Delivery. The new service will provide same-day service by UberRush couriers and regular Uber drivers. The prototype service for faster, on-the-ground delivery is in the same vein as Amazon’s accelerated delivery service, Amazon Prime Now, which uses bike messengers to deliver “essential” goods to your doorstep. Although Uber … Continue reading
It seems that Sony might have become a bit unhinged in its efforts to hunker down on its somewhat floundering mobile business. First, it rather quietly unveiled the Xperia Z4, which may or may not be limited to the Japanese market. And then there are whispers of an Xperia P2 that looks terribly similar except in a few areas. Now … Continue reading
A couple of years ago, American Airlines swapped out its pilots’ “flight bag” for iPads loaded with the terminal charts and other reference materials they’re required to carry. Losing the 35 lbs of materials for a tablet (some 8,000 of them) was a go…
According to a report by Variety, tomorrow Hulu will announce that it has won the bidding war for streaming rights to the Seinfeld series. The deal is said to be worth nearly $1 million per episode (a WSJ rumor puts the figure at about $700k per ep),…
Huawei is pleased to introduce their latest 4G LTE-enabled Android 4.4 smartphone, the Honor 4C. As a successor of the last year’s Honor 3C, this mid-range smartphone is configured with a 5.0-inch 1280 x 720 HD IPS display, a 1.2GHz octa-core Kirin 620 processor, a Mali 450 GPU, a 2GB RAM, an 8GB of expandable internal storage and dual micro SIM card slots with dual standby.
Running on Android 4.4 KitKat OS with Emotion UI 3.0, the handset sports a 5MP front-facing camera with 22mm wide-angle lens, a 13MP rear-facing camera with LED flash, BSI sensor, f/2.0 aperture and 28mm wide-angle lens, and a 2550mAh battery. In terms of connectivity, the Honor 4C provides 4G LTE, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 and GPS.
Measuring 8.8mm thick and weighing 162 grams, the Huawei Honor 4C is now available for pre-booking via Vmall for 799 Yuan (about $129) in black, white, gold, blue and pink color options. [Product Page]
RIYADH, April 29 (Reuters) – Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz on Wednesday sacked his younger half brother as crown prince and appointed his nephew, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, as the new heir apparent, state television said.
He also appointed his son, Prince Mohammed bin Salman, as deputy crown prince, and replaced veteran foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal with the kingdom’s Washington ambassador Adel al-Jubeir.
In a decree published by state media, King Salman said he was following in the footsteps of his late brother, King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, in seeking the most suitable candidate for the top jobs in the world’s top oil exporter.
King Salman, who ascended the throne upon the death of King Abdullah in January, also former <labor Minister Adel Fakieh as new economy minister Mufrej al-Haqbani as new labor minister.
Ahmed al-Sweilem was appointed as new head of the royal court, replacing Prince Mohammed bin Salman while Khalid al-Falih was appointed health minister and chairman of state-owned ARAMCO alongside the position of health minister. (Reporting by Sami Aboudi, Mostafa Hashem, Maha El Dahan and Reem Shamseddine, Writing by Angus McDowall, Editing by William Maclean)
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The U.S. Department of Education is telling thousands of students from now-shuttered for-profit schools owned by Corinthian Colleges Inc. to consider transferring to more than a dozen other for-profit schools also under investigation by federal or state authorities.
The department’s suggestion follows Corinthian’s abrupt shutdown on Monday, which left 16,000 students scrambling for options. In 31 spreadsheets on its website, the Education Department listed at least 13 for-profit schools whose corporate owners were under state or federal investigation for possibly misleading students among “viable transfer opportunities” to Corinthian’s 30 locations and its online program.
One of the suggestions, ITT Educational Services, was sued in February 2014 by the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for allegedly deceiving thousands of mostly low-income students with false job prospects and then forcing them into expensive private loans that the company expected a majority of them to default on. The department doesn’t disclose the lawsuit on its list. Nor does it tell Corinthian students that 12 of the other for-profits it suggests are under state or federal investigation, according to announcements by state authorities or the companies’ securities filings.
The Education Department has previously warned of the dangers associated with the for-profit college industry, such as questionable job prospects and high student debt loads. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has told lawmakers that his department would not allow for Corinthian to sell its schools to buyers already facing government scrutiny.
“To be clear, the department will not approve a sale to another entity if that entity is currently under state and/or federal investigation,” Duncan wrote in an Aug. 4 letter to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) sharply criticized the Education Department on Tuesday for its apparent policy reversal, asking during remarks on the Senate floor, “Why now will the department accept that outcome for these students?”
“Has the Department of Education learned nothing?” Durbin continued. “How in good faith can they tell these Corinthian students — who just had their college disappear and are sitting on a pile of debt — that these are viable transfer options?”
Denise Horn, an Education Department spokesman, said in a statement that at least 42 percent of Corinthian students are within six months of completing their programs. The department didn’t respond to queries regarding Durbin’s charge or address why it suggested embattled for-profits as transfer options.
Consumer advocates said the Education Department is trying to minimize losses that would result from forgiving Corinthian students’ federal student loans, an option available to students whose colleges shut down.
Education Undersecretary Ted Mitchell, in an interview published Tuesday by the Los Angeles Times, said that while students were the department’s first consideration, “We also think the taxpayer has made an investment in these students, and that the taxpayers’ investment — as well as the students’ investment — ought to be protected.”
Getting Corinthian students to complete their studies at other schools, such as the for-profit colleges, would ensure that taxpayers aren’t on the hook for the cost of mass loan cancellations.
Bridgepoint Education Inc., which owns Ashford University, is under investigation by at least four state attorneys general. Graham Holdings Co., which owns Kaplan University and Kaplan College, faces probes by at least three state prosecutors. At least two state attorneys general are investigating Apollo Education Group Inc., which owns University of Phoenix. And DeVry Education Group Inc., which owns Carrington College and DeVry University, faces investigations from at least three state prosecutors and the Federal Trade Commission.
Attorneys general of 20 states are investigating Career Education Corp., which owns International Academy of Design & Technology, Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts, and American InterContinental University. The U.S. Department of Justice and at least a dozen state prosecutors have pending investigations into Education Management Corp., the owner of Argosy University and the Art Institutes. And Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has a pending 2012 lawsuit against Westwood College, alleging the school misled students about their future employment prospects while leaving them with mountains of debt.
The companies have either denied wrongdoing or said they are cooperating with the probes.
Corinthian announced Sunday it would shut its roughly 30 campuses, leaving 16,000 students across five states in the lurch after the company failed to either sell its schools or strike agreements with other colleges that would take in its students.
Federal and state authorities had sued the company for allegedly misleading potential students with false job placement and graduation rates. The Education Department, after limiting the company’s access to federal student aid last summer over a paperwork dispute, struck a deal with Corinthian that freed up taxpayer cash in exchange for the company either selling all of its schools or shutting them down after all current students completed their programs.
Corinthian blamed federal and state regulators for its sudden closure. It denies wrongdoing.
Its students are now eligible for complete forgiveness of their federal student loans, unless they transfer their credits and complete their studies elsewhere. The Education Department said Monday that if all current Corinthian students requested debt forgiveness, it would face a $214 million bill. Had the company failed in September — a few months before Corinthian announced an Education Department-brokered sale of more than half of its campuses to ECMC Group, one of the department’s debt collectors — the Education Department would’ve faced $639 million in potential losses.
The reduced liability is a consequence of what the Education Department called an “orderly wind-down” of Corinthian. “And efforts to help students find placement at other colleges will reduce that liability further,” the department said.
Robyn Smith, a former California deputy attorney general who now works on student loan issues from Los Angeles for the National Consumer Law Center, said the department has long preferred minimizing losses from forgiving student debts over protecting students. The Education Department’s emphasis on helping students complete their programs elsewhere — rather than ensuring that students know about potential loan cancellations — shows a lack of regard for the likelihood that many of them won’t be able to finish their degrees or get jobs in their chosen fields, she said.
Smith said the Education Department “almost buries” the debt forgiveness option in its communications to students. Rep. Janice Hahn (D-Calif.) seemed to provide some evidence to support that view in a Tuesday letter to Duncan in which she alleged that his department had delayed notifying students in her district whose college had closed in 2014 about the loan cancellation option. “This cannot be allowed to happen again,” Hahn said.
Other for-profit schools are eagerly trying to enroll former Corinthian students, Smith said.
“The Education Department prioritizes debt collection and making profits for the federal government over protecting students and providing relief for those harmed by for-profit schools,” said Smith. “It’s a problem.”
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The rioting in Baltimore is heartbreaking. This great and proud city has struggled for decades to overcome lost manufacturing jobs, decaying blocks and long neglected neighborhoods. All of these ingredients were in place for an explosion.
The unjustified death of Freddie Gray while in police custody was the catalyst that set off rioting and destruction. Many residents in Freddie Gray’s neighborhood say that police harassment is constant. Just in the past four years, 100 people have won court judgments or settlements against the Baltimore police related to allegations of brutality or civil rights violations.
Half of the residents between 16 and 64 are unemployed, while the greater Baltimore area unemployment rate is much lower. More than 30 percent of the homes in Freddie Gray’s neighborhood are vacant or abandoned, while the average for the city is about 8 percent. The median household income in the neighborhood is about $24,000, compared to about $42,000 for the city. Almost 35 percent of its residents do not have a high school diploma.
There is no excuse for the senseless violence that has broken out in Baltimore. But there are underlying causes that have been left for fester and now explode. The people, officials and business leaders of Baltimore know it.
For instance, Baltimore Orioles COO John Angelos vented his feelings Saturday in a series of Twitter replies to a local sportscaster. Angelos began by tweeting, “the principle of peaceful, non-violent protest and the observance of the rule of law is of utmost importance in any society.” He added, “Further, it is critical that in any democracy, investigation must be completed and due process must be honored before any government or police members are judged responsible.”
But then he offered a defense. When edited together, his tweets read: “my greater source of personal concern, outrage and sympathy beyond this particular case is focused neither upon one night’s property damage nor upon the acts, but is focused rather upon the past four-decade period during which an American political elite have shipped middle class and working class jobs away from Baltimore and cities and towns around the U.S. to third-world dictatorships like China and others, plunged tens of millions of good, hard-working Americans into economic devastation, and then followed that action around the nation by diminishing every American’s civil rights protections in order to control an unfairly impoverished population living under an ever-declining standard of living and suffering at the butt end of an ever-more militarized and aggressive surveillance state.”
Forty miles away, at the White House on Tuesday, President Barack Obama said there was no excuse for the violence in Baltimore, but he blamed it on economic inequality and police brutality. “This is not new. This has been going on for decades. And without making any excuses for criminal activities that take place in these communities, we also know if you have impoverished communities that have been stripped away of opportunity, where children are born into abject poverty, they’ve got parents, often because of substance abuse problems or incarceration or lack of education, and themselves can’t do right by their kids, if it’s more likely that those kids end up in jail or dead than that they go to college, and communities where there are no fathers who can provide guidance to young men, communities where there’s no investment, and manufacturing’s been stripped away, and drugs have flooded the community and the drug industry ends up being the primary employer for a lot of folks, in those environments,” the president said with great passion.
He concluded forcefully, “if we think that we’re just going to send the police to do the dirty work of containing the problems that arise there without, as a nation, and as a society saying what can we do to change those communities to help lift up those communities and give those kids opportunity, then we’re not going to solve this problem, and we’ll go through this same cycles of periodic conflicts between the police and communities, and the occasional riots in the streets and everybody will feign concern until it goes away and we just go about our business as usual.”
Baltimore was once the home of the great abolitionist and social reformer Frederick Douglass. Douglass famously said, “I would unite with anybody to do right and nobody to do wrong.” Will this episode in Baltimore’s storied history be a time when a nation unites to do right?
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Through music, we can transform pain into something we can better understand, whether it’s as the artist making it or through the ears of the listener. Within all the bravado of hip-hop always lies a vulnerable core, and with his new album 13, Detroit emcee MAHD strives to keep it all moving no matter what life has thrown at him and try to become the best.
Since his debut project MAHD Almighty in 2013, the emcee, now 26 years old, has gone through some relationship growing pains that’s become the root of the new album 13. “It was just a way for me to vent,” explains MAHD. “Some people write in a journal, some people have it to get stuff off their chest. I wasn’t recording anything for a while. Once I was in a state to get back and record, that was just me saying what happened pretty much. I’m real private with a lot of stuff that I do so I just put it all in the music, and however you take it, that’s how you take it.”
There’s maturity and an obvious progression that MAHD now displays in his music, but he really needed to take some time out and get a little space, which is why he spent about six months down in Atlanta. “Down there, I got to get away from everything that was going on here and clear my head and get back to myself,” says MAHD. “It was a new me but I had to get back to myself. I was going crazy up here. The vibes down there were super dope. I was recording down there too. Stuff I did down there didn’t even make the album, but I was getting back into the mode of recording. Once I did that, came back up here.”
The title of the album 13 is in reference to the year 2013 when much of the stories he wrote about took place, as well as a play on the idea that in some cultures the number 13 is unlucky.
Music is in his blood; heavily entrenched in it all throughout his life from various family members, but for most of his youth, MAHD was more interested in basketball then anything. Initially having hoop dreams, MAHD used to go hard in the paint on the basketball courts on a daily basis, but eventually his interests and focus would change, and now he hits music like he used to hit jump shots. “As hard as I went with that, trying to reach that goal, is how I’m doing with the music, ” says MAHD. “This is my basketball now. Every day waking up, I’m playing basketball. I’m hitting the court trying to get better in some type of way. When I put my mind to something, I just really lock in.”
The way MAHD has developed has been impressive, funneling the battles from a tough year in his life into some very thoughtful music. It’s been more of a hands-on project for MAHD in many ways as he looks to push himself to new heights. “I wanted to challenged myself to really take what I had been through,” explains MAHD. “I try to just channel that and take what I’ve been through and actually make good songs out of that too, even if you don’t know the real story. In my mind, I know the whole story so when I listen to the album; I’m picturing everything that happened from start to finish in every song. “
Not all was bad for MAHD during those times, for that now he has the love of a three-year-old daughter. When it comes down to it, MAHD wants to stand on his own and make a name for himself by himself on his own merit. In the end, he just wants to be in the same conversation with the greats. That’s a lofty goal, but who really knows what will happen? It’s not impossible. Hello Detroit.
MAHD’s new album 13 is available now. For more information, visit iammahd.com.
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Amazing. Blair Bunting recently photographed the F-22 Raptor and created the coolest pictures of the fighter jet yet. The head on view of the plane looks absolutely killer and the side view is stunning, like from a movie. It almost looks too good.
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.
