Wednesday, March 20, 2013

The British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne delivered the budget today, an annually-held audit of the country’s finances deciding how taxpayers’ money should be spent. He set out plans to boost the housing market in his fourth budget, as well as stating the economy will grow by 0.6% — half his prediction four months ago.

George Osborne revealed plans to improve the housing market, including a “Help to Buy” shared equity scheme which would offer buyers who can place a 5% deposit on a new house, a 20% loan to buy it. He said: “This is a budget for those who aspire to own their own home”. He also offered a new Mortgage Guarantee, created in conjunction with mortgage lenders — the scheme would allow them to offer loans to homeowners without the need for a large deposit and offer guarantees to support up to £130bn of lending for three years beginning in 2014.

As a measure to attract investment to the British economy, he announced to reduce corporation tax from 21% to 20% taking effect from April 2015. The rate of corporation tax has fallen from 28% in 2010 to the current level of 21%. The United Kingdom is to have lower rates of corporation tax than the USA at 40%, France at 33%, and Germany at 29%.

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) stated the government debt reduction programme to reduce the budget deficit will miss its targets. The government has forecast the total public sector debt will begin to fall by the financial year 2015/2016, while OBR says national debt will reach a high of 85.6% of GDP, £1.58 trillion, in 2016/17. Osborne defended the government efforts to reduce the deficit and said: “Our judgement has since been supported by the IMF, the OECD and the Governor of the Bank of England.”

In response to the Budget speech, the Leader of the Opposition Ed Miliband said: “At the worst possible time for the country. It’s a downgraded budget from a downgraded Chancellor […] Debt is higher in every year of this Parliament than he forecast at the last Budget. He is going to borrow £200 billion more than he planned.”

The Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer Ed Balls said to The Independent, “They are borrowing £245bn more in this Parliament, we said all along …said this two years ago, if they had moved more quickly with a sensible, targeted package of measures to kick-start the economy, which would have meant at that time more borrowing for a VAT [Value Added Tax] cut to bring forward housing investment, then we would have got the economy growing and the deficit coming down.”

The Business Secretary Vince Cable told the BBC in an interview, the “age of austerity” would probably end within the current decade, but made no more definite forecast.

The head of the British Federation of Small Businesses, John Walker, said: “The Budget opens the door for small businesses to grow and create jobs. The Chancellor has pulled out all the stops with a wide ranging package of measures to support small business. […] [W]e are pleased to see the scrapping of the 3p fuel duty due in September”.

Len McCluskey, the General Secretary of Unite the Union, criticized the budget for not helping working families. He said: “This is a Budget for the few by the few that attacks the many. Millionaires are days away from getting a £40,000 tax cut from the Tories, but George Osborne is using the budget to attack hard-working public sector workers. The worst chancellor in British history has gone further by giving big business another tax cut while staff caring for the sick get pay cuts. […] [H]e should have raised the national minimum wage by £1 and drop the senseless plan to give millionaires a tax break in a few days’ time”.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

English actress Rachel Weisz thinks that Botox injections should be banned for all actors.

The 39-year-old actress, best known for her roles in the Mummy movie franchise and for her Academy Award-winning portrayal in The Constant Gardener, feels facial Botox injections leave actors less able to convey emotion and that it harms the acting industry as much as steroids harm athletes.

In an interview with UK’s Harper’s Bazaar, coming out next month, Weisz says, “It should be banned for actors, as steroids are for sportsmen,” she claims. “Acting is all about expression; why would you want to iron out a frown?”

Currently living in New York, she also mentions that English women are much less worried about their physical appearance than in the United States. “I love the way girls in London dress,” she claimed. “It’s so different to the American ‘blow-dry and immaculate grooming’ thing.”

Friday, February 8, 2008

The United States House of Representatives has passed the bipartisan US$152 billion economic stimulus package that gives one-time rebates to United States citizens, US$600 for individuals or US$1,200 for couples plus US$300 for each child. US$300 checks would be sent to people on low-income including retirees on Social Security which was not included in the original bill backed by President George W. Bush. The plan would begin to decrease rebates for citizens with taxable incomes of US$75,000 for individuals and US$150,000 for couples. The checks would go out to more than a 130 million Americans according to Treasury secretary Henry Paulson.

The House overwhelmingly approved the more broad Senate amended bill which included the low-income portion mentioned above along with provisions that would keep illegal aliens from receiving a rebate check. Despite some opposition from some Congressmen, such as John B. T. Campbell III of California’s 48th congressional district, the plan passed overwhelmingly 380–34.

Campbell called the plan “wealth redistribution” and noted it did not have safeguards to prevent illegals from receiving these rebates and also claimed that stimulus plan would increase the deficit more and noted the cause of the looming recession was because of “credit problems.”

The United States Senate voted hours earlier on the bill which passed in the Senate, 81–16. after having to shed some incentives included by Senate Democrats which caused the bill to fail. Some of the incentives that were left out of the plan in a compromise to gain Republican support were demands for benefits for long-term unemployed workers and stipulation that would allow low-income citizens to pay off heating bills and let home builders pay off losses off the current year against previous tax years.

President Bush approved of the package, noting in a statement, “This plan is robust, broad-based, timely, and it will be effective, this bill will help to stimulate consumer spending and accelerate needed business investment.”

Monday, October 22, 2007

Former faith healer and televangelist Oral Roberts returned to Oral Roberts University (ORU) on October 22 as President. His son Richard Roberts, who served as president since 1993, stepped down last week amid allegations of illegal political and financial wrongdoing.

Oral said that all allegations made in the ORU lawsuit and an attached report are false and “said the university will begin mediation this week with the three former professors.” However according to Tulsa World, an attorney for the professors who sued ORU said, “Right now, we’re a bit disturbed about attempting any type of a settlement as long as they’re so adamant they haven’t done anything wrong,” and “We would prefer to move forward and develop the information and develop the case.”

On Monday night alumni, clergy from around the U.S., and the people fired held a rally at Morningstar Baptist Church asking for Richard to permantly resign. They say Robert’s temporary leave of absence “isn’t enough.”

Monday, September 30, 2019

Friday, the United States House of Representatives issued a subpoena for documents from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as part of its impeachment investigation into alleged misconduct by sitting President Donald Trump. On the same day, Kurt Volker, the United States special envoy for Ukraine negotiations, resigned without public explanation. The House issued a deposition request for Volker, scheduled for this week.

Volker’s resignation was the first since details emerged about Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Volker’s position as special envoy, an unpaid part-time role, put him in center of the Trump administration’s affairs in Ukraine. In July, he helped facilitate a meeting between Giuliani, claiming to represent the State Department, and Andriy Yermak, one of President Zelensky’s aides. Volker also worked to arrange a meeting between Zelensky and Trump himself during President Trump’s planned trip to Warsaw, which was cancelled.

The subpoena was issued jointly by Representatives Eliot Engel, Adam Schiff, and Elijah Cummings, who serve as chairmen of the House’s committees on Foreign Affairs, Intelligence, and Oversight and Reform, respectively. It follows repeated failed attempts to obtain documents from the State Department through previous document requests. Among other things, the House subpoenaed a full transcript of a call between Trump and then-newly elected President Zelensky in late July. It also called for records relating to the Trump administration’s temporary withholding of security aid to Ukraine, as well as files relating to attempts by Rudy Giuliani to encourage investigations into Democratic challenger former Vice President Joe Biden. Biden is one of the front runners for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president in the upcoming 2020 race. Giuliani was serving as Trump’s personal lawyer at the time. The New York Times reports that more subpoenas are likely to be issued in the coming week.

According to a whistle-blower complaint, Trump may have misused his office. Last week the White House released a summary of a phone call made by President Trump late last July to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. In it, Trump asks Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. Shortly before the conversation, Trump had ordered his staff to delay around US$400 million in military aid that had been slated for Ukraine, which is currently in a military conflict with Russia.

The accusation against Biden is that, during his time as President Barack Obama’s vice president, he called for the government of Ukraine to reduce corruption but at the same time interfered with an investigation into Burisma Holdings; Hunter Biden was on the board of the company at the time. An investigation by PolitiFact found no such action on Joe Biden’s part, and the investigation into Burisma had already been inactive for more than a year before Biden involved himself in Ukraine’s politics in this way.

Trump said that he did indicate to the Ukrainians that the aid was contingent on their addressing corruption but denied that he made any specific deal about the Bidens. “I put no pressure on them whatsoever,” he told the press. “I could have. I think it would probably, possibly have been OK if I did. But I didn’t. I didn’t put any pressure on them whatsoever.”

While in New York City to attend the United Nations General Assembly, President Zelensky told reporters, “Nobody can put pressure on me because I am the president of an independent state. The only one person by the way who can put pressure on me […] is my son, who is six years old.”

Regarding Trump’s phone call, former federal prosecutor Elie Honig said via Twitter: “If I got a transcript like the Trump-Ukraine call in a regular criminal case for bribery or extortion, I’d think, ‘Wow, I’m surprised they’re discussing this so openly and clearly.’ “

“The only conclusion I can reach after reading that devastating call summary is that Trump’s White House staff want him to resign or be impeached,” tweeted former thinktank executive Ken Gude. “That’s the only explanation I can come up with for why they would release this call summary.”

According to a poll published by NBC News last week, over 220 members of the House of Representatives favored some form of impeachment. One of the Representatives was an independent; the rest were from the Democratic Party. Together, the number of members is enough for the simple majority vote required by the United States Constitution to impeach an official. Some reported wanting to draft articles of impeachment, while others preferred an investigation by either the House Judiciary Committee or another body. Since then, a Republican, Mark Amodei, has publicly voiced support for the impeachment inquiry, telling the Nevada Independent: “I’m a big fan of oversight, so let’s let the committees get to work and see where it goes.” He continued by noting that “Using government agencies to, if it’s proven, to put your finger on the scale of an election, I don’t think that’s right […] If it turns out that it’s something along those lines, then there’s a problem.”

Under the U.S. Constitution, the House of Representatives impeaches the official and then the impeachment trial is conducted in the Senate. The only punishments an impeachment trial may lay down are removal from office and prohibition from holding office in the future. They do not impose fines or prison terms. No U.S. president has ever been removed by impeachment, but eight federal judges have. Two-thirds of senators must vote to convict in the trial for removal from office.

Sunday, March 27, 2005

A discussion group about weblogs, or blogs for short, that meets at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society last week began releasing video tutorials about how to blog using various web and software tools.

Harvard University‘s Berkman Center hosts the blogging discussion group, which has met weekly for the past two years.

After months of discussion and collaboration on the new tutorials, at Friday’s evening meeting presenters showed off some of their early video tutorials, which stream recorded audio, and previously-captured video of a computer screen, along with simultaneous live audio from a microphone.

Participants learned how similar tutorials can be constructed using free software tools such as CamStudio. Audio of the session was made available on the World Wide Web.

Shimon Rura, a local software developer, presented a recent screen-capture + voiceover flash file he had made, demonstrating how to use a bookmarklet in the Frassle blogging package. Other participants discussed video demonstrations of how to podcast, and how to use specific blogging tools such as WordPress.

There was also disussion of a recent initiative to set up a Blogging101 site for distributing and translating these instructional materials. Rebecca MacKinnon, a noted blogger and Berkman Fellow, spoke about the BloggerCorps initiative to connect non-profits who want broader exposure with local blogging enthusiasts.

The meeting was held inside the main conference room in the Berkman Center’s Cambridge offices on Massachusetts Avenue.