George Michael - Jesus To A Child

Kindness
In your _________
I guess
You heard me _________
You smiled at me
Like Jesus to a child

I'm blessed
I know
Heaven _________
And Heaven _________
You smiled at me
Like Jesus to a child

And what have I _________
From all this _________
I thought I'd never feel the same
About _________
Or anything again

But now I _________
When you find love
When you _________ that it exists
Then the _________ that you _________
Will come to you on those _________, _________ nights

When you've been _________
When you_________it holds such bliss
Then the _________ that you _________
Will _________ you when there's no hope in sight

Sadness
In my _________
No one _________
Or no one _________
You smiled at me
Like Jesus to a child

Loveless and _________
With your _________breath
You saved my _________
You smiled at me
Like Jesus to a child

And what have I_________
From all these _________
I've waited for you all those _________
And just when it began
He _________ you _________

But I still _________
When you _________love
When you _________that it exists
Then the_________that you miss
Will come to you on those _________, _________ nights

When you've been _________
When you know it holds such bliss
Then the _________ that you _________
Will _________ you when there's no hope in sight

So the _________ you could not_________
I'll sing them for _________
And the _________we would have made
I'll make it for _________

For every single _________
Has become a part of me
You will _________ be
My love

Well I've been loved
So I know just what love is
And the_________that I kissed
Is always by my _________

Oh the_________I still miss
Was Jesus to a child

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From Slovenia to the White House (video)

On January 20, former model Melania Trump will become the first foreign-born first lady of the United States in almost 200 years. 





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Trump's global business ties

Click on the map to see get details about his business interests  

A proud dad invites guests through Facebook (audio)

How about turning the invitation into English?

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"Dine-and-dash" - the fine-dining crimewave

It is a crime many diners have contemplated, but few would ever actually commit. But in these straitened times, it seems that record numbers of people eating out are choosing to dash for the door rather than settle the bill.

Figures seen by The Independent show that last year there was a 33 percent increase in "eat and run" incidents in London. The Metropolitan Police statistics show that 330 people were reported for skipping out on their bills last year, compared with 249 in 2014. The 2015 figure is the first time the number has broken the 300 mark, with the previous five years' statistics showing a relatively stable total of around 250.

Because the crime is low on police forces' list of priorities, those who do "dine and dash" are rarely caught.

The practice came to public prominence last month when Janis Nords, a Latvian film-maker living in north London, admitted nine offences of making off without payment from some of London's most exclusive restaurants. After his crime spree – which amounted to £5,880 in unpaid bills – he was barred from entering central London at night, to keep him away from the most expensive restaurants. He was also ordered to settle his unpaid bills.

But it seems that Nords is not the only person to have fleeced expensive venues in a similar fashion. The Independent has learned that police officers were called to Amika, a west London nightspot frequented by the capital's rich and famous, in September after 29-year-old John William Cordle left without paying his £7,000 bar bill.

Cordle spent his money primarily on a jeroboam of Cristal champagne, which cost £5,500. He was arrested after trying to leave without paying and later pleaded guilty at West London magistrates' court.

Restaurateurs admitted they had increasingly fallen victim to bill-dodgers in recent months. Atul Kochhar, owner of the Michelin-starred Indian restaurant Benares, in Mayfair, said: "In 16 years of cooking in this country I had never had this happen to me. Now it has happened twice in the past six months.

"A few weeks ago we had a table of four who ran up a £400 bill on food and drink and then just slipped away without paying. And before that, about six months ago, a group of six young professional guys came in and specifically requested the chef's table. It has our most expensive menu at £150 per head. When the final course arrived they all seemed in a rush to leave and they all fled without paying. Luckily we managed to identify them on CCTV and they agreed to pay the bill.

"It is always very hard to identify the people that are going to do this – they look civilised and well-dressed. And we have to be careful not to view everyone with suspicion because people come here for a good service and a nice ambiance. We want to make their meal memorable and enjoyable; we don't want to be patrolling their tables like MI5 agents."

The increase did not surprise Elizabeth Carter, who as editor of the Good Food Guide has visited most of the country's best restaurants. "It has always struck me as something that is very easy to do if you have got the nerve for it," she said. "I think there are an awful lot of 'tick-box' restaurants that people want to go to, but they are very expensive. Some people must simply decide that it is easy just to walk away.

Fred Sirieix, the general manager of Galvin at Windows, the restaurant in the Park Lane Hilton hotel, said that many restaurants only have themselves to blame. "I think it happens because of bad security standards," he said. "We have procedures in place and if a whole table suddenly wanted to go for a cigarette at the same time we would make sure at least one left a card. But some restaurants can be a bit naive."

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From The Independent

Many airlines exploit female sexuality

EVERY December, more than 1,000 female high school students, some as young as 15, take part in a “bikini competition” held in the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao. The event, hosted by Oriental Beauty, a modelling agency, provides a platform for aspiring flight attendants to show off their bikini bodies to eager recruiters from the Chinese airline industry. Those deemed the most attractive are invited to join a fast-track flight attendant trainee scheme, which can open the door to a dream job at one of China’s big airlines.

Many Chinese and other Asian airlines shamelessly exploit female sexuality. At China Southern Airlines, air hostesses must be 25 or younger and must not have “X or O shaped legs”. Stewardesses at Japan Airlines need to have “good skin complexion”. Indonesia’s flag carrier, Garuda Indonesia, refuses to hire older, married women. VietJet Air, Vietnam’s low-cost carrier, requires that its female flight attendants be under 30 years old, be between 1.60-1.75m tall and apply “bold makeup”.

If any airline in America or Europe today were to adopt such discriminatory hiring practices, it would doubtless be greeted by a deluge of lawsuits. A flight attendant's job is to ensure passengers’ safety and security. A pleasant demeanor and an ability not to spill coffee on passengers' laps are also handy. But the fact remains: sex sells. For some passengers, the aesthetic qualities of flight attendants are an integral part of the overall quality of service.

Some Western airlines seem to recognise as much, even if they are reluctant to admit it publicly. Ryanair started selling in 2008 an annual charity calendar featuring its most glamorous female flight attendants, all skimpily dressed and in seductive poses. Despite being popular among its passengers, a public backlash ultimately forced Michael O’Leary, the airline’s boss, to scrap the idea in 2015.

Others carriers' hiring strategies can be open to interpretation. Swiss International Air Lines stipulates that its flight attendants must be of “a normal weight”, ostensibly for safety reasons. There may be a legitimate reason why cabin crew cannot be overly obese: the aisle of an aeroplane is sometimes just 51cm wide. But in what some might consider a Freudian slip, its online recruitment page explains: “We don’t require a particular body mass index, but instead look at the candidate’s overall appearance.” The cynical might be forgiven for seeing in such vagueness a license to cherry-pick the most comely.

Female cabin crew, it goes without saying, should be chosen for their abilities not their allure. But beyond basic equality, there is also a darker side to the sexualisation of women working at 30,000 feet.  According to a recent article in Vice:

The International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF), who represent over 600,000 aviation industry workers worldwide, say the most common complaints they hear from cabin crew relate to "physical contact and inappropriate advances." Most of these are anonymous and don't mention the airline, as many flight attendants are fearful of losing their jobs for speaking out.

As one airline employee puts it,   the dark force that drives such assaults is “the pernicious trope of the flight attendant as a sexual conquest”. Beauty pageants and semi-nude calendars are part of the problem. Modern passenger jets have come a long way since the 1960s. Time for the attitude of the airlines that fly them to follow. 

Edited from The Economist

High pollution levels in Paris (audio)

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A new way to release stress

When she was a teenager on the South Side of Chicago in the late 1990s, Donna Alexander fantasized about setting up a space where stressed-out people could relieve their tension in a safe, nonviolent way — by smashing mannequins, televisions, furniture and other objects. She was confident in her idea, but she wasn’t sure how to turn it into a business.

Finally, in the fall of 2008, and by then living in Dallas, Ms. Alexander began an experiment. She invited current and past co-workers to her garage to pulverize items she had collected from the curbs in her neighborhood. She charged $5. Soon, word of the stress-relief sessions spread throughout Dallas.

“I started getting strangers at my door asking if my house was the place to break stuff,” Ms. Alexander said. “When that happened, I knew I had a business.”

Over the next few years, while she looked for a suitable location for the company, Ms. Alexander accrued a four-month waiting list. In December 2011, she quit her job as a marketing manager for a steakhouse to officially start the Anger Room in a 1,000-square-foot space in downtown Dallas.

The Anger Room charges $25 for five minutes of crushing printers, alarm clocks, glass cups, vases and the like. Prices rise to about $500 for custom room setups. The most expensive setup so far has been a faux retail store, replete with racks of clothing.

Several other anger rooms have popped up around the world, including in Houston, Toronto, Niagara Falls and Australia.

The company can also customize the workplace experience, recreating a customer’s own office.

“You have a desk with a computer and phone, chair and a mannequin dressed up in a suit, uniform or whatever relates to their real-life issue,” Ms. Alexander says.

Customers are provided with protective equipment that includes a helmet, goggles, boots, and gloves. And they can pick out a music soundtrack — including classical, R&B, grunge and heavy metal — and an array of objects to swing.

“Some of our typical options are baseball bats, golf clubs, two-by-fours,” Ms. Alexander says. “We get things like metal pipes, mannequin arms, and legs, skillets, legs from tables. Sledgehammers, crowbars and things like that.” Off-limits are sharp objects and those that use ammunition.

The Anger Room accepts donations for its rooms from residents and businesses in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Its four employees also go out on bulk trash pickup days looking for crushable items. The employees build the rooms, filling them with the breakables, and do the postwreckage cleanup.

Customers have included executives at large corporations, including Hilton and Microsoft, Ms. Alexander says. In the first year, the Anger Room’s revenue was $170,000. Since then, she has received about 2,500 inquiries from other aspiring anger-room entrepreneurs, and she is in the process of drafting a licensing agreement for franchisees.

At the Rage Room in Toronto, 45 minutes of destruction costs $19.99 and includes video downloads of the sessions. Customers bring their own music.

The Rage Room’s “date night package” is its most popular offering, Mr. Shew says. And a favorite activity for couples is for one person to throw a cup in the air for their date to smash.

“People really love that,” Mr. Shew says. “I guess because it has a bit of a teamwork element to it.”

The Rage Room grew out of a business called  Battle Sports a staging ground for a sport known as archery dodge ball. After the expansion, “there was a huge, huge uptick in website traffic,” Mr. Shew said. Specifically, web visits have jumped to 1,200 from about 400 a day. Revenue has also increased, and the company has fielded many inquiries from prospective Rage Room franchisees. So far, it has granted licenses to a handful of them for $1,000.

Start-up costs for such a business are modest, Mr. Shew says. “All you’re doing is just setting up the room, reinforcing the walls, giving them a bat and crowbar, getting some smashing items and they just go in there,” he says. Add to that providing protective gear, obtaining insurance and finding a suitable spot for the business.

In the first several years, Ms. Alexander struggled to find a permanent space. The company’s first location was near Texas Instruments, which became a source of breakables. But after the first year, the business outgrew the space. Over the next four years, it moved three times.

Mr. Shew concurs that finding an appropriate space for an anger room is a challenge. Retail districts are not well suited to it, he says. “We find that most people have an easier time with more of the industrial warehouse areas.”

Another early obstacle for both the Anger Room and the Rage Room was obtaining insurance. Since it’s a new concept, Ms. Alexander says her insurer “literally had to create a category for my business.”

Sessions in an anger room are meant to be therapeutic. But mental health professionals question the efficacy of rampaging in a faux cubicle.

“Although it’s appealing to think that expressing anger can reduce stress, there is not much evidence of that,” says George M. Slavich, a clinical psychologist and director of the Laboratory for Stress Assessment and Research at the University of California, Los Angeles. “On the contrary, the types of physiological and immune responses that occur during anger can actually be harmful for health.”

Mr. Slavich recommends stress-reduction techniques that can be incorporated into daily life, such as mindfulness-based stress reduction, meditation and cognitive behavior therapy.

Edited from The New York Times

Black Santa Claus (audio)

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Scared of artificial intelligence?

 “It’s not about AI vs. humans. Rather, it's about creating HI, or ‘Human Intelligence’: the merger of humans and AI.”  – Bryan Johnson, Kernel

Are you scared of artificial intelligence (AI)?

Do you believe the warnings from folks like Prof. Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk and others?

Is AI the greatest tool humanity will ever create or are we “summoning the demon”?

To quote the head of AI at Singularity University, Neil Jacobstein, “It’s not artificial intelligence I’m worried about, it’s human stupidity.”

In a recent Abundance 360  webinar, Bryan Johnson, the founder of a new company called Kernel which he seeded with $100 million, said “It’s not about AI vs. humans. Rather, it's about creating HI, or ‘Human Intelligence’: the merger of humans and AI.”

Bryan Johnson is an amazing entrepreneur.

In 2007, he founded Braintree, an online and mobile payments provider. In 2013, PayPal acquired Braintree for $800 million.

In 2014, Bryan launched the OS Fund with $100 million of his personal capital to support inventors and scientists who aim to benefit humanity by rewriting the operating systems of life.

His investments include endeavors to cure age-related diseases and radically extend healthy human life to 100+ (Human Longevity Inc.), replicate the human visual cortex using artificial intelligence (Vicarious), expand humanity’s access to resources (Planetary Resources, Inc.), reinvent transportation using autonomous vehicles (Matternet), educate on accelerating technological progress (Singularity University), reimagine food using biology (Hampton Creek), make biology a predictable programming language (Emulate, Gingko Bioworks, Lygos, Pivot Bio, Synthego, Synthetic Genomics), and digitize analog businesses (3Scan, Emerald Cloud Lab, Plethora, Tempo Automation, Viv), among others.

Bryan is a big thinker, and now he is devoting his time, energy and resources to building “HI” through Kernel.

The company is building on 15 years of academic research at USC, funded by the NIH, DARPA and others, and they'll begin human trials in the coming months.

But what is HI? And neuroprosthetics? And how is AI related?

Your brain is composed of 100 billion cells called neurons, making 100 trillion synaptic connections.

These cells and their connections make you who you are and control everything you do, think and feel.

In combination with your sensory organs (i.e., eyes, ears), these systems shape how you perceive the world.

And sometimes, they can fail.

That's where neuroprosthetics comes into the picture.

The term "neuroprosthetics" describes the use of electronic devices to replace the function of impaired nervous systems or sensory organs.

They've been around for a while — the first cochlear implant was implanted in 1957 to help deaf individuals hear — and since then, over 350,000 have been implanted around the world, restoring hearing and dramatically improving quality of life for those individuals.

But cochlear implants only hint at a very exciting field that researchers call the brain-computer interface, or BCI: the direct communication pathway between the brain (the central nervous system, or CNS) and an external computing device.

The vision for BCI involves interfacing the digital world with the CNS for the purpose of augmenting or repairing human cognition.

You might have heard people like Elon Musk and others talking about a “neural lace” (this was actually a concept coined by science fiction writer Iain M. Banks).

Banks described a “neural lace” as essentially a very fine mesh that grows inside your brain and acts as a wireless brain-computer interface, releasing certain chemicals on command.

Well… though the idea might have started as science fiction, companies like Kernel are making it very real.

And once they do, we’ll have robust brain-computer interfaces, and we’ll be able to fix and augment ourselves. Ultimately this will also allow us to merge with AIs and become something more than just human.

Humans have always built tools of intelligence.

We started with rocks and progressively built more intelligent tools such as thermostats, calculators, computers and now AI. These are extensions of ourselves, and so we've been increasing our intelligence through our tools.

But now, our tools have become sophisticated enough that we are about to incorporate them into our biology and take an exponential leap forward in intelligence.

This is so significant that it will change us as a species — we’re taking evolution into our own hands.

I like to say we're going from evolution by natural selection — Darwinism — into evolution by intelligent direction.

We can now focus on technologies to augment human intelligence (HI). This is what Bryan Johnson and Kernel are focused on.

The first step is to answer the basic question: can we mimic the natural function of neurons firing?

If we can mimic that natural functioning, and restore circuitry, or even if we can just maintain that circuitry, it begs the question: could we improve that circuitry?

Could we make certain memories stronger? Could we make certain memories weaker? Could we work with neural code in the same way we work with biological code via synthetic biology or genetic code? How do we read and write to neurons? Could we merge with AIs?

In my friend Ray Kurzweil’s mind, the answer is most certainly yes.

Ray Kurzweil is a brilliant technologist, futurist, and director of engineering at Google focused on AI and language processing. He has also made more correct (and documented) technology predictions about the future than anyone. Of the 147 predictions that Kurzweil has made since the 1990's, fully 115 of them have turned out to be correct, and another 12 have turned out to be "essentially correct" (off by a year or two), giving his predictions a stunning 86% accuracy rate.

"In the early 2030s," Ray said, "we are going to send nanorobots into the brain (via capillaries) that will provide full-immersion virtual reality from within the nervous system and will connect our neocortex to the cloud. Just like how we can wirelessly expand the power of our smartphones 10,000-fold in the cloud today, we'll be able to expand our neocortex in the cloud."

A few weeks ago, I asked Bryan Johnson about Ray’s prediction about whether we’d be able to begin having our neocortex in the cloud by the 2030s.

His response, “Oh, I think it will happen before that.”

Exciting times.

Edited from Singularity University

Marie Kondo: How to Choose Happiness

The Japanese word “tokimeku” means “to spark joy.” Someone who is adopting my method of tidying must take a possession of hers and ask: “Does this spark joy for me?” This question is the sole basis for choosing what things to keep in one’s home and what to discard.

But can we apply this notion of sparking joy on a larger scale?

We live in a disorganized and chaotic world, much of it outside of our control. I read recently that more than 80 billion articles of clothing are produced each year, but only a negligible few are recycled. As people’s buying habits shift and technology moves most everything to the cloud, people have been valuing experiences over material things. Some have even pointed out that we may have reached a critical point in terms of mass consumption — we’ve reached peak stuff.

Though it sometimes may seem like our things are threatening to take over our world, we can focus our energy and determination on choosing what makes us happy, and ultimately change our lives. Asking ourselves whether something sparks joy seems like such a simple process — so simple that many people wonder whether it can really be effective. The strength of the “spark joy” standard, however, lies in its ambiguity.

Let’s consider, for argument’s sake, more precise standards for what to keep or discard, even for something as basic as clothing. Should the number of jackets you own be fewer than 10? Should you discard clothes that you haven’t worn in more than three years?

Rules that adopt concise numerical values may appear to be more practical, which is why society often imposes specific standards on us, such as the amount of money we should earn, the ideal body weight we should maintain or the recommended quantity of food we should consume each day. But what makes one person happy, comfortable and healthy varies for the next, so your individual gold standard can be determined only through your own perspective. This is where the magic question — Does it spark joy? — comes into play.

Continually assessing whether the belongings in your life spark joy allows you to hone your judgment. Over time, your ability to identify what is worth keeping will extend from your home to your career to your relationships. You will be able to discern what makes you happiest and most contented in other aspects of your life.

I don’t mean to suggest that tidy homes full of satisfied people who act in accordance with what sparks joy will cure all of our planet’s ills. Yet I believe that people who are pleased with the course and direction of their lives and who have seen what their own determination can achieve can help create a kinder, better world.

I’d like to share some ideas on how you can use the concept of tokimeku in your own life.

Before you start deciding what sparks joy in your life, you must first get a true sense of the problems you face. For example, when organizing clothes, I ask that you take out all the clothes you own and gather them in one spot so that you can visually comprehend how much you have.

What we don’t often realize is that the furniture and closets in which we store our clothing have a remarkable way of concealing truths we would rather not see (a pilled sweater, for instance, that does not bring any joy). It’s perfectly fine to take advantage of this masking effect on a small scale, but when the amount of things that you don’t need continuously increases — along with the time and space that you devote to accumulating those things — you will find that it becomes harder to lie to yourself.

We also work in much the same way. We often hide our problems inside the closet of our hearts as if they never existed. Whenever my mind clouds over and I feel overwhelmed, I immediately take out a sketchbook. I write down all the emotions that I feel and the possible reasons behind them across a blank white page.

Once you’ve pinpointed your problems, identify specific solutions. For each problem, assign a concrete task such as “contact and consult a professional” or “reply immediately with an email.” These actions should be as clear and specific as possible. Indeed, the ultimate goal of organizing is to remedy the state of untidiness and prevent its recurrence.

When choosing these actions, you must never forget to ask yourself whether each action sparks joy and makes sense for you. Once you’ve compiled a list, all you have to do is serenely execute these tasks.

I also keep a to-do list in my sketchbook. Each time I complete a task, I put a checkmark next to it. As I complete the tasks one by one, I get a joyful feeling of lightness, as though I have completely finished tidying up my home. It sounds simple, but this is exactly the moment that sparks joy for me.

The “spark joy” standard for tidiness depends on the individual. You cannot force people to tidy, nor should you try. But there can be communal applications for this idea. More and more, I feel that the question of whether something sparks joy becomes all the more effective when people can exchange views and share a common vision for the future.

Understanding and appreciating the concept of tokimeku in the midst of a confusing and disorderly world will allow us to clarify our ideals, and help us gain confidence in our ability to lead productive lives and develop a sense of responsibility to those around us. From there, we can act with focus and certainty while improving our lives and our beautiful — if still very messy — world.

Marie Kondo. Credit Natsuno Ichigo 

Marie Kondo is the founder of the KonMari Method and the author of best-selling books “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing” and “Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up.”

From The New York Times

Amazon Go (article and video)

Amazon employees outside the Amazon Go store. David Ryder for The New York Times

SEATTLE — In the latest in its expanding set of experiments involving bricks-and-mortar retail stores, Amazon has created a small grocery store in Seattle that will allow customers to pick drinks, prepared meals and other items off shelves and walk out without having to wait in a checkout line, the company said. 

A smartphone app and various other types of technology in the store will eliminate the usual bottleneck of cashiers and registers that typically stand between shoppers and the store exit.

For now, only Amazon employees can shop in the 1,800-square-foot store, which is on the ground floor of one of the company’s new office towers in downtown Seattle. The company will open the store to the public early next year and will offer chef-made meal kits with ingredients for quickly preparing dinners at home.

Amazon did not say what its expansion plans were for the store concept, called Amazon Go. If they are anything like what the company has done with its other bricks-and-mortar stores, new locations will open elsewhere slowly over time as Amazon learns how customers use the first one.

Amazon opened its first physical bookstore just over a year ago in a Seattle shopping mall. It has added others in the San Diego and Portland, Ore., areas and will open new bookstores in Chicago and Boston.

It is also working on another grocery store concept that will allow customers to order food items online and then pick them up quickly by pulling into parking stalls. Two such stores are under construction in Seattle.

In the grand scheme of Amazon’s business, analysts consider the retail stores to be an infinitesimal portion of the more than $135 billion in sales expected from the company this year. But the plans reflect a growing recognition by the company that certain categories of shopping are unlikely to move completely online. In some cases, it is simply more convenient to buy items in a store or more attractive to browse for them on physical shelves.

“The way we think about it is the size of online retail is going to continue to grow dramatically but there will always be an offline option,” said Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray. “They’re trying to streamline and capture a portion of that offline experience.”

Amazon still views technology as being useful in overhauling shopping in traditional retail shops. While the company has not said exactly how the Amazon Go stores will work, visitors will gain entry to them through a smartphone app. The company said the stores relied on a variety of technologies similar to those in self-driving cars, including those defined by buzzwords such as “computer vision, sensor fusion and deep learning.”

Unanswered for now are questions about how the stores would handle shoplifting and whether there would be employees on hand to check identification cards for alcohol purchases.

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Article edited from The New York Times

Preventing Food Waste (article and captions)

CEO and Founder of Hungry Harvest Evan Lutz

Every year, billions of kilograms of fresh produce are wasted in the United States. The food ends up in landfills, producing harmful greenhouse gas. Meanwhile, millions of poor Americans go hungry, without access to healthy, affordable meals.

Evan Lutz is passionate about correcting that social injustice. And he combines that goal with a passion for business.

“My entire life I’ve wanted to become a social entrepreneur, not just starting a business that made money but also one that gave back. I'm just an average guy with a passion towards, towards making sure no food goes to waste and making sure no person's ever hungry in America and I want to do that through business.”

Lutz is CEO and founder of Hungry Harvest, a business which collects and sells “ugly” produce. These are fruits and vegetables that most food companies throw away. Lutz says more than six billion pounds are wasted each year due to surface imperfections and processing inefficiencies.

"So I'll give you an example. If you go to a grocery store and walk down the aisle and see all the produce lineup shiny, perfect, same size and color you might notice that everything, everything if you go to a farm right everything doesn't grow the same way on a farm. But if you go to a grocery store everything is growing the same exact way. So all that stuff that doesn't grow the same way often  gets wasted, gets thrown out. And so we take all that stuff that normally get thrown out because it's too big or too small or has an odd shape, we box it up into a variety boxes and we deliver to our customers once a week.”

Lutz established Hungry Harvest in 2014. Its success depends on teamwork.

"Every week on Monday or Tuesday we will decide the contents box which will go into the next weeks box right, so we will call up farmers, we will work with packing houses and wholesalers to give them calls, shoot them emails, shoot them texts even or do in person visits to see what they have available that would normally get thrown away that week. We then place the order when we can accurately project how many customers and how many boxes we will have that weekend and so that's the process on Thursday. And on Friday, we will actually make the boxes for Saturdays. Saturdays we’ll make the boxes for Sunday. Sunday will make boxes for Monday and all of those days we’ll do deliveries so Saturday we’ll send out drivers they’ll come to our warehouse and make deliveries.”

For every purchase and delivery, Hungry Harvest donates healthy food to needy people. Hungry Harvest has recovered 300,000 pounds of produce to date and provided 100,000 pounds to those in need.

Lutz was inspired to act after seeing extreme poverty in areas of Baltimore, Maryland. 

"Our plan for 2017 is actually to eliminate a food desert in Baltimore. And how we're going to do that - we already have the infrastructure in place. We have drivers that make deliveries to our customers every single week. We have an assembly line and we can use recovered boxes. And really what we want to do is have access to certain areas of Baltimore to fresh produce for really cheap and we'll work on accepting  WIC (federal assistance program for women, infants, and children) and food stamps by the end of the year. So people will go on in these food deserts and be able to go online pay a reduced price for those boxes and then we'll have volunteers actually assemble and deliver the boxes. And that's how you grant people access to healthy affordable foods.”

In January 2016, Lutz appeared on the American business competition television show “Shark Tank.” It connects investors with entrepreneurs. Lutz sought a $50,000 investment in Hungry Harvest, in exchange for a five percent stake in his company. He got even more than he expected: $100,000 for 10 percent ownership.

Lutz is using the money to expand. Right now consumers can receive produce from Hungry Harvest in Maryland, Virginia, Philadelphia and the District of Columbia.

"So, we want to be the largest produce delivery service on the East Coast in five years and the largest in the United States in 10 years. And we want to do that with the purpose of reducing food from going to waste and feeding hungry families. Like I said there are six billion pounds of produce that go to waste every single year. How amazing it will be if we can reduce 1 billion pounds of that from going to waste and give that to our customers and donate that to hungry families. Or if there are 50 million people that are food-insecure. What if we eliminate that and make it 25 million people that are food insecure in the next 10 years right? That's the impact. I think this model can make. And that's exactly what we plan to do over the next ten years."

For Evan Lutz, giving back to others came from his upbringing.

“When I was growing up my parents instilled in me the values of giving back and giving is a lot more powerful than receiving. And so I wanted to bring that to life when I was fulfilling my career dreams of being an entrepreneur.”

Hungry Harvest has turned that hope into a reality.

"I live, breathe and literally eat hungry harvest. So this is my entire life. I'm not unsatisfied at all not having a life outside of hungry harvest this is what I do. And I love what I do. It's a dream come true”

But Evan Lutz now has even bigger dreams for Hungry Harvest.

“We hire people that are getting back on their feet, we hire people that were formerly in prison and we hire people that were formerly injured or were sick or were living in homeless shelters. And they were really looking to get back on their feet for a second chance in life."

“And so we live by this mantra of… we want to live a life of purpose. Everything we do has a social purpose, has a social impact in Hungry Harvest and that is reflected in how we live our daily lives. We're really happy to be doing something that's really sustainable and that we think can really revolutionize the food industry in America.”

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Article edited from VOA News
http://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/people-in-america-evan-lutz/3607196.html

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What did I win?

Katrina Bookman of Queens, N.Y., an unemployed mother of four, was playing the slots at the Resorts World Casino near La Guardia Airport in late September when the machine she was using told her, "Printing cash ticket. $42,949,672.76."

Customers and casino personnel surrounded her as she celebrated her massive win. She was escorted from the casino floor and told to come back the next day.  Bookman, who grew up in foster care, was already making plans for the money, including a barber shop for her son.

"What did I win?" Bookman asked when she returned to the casino.

"'You didn't win anything,'" she says she was told.

The New York State Gaming Commission told Bookman she was not entitled to any winnings because the machine, which is only supposed to pay out a maximum win of $6,500, was malfunctioning. All the machines are labeled with a disclaimer reading, "Malfunctions void all pays and plays." According to the gaming commission, her actual winnings were just $2.25.

The state commission said the machine was removed for repairs after the incident,  and then returned to the casino floor.

Bookman said the casino offered her a steak dinner, which she refused.

“You offer me a steak dinner? I feel like they did me real dirty," Bookman said.

"Upon being notified of the situation, casino personnel were able to determine that the figure displayed on the penny slot was the result of an obvious malfunction — a fact later confirmed by the New York State Gaming Commission. Machine malfunctions are rare, and we would like to extend our apologies to Ms. Bookman for any inconvenience this may have caused," a statement from the Resorts casino said, according to a report from the Huffington Post.

Bookman contacted an attorney, Alan Ripka, who says she should at least be entitled to the machine's maximum pay out of $6,500.

"The machine takes your money when you lose. It ought to pay it when you win," Ripka told WABC.

edited from USA Today

Your Personal Electronic Concierge (video)

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Freedom on the Net 2016 Report (audio)

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Strange cash problem in India

An Indian policeman gesturing to people outside a bank in New Delhi and asking them to wait patiently. CreditAltaf Qadri/Associated Press

Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India has declared war on corruption, a big factor in perpetuating poverty in that country. But his shocking decision early this month to remove and replace large-denomination paper money was poorly thought out and executed.

Cash is king in India. It is used in an estimated 78 percent of transactions, compared with 20 percent to 25 percent in industrialized countries like Britain and the United States. Many people do not have bank accounts or credit cards, and even those who do often must use cash because many businesses don’t accept other forms of payment.

Paper currency makes it easy for people to avoid taxes and engage in corruption. For example, real estate sales are often split into two parts: a smaller portion, which is reported to the government, is paid by check, and a larger, undeclared sum is paid with stacks of cash, or “black money” as it is often referred to in India. Business people and criminals routinely buy off government officials and politicians with envelopes and briefcases of cash.

Mr. Modi’s solution to a systemic problem is odd: the government will replace  the 500- and 1,000-rupee notes (worth about $7.50 and $15), which together make up about 80 percent of currency in circulation, with new 500-, 1,000- and 2,000- rupee notes.  

The move went into effect last Wednesday. The plan is to force tax evaders and corrupt officials hoarding cash to deposit or exchange their old notes at banks by Dec. 30. Those with very large sums will have to explain how they amassed so much cash and to pay taxes owed on the money.

Many millions of people are lining up at banks to deposit or exchange their old bills. One man told The Times that a bank turned him away because he didn’t have a government-issued identification card, which is required to swap or deposit old bills. He was hoping a charity would feed him and his family while he waited to convert his stack of 500-rupee notes, worth about $148. Meanwhile, many traders are offering lucrative money-laundering services to help the cash-rich get rid of their old bills.

Mr. Modi acknowledged that the currency swap will cause “temporary hardships” to “honest citizens.” But his government did not appreciate the extent of the pain it is inflicting, for what may be only a short-term solution. The government is now circulating new 500- and 2,000-rupee notes, which means that cash-based corruption and tax evasion are almost sure to return as people accumulate the new bills.

Edited From The New York Times

Airbnb is expanding its business

LOS ANGELES — Airbnb used to let you just book room rentals. Now you can also use Airbnb to reserve dance parties in Havana, historical tours in Cape Town and stargazing outings in Los Angeles.

Airbnb said Thursday that it is expanding beyond its core short-term rental business, which faces pushback from local governments around the world, to become a fuller service travel agency. In a step toward that, the company launched a service called Trips,   which will provide tours, tailored activities and other experiences.

Trips is starting with 500 experiences that can last a few hours or span days. They are created and provided by locals in the 12 cities where the service is initially being offered.

Trips helps travelers “immerse in a local community,” Brian Chesky, the chief executive and co-founder of Airbnb, said at the company’s annual conference for hosts and the press.

The new service helps Airbnb create an additional revenue source as it faces some challenges with its main business of matching travelers with hosts who want to rent out their homes for short stays. While the eight-year-old company lists nearly 3 million short-term rentals in more than 34,000 cities around the world, short-term rentals are illegal in some cities and have run into regulatory gray areas in others.

With Trips, Airbnb is pushing deeper into the travel market and allowing people to make extra money in a way that might be less controversial than the short-term rental market. Airbnb began thinking about creating Trips in 2012. It has been in a private testing phase for several months.

J.C. Rodriguez, an artist in Miami who offers a two-day experience called Behind the Art, helps visitors meet with local artists in their studios and create their own pieces. He currently keeps the $150 fee he charges per person, which covers a meal and art supplies, but Airbnb will soon take a 20 percent cut of that income.

In addition to Trips and restaurant reservations, users will be able to rent cars through Airbnb, book flights and add perks such as grocery delivery to their short-term rentals.

Brian Chesky, chief executive of Airbnb, speaking on Thursday in Los Angeles about Trips.  CreditMike Windle/Getty Images for Airbnb

Article edited from The New York Times

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