Actor Emile Hirsch due in Utah court on assault charges

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Actor Emile Hirsch is making his first court appearance since being charged with assault for allegedly putting a studio executive in a chokehold and dragging her across a nightclub table while he was in Utah for the Sundance Film Festival.

Hirsch was charged last month with aggravated assault, which is punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. He is also facing a misdemeanor count of intoxication.

Hirsch does not remember the events of Jan. 25 at a nightclub in Park City because he drank so much alcohol, his attorney Robert Offer said in a statement released last month. Offer said Hirsch checked into rehab within days of the incident.

The woman Hirsch is accused of assaulting is Daniele Bernfeld an executive for Insurge Pictures, a Paramount Pictures subsidiary, Summit County prosecutor Ryan Stack confirmed.

The court appearance Monday in Park City is expected to be brief. He is not expected to enter a plea to the charges.

Hirsch is best known for his starring role in “Into the Wild.” He also appeared in Universal’s Navy SEAL drama “Lone Survivor,” Peter Berg’s account of a disastrous 2005 military operation in Afghanistan.

Hirsch was at Sundance for the premiere of the drama “Ten Thousand Saints,” a movie in which he appears alongside Ethan Hawke and Asa Butterfield.

Court documents say the altercation occurred at Tao Nightclub in Park City, when Hirsch, looking drunk, approached Bernfeld and asked why she looked “so tough.”

He also said she was a “rich kid who should not be at Sundance,” the documents say.

Investigators say Hirsch grabbed Bernfeld and she pushed him away. He left and sat with friends before coming back and grabbing the woman from behind, the documents state.

She was put in a chokehold and pulled across the table before Hirsch landed on top of her on the floor, authorities said.

Bernfeld told authorities she saw things going dark and might have blacked out momentarily.

Hirsch, 30, of Encino, California, told police he didn’t know Bernfeld but was having an argument with her.

Efforts to reach Bernfeld and her employer were not successful. Insurge Pictures distributed the Ben Stiller-produced web comedy “Burning Love,” which was also on E! cable network.

Actor Emile Hirsch due in Utah court on assault charges

China puts tech bill that concerns West on hold - U.S. official

By Krista Hughes

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – China has put a hold on a draft counter-terrorism law that would require technology firms to hand over sensitive information to government officials, a senior U.S. official said in a good sign for Western businesses who saw the rule as a major impediment to working in the world’s second largest economy.

President Barack Obama said in an interview with Reuters on March 2 that he had raised concerns about the law directly with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“They have decided to suspend the third reading of that particular law, which has sort of put that on hiatus for the moment,” White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Michael Daniel said on Thursday, according to a webcast of a discussion at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.

“We did see that as something that was bad not just for U.S. business but for the global economy as a whole, and it was something we felt was very important to communicate very clearly to them,” Daniel said.

It was not clear whether the bill would proceed or not.

China Central Television reported on March 9 that Wang Aili, a senior official with the Chinese National People’s Congress Standing Committee’s legislative affairs commission, said the bill was not on the schedule for the NPC’s annual session, which began last week. A third reading and vote would be scheduled in “due time,” he said.

The law would require technology firms to hand over encryption keys, the passcodes that help protect data, and install security “backdoors” in their systems to give Chinese authorities surveillance access.

One industry source, who requested anonymity, said the move gave companies “some breathing room, but not complete relief” because the bill could be picked up again at any point as only the standing committee — not the full parliament – was needed to pass a law.

But another was optimistic that was the end of the matter.

“The Chinese are not ready to kick out all foreign companies, and because they weren’t ready to take that step, they backed off,” said a U.S. technology industry expert, who asked not to be identified to avoid complicating his employer’s dealings in China.

“You can bet that the next steps will be something that tightens up somewhere but doesn’t cause this level of pain.”

The initial draft, published by the NPC late last year, requires companies to also keep servers and user data within China, supply law enforcement authorities with communications records and censor terrorism-related Internet content.

Last month, a parliamentary body read a second draft of the law, which would go beyond a set of financial industry regulations pushing Chinese banks to purchase from domestic technology vendors.

The rules would affect major U.S. companies, including Microsoft Corp and Apple Inc.

Although the law would apply to both domestic and foreign companies, officials in Washington and Western business lobbies complained that the combination of that law, the banking rules and anti-trust investigations amounted to unfair regulatory pressure targeting foreign companies.

The tensions come at a sensitive time because in early 2015 the United States and China are due to exchange offers detailing which industries would remain off-limits under a Bilateral Investment Treaty.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Trade Representative said the Chinese offer was expected “relatively soon,” although no firm date had been set.

(Reporting by Krista Hughes; Additional reporting by Joseph Menn; Writing by Peter Henderson; Editing by Emily Stephenson and Grant McCool)

China puts tech bill that concerns West on hold - U.S. official

Turkish video alleges spy aided UK girls en route to Syria

By Humeyra Pamuk

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – A Turkish broadcaster on Friday released what it said was footage of an alleged spy working for a country in the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State helping three British school girls enter Syria via Turkey.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu earlier said a spy who assisted the London school girls, now believed to have reached territory inside Syria controlled by Islamic State, had been caught and was a Syrian national. He gave no details.

Islamic State seized large parts of Syria and Iraq last June, cementing their rule with a militant interpretation of Islamic law, and is drawing sympathisers from many countries to support their fight. The U.S.-led coalition is using mostly air power in an attempt to push the Sunni militant group back.

Footage apparently shot on a mobile phone and released by broadcaster A Haber on its website, shows a man helping three girls unload luggage from a taxi in southeastern city of Gaziantep and then helping them into a silver minivan.

“Come on sisters … Don’t forget anything,” the man, identified as Muhammed Al Rashad by Turkey’s Dogan news agency, is heard as saying. “You will be there in an hour insh’Allah.”

The man speaks both English and Arabic in the four minute-long video and his face is visible at several points.

The three girls, two aged 15 and one 16, flew to Istanbul from London on Feb. 17 and then onwards to Syria, where more than 200,000 people have been killed in a civil war. The girls’ families have appealed to them to return.

Dogan said Rashad has been held in solitary confinement in a prison in Sanliurfa province since being caught. Citing his testimony to police, it said he had identified fighters he helped enter Syria to an official at Canada’s embassy in Jordan.

“I have no intention of spying. My aim is to prevent terrorist activity,” Dogan quoted him as saying.

A Canadian government source in Ottawa said on Thursday the nationality of the alleged spy was not Canadian and that he was not employed by Canadian intelligence (CSIS). The source did not respond when asked whether the person had been working for CSIS.

Dogan quoted Rashad as saying he had accompanied at least 25 foreign fighters so far to Gaziantep.

“Border commanders within Islamic State instructed me where to drop these people. I drove them to Gaziantep city centre in a cab and handed them over to others. I don’t know how and from where they took them to Syria.”

(Additional reporting by Tulay Karadeniz; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

Source Article from https://uk.news.yahoo.com/turkey-says-spy-suspected-helping-british-school-girls-120853205.html

Turkish video alleges spy aided UK girls en route to Syria

School funding 'a postcode lottery'

Schools are facing a “postcode lottery” in funding, with some likely to receive almost £2 million less than others over the next year, head teachers have warned.

This funding gap is enough to pay for around 40 teachers, according to the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL).

The union blamed the gulf on a “historic grant system that does not work” and said it is calling for a new, national fair funding formula to ensure schools are handed the money they need.

“School funding is a postcode lottery,” ASCL deputy general secretary Malcolm Trobe said.

“In many areas, schools receive inadequate funding because of a historic grant system that does not work. Instead of reforming the system, successive governments have tinkered with it and failed to fully resolve the problem.

“It means that many schools must struggle with resources which are simply not sufficient for the job they are expected to do.”

This is unfair on the schools, students and their families, Mr Trobe argued.

” It is no way to run an education system that everybody wants to be the best in the world.”

According to an analysis carried out by the union, schools in the 10 best funded areas of England are set to get £6,297 per pupil in 2015/16, compared to £4,208 per student in the 10 worst funded areas.

It said that this means a typical state secondary school teaching 920 students in the most well-funded areas would receive a budget of around £5.8 million, compared to £3.9 million in the most poorly funded – a gap of £1.9 million.

This is enough to pay the salaries and pension contributions of 40 full time teachers, ASCL calculated.

Mr Trobe said: “Funding levels rightly take into account levels of deprivation, and those in London also receive weighting for the higher costs they face. These factors account for some of the variation in funding levels.

“However, the underlying problem continues to be that funding is still impacted by historical factors going back to the 1980s when government grants were allocated to local authorities according to the amount they had traditionally spent on education.

“This means that funding inequities which existed then were enshrined in the system, and this has been a continuing problem ever since, resulting in inconsistencies across the country.”

ASCL’s figures, published ahead of its annual conference in London later this week, give Wokingham as the most under-funded area, with schools expected to get £4,158 per pupil in 2015/16. This is followed by Poole at £4,194 per pupil and then South Gloucestershire at £4,196 per student.

The union did not give details of the best funded areas, but Government data giving figures for all areas shows that London boroughs are among the best funded per pupil under what is described as “fairer schools funding”.

These statistics, excluding City of London, give Tower Hamlets as the best funded area at £7,014 per pupil, followed by Hackney at £6,680 and Lambeth at £6,384. Outside of the capital, the most well-funded area per pupil is Nottingham at £5,309.

Suzanne Richards, headteacher of The Holt School in Wokingham, said she had concerns about funding, with her school’s budget falling by £200,000 since 2011/12.

“We expect a cut this year of £150,000, with more to follow, yet nationally we are told education funding is not being cut,” she said.

“Other local secondary schools are similarly affected and we are all working with our local authority to establish an independent review of why this is happening.

“We are having to review all costs, contracts and staffing in all areas. There have sadly been some staff redundancies already and only essential staff are being replaced if anyone leaves voluntarily.”

A Department for Education spokeswoman said: “As part of our plan for education, we have protected the schools budget, allowing us to ensure all local authorities are receiving the same initial basic amount per pupil as in 2010, and have committed to introducing a national funding formula after the next spending review.

“We have put an extra £390 million into the schools budget for 2015-16 to increase the per-pupil budgets of the 69 least fairly funded areas.

“This will, for the first time, mean a minimum level of funding for councils based on the characteristics of their pupils and schools, and is the biggest step towards fairer funding in a decade.

“In addition, the Pupil Premium – now worth £2.5 billion this year to schools – is ensuring teachers continue to have the resources they need to give all pupils the best possible start at school, regardless of their background.”

A national funding formula distributes money according to need, which means areas will always receive different levels of funding depending on characteristics such as deprivation, the DfE said.

Source Article from https://uk.news.yahoo.com/school-funding-postcode-lottery-072705512.html

School funding 'a postcode lottery'

Elvis Presley Graceland Exhibit Coming to Las Vegas

2015 marks what would have been Elvis Presley‘s 80th birthday, with the singer’s estate announcing they would commemorate the King with classic albums reissues and a new website. Now, the Westgate Resort & Casino in Las Vegas is making plans to open their own Graceland nearly four decades after Presley performed over 600 shows in Sin City.

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On April 23, 2015, the hotel will unveil Graceland Presents ELVIS: The Exhibition – The Show – The Experience, a multimedia and memorabilia-based retrospective that will feature hundreds of items from the Graceland Archives. The exhibit’s arrival will coincide with the opening of the newly renamed Elvis Presley International Showroom, where a rotation of Presley-inspired acts – first up, The Elvis Experience — will take the renovated stage.

Presley himself has some history with the Westgate. Back when it was known as the International Hotel, Presley staged a residency at the venue, performing hundreds of shows at the International beginning in 1969. (The announcement of the Elvis exhibit actually came 46 years to the day that Presley inked his International Hotel deal.) The outfit Presley wore at his first International Hotel show will also be on display at the new exhibit.

While Las Vegas is already home to the Graceland Wedding Chapel, where an Elvis impersonator will declare you man and wife, the Westgate will open up Elvis Presley’s Graceland Wedding Chapel, the first Vegas chapel to be officially affiliated with the singer’s estate.

“Elvis is synonymous with Las Vegas and this property, so we are tremendously excited to have this new attraction and live show here to entertain Las Vegas visitors,” Westgate Resorts CEO David Siegel said in a statement. “We are thrilled to have Elvis back in the building.”

Elvis Presley Graceland Exhibit Coming to Las Vegas

Buffett looks to succession, signals future growth problem

By Luciana Lopez, Jonathan Stempel and Jennifer Ablan

NEW YORK (Reuters) – In his 50 years at the helm of Berkshire Hathaway Inc , Warren Buffett has transformed a failing textile company into a sprawling conglomerate that has vastly outperformed most of the rest of corporate America.

But he now says: Do not expect a repeat of that outperformance in the next 50.

In the 84-year-old’s annual shareholder letter released on Saturday, Buffett said Berkshire has grown so large – 751,000 times its original net worth per share – that the future pace of gains “will not come close” to those of the past.

“The numbers have become too big,” Buffett wrote. “I think Berkshire will outperform the average American company, but our advantage, if any, won’t be great.”

Within 10 to 20 years, Buffett said, Berkshire’s girth could require whoever then runs the Omaha, Nebraska-based company to consider steps he has resisted, such as paying dividends or conducting “massive” share repurchases.

Buffett, also addressing one of the more pressing topics at Berkshire, said he and his board of directors “believe we now have the right person to succeed me as CEO,” likely for a decade or more, and who in some respects “will do a better job than I am doing.”

While Buffett did not name that person, Berkshire Vice Chairman Charlie Munger, 91, said Greg Abel and Ajit Jain, two top Buffett lieutenants, would be prime candidates.

Abel, 52, runs Berkshire Hathaway Energy. Jain, 63, has been Buffett’s top insurance executive for three decades.

A successor could also be female: Buffett said “gender should never decide who becomes CEO.”

And Todd Combs and Ted Weschler, who run some Berkshire investments, “can be of particular help to the CEO in evaluating acquisitions,” he added.

“You’ve got such good candidates,” said Thomas Russo, a principal at Gardner, Russo & Gardner, which invests 12 percent of its $10 billion of assets in Berkshire. “I think they’ll adopt a different capital structure approach, which will include a healthy, healthy large dividend.”

OPERATING RESULTS MISS ESTIMATES

Buffett is preparing in May to celebrate 50 years of running Berkshire, whose market value is now $363 billion (235.23 billion pounds).

On Saturday, Berkshire also reported a 17 percent drop in fourth-quarter profit, to $4.16 billion, or $2,529 per Class A share, from $4.99 billion, or $3,035, a year ago, as investment gains and results from insurance underwriting declined.

Operating profit rose 5 percent to $3.96 billion, or $2,412 per share, from $3.78 billion, or $2,297.

For all of 2014, profit rose 2 percent to $19.87 billion, while operating profit increased 9 percent to $16.55 billion. Revenue rose 7 percent $194.67 billion.

Book value per share, which Buffett considers a good measure of Berkshire’s worth, rose 8.3 percent to $146,186 but lagged gains in the Standard & Poor’s 500 <.SPX> for the fifth time in six years.

Despite the big numbers, Berkshire had some problems.

Buffett lamented the performance of the BNSF railroad, saying it “disappointed many of its customers” with congestion on its rail lines caused by bad weather, amid rising oil shipments and a bumper grain harvest.

He also said he was “embarrassed” by taking too long to exit a $2.3 billion investment in Tesco Plc , a British retailer that became mired in an accounting scandal.

Berkshire lost $444 million on Tesco, but Buffett said that’s just 0.2 percent of its net worth.

MOTHER LODE OF OPPORTUNITIES

Berkshire owns more than 80 companies, such as Geico insurance and Dairy Queen ice cream, and $117.5 billion of equity investments in such companies as Wells Fargo & Co , Coca-Cola Co , American Express Co and IBM Corp .

Buffett remains on the prowl for acquisitions, and with $63.27 billion of cash could make big purchases, which he calls “elephants,” while preserving a $20 billion cash cushion.

Despite spending $7.8 billion on 31 acquisitions in 2014, Berkshire has not bought an elephant since paying $12.25 billion to buy half of ketchup maker H.J. Heinz Co in 2013.

And while Buffett has said he may shop more in Germany, after on Feb. 20 agreeing to buy a German motorcycle accessories retailer, Berkshire’s main focus will remain at home.

“Though we will always invest abroad as well, the mother lode of opportunities runs through America,” he wrote.

    Buffett’s letter retained the folksy tone that have helped make him popular among investors.

Talking about his See’s Candies business, which requires little capital investment, Buffett compared the company’s profits to “rabbits breeding.”

And Buffett said that at Berkshire’s annual meeting last year, part of a weekend he calls “Woodstock for Capitalists,” shareholders bought 10,000 bottles of Heinz ketchup with Buffett or Munger on the labels. (Buffett’s cost $2, Munger’s $1.50.)

This year, Buffett said Heinz will also be selling mustard as well as ketchup. “Buy both!” he exhorted.

(Reporting by Jennifer Ablan, Luciana Lopez and Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

Buffett looks to succession, signals future growth problem

Watch This Unlucky Car Thief Get Hit With His Own Weapon (No, Really)

by Ezra Marcus


2h ago

There’s an old adage among car thieves (or at least, there should be) that states: “Never throw a brick at material more resilient than a brick.”

One novice Irish car thief learned this the hard way on Friday (February 27), and the video is a must-see. According to The Irish Independent, the thief was casing cars outside of The Pheasant Pub in Drogheda, Ireland, when he came upon a shiny Mercedes. He picked up a brick and chucked it at the passenger window — only the window fought back, with the brick bouncing off the window and smacking the thief right in the face, knocking him out.

The pub’s owner Gerry Brady uploaded the video, describing the scene succinctly in the caption.

“Idiot gets a smack in the face from his own brick as he attempts to break into car,” he wrote. “Owner arrives seconds later and he is soon arrested with major head injuries. Taken with a phone off the cctv…it looped back to beginning of scene, hence he vanishes. So, sorry about that…it was a simple phone clip to show friends, but happened to go viral.”

“You should have heard the garda laughing when they saw the video,” Brady added, in his interview with the Independent. “They were in stitches. Credit to them, they were straight out when we called and found the guy within minutes.”

Below you can check out a longer version of the same clip, including an extended intro that really ratchets up the tension. Appropriately, it’s titled “The Thick With The Brick.”

Watch This Unlucky Car Thief Get Hit With His Own Weapon (No, Really)