Friday, April 27, 2018
Tuesday, April 24, 2018
Saturday, April 21, 2018
Friday, April 20, 2018
Friday, April 13, 2018
Wednesday, April 11, 2018
Shout-out to Westbrook for averaging a triple double for the 2nd straight season
History has been made. He has another strong case for MVP.
Tuesday, April 10, 2018
Monday, April 09, 2018
Agents Raid Office of Trump Lawyer Michael Cohen in Connection With Stormy Daniels Payments
https://www.wsj.com/articles/fbi-raids-trump-lawyers-office-1523306297?tesla=y&mod=breakingnews
Single mom supports teenage daughter by being paid to date
Single
parenting has its challenges, and for Jordyn Smith, managing finances
is one of the hardest. The mother, who does not receive child support,
has held a variety of jobs — from serving as a cocktail waitress to
being an exotic dancer — to offset the costs of raising her teenage
daughter. Currently though, the Las Vegas, Nev. resident is unemployed —
but she’s still raking in cash (albeit, in a rather unorthodox way).
parenting has its challenges, and for Jordyn Smith, managing finances
is one of the hardest. The mother, who does not receive child support,
has held a variety of jobs — from serving as a cocktail waitress to
being an exotic dancer — to offset the costs of raising her teenage
daughter. Currently though, the Las Vegas, Nev. resident is unemployed —
but she’s still raking in cash (albeit, in a rather unorthodox way).
Through a website called WhatsYourPrice, Smith is being paid to go on dates and maintain platonic relationships with men.
“The
men will either send me an offer and I can counteroffer, or I’ll send
them out an offer of like $150 to $200, and then they can counter or I
can accept,” Smith explains to Yahoo Lifestyle of how the website works, an eBay-type service. “It’s just like a bidding thing. But I don’t do less than $100.”
men will either send me an offer and I can counteroffer, or I’ll send
them out an offer of like $150 to $200, and then they can counter or I
can accept,” Smith explains to Yahoo Lifestyle of how the website works, an eBay-type service. “It’s just like a bidding thing. But I don’t do less than $100.”
And
while the arrangement is fairly similar to Seeking Arrangement, which
connects women with “sugar daddies” or even comparable to being a
prostitute, Smith insists that this process is different because of the
lack of pressure, and legality.
while the arrangement is fairly similar to Seeking Arrangement, which
connects women with “sugar daddies” or even comparable to being a
prostitute, Smith insists that this process is different because of the
lack of pressure, and legality.
“I did sign up for the Sugardaddie website,
and that was just garbage,” she explains. “It put a bit of a bad taste
in my mouth, so I didn’t really have high expectations for
WhatsYourPrice, to be honest. I was nervous because I didn’t want the
men to expect anything. But I did point out on my profile that it would
be no strings attached. I am good company, I am fun, but don’t expect
anything out of this.”
and that was just garbage,” she explains. “It put a bit of a bad taste
in my mouth, so I didn’t really have high expectations for
WhatsYourPrice, to be honest. I was nervous because I didn’t want the
men to expect anything. But I did point out on my profile that it would
be no strings attached. I am good company, I am fun, but don’t expect
anything out of this.”
What
she’s gotten out of the men she’s gone on dates with is nearly $3,000.
But that amount is only increasing with a single, more steady, companion
that she’s connected with. After a few dates with one man in
particular, Smith says he’s taken on a more substantial role in her
life.
she’s gotten out of the men she’s gone on dates with is nearly $3,000.
But that amount is only increasing with a single, more steady, companion
that she’s connected with. After a few dates with one man in
particular, Smith says he’s taken on a more substantial role in her
life.
From
buying Smith a truck, to giving her money to buy her teenage daughter’s
Christmas gifts, the 36-year-old’s companion has given her $7,600
thus far. Although their relationship is currently non-sexual,
the divorced dad of grown children has been introduced to Smith’s friend
and her daughter.
buying Smith a truck, to giving her money to buy her teenage daughter’s
Christmas gifts, the 36-year-old’s companion has given her $7,600
thus far. Although their relationship is currently non-sexual,
the divorced dad of grown children has been introduced to Smith’s friend
and her daughter.
“He’s
definitely unique,” Smith says. “He’s always wanting to help out and
wanting to help me succeed because I’m a single mom. I think as a friend
as well, he wants to see me succeed because he’s gotten to know me
better and he’s met some of my friends. He’s taken me and my girlfriends
out, my daughter’s met him a few times. He’s actually gonna buy her a
car.”
definitely unique,” Smith says. “He’s always wanting to help out and
wanting to help me succeed because I’m a single mom. I think as a friend
as well, he wants to see me succeed because he’s gotten to know me
better and he’s met some of my friends. He’s taken me and my girlfriends
out, my daughter’s met him a few times. He’s actually gonna buy her a
car.”
Although
Smith says she’s typically not open with her daughter about the ways
that she makes money, she’s found a way to explain to the teenager that
she met this man on a dating website who’s looking to help their family
financially.
Smith says she’s typically not open with her daughter about the ways
that she makes money, she’s found a way to explain to the teenager that
she met this man on a dating website who’s looking to help their family
financially.
“As
long as she knows that I’m not here doing illegal things,” Smith says.
“It’s company. I am single, so I can date people. And why not if people
want to pay for companionship or to date. Why not? Because most of the
time these guys are really not that great, and you’re going and wasting
your time for free.”
long as she knows that I’m not here doing illegal things,” Smith says.
“It’s company. I am single, so I can date people. And why not if people
want to pay for companionship or to date. Why not? Because most of the
time these guys are really not that great, and you’re going and wasting
your time for free.”
As
for the future with this man in particular, Smith says she would be
open to a relationship with him at some point. But first, she’s looking
to start a business — with his initial investment.
for the future with this man in particular, Smith says she would be
open to a relationship with him at some point. But first, she’s looking
to start a business — with his initial investment.
“I
want to do something in the beauty industry, maybe that’s spa or
laser,” Smith says. “So I’ve been kind of looking at businesses now, I
just need to be able to give him a business plan and it’s gotta make
sense to him.”
want to do something in the beauty industry, maybe that’s spa or
laser,” Smith says. “So I’ve been kind of looking at businesses now, I
just need to be able to give him a business plan and it’s gotta make
sense to him.”
In
the meantime, she continues to date around on the site to have some
extra earnings, while doing some part-time foot modeling on the side as
well.
the meantime, she continues to date around on the site to have some
extra earnings, while doing some part-time foot modeling on the side as
well.
Sunday, April 08, 2018
44% of young women date men just to eat free meals at restaurants
When Olivia Balsinger first moved to New York after graduating college in 2014, she wanted to experience Manhattan “Sex and the City”-style. Like many millennials working in entry-level office gigs, however, she was limited by a shoestring budget.
“I was in a job that barely paid my rent,” Balsinger, now 24 and living in the East Village, tells The Post.
Going to nice restaurants was out of the question. “I barely had enough money to go to a nice grocery store,” she says.
Rather than scrape by on bargain rice and beans, Balsinger decided to seriously try a friend’s humorous suggestion: Meet guys on Tinder for the sole purpose of scoring free meals.
Soon, Balsinger was meeting men up to twice a week for nourishment-driven dates at pricey bars and restaurants, such as the Roof at Park South in Kips Bay.
“You want to enjoy the city, but you don’t really want to waste two hours of your paycheck on eating out,” she says. “So it’s pretty easy to kind of just say yes if someone’s offering to take you out.”
She recalls one evening when a 30-something European man squired her to celeb-studded seafood spot Catch in the Meatpacking District, where dishes such as truffle sashimi cost $29.
‘You want to enjoy the city, but you don’t really want to waste two hours of your paycheck on eating out.’
Balsinger admits she had zero attraction to her date. She chose him merely because he seemed successful and “lonely,” two factors suggesting he’d be happy to pay for her company.
“I can only imagine what the cost was — probably, like, a month of pay from my job,” she says of the five-course meal she savored that night.
When the bill came, she coyly fumbled for her clutch in a feigned attempt to pay for her half of the meal. As expected, her date swept in and took care of the tab.
It’s a good thing. “If I had been forced to pay, I probably wouldn’t have been able to eat for weeks afterward,” Balsinger says.
She and her date never saw each other again.
With the rise of dating apps, it’s never been easier to order up a foodie call. According to millennial survey app Winq, in a survey exclusive to The Post, 44 percent of young women have swiped right on a date “because why not; it’s a free meal” — even if they weren’t attracted to the person.
For singles stuck with the tab, the economic toll is considerable. On average, New Yorkers shell out $2,069 a year on dates, according to a 2016 Match survey.
Even celebrities have partaken in the practice.
Yvonne Orji, star of HBO’s “Insecure,” told the Los Angeles Times in July that she regularly dated for free food before getting her big break.
“I used to do foodie calls. I know it’s bad,” she told the paper. “A foodie call is when you’re not necessarily interested in the guy, but you’re also very interested in eating that night — and times are hard.”
She was quick to clarify that the transactions were one-sided.
“It’s very different from a booty call because it really just ends after dinner,” the actress said. Balsinger also follows this practice.
Singles like Andrea, a 35-year-old marketing coordinator and foodie call enthusiast, says her targets understand the deal.
“We both play this game — I act coy, and you woo me and spend money on me,” the Cobble Hill resident, who didn’t want to disclose her last name for professional reasons, tells The Post. “Women make 75 cents to a man’s dollar, and until the wage gap stabilizes, it’s more than fair game for guys to pay.”
Andrea says she goes on up to three foodie calls a week. Her favorite spots are Dream Hotel downtown, as well as Catch.
It’s not just single women going on subsidized dinner dates.
Alex Blynn, a 26-year-old publicist, has gone on dates with gentlemen who seem likely to handle the check.
“There are a lot of places to eat, but my budget doesn’t always allow me to try them,” says Blynn, who lives in Park Slope. “A great way to supplement [my budget] is to go on a first date even if I’m not personally feeling it.”
One man he met at a bar offered to take him to Porter House, an upscale steakhouse in Columbus Circle where a slab of New York strip can set diners back $60.
“It was very expensive,” Blynn says. “I’m glad I didn’t have to pay for it.”
Blynn’s cost-conscious dating habit has occasionally led to something more. In 2015, a guy he met at a club took him to Little Park, a tony restaurant that serves $25 trout inside the Smyth hotel in Tribeca. Blynn was smitten, and the two were together for almost a year.
Nevertheless, Balsinger, on firmer financial footing as a matchmaker at dating service Tawkify, says she now prefers lower-key dates — and genuinely offers to pay her share of the bill.
That’s not to say she regrets her former tactics.
“New York is its own ball game — there is an ‘impress’ factor that guys think they have to live up to,” Balsinger says. “They want to talk to a pretty girl. Girls are offering their time and conversation.”
For any singles worried about being used for a meal ticket, Balsinger says to suggest a low-cost date such as hanging out in Central Park — and observing how matches react.
“If [your match] says no to a simple activity, that’s a red flag,” she says. “Some of my best dates have involved a bottle of wine from Duane Reade.”
Link
Female teen told to put Band-Aids on her niρρles so she wouldn't distract boys at school
Saturday, April 07, 2018
Friday, April 06, 2018
Medically assisted suicide becomes legal in Hawaii
Hawaii became the latest liberal-leaning state to legalize medically assisted suicide Thursday as the governor signed a measure into law allowing doctors to fulfill requests from terminally ill patients to prescribe life-ending medication.
“It is time for terminally ill, mentally competent Hawaii residents who are suffering to make their own end-of-life choices with dignity, grace and peace,” Gov. David Ige said.
Ige said the law was written to ensure the patient is in full control and it provides just one option available for end-of-life care, knowing assisted suicide is not for everyone.
“But we know that we have gotten to a point in our community that it does make sense to give the patient a choice to request the medication, obtain it and take it, or ultimately change their mind,” the governor said.
Hawaii’s heavily Democratic lawmakers approved the legislation late last month. The state joins California, Colorado, Oregon, Vermont, Washington state and the District of Columbia in allowing the practice.
Critics say they are concerned that the option will lead to hasty decisions, misdiagnoses and waning support for palliative care, in which dying people can be sedated to relieve suffering.
The law has safeguards to prevent abuse. Two health care providers are required to confirm a patient’s diagnosis, prognosis, ability to make decisions and that the request is voluntary.
A counselor also must determine that the patient isn’t suffering from conditions that may interfere with decision-making, such as a lack of treatment of depression.
Article
Thursday, April 05, 2018
Wednesday, April 04, 2018
Monday, April 02, 2018
Villanova's title proves it is the best team -- and program -- in all of college basketball
http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/23006199/villanova-title-proves-best-program-all-college-basketball
Melissa Joan Hart Will Star In Nickelodeon’s ‘Clarissa Explains It All’ Reboot
Article Link
If it seems like every Nickelodeon show from the channel’s glory era (basically all of the 1990s) is coming back in one way or another, you’re not wrong! Nick’s nostalgia play isn’t anything new — remember Rugrats: All Grown Up! — but it’s extra noticeable, especially now that Clarissa Explains It All, one of the few childhood shows worth remembering (it’s good!), is getting a fancy reboot.
The original series, which ran from 1991 to 1994, starred Melissa Joan Hart as Clarissa, who, as you might have heard, explained it all. (She and her best friend Sam also had an unlimited ladder budget.) The actress is expected to return, except now “she would play the mother of the family. Series creator Mitchell Kriegman is also in talks to return to write and executive produce.”
As for the other show Joan Hart is known for (it’s not her one-episode appearance on Just Shoot Me!): last year, Netflix picked up Sabrina the Teenage Witch for a two-season order with Mad Men‘s Kiernan Shipka. Ferguson W. Darling is not expected to appear in either series.
China hits the United States with tariffs on $3 billion of exports
Click for Article
China is showing the United States that it will make good on its trade threats.
The Chinese government said that tariffs on about $3 billion worth of US imports are going into effect Monday, hitting 128 products ranging from pork to steel pipes.
It's the latest move in escalating tensions between the world's two largest economies, which some experts fear could turn into a trade war.
Beijing says the new sanctions on 128 US products, which it first proposed 10 days ago, are in response to President Donald Trump's tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum from China and some other countries.
But Trump also has more measures in the works aimed specifically at China. He has announced plans to slap tariffs on about $50 billion worth of Chinese goods following an investigation by his administration into the theft of intellectual property from US companies.
Related: The world is on the brink of a trade war
It's unclear how China will respond to those aggressive measures. The Trump administration hasn't yet detailed which Chinese products will be affected. For now, Beijing is focusing on its response to the steel and aluminum tariffs.
China's commerce and finance ministries said in statements late Sunday that authorities are imposing tariffs of 15% on 120 American products -- such as fruits, nuts, wine and steel pipes -- and 25% on eight other products, including pork and recycled aluminum.
China is upset that Trump imposed the steel and aluminum tariffs on the grounds of national security, which Beijing says is an abuse of global trade rules.
Since first announcing the metal tariffs, the White House has said it will spare a number of allies from the measures, including Canada, Mexico, the European Union and South Korea.
China's Ministry of Commerce said in its statement late Sunday that those exemptions "seriously violate" World Trade Organization rules that prohibit members from discriminating against other WTO members.
It said it hoped the US government would withdraw the tariffs "as soon as possible so that the trading of products between China and the United States will return to a normal track."
China has repeatedly said that it doesn't want a trade war but has also warned that it will take "firm and necessary" countermeasures to defend its interests.
In an opinion article Monday, China's official news agency Xinhua warned that Trump's plans to impose further trade measures on China are a "self-defeating gamble" that will cause harm to the American economy.
"Trump's planned tariffs are not only going to hamper the United States' economic well-being and continued progress, and burden its people with higher costs of living, but also pose a grave threat to the current global trading system," the article said.
Trump has long accused Beijing of stealing American jobs through unfair trade practices. He has promised to bring down the United States' huge trade deficit in goods with China, which reached $375 billion last year. But economists have cautioned that tariffs are unlikely to achieve that goal and risk hurting economic growth instead.
Top US and Chinese officials have been holding talks in an effort to stop the trade tensions from spiraling out of control. But so far, neither side is backing down.
Experts say they expect further retaliation from China once the Trump administration reveals more details on which products its planned $50 billion in tariffs will target.
Arthur Kroeber, a founding partner at economic research firm Gavekal, predicted in a note to clients late last month that the next round of Chinese measures will focus on US agricultural exports from predominantly Trump-voting states.
China's approach is to show it's willing to stand up to the United States but without going as far as seriously disrupting the global trading system, according to Kroeber.
China wants "to position itself as the good guy in the global economy, protecting the rules of the game from Trump's lawless attacks," he wrote.
Sunday, April 01, 2018
New Asian-American, Brazilian apostles make Mormon history
The Mormon church made history and injected a bit of diversity into a previously all-white top leadership panel on Saturday by selecting the first-ever Latin-American apostle and the first-ever apostle of Asian ancestry.
The selections of Ulisses Soares of Brazil and Gerrit W. Gong, a Chinese-American, were announced during a twice-annual conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City. The choices triggered excitement among a contingent of Mormons who for years have been hoping for the faith's top leadership to be more representative of a religion that has more than half of the its 16 million members outside the United States.
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