SOTT
SIGNS
OF THE
TIMES
OF THE
TIMES
Welcome to Sott.net
The World for People who Think
Society's ChildS
Co-op, fifth biggest supermarket chain in Britain, emphasizes it will continue doing business with companies that can guarantee none of their products come from outside the Green Line.
Terry Jones
The newspaper said Jones and another pastor, who carried out their protest in front of their church in Gainesville, Florida on Saturday, demanded the release of Christian pastor Youcef Nadarkhani from an Iranian prison.
© Sarah Gilbert
Never mind that Martin Luther fired up the Reformation because of them: Plenary Indulgences are back.
© Minyanville
Mother Jones has picked up on an outrageous report out of Minnesota, where two elementary school students claim they're given a measly 10 to 11 minutes to eat lunch. 10 to 11 minutes! Let's break that down. That's one to two minutes getting served food with highly questionable nutritional content, another minute trying to squeeze a seat in at the cool-kid's table. Finally, these sixth graders are given a whopping seven minutes to socialize -- and do I dare say, enjoy themselves -- and, oh yeah, carefully chew and digest their food. School administrations might shave off another minute if they switched to edible packing, allowing students to avoid a trip to the garbage by saving their trash for an afternoon snack.
Fast eating among US students is an unfortunate nationwide norm. The School Nutrition Association, whose mission it is to educate and empower its members to provide healthy meals for children, estimates students have on average 25 minutes to eat lunch. Cost restrictions are equally as tight. Even with new federal guidelines, which provide more funding for fresh and healthful foods in cafeterias, schools have less than $3.00 per a student to spend on mealtime. That's roughly the cost of large cup of coffee at your local Starbucks.
Apple responded today to criticism that the company goes to great lengths to cut its global tax bill by billions of dollars every year, trumpeting the "incredible number of jobs" it has created.
The statement was in response to an in-depth report published yesterday by The New York Times that depicted Apple as a pioneer in developing ways to sidestep taxes and that claimed companies seeking to do the same have used its methods as templates. "Apple serves as a window on how technology giants have taken advantage of tax codes written for an industrial age and ill-suited to today's digital economy," the Times reported.
In response, Apple said it was one of the biggest taxpayers in the U.S.
Yet, with a handful of employees in a small Reno office in a company subsidiary named Braeburn Capital, Apple has done something central to its corporate strategy: it has avoided millions of dollars in taxes in California and 20 other US states.
Apple's headquarters are in Cupertino, California. By putting an office to collect and invest the company's profits in Reno, just 350 kilometres away, Apple sidesteps state income taxes on some of those gains.
California's corporate tax rate is 8.84 per cent. Nevada's, zero.
Setting up an office in Reno is one of many legal methods Apple uses to reduce its worldwide tax bill by billions of dollars a year.
© Jen Lebron Kuhney A San Diego Police officer collects evidence at the scene of Saturday's assault at Mount Hope Cemetery.
Police said that Joseph Ramirez, 30, of San Diego took three of his children to the cemetery on Market Street just before 4:30 p.m. and starting slicing the forearms of his 8-year-old son. Ramirez reportedly had been hearing the voice of his dead grandmother in his head.
The incident began while Jaymisha Pires and Corey Granberry, both 21, were visiting the cemetery to visit the grave of Granberry's godson. Pires confronted Ramirez, begging him to release the boy.
"My motherly instincts kicked in when I saw him hurting that little boy," said Pires, who has children aged 6 and 2. "It was a blur. I just wanted him to stop."
Romeo Langlois
It is believed Romeo Langlois may have been kidnapped by the rebels.
He has not been seen since the firefight, prompting French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe to make a statement saying his government is liasing with Bogota.
Langlois had been following the security forces as they tracked the FARC members.
The Colombian Defence Minister Juan Carlos Pinzon described what he had been told about the last sighting of Langlois.
© unknown
Now, the makers of the popular hazelnut-flavoured spread have agreed to a $3-million settlement to end four class-action suits filed in the United States that claimed that Nutella engaged in misleading marketing to portray its product as a healthy part of breakfast.
The women alleged they and other consumers were duped by Nutella television ads, which used words like "nutritious" and "healthy," and by the company's website, which quoted a nutritionist.
Nutella contains little protein and consists primarily of sugar and modified palm oil, the plaintiffs said in court documents.
They also noted that in 2008 a British advertising watchdog had determined that Nutella's manufacturers ran similarly misleading ad campaigns in the United Kingdom.
The settlement, which was reached earlier this spring, will be reviewed before approval at court hearings in California and New Jersey in July.
© unknownWhaley, 23, is facing one count of first-degree murder. He is being held without bond at the Polk County Jail.
Christopher Chase Whaley allegedly stabbed Barbara Denmark repeatedly while she bathed.
According to a Polk County Sheriff's Office report the suspect had gotten into an argument with Denmark, 69, and his aunt, Cassandra Pippin, on Saturday. The suspect was in Daytona Beach at the time and allegedly decided to kill the pair when he returned home.
Detectives say Whaley had been living with Denmark in her Lake Wales mobile home for at least the past five years.
When the suspect arrived home he went into his bedroom and thought about committing the murders. Whaley then went to the kitchen, grabbed two knives and attacked his grandmother in the tub.
The report states he left the bathroom and when he came back she was out of the tub and on the floor. Whaley checked but found her unresponsive and called 9-1-1. The suspect apparently decided not to kill Pippin, who also lives in Polk County.
When deputies arrived Whaley met them and turned himself in. He was arrested on one count of first degree murder and transported to the Polk County Jail.
Comment: Sott has carried many excellent articles about the detriment of sugar consumption:
Sugar High: The Dark History and Nasty Methods Used to Feed Our Sweet Tooth
Sugar Should Be Regulated As Toxin, Researchers Say
Addicted to Sugar?
Stopping Addiction to Sugar: Willpower or Genetics?
Sugar Addiction is Real
Sweet Sabotage: The Harsh Reality of Sugar, Sugar Substitutes and "Natural Sweeteners"