Vice President Joe Biden’s meeting Saturday with Senator Elizabeth Warren doesn’t necessarily mean a Biden-Warren ticket for 2016, but it showed Democratic party activists and donors how seriously he’s pondering a late run for president.
The private, surprise session between the vice president and Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat once seen as Hillary Clinton’s strongest challenger for the nomination, comes at a pivotal point in the contest.
After his son Beau’s death in May from brain cancer, Biden has been shifting from not ruling out a run against Clinton to a posture in which he and backers are strategically, if mostly behind the scenes, testing his viability in early voting states and among uncommitted, major Democratic donors.
While Clinton remains the frontrunner, with support from key donors and organizers locked down, mounting concerns about how she’s handled questions about her use of a private e-mail server while secretary of state have increased support for Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, a socialist who many in the Democratic establishment believe can’t win a general election.
Warren supporters comprise an energetic and significant element of the Democratic base. Clinton, who also understands Warren’s importance in the party, met privately with her last December.
By Maria Guardado | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
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on August 22, 2015 at 7:38 PM, updated August 22, 2015 at 11:50 PM
Open-water swimming sensation Charlotte Samuels made history on Saturday by becoming the first person to swim 21 miles across the New York Bight.
NJ teen prepares to make 20-mile swim from Long Island to Jersey ShoreCharlotte Samuels, of Ridgewood, is preparing to swim 20 miles from Long Island to the Jersey Shore. This should be no problem after what she accomplished last summer, swimming the 28-mile Manhattan Island Marathon Swim, the 20-mile Catalina Channel and the 21-mile English Channel. (Video by John Munson | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)
Samuels, 17, began her journey at approximately 7:20 a.m. on Long Island’s Atlantic Beach and finished on the northern edge of Sea Bright, N.J., at 4:50 p.m. Though the Ridgewood teen had estimated that the swim would take 12 to 16 hours, she ended up cruising to a sub-10-hour finish.
While 10 hours in the water may seem daunting, it was a relatively smooth ride for Samuels, who last year completed a pair of 20-hour swims en route to becoming the world’s youngest Triple Crown swimmer.
AUGUST 24, 2015 LAST UPDATED: MONDAY, AUGUST 24, 2015, 8:20 AM
BY CHRIS HARRIS
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
RIDGEWOOD — Recent discussions at Village Council meetings over what should be done with the Schedler property — 7 acres of wooded land the village purchased six years ago — have resurrected age-old allegations in town of political favoritism.
At the council’s work session Aug. 12, a handful of speakers contended that Ridgewood was a divided community where a collective “east versus west” mind-set was pervasive and that village officials had long overlooked their neighborhood on the far east side. They said decisions about the Schedler property reflected bias against residents of their neighborhood.
Generally, the railroad tracks are considered the dividing line. However, Route 17 severs a triangular tract on the east that touches both Washington Township and Ho-Ho-Kus from the larger portion of the village, which is home to the Village Hall, the central business district and all the village’s schools.
That neighborhood runs from Route 17 to just beyond Van Emburgh Avenue, and from Racetrack Road on the north down to Linwood Avenue.
RBSA- Welcome Home – Celebration for U-14 – Monday, August 24th
The RBSA will hold a victory celebration for the U14 Ridgewood Junior League All Star team, winners of the Junior Little League East Region Championship. The team is competing the week of August 16-23 in the Junior League Baseball World Series in Taylor, Michigan. There will be a welcome home celebration taking place on Monday, August 24 between 2-4pm at Van Neste Park in the Village of Ridgewood. The team will have a police escort down East Ridgewood Avenue to the park, where they will be greeted by Mayor Paul Aronsohn, the Town Council and town residents to commemorate their accomplishments.
There will be food and music. Please come out to line the streets in celebration as we welcome home our U14 East Region champions.
Ridgewood NJ, News 12 reported that the Bergen County Fire Chief’s Association and other fire officials are calling for an update to New Jersey’s fire code. According to Bergen County’s Fire Chief Association the State of New Jersey is Still using pre-Avolon fire ,fire codes from 2006. Look at all the build being planned in Ridgewood alone then think about all the multi family high density units being built all over Bergen County .
News 12 cited fire experts claiming that would not be enough to prevent another massive Avolon type fire like the one in Edgewater in January . The new codes would ban buildings over three stories, firewalls between every ten units and sprinklers between floors.Under current building codes the entire Avolon apartments can be rebuild from the same plans .
In speeches and writings, Chinese President Xi Jinping often delivers the rhetoric of a Communist Party hardliner. And yet more than ever, capitalists worldwide are depending upon this Leninist – one who is in the midst of a power struggle – to prop up the global economy.
Concerns about China contributed to Wall Street’s biggest one-day sell-off last week since 2011, and the slide could continue when markets reopen on Monday.
Friday’s rout was triggered by a report that China’s manufacturing output had dipped to its lowest point since the 2009 global economic crisis. Investors increasingly fear China’s slowdown could be a tipping point for many emerging economies, many of whom grew dependent on selling commodities to China during its go-go days.
The 531-point drop in the Dow on Friday wasn’t all about China, of course. Investors also are worried about inflated equity prices, dropping oil prices, and the possibility the U.S. Federal Reserve could soon approve an interest rate hike. But China’s economic troubles loom large.
“The market may have overreacted,” said Charles Morrison, an Asia-Pacific expert who heads the East West Center in Honolulu. “But the Chinese manufacturing slowdown is a data point that creates concerns worldwide, because China’s manufacturing sucks up so much of the world’s resources.”
By some measures, China’s economy has grown to be equal in size with that of the United States, and it is still growing at a rate of roughly 7 percent yearly. But that’s a slowdown from previous years, and the impact is huge on China’s trade partners.
Stocks aren’t quite as immune to financial disruption in the middle of 2015 as they had been previously. The last major, comprehensive selloff was also in tandem with “dollar” disorder back last October 15. This time, the motion was more erosion than “event”; at least until the past week. Just like crude oil, stocks lost their momentum back in early May (and broader index price indications dating back to last July and the first “dollar” rumble) and had more or less been stuck like the yuan doing nothing until the open break recently.
“Savage Speed” – A Look Inside Market Crash Statistics
Submitted by Salil Mehta via Statistical Ideas blog,
It was surely a frightening week in global financial markets. The largest 500 American stocks (S&P) dropped 6%. China’s Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) doubled this risk, as it dropped 12%. Now there is an overall fear in the markets that we have not seen in years. While these perilous risk statistics should not be something new, thesurprising jolt this week provides a renewed opportunity to review crash measures within a broader context, to boldly target your portfolio.
Let’s look at the worst weekly loss for the S&P, in each month from 2007 through August 14 (or right up until last week). Geometrically approximated for symmetry. We see in blue that the distribution of this monthly “worst weekly loss” has generally been similar to the same ranked values from the past couple of years (2103/2014). Now towards the bottom of the chart we can better ascertain that the more severe “worst weekly losses”, were even worse in the years earlier than this (so 2007 through 2012).
We’ll prove out these numerical measurements here, but if you are dispassionate about the mathematics then don’t fear. Please just skim what is immediately below -and head straight to the first illustration afterwards- to continue reading. In October 2008, the worst weekly risk was -20% (this makes October the 24th worst month for “worst weekly loss” of 24 months in 2007/2008). Hence it is plotted in red ~98 percentile at the bottom of the vertical axis below. Not perfectly the 100th percentile (0% rank) due to probability math. Also in the same 2007/2008 series, the next worst month for the “worst weekly loss” statistic was the following month of November. That month saw a -9% change and being 2nd worst out of 24 means being ranked about 4% higher on the vertical axis, from where the -20% data is shown:
Global Trade In Freefall: Container Freight Rates From Asia To Europe Crash 60% In Three Weeks
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 08/23/2015 12:42 -0400
Three weeks ago, when we last looked at the collapse in trade along what may be the most trafficked route involving China, i.e., from Asia to Northern Europe, we noted that while that particular shipping freight rate Europe had crashed some 23% on just one week, there was some good news: at least the Baltic Dry index was still inexplicably rising, and at last check it was hovering just above 1,100.
That is no longer the case, and just as with everything else in recent months, the Baltic Dry dead cat bounce is now over, with the BDIY topping out just above 1200 on August 4, and now back in triple digit territory, rapidly sliding back to the reality of recent record lows which a few months ago we suggested hinted that much more is wrong with global trade, and the global economy, than artificially manipulated stock markets would admit.
Debt Is Good: For Funding The Greatest Participation Trophy Ever Created
Submitted by Mark St.Cyr,
As the capital markets from Shanghai to New York were melting down in ways hearkening back to the early days of the prior financial crisis – a period of time many would like to forget (or act) as if it never happened – the Nobel Laureate economist Paul Krugman decided it was time once again to weigh in with what will surely be viewed by the so-called “smart crowd” as a brilliant perspective on what ails the world: Not enough debt.
The title of his Op-Ed in the New York Times™ seemed to borrow directly from one of Wall Street’s most celebrated fictional characters Gordon Gekko when he delivered the now immortal line “Greed, for lack of a better word: Is good.” For Mr. Krugman however, there was no need of a “better word” qualifier. He came out blazing with what seems the only bullet in his arsenal as a cure-all for what ever the ailment might be (e.g., debt.) as he argues this view in his latest: Debt Is Good.
As I read, I found myself repeatedly either laughing, or with my head in my hands. What seemed lost on Mr. Krugman was the irony of not only his timing, but also the glaring front-of-mind examples real people, with real issues, currently have that are entirely interchangeable as to replace his call for action; and replace it with the actions they are currently living through. All of which are both suggested as well as endorsed by him and his ilk.
U.S. Representative Scott Garrett
Ernest Scott Garrett is the U.S. Representative for New Jersey’s 5th congressional district, serving since 2003. He is a member of the Republican Party. The district includes much of the northern-most and western-most portions of the state.
Born: July 9, 1959 (age 56), Englewood, NJ
Office: Representative (R-NJ 5th District) since 2003
Spouse: Mary Garrett
Residence: Wantage Township, NJ
Children: Brittany Garrett, Jennifer Garrett
Education: Rutgers School of Law–Camden (1984), Montclair State University (1981)
WBTP Meeting 7 pm, Tuesday, August 25 at the Larkin House 380 Godwin Ave in Wyckoff NJ all are welcome
The trendy nutritional advice that’s more likely to make you ill than healthy
Isabel Hardman and Lara Prendergast 22 August 2015
The supermarket aisle has become a confusing place. It used to be full of recognisable items like cheese and butter; now you find yourself bamboozled by all manner of odd alternatives such as ‘raw’ hummus, wheat-free bread and murky juices. You have to stay pretty alert to make sure you pick up a pint of proper milk, rather than a soy-based alternative or one free from lactose. Supermarkets have become shrines to ‘clean eating’, a faith that promises happiness, healthiness and energy. Food is to be worshipped — and feared.
As with all growing religions, you know it by its disciples. On The Great British Bake Off, one contestant, Ugne Bubnaityte, has denounced cake as a ‘nutritional sin’ and she hopes to win with low-fat, vegan and gluten-free recipes. Commercially, she’s on to a winner: the market for gluten-free food is soaring and is forecast to grow by 46 per cent, to £560 million, within two years. For those who can’t wait, there’s always the NHS, which wrote 211,200 prescriptions for low-protein or gluten-free food last year (including cakes and pizza). As Dr James Cave, editor of the Drugs & Therapeutics Bulletin, puts it, the NHS is ‘acting as bakers and grocers’.
The high priestesses of this new religion are a group of young, attractive women who amass hundreds of thousands of followers online as more and more people turn to them for guidance. Essentially recipe bloggers, they are becoming revered for telling us what to eat and what not to eat. In an age of confusion, they seem to offer a path.
There’s 25-year-old Madeleine Shaw, a ‘holistic nutritional health coach’ who believes in ‘enlivening the hottest, happiest and healthiest you’ and offers a ‘chia seed egg substitute’ to use in recipes. Ella Woodward, 23, bounced back from a rare illness after adopting a new plant-based diet and entices her followers with sweet potato brownies. Tess Ward, 23, has written a cookbook called The Naked Diet which replaces the conventional chapter headings — ‘Breakfasts’, ‘Starters’, ‘Mains’, ‘Puddings’ —with ‘Pure’, ‘Raw’, ‘Stripped’, ‘Clean’ and ‘Detox’. And there’s the Hemsley sisters, Jasmine and Melissa, whose bestselling cookbook The Art of Eating Well contains no recipes with grains, gluten or refined sugar.
Woodward recommends raw, rather than pasteurised, coconut water, which is tinted pink ‘because of all those antioxidants’ and warns about the dangers of dairy. Milk, she says, ‘can actually cause calcium loss in our bones! This is because milk causes the pH of our bodies to become acidic which triggers a natural reaction in our bodies to bring the pH of our blood back to neutral’. When we drink milk, she says, calcium is drawn from our bones in order to rebalance the acidity it causes, which can result in a calcium deficit.
By MICHAEL BARBARO, NATE COHN and JEREMY W. PETERSAUG. 22, 2015
In the command centers of Republican presidential campaigns, aides have drawn comfort from the belief that Donald J. Trump’s dominance in the polls is a political summer fling, like Herman Cain in 2011 — an unsustainable boomlet dependent on megawatt celebrity, narrow appeal and unreliable surveys of Americans with a spotty record of actually voting in primaries.
A growing body of evidence suggests that may be wishful thinking.
A review of public polling, extensive interviews with a host of his supporters in two states and a new private survey that tracks voting records all point to the conclusion that Mr. Trump has built a broad, demographically and ideologically diverse coalition, constructed around personality, not substance, that bridges demographic and political divides. In doing so, he has effectively insulated himself from the consequences of startling statements that might instantly doom rival candidates.
In poll after poll of Republicans, Mr. Trump leads among women, despite having used terms like “fat pigs” and “disgusting animals” to denigrate some of them. He leads among evangelical Christians, despite saying he had never had a reason to ask God for forgiveness. He leads among moderates and college-educated voters, despite a populist and anti-immigrant message thought to resonate most with conservatives and less-affluent voters. He leads among the most frequent, likely voters, even though his appeal is greatest among those with little history of voting
AUGUST 21, 2015 LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, AUGUST 21, 2015, 12:31 AM
BY EILEEN LA FORGIA
STAFF WRITER |
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
“It’s a Beautiful World,” original oil paintings by Bob Rizzotti are on exhibit at the Ridgewood Public Library during August. The artist attempts to depict this beauty on canvas so that the visions are meaningful and permanent.
“We see so much conflict and strife yet this earth is truly a place of color and beauty,” he said. A Waldwick resident for 43 years, Bob and his wife Ginny have traveled widely. This exhibit invites the viewer to see these beautiful scenes captured in oil paintings.
“It’s a Beautiful World” will remain on view through the end of the month at the Ridgewood Public Library located at 125 N. Maple Ave. Call 201-670-5600.
Ridgewood NJ, The Valley Hospital was recently awarded gold-level recognition from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for the hospital’s efforts in promoting organ donation. The hospital was recognized as part of the national Workplace Partnership for Life Hospital Campaign, sponsored by HHS’s Health Resources and Services Administration.
The Valley Hospital’s awareness and registry campaigns educated staff, patients, visitors, and community members on the critical need for organ, eye, and tissue donors and thereby increased the number of potential donors on the state’s donor registry.
“Organ donation is such an important issue,” said Bettyann Kempin, Assistant Vice President for Medical and Surgical Services at Valley. “We’re proud to partner with the NJ Sharing Network to be a part of this national campaign to increase awareness about the importance of organ donation.”
Of the 1,856 hospitals and transplants centers enrolled in the campaign, 736 were awarded gold, silver or bronze recognition for effort to promote organ donation during Phase IV of the campaign, between August 1, 2014 and April 30, 2015.
AUGUST 22, 2015, 6:03 PM LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, AUGUST 23, 2015, 12:29 AM
BY CHRISTOPHER MAAG AND MARINA VILLENEUVE
STAFF WRITERS |
THE RECORD
One day after authorities say Fort Lee resident Kevin Downing shot a security guard and then himself inside a federal building in Manhattan, a contradictory image emerged Saturday of Downing as a man by turns warm, sad, distant and obsessed, an Army veteran whose once-bright future gradually dimmed in a series of personal setbacks.
In the late 1990s, Downing was fired after working briefly for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, instigating a 16-year campaign in which he accused the agency of retaliating against him for acting as a whistle-blower. The agency has offices in the same building where the shooting occurred, leading many to believe the attackwas related to Downing’s long-simmering complaints.
The FBI, New York Police Department and the Department of Homeland Security have released little information about the investigation. All the agencies declined to comment Saturday on motives or details in the case.
AUGUST 23, 2015 LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, AUGUST 23, 2015, 12:36 AM
BY MIKE KELLY
RECORD COLUMNIST |
THE RECORD
On an otherwise ordinary Wednesday morning in April, my phone rang.
Kevin Downing of Fort Lee was on the line with a cry for help and a story of hardship — a story I had no idea would take a deadly turn four months later.
Without any apparent warning, Downing, 68, walked into a federal office building in lower Manhattan on Friday, and fatally shot a security guard. Moments later, Downing turned his gun on himself.
This is every journalist’s nightmare — an out-of-the blue phone call from someone who seems entirely rational at the time, yet is harboring a deep and hidden pain that could one day explode into violence.
It is the kind of nightmare that many others face, too — from parents, coaches and teachers to cops, clergy, health care professionals and even mayors and lawmakers. In short, anyone whose job involves listening to someone with a problem.
AUGUST 22, 2015, 11:29 PM LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, AUGUST 23, 2015, 12:37 AM
BY PATRICIA ALEX
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
For a few hundred dollars a semester, some of the pricier private colleges in the United States have long offered tuition insurance — policies that protect families and schools if a student withdraws for medical reasons.
Starting this year, however, tuition insurance is available to any family in New Jersey — no matter where a student goes to school. The company selling it also is offering more expensive plans that cover other “unforeseen reasons” for midsemester withdrawals, including “poor grades or a crisis at home.”
But is it worth the money?
The top executive at Allianz Global Assistance, which won New Jersey’s approval to sell the policies, said the state is ripe for the insurance, given that its tuition costs — even for public colleges — are among the highest in the nation, topping $25,000 a year if a student lives on campus. He said it makes sense to insure what is likely a family’s largest investment, after a home.
“We insure risk, and we saw a market for this,” said Joe Mason, the company’s chief marketing officer. “College isn’t a small investment. You insure your house, your boat, why not college?”
AUGUST 22, 2015, 5:50 PM LAST UPDATED: SATURDAY, AUGUST 22, 2015, 5:54 PM
BY CHRISTOPHER MAAG
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
Approximately 300 protesters crowded the sidewalks on both sides of Main Street in Hackensack on Saturday for a two-hour anti-abortion demonstration outside the offices of Planned Parenthood, one of hundreds that were to take place around the country, including four in New Jersey
The protests were in response to undercover videos released by anti-abortion groups that advocates say show that Planned Parenthood is profiting off the sale of aborted fetuses for medical research. Planned Parenthood has denied that, saying payments they’ve received for fetal tissue merely reimburse their costs and that the statements of the Planned Parenthood officials captured on the videos were taken out of context.
Among the protestors in Hackensack on Saturday was Marjorie Cox, 71, who said she had never before demonstrated or spoken up about her anti-abortion beliefs until she watched the videos.
“I can’t believe this is happening anywhere in the world, let alone in the United States. It’s barbaric,” said Cox, of Maywood. “This is my first time to a protest. Now I’m going to get involved.”
The videos were created by the Center for Medical Progress, an organization founded in 2013 three long-time anti-abortion activists, according to a filing with the California Attorney General.
So far the group has released eight videos. The latest, released Friday, is two minutes long and has been described as a “teaser,” indicating that more videos may be released in the future. The first recording was released in July. Edited down to nine minutes, it shows a secret recording from a two-hour lunch between Dr. Deborah Nucatola, Planned Parenthood’s senior director of medical services, and two people pretending to be buyers of fetal tissue.
“What would you expect for intact tissue?” asked one of the people posing as buyers.
