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Showing posts from July, 2019

Joe Biden’s long record supporting the war on drugs and mass incarceration, explained

Win McNamee/Getty Images Biden was a major Democratic leader in spearheading America’s war on drugs during the 1980s and ’90s. At the Democratic debate on Wednesday night, Democratic candidates ranging from Cory Booker to Julián Castro hit Joe Biden for his long, punitive record on criminal justice. Biden’s record puts him at sharp odds with where Democrats are today: He has one of the most punitive, “tough on crime” records on criminal justice issues within the 2020 field — more so than even opponents Kamala Harris or Amy Klobuchar , both of whom have also been criticized for their records. In fact, Biden was at the center of building federal policies that escalated the war on drugs and mass incarceration. Consider one moment in Biden’s career: In 1989, at the height of punitive anti-drug and mass incarceration politics, Biden, then a senator, went on national television to criticize a plan from President George H.W. Bush to escalate the war on drugs. The plan, Biden said, didn’...
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Biden and Harris go on the attack in Democratic debate

Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden and rival Kamala Harris battled fiercely over their healthcare plans in a debate on Wednesday, picking up where they left off last month when they had an explosive confrontation over race. Reuters: Top News https://ift.tt/2ZmkRRv August 01, 2019 at 04:24AM
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U.S. believes Osama bin Laden's son Hamza is dead: official

The United States believes that Hamza bin Laden, a son of slain al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and himself a notable figure in the militant group, is dead, a U.S. official said on Wednesday. Reuters: Top News https://ift.tt/2GCyZyY August 01, 2019 at 04:22AM
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State AGs fighting T-Mobile, Sprint merger request new trial date in December

An attorney for a group of 13 state attorneys general who filed a lawsuit in hopes of stopping T-Mobile U.S. Inc's $26 billion merger with Sprint Corp has requested a new trial date for the case. Reuters: Top News https://ift.tt/2ZpphHi August 01, 2019 at 04:20AM
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Democratic candidates attack Trump as Democratic presidential debate opens

Democratic presidential contenders attacked Republican President Donald Trump as a demagogue who is ripping apart the country and promised to restore unity during the opening minutes of a debate on Wednesday. Reuters: Top News https://ift.tt/2T0iNwf August 01, 2019 at 03:51AM
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Asian shares falter, dollar jumps as Powell dampens hopes for more rate cuts

Asian shares fell to six-week lows on Thursday and the dollar rose after the U.S. Federal Reserve delivered a 25-basis-point rate cut as expected but poured cold water on market expectations of a lengthy easing cycle. Reuters: Top News https://ift.tt/2ZiEwlr August 01, 2019 at 03:47AM
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2020 Democrats are getting more confrontational with the fossil fuel industry

Sen. Bernie Sanders repeatedly called out the fossil fuel industry as the adversary in the fight against climate change, during the second round of the Democratic presidential debates. | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images It shows just how much the party has moved on energy and climate change. In a stark shift since the last campaign cycle, a significant number of Democratic candidates for president are now aggressively treating the fossil fuel industry as an adversary in the fight against climate change. During Tuesday night’s Democratic debate , Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) called out coal, oil, and natural gas producers in five separate instances. “We have got to be super aggressive if we love our children and if we want to leave them a planet that is healthy and is habitable,” Sanders said. “What that means is we got to take on the fossil fuel industry.” Other 2020 candidates are also confronting major greenhouse gas emitters — and pushing for policies to hold them accountable. Washi...
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Beyond Meat's secondary stock offering priced at $160 per share

Meat alternatives company Beyond Meat Inc said on Wednesday a secondary offering of 3.25 million new shares would be priced at $160 per share, an 18.6% discount to the stock's closing price. Reuters: Top News https://ift.tt/2MtVxFK August 01, 2019 at 03:05AM
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U.S. Military Jet Crashes In Death Valley National Park, Injuring 7 On The Ground

The crash occurred near a viewing area where park visitors watch pilots fly through a chasm known as "Star Wars Canyon." (Image credit: Ben Margot/AP) News : NPR https://ift.tt/2Kk3OZZ August 01, 2019 at 02:54AM
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China, U.S. officials meet for trade talks in Shanghai

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin shook hands with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He before beginning trade talks in Shanghai on Wednesday in a bid to end a year-long trade war. Reuters: Top News https://ift.tt/2YGi5K5 July 31, 2019 at 05:18AM
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Indian coffee tycoon Siddhartha's body found: police

Authorities on Wednesday confirmed they have located the body of Indian coffee baron VG Siddhartha from near Netravathi river, in the southern Indian state of Karnataka. Reuters: Top News https://ift.tt/2SQHVWc July 31, 2019 at 05:16AM
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EARLy bird ticket offer ends tomorrow!

(This article was first published on RBlog – Mango Solutions , and kindly contributed to R-bloggers) R fans, you have just one more day to get your hands on discounted EARL London 2019 tickets. Our early bird offer gets you £100 off the full price ticket, so it makes persuading your boss easier! Visit the EARL website for more details and see 2018’s highlights below: To leave a comment for the author, please follow the link and comment on their blog: RBlog – Mango Solutions . R-bloggers.com offers daily e-mail updates about R news and tutorials on topics such as: Data science , Big Data, R jobs , visualization ( ggplot2 , Boxplots , maps , animation ), programming ( RStudio , Sweave , LaTeX , SQL , Eclipse , git , hadoop , Web Scraping ) statistics ( regression , PCA , time series , trading ) and more... from R-bloggers https://ift.tt/2ZgG1AB via IFTTT
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China probes small bank shareholdings as risk worries persist

China is sharpening its scrutiny of small banks' shareholders amid fears that loans from the lenders to big investors could prove a weak point in the country's financial system, jolted by the state's weekend rescue of one lender and recent takeover of another. Reuters: Top News https://ift.tt/2YAVrT7 July 31, 2019 at 05:11AM
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Grades Aren’t Normal

(This article was first published on R – Curtis Miller's Personal Website , and kindly contributed to R-bloggers) Introduction This article is also available in PDF form. A while back someone posted on Reddit about the grading policies of their academic department. Specifically, the department chair made a statement claiming that grades should be Normally distributed with a C average. I responded, claiming that no statistician would ever take the idea that grades follow a Normal distribution seriously. Some asked for context, and I wrote a long response explaining my position. I repeat that argument here, and also give some R code demonstrations showing what curving grades does. Grades Are Not Naturally Normal A cheap shot would be to say that Normal random variables have no minimum or maximum so since there is a minimum or maximum grade, grades cannot be Normally distributed. This is a cheap shot because lots of phenomena that’s effectively bounded this way are ...
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