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MINOR SPOILERS FOR THE RINGS OF POWER EPISODE ONE!
“Among those of [Morgoth’s] servants that have names the greatest was that spirit whom the Eldar called Sauron..,.in all the deeds of Melkor the Morgoth upon Arda, in his vast works and in the deceits of his cunning, Sauron had a part, and was only less evil than his master in that for long he served another and not himself. But in after years he rose like a shadow of Morgoth and a ghost of his malice, and walked behind him on the same ruinous path down into the Void.”
– The Silmarillion: Valaquenta, p. 23
Although Amazon was denied access to the contents of The Silmarillion (and it’s evident from the opening scene just to what extent this has hindered their ability to tell a coherent story), The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power is best described as a Silmarillion sequel of similarly gargantuan proportions, and not as a prequel to The Lord Of The Rings, despite how Amazon and the mainstream media have jointly marketed the series, and what its long and unwieldy full title would perhaps lead you to believe…and I mean that not merely in the sense that The Rings Of Power picks up right where The Silmarillion left off, with the great enemy Morgoth defeated and his lieutenant Sauron still evading capture in Middle-earth, but in that the writers have constructed an original story around these events that feels almost too large for even this largest and most expensive of television series’ – a grand and somber narrative spanning centuries, with a massive ensemble cast given precious few moments to leave a lasting impression in these first two episodes.
Yet on that note, there are hundreds upon hundreds of named characters in The Silmarillion, many of whom only stick around for a couple of pages and some of whom are mentioned just once or twice in a single paragraph, and these characters have nonetheless made an impression on people – so I firmly believe that the protagonists of Amazon’s epic series will do the same, especially seeing as the main cast already have more screentime in just two episodes than most of The Silmarillion‘s main characters had in a whole book. Still not as much as they deserve, mind you, but just enough that you’ll know going into episode three which of these characters you’ll want to spend more time with – and I can say without a shadow of a doubt that, for me, those characters are Elanor Brandyfoot (Markella Kavenagh), Elrond (Robert Aramayo), and Disa (Sophia Nomvete), the latter of whom I’ll speak about in my review of episode two.
Collectively, these three characters represent almost all the Free Peoples of Middle-earth – Harfoots, Elves, and Dwarves, respectively – and at this point I’m just waiting for a charismatic human character to come along and give me a reason to get invested in the dealings of Men. Nazanin Boniadi does her level best with the character of Bronwyn, a shy and unassuming single mother from the Southlands who falls in love with a Silvan Elf, but humans in The Rings Of Power are the most underwritten of all the races that make up Middle-earth’s diverse population. To some extent, that could be interpreted as a reflection of their current social status in Middle-earth and an unconscious bias on the part of our Elven protagonists and narrator, but I have a feeling it’s probably not intentional.
Nonetheless, with so many different peoples represented in just the first two episodes, even if only briefly, the scope of this series is quite large – as I said, almost too large. In episode one, following a necessarily vague and therefore somewhat unhelpful prologue that is memorable mostly for the fact that it’s the first time we’ve seen events from The Silmarillion adapted for the screen, we flash-forward to find our main characters scattered far and wide across Middle-earth, each isolated to their own little corner of the map where they can pursue their own agendas untroubled. And while I’m hardly the first person to say this, it bears repeating that each location we visit is distinct and extraordinarily beautiful, from the rolling hills of Valinor bathed in unearthly light to the cliffs of Lindon overlooking the young sea, and the tumbling ladders of crystalline ice suspended from mountaintops in the Forodwaith.
In fact, not to get side-tracked or anything, but I can’t overstate it enough that The Rings Of Power is beautiful; genuinely some of the most beautiful television ever produced. Director J.A. Bayona definitely got the memo that Middle-earth is as much a character in Tolkien’s stories as any Elf or Hobbit, and just as deserving of flattering close-ups every now and again. If there’s one fault with Bayona’s direction, it’s that whenever his camera comes to rest just over a character’s shoulder during a reverse-angle dialogue sequence, he has a tendency to leave it there for the duration of the scene, which grows especially frustrating when the environments in which these characters are placed are clearly practical sets demanding – nay, pleading – to be interacted with and walked upon! I’m not feeling the energy that these sets inspired in the actors, and which they could have used to their advantage if they were allowed to ever move about.
Anyway, forgive me my occasional tangents. We’re first introduced to the Elves – an immortal race of beings from beyond the Sundering Seas who reside in Middle-earth partly out of genuine love for the land, and partly because the land was bought with their own blood. Characters like Elrond, who are relatively young in Elven years, have a vision of what Middle-earth could be if the Elves finally laid down their weapons and allowed themselves to be at peace for once in their lives, while Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) is still poking around in dark corners, searching for any sign of Sauron, the undefeated enemy responsible for so much of her sorrow.
Conceptually, Galadriel’s arc is quite the compelling one – and the idea that there are Elves who wish for her to stop, and would even conspire with each other to send her packing and put an end to the war she insists on prolonging for her own purposes, is all rather fascinating. In execution, it only works half the time. Legally, The Rings Of Power can’t plumb the depths of Galadriel’s trauma without encroaching upon territory covered exclusively in The Silmarillion, including the gruesome details of her elder brother Finrod (Will Fletcher)’s death at the hands of Sauron. We only spend a few moments with Finrod in waking life before he’s dead, suddenly, at which point Galadriel embarks on her quest for vengeance.
Galadriel has been hunting Sauron for centuries by the time we catch up with her in the Northern Wastes, and is still hot on his heels, but we as the audience are only allowed one quick glimpse of the Dark Lord (conveniently wearing a familiar suit of full-body armor) – and while we can all agree that he looks absolutely fantastic, I can’t help but wonder if one shot is enough to convince fans, particularly casual fans who aren’t aware of the atrocities Sauron committed while serving under Morgoth, just what a threat he poses to Middle-earth. Sure, poisoned cow’s milk in Tirharad and decayed mallorn leaves in Lindon are an indication that he’s probably up to no good, but until orcs start popping up in the Southlands in episode two, the only tangible antagonist is a single hungry snow-troll that stupidly attempts to ambush Galadriel in a cave.
Still, one could argue that the Elves are the antagonists of their own story – for indeed, it’s their pride, their stubbornness, and their misplaced confidence in their own might that leads the High King of the Noldor, Gil-galad (Benjamin Walker), to dismiss all of the evidence piling up as just a string of coincidences out of which Galadriel has constructed a false narrative that Sauron has returned. In that sense, too, The Rings Of Power is much like The Silmarillion: for at their core they are both stories of Elven failings. Where the stories may differ slightly, and where The Rings Of Power certainly differs from previous adaptations of Tolkien’s work, is that The Rings Of Power doesn’t depict the Elves as ethereal or untouchable to the point where their aloof attitude is ever justified.
Nor are they capable of the same gravity-defying feats that Peter Jackson’s Elves effortlessly pulled off in The Hobbit trilogy. In fact, physically, they’re almost indistinguishable from humans. Some might consider this a downgrade – personally, I find it to be an intriguing stylistic choice that unexpectedly serves a thematic purpose in the story. For if Elves look just like humans, and they act just like humans, then the only thing differentiating them from humans is their immortality – and for a human, to look at an Elf and see nothing there so vastly different from themselves that it could be said to warrant the gift of immortal life being bestowed to one and not the other, that would be weird and a little conflicting. On top of that, the Elves and humans are still pretty close in the Second Age, so these are people the humans know well, and regard as friends, if not nearly family.
Well, mostly. In Middle-earth’s Southlands, where Elves were assigned to watch over the descendants of humans who followed Morgoth during the First Age, there’s a clear divide between the two peoples that is widening with each passing day – and only Bronwyn and a Silvan Elf named Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova) have any interest in bridging that divide. While their relationship is described in romantic terms by supporting characters in-universe (Arondir is harshly reminded by his Elven compatriots that two prior unions between Elves and Men ended tragically), I have not yet discerned this apparently palpable chemistry of which they speak. It’s only when the two characters find themselves suddenly standing on the front lines of the war for Middle-earth that I was even convinced they cared for each other.
Still, while neither Arondir nor Bronwyn is particularly high on my list of characters I cared about deeply after watching the first two episodes, I’m nonetheless curious about life in the Southlands for both the Silvan Elves and the descendants of Morgoth’s worshippers, and I wish The Rings Of Power used its time as wisely as it did its enormous budget; perhaps then we could have explored the conflict between Elves and Men with some proper nuance and avoided awkward moments…like when a kid refers to Arondir by the name “Knife-Ears” (I need writers to stop inventing fantasy slurs, please for the love of Eru, stop), or when Arondir tells Bronwyn that the residents of a nearby village were especially loyal to Morgoth in the old days, as if it hasn’t been over a thousand years since then – you’re telling me that the people of these two neighboring villages didn’t intermingle and intermarry to the point where such labels would be meaningless after a few generations?
I suppose it’s not so bizarre that an Elf would think that way, but that one line – well, that and Bronwyn’s immediate rebuttal that the people in the village are “good people”, close kin of hers – doesn’t make for the most thorough exploration of the subject. And unfortunately, Bronwyn is interrupted before she can say anything more, when she and Arondir find the village in question deserted. That’s the end of that conversation, and as of episode two the writers have not yet picked up this story-thread again.
That sort of thing happens a lot in the first two episodes of The Rings Of Power (not that specific scenario, just scenes being interrupted before they can reach their seemingly natural conclusion), which is why I take issue with complaints that the pacing is slow. I felt as though the first episode raced by! The moments that stand out to me in these episodes, generally, are the still and contemplative moments that have been given space to breathe – when the show isn’t rushing on to the next thing but instead allowing us to live in the present with characters we adore, set amidst beautiful scenery or on any of those magnificent practical sets I mentioned before. I think that’s one reason why both Elrond and Elanor got through to me, because they’re the two characters who benefit most from such moments in the first episode.
The time we spend with the Harfoots in episode one, for example, is time well-spent establishing characters and character dynamics that will be easy to remember going forward. Elanor Brandyfoot is an inquisitive young Harfoot who wants to see the great wide world off the beaten path that the Harfoots take each year as they migrate back-and-forth across the same familiar patch of land in Rhovanion (a patch of land that by the time of The Lord Of The Rings had become an “unfriendly waste”, blasted by some “pestilence or war or evil deed of the Enemy” – so make a mental note of that). Her best friend, Poppy Proudfellow (Megan Richards), is the prehistoric Samwise Gamgee to her prehistoric Frodo Baggins; well, perhaps not quite as fascinated by Elves as Sam would be, but no less willing to help her friend out of a tight situation at a moment’s notice.
Even outside of these two characters, I felt that we really got to know the Harfoots, individually and collectively, who they are and what they stand for, as they spend the entire first episode preparing for a festival to mark the end of summer (who wants to bet it’s held on September 22nd?), while avoiding “Big People” and other dangerous creatures wandering across their lands. There are several character actors with small but memorable roles sprinkled amongst the Harfoots, including legendary British comedian Sir Lenny Henry as an elderly sage named Sadoc Burrows who is in possession of the Harfoots’ only book – and is the only Harfoot capable of reading it. Thusitha Jayasundera is also delightful as Malva, a gossip constantly prophesying doom who hangs around Sadoc in the hopes that he’ll spill some secrets from his dusty old book.
Because it’s not until the very end of episode one that something momentous actually happens to the Harfoots in the form of an old man falling from the sky (more on him in my review of episode two), the Harfoots are, for the time being, relatively inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. As Elanor’s mother Marigold (Sara Zwangobani) tries to explain to her, the Harfoots don’t need to get involved in Big People business because they have each other, they always have and they always will, and that’s always been enough. Therefore, while it comes as no surprise that the Harfoots are easily the most endearing characters in The Rings Of Power, I was personally shocked to discover that their subplot is also one of the most interesting, even before the arrival of the aforementioned Stranger (Daniel Weyman).
Of course, it’s because the Harfoots make the most of their limited screentime that this is the case – and I’m sure I’d feel the same way about Elves or Men if we had spent a little more time getting to know them as actual characters – but I think part of it, at least for me, is that the Harfoots, alone of all the Free Peoples we’ve met (with the possible exception of the Dwarves, but they don’t show up until episode two), are unfamiliar in a way that is particularly immersive, because it underscores how far removed this story is from the events of The Lord Of The Rings.
To put it another way, when we first enter the Elf-kingdom of Lindon in episode one, I felt at-home right away because The Rings Of Power uses all the same design cues for the Elves and their architecture that Peter Jackson did – Lindon is, much like Jackson’s interpretation of Rivendell, a web of open-concept porticos and colonnades draped across cliffs and autumnal woodlands. It’s beautiful, don’t get me wrong, but it does make me feel as though I’m returning to Middle-earth the way that Peter Jackson conceived it, when really I want to see something different, something new (is it any wonder Elanor is my favorite character?). When we meet the Harfoots, living not yet in cozy holes in the ground but in tents and small carts in the middle of the woods, rather like the Nelwyn from 1988’s Willow…that was the moment Rings Of Power first pulled me out of my comfort-zone, and it felt wonderful.
In that moment, I wasn’t returning to Middle-earth – I was being reintroduced to this world and these characters as I’ve never seen them before onscreen or even in the pages of J.R.R. Tolkien’s books. I can predict each step the Harfoots will have to take for them to transform over time into the Hobbits of the Third Age, but I’m enjoying this take on the Harfoots so much that I don’t need to see them evolve any time soon – and in just five seasons, I don’t know that The Rings Of Power could even believably get them to the point where they’d be recognizable from The Lord Of The Rings, decked out with late 19th Century accoutrements like pocket-watches, parasols, and floral-printed waistcoats with brass buttons.
That being said, The Rings Of Power covers over five-hundred years of Middle-earth’s history in a prologue under five minutes long (though there’s enough intentionally vague imagery in there that you’ll still want to check out my recent Silmarillion summary so you can pick up on easily-overlooked details) before jumping forward a few thousand years to an indeterminate point on the timeline somewhere near the end of the Second Age, so it’s clear now that the writers are taking many liberties with the chronology where they feel it suits their story to have, say, Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards) alive simultaneously to the last Númenóreans.
I can’t honestly say that it bothers me every time the Tale of Years has been slightly altered, but I do find it strange that the character dynamics amongst the Elves don’t at all reflect their canonical age differences – Elrond and Galadriel, for instance, speak to each other as if they’re roughly the same age, when in truth Galadriel is anywhere between 5000 to 24000 years old in The Rings Of The Power, while Elrond, at a mere 1500 years old, is young enough to be her future son-in-law. Gil-galad and Celebrimbor are a generation younger than Galadriel, yet both are played as if they’re much older, and portrayed by middle-aged actors to boot.
I have no desire to dissect every moment in the first episode that I would consider “lore-breaking”, because inevitably that will turn into nit-picking and in fact I’m quite satisfied with how The Rings Of Power has turned out, so if that’s the kind of coverage you’re expecting I urge you to continue your search elsewhere besides my blog. Just to give you a sense of what kind of thing irritated me, and because I think it will irritate me for a long time yet and I need to share this burden with my readers, I was…deeply conflicted when Gil-galad granted Galadriel permission to return across the Sundering Seas to Valinor, as if he possessed the authority to do so. On the one hand, I understand that it would be exceedingly difficult to explain why Galadriel is banned from heading west without mentioning her crimes against the Valar in the First Age that Amazon can’t legally mention, but also…it just felt so wrong.
On a more positive note, while I expected to be extremely critical of the original dialogue written for The Rings Of Power, I can only think of a few instances from the first episode where a line was poorly-written or its delivery fell flat. For the most part, Amazon’s writers did an admirable job of mimicking Tolkien’s signature style without ever reusing or misappropriating lines from The Lord Of The Rings. But given how high the bar is that they’ve set for themselves, every occasion on which they fail to clear that bar – in the first episode, the worst line of dialogue is undoubtedly “Elf-lords only” – will momentarily break the immersion.
What will draw you back in again, whether you’re a diehard fan or someone just looking for a cool new show to watch over the weekend, are the characters (whom you really can’t help but root for), and the visual splendor on display in every frame of these first two episodes. After finishing these episodes, you may feel – as I do – that the story still needs a little more time to solidify into the firm backbone required of a multi-season series and a potential billion-dollar investment on Amazon’s part, but if Amazon (and audiences) are willing to give The Rings Of Power the time it needs to do just that, it could quickly grow to become what it already aspires to be: a worthy sequel to The Silmarillion.
Episode Rating: 7.5/10


The PM during his independence day address shared ... moreThe PM during his independence day address shared some exciting information about 6G. 6G can allow factories to be controlled from far away. It will also allow cars to talk to each other and with 6G rollout wearable gadgets that can understand our feelings will become commonplace. Wondering how fast is 6G? Watch the full video to find out.
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The Sims studio EA Salt Lake hit with layoffs, shifts to mobile
Some employees were offered positions at Maxis in California, others were laid off as the studios focuses on mobile development.
The Sims 4 coming fall 2014
EA dates the next installment of The Sims series.
Maxis: Sims 4 will run better on lower-end machines than Sims 3
Developer says players on less capable rigs will have "much better experience" with new game compared to past entry.
How same-sex relationships came to The Sims
Lead AI programmer reveals how EA's low expectations for The Sims allowed same-sex relationships to be implemented.
DICE: Gamescom will be "one hell of a show" for Battlefield 4
Developer talks up showing for military first-person shooter at German event this month.
SimCity sales hit 2 million
EA's city-building game moves another 400,000 units in past three months; The Sims 4 will be offline due to SimCity feedback.
The Sims 4 does not require Internet connection
EA and Maxis confirm upcoming PC and Mac game is single-player offline experience.
The Sims 4 launching in 2014
Electronic Arts reveals next entry in series coming to PC and Mac next year.
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USA –-(Ammoland.com)- Quick reactions by the administration and top Democrats downplayed remarks by President Barack Obama that appeared to endorse a resurrected federal “assault weapons” ban. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the “schedule is too packed to even have a debate,” the Associated Press reported Thursday. That same day, The Hill reported House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi stopped short of calling for tougher laws, and even White House Press Secretary Jay Carney disavowed any immediate plans to introduce “gun control” legislation as the president himself “sidestepped a reporter’s question,” ABC related earlier today.
Continue reading on Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/article/obama-gun-control-goes-back-under-the-radar
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is a long-time gun rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He is a field editor for GUNS Magazine, and a blogger at The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance. Read more at www.DavidCodrea.com.

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2013 was a really, really, really hard year for me. I would say music helped me through it, and it did, but even listening to music, or getting through a whole song in one sitting, much less a whole album, was virtually impossible most days, so even that was a source of stress for me. But I kept listening to and writing about a huge amount of music this year because there were so many records coming that excited and intrigued me, that made me happy to be alive and paying attention right now. And paying attention should be rewarding -- one gets a sense sometimes from music critics that the more we hear, the less we're able to actually enjoy any of it, like any hardcore addict or fetishist who needs more and more extreme stuff just to get anything approaching the desired feeling that used to come with ease when we were younger and more easily impressed. But I dunno, I feel like music is nourishing and fortifying my existence in ways it didn't even when I was a teenager and I lived for it. I'm not really to stop caring.
Of course, 'paying attention' these days is pretty insane -- Spotify and other streaming services have enabled me to listen to practically every new album I have even the slightest interest in listening to, and this running 2013 albums playlist
of everything on Spotify that I've listened to is over 150 albums deep. Once you factor in stuff not on Spotify that I listened to on DatPiff or Bandcamp or wherever, I'm probably over 200. That's an insane number, but processing that much made it really easy to think of over 50 albums that I found really impressive and enjoyable this year, that didn't have the immediate and obvious flaws or frustrations that most of those 200 albums had. And as many of those albums are discarded and forgotten after a couple listens, these are the ones I kept going back to. I also made a shorter, more digestible Best of 2013 playlist
with one track each from the top 50.
1. Paramore - Paramore
Releasing a self-titled album in the middle of your career has always struck me as kind of a haughty gesture, particularly in the midst of changes in sound or personnel, defiantly stating "you may have liked those other records, but this one is the real me/us, deal with it." That's absolutely the case with Paramore
, which was written after two key members left the band in a huff, declaring in a manufactured star vehicle for frontwoman Hayley Williams. But instead of going solo as a pop diva, Williams regrouped with the two other remaining members (who only had a handful of writing credits on their previous albums), and refashioned Paramore into a better, more adventurous band. That narrative, though it hovers around triumphant, life-affirming anthems like "Ain't It Fun" and "Grow Up," may actually be the least interesting thing about the album, however. It's the gigantic hooks, the dizzying variety, the generously detailed and glimmeringly textured production that kept me coming back to this 64-minute beast of an album over and over without ever feeling the need to skip a track. Williams can sing a solemn, sincere breakup song like "Hate To See Your Heart Break" on one track, and in the next sing a satirical stalker's lament like "[One of Those] Crazy Girls" and somehow the emotion is just as real and deeply felt in both. The droning lo-fi 8-minute closer "The Future" coexists on an album with the giddy, fuzzed-out punk of "Anklebiters," the anthemic Blondie homage "Daydreaming," and the swinging synth pop of "Ain't It Fun." Members of a band that had no indie cred to begin with defected in the name of integrity, and Paramore turned around and became an amazing band just to prove that that bullshit doesn't actually matter.
2. Kacey Musgraves - Same Trailer Different Park
When her breakthrough single, "Merry Go 'Round," showed up last year, Kacey Musgraves cut right through all the affectionate good ol' boy celebrations of Southern culture on country radio with the terse, unpleasant realities of small town blue collar life. And if she'd just repeated that trick over and over, it'd be a memorable and probably still very acclaimed album, but it wouldn't be a great album. Same Trailer Different Park
is the heartbreaking album about the downtrodden middle class that Springsteen was trying to make last year, songs like "Back On The Map" and "Blowin' Smoke" getting me through a year where I worked harder just to be broke than I ever have in my life. Her dry, matter-of-fact delivery and economic songwriting even makes the more topically pedestrian songs like "I Miss You" and "Keep It Yourself" strangely affecting in a way most country singers wouldn't even think to try.
3. Fantasia - Side Effects of You
Side Effects of You
is less a solo effort than an album-length collaboration between Fantasia Barrino and Harmony "H-Money" Samuels, who produced all but one track on it. Throughout 2012 and 2013, Samuels produced an array of hit singles for Ariana Grande, Sevyn Streeter, Keyshia Cole and others, and no two songs sounded alike. That same variety is present in Side Effects of You
, which runs through pretty much every kind of track you might want to hear Fantasia sing over, from the Whitney homage "Change Your Mind" to the uptempo funk workout "Get It Right" to the reggae inflections of "Ain't All Bad" to my single of the year, "Without Me." Ever since winning American Idol, Fantasia's vocal ability and charisma has never been in doubt, but "When I See U" aside, her material never quite matched her talent until Side Effects of You
4. Chance The Rapper - Acid Rap
I wouldn't have imagined 8 months ago when first listening to Acid Rap
that I'd eventually be calling it the best rap record of the year. I immediately recognized that it was good, but I had a lot of misgivings: 1) Chance's voice took some getting used to, especially those "nehnehnehneh-AH!" ad libs, 2) weariness over not-ready-for-primetime Chicago rappers being hyped into the major leagues, 3) weariness over the "wait, Chance is actually the anti-Chief Keef" narrative, 4) guest spots by rappers I try to avoid like Childish Gambino and Action Bronson, and 5) opening the mixtape with a sample of an intro from one of Kanye's early mixtapes. Thankfully, I kept listening and let all that stuff stop bothering me, as I came to realize that nobody else in rap this year had made such a dense, textured, quick-witted, energetic and big-hearted album.
5. 2 Chainz - B.O.A.T.S. II #METIME
His first major label solo album, last year's Based On A T.R.U. Story
, went gold and established 2 Chainz as a big star, but by the time the thing had run its course, it kinda felt like all the best songs were singles and that dude didn't really know how to make an album. So it's bittersweet that a year later he came back with the consistent, well rounded album he should've made the first time, but the singles weren't hitting the same way so the thing sold less than half as much as its predecessor. 2 Chainz is an incorrigible goofball, and if you're the kind of rap fan who has no time for that, this album won't convince you, but you enjoy him in the concentrated bursts of his best guest verses, B.O.A.T.S. II
delivers peak 2 Chainz in huge servings. And even something like "So We Can Live," which spans almost 7 minutes and switches up the beat mid-song, hints at the more cerebral, emotional side of 2 Chainz that he earnestly tried and failed to put across on the first album. Even Chance The Rapper
had to give him props for how cohesive this album is.
6. Beyoncé - Beyoncé
I always end up fishing my albums list for the year later than I wanted to, but I love being able to throw some great December release into my top 10 after most people finalized their lists in late November, and there's
never been a more example than Beyoncé
's surprise blockbuster a couple weeks ago. Obviously, I'm still digesting the record, and haven't even watched any of the videos yet, but the whole thing is pretty undeniably awesome. It's obviously building on a lot of things that she tried for the first time on 4
, and is a full 20 minutes longer than that album and lacking its automatic standout masterpieces, but it feels more consistent and fully realized as a whole. The way the universal themes tangle up with the things that really only a handful of people in the world, if not only Beyoncé
, can actually speak on, often within the same song on "Pretty Hurts" or the incredible "Rocket," just feels so awe-inspiring and ambitious, and I've never really been one to bow down to B's supremacy as a fact of life.
7. Amel Larrieux - Ice Cream Everyday
A big part of R&B becoming "cool" to people that for some reason didn't consider it worth their time a couple years ago was the way newer acts like Miguel and Frank Ocean were using trippy production styles associated with the underground -- muffled drums, wobbly synths, instruments abruptly cutting in and out of the mix, and surreal soundscapes. Of course, R&B acts have been trading in sonics like this for ages, but a lot of them have been hippie neo-soul types, the uncoolest acts out there. So it was cool to see someone like Amel Larrieux, who's been more or less ignored on the periphery of mainstream R&B for over a decade, come around with some of the most gorgeously intimate, idiosyncratic production on any album of any genre this year. But it's Larrieux's guileless, unguarded songwriting and stark vocal production on songs like "Have You" and "Ur The Shhh" that really makes the record sparkle and resonate beyond just the cool sounds surrounding her voice.
8. Kevin Gates - Stranger Than Fiction
Less than 6 months after Baton Rouge rapper Kevin Gates released his breakthrough mixtape, The Luca Brasi Story
, he released the independent album Stranger Than Fiction
. Releasing two high quality projects in one year is impressive, but inevitably one is going to get more praise than the other, and the one that was released first and for free seemed to have the advantage. Stranger Than Fiction ended up being my favorite, though, with its mix of storytelling on "4:30am," knowing ignorance on "Thinking With My Dick," and ill-advised but entertaining experiment with rapping in character with cartoonish accents on "Careful."
9. Ariana Grande - Yours Truly
A disciple of Mariah Carey whose debut album samples old hits by Big Punisher, Lil Kim and Mary J. Blige, Ariana Grande could be the first '90s baby to participate heavily in pop music's incoming '90s revival. But between the doo wop overtones of the album's bookends, "Honeymoon Avenue" and "Better Left Unsaid," and the general air of earnest innocence around Grande's entire vocal style and public persona, what Yours Truly
really offers is R&B at its most bubblegum. And in a year when R&B was often depicted as only interesting or credible when it was debauched and drugged out, that managed to be pretty refreshing, nevermind the fact that the album was just executed incredibly well, with lots of help from Babyface himself and the 2013 R&B MVP, Harmony "H-Money" Samuels.
10. Elvis Costello And The Roots - Wise Up Ghost
Being on the younger side of Elvis Costello's fanbase, the idea of him being on a permanent artistic decline, of his best music having been mostly recorded before I was born, is this ominous cloud that hangs over the dozens of new albums he continues to make. I've always done my best to get out from under that cloud, though, and enjoy those albums for what they are, and Wise Up Ghost
is my favorite since The Delivery Man
, if not Painted From Memory
. The Roots aren't The Attractions, but they're a good match with Costello for a lot of the same reasons: strong rhythm section, a large arsenal of synth textures, an encyclopedic knowledge of American music. And Wise Up Ghost
is more in line with the murky funk of later albums like Game Theory
, which I love. That these two chameleonic serial collaborators got together to mostly sound like themselves is a pleasant surprise.
11. The Joy Formidable - Wolf's Law
Two years ago, The Joy Formidable's debut full-length The Big Roar
was my album of the year. And the follow-up is very nearly its equal, and in some ways is more varied, and more surprising, with all sorts of new wrinkles in their sound and the texture of the production. But it didn't have a killer single on the level of "Whirring," and maybe the newness of the band wore off and a lot of people moved on, so Wolf's Law
didn't get nearly the same amount of attention. But it definitely wasn't a sophomore slump.
12. Tegan And Sara - Heartthrob
I'd never really listened to Tegan And Sara before this record, and came into it more as a fan of the album's producer, Greg Kurstin, who made a similar alternative-to-pop transition as they did over the past decade, but behind the scenes. Of course, this album's whole crossover Cyndi Lauper 2K13 sound was aimed at winning them new fans, so it worked on me.
13. Dungeonesse - Dungeonesse
In a way, Dungeonesse is a similar "indie kids do synth pop" story as the Tegan And Sara record, although that move's been pulled enough times now that I'm more enamored of the execution than the novelty. And in this case, it was done by a couple of Baltimore musicians that I've been following for over a half decade -- I can still remember the first time I saw Jenn Wasner with Wye Oak at the Lo-Fi Social Club and the first time I saw Jon Ehrens with The Art Department at The Ottobar (the album also features a guest spot by the rapper DDm, who I can remember seeing battle at 5 Seasons back in the same era). And it's cool to hear people who I instantly saw potential in continue to surprise me with great new things.
14. Nova Starz - Dark Lovely Places... For The #Ragers
If Dungeonesse is a particularly good record that follows what is becoming a pretty good narrative (people from the indie world playing with the sounds of pop and R&B), this is another awesome record out of Baltimore that arrived at a similar destination from the opposite direction. Nova Starz and her producer Street Scott pushed way outside of their backgrounds in traditional R&B and hip-hop to create something different for her debut project, which was initially marketed as an EP but is pretty much a 9-track album (one of the tag's on the record's Soundcloud
page is "urban indie pop," which seems appropriate"). I really enjoyed interviewing those guys and this remained one of the more unique and listenable projects that came out of Baltimore this year.
15. Superchunk - I Hate Music
Being my favorite band of the '90s
is no guarantee that I'll love your new records, but Superchunk have kept me a faithful and loyal fan of their new material. And while the highs on I Hate Music
may not be as high as the ones on 2010's Majesty Shredding
, the whole thing holds together better. The death of a longtime friend of the band, Dave Doernberg, looms over the whole thing the way Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance's breakup loomed over 1994's Foolish
, making one of indie rock's most eternally youthful bands sound aware of mortality like never before but
16. Lee Ranaldo And The Dust - Last Night On Earth
Sonic Youth are another one of my favorite bands, although one that may never make another album together. But members continue to work together, including Lee Ranaldo and Steve Shelley in Ranaldo's new band configuration, which toured for his 2012 album Between The Times And The Tides
and seemed to quickly cohere into a solid unit with an even better album appearing just a year later. Ranaldo's collections of songs never quite live up to the fantasy I had of what they'd be like back when he was writing one or two awesome Sonic Youth songs per album, but the sound of this record is very close to the Murray Street
era hippie jams that I'm a huge fan of.
17. Tate Kobang - Hitler Hardaway
It was dismaying to see recently, after putting Hitler Hardaway
at the top of my list of the best Baltimore hip-hop release of 2013
, that the mixtape doesn't appear to be online anywhere anymore. When I interviewed Tate Kobang
earlier in the year, he'd just had a falling out with one of the tape's producers, Matic808, who put out his own great project this year, and some of Tate's videos had been taken offline. Now, it looks like the entire mixtape has followed suit, and it really sucks when one of your favorite albums of the year gets erased from the internet before the year is even over. Maybe hit up Tate on Twitter
if you want to get it, though.
18. Birds And Arrows - Coyotes
There's something off about the mixing or mastering of this album, Birds And Arrows are not a very bass-heavy band but I hear this weird low end distortion or clipping whenever I turn up the volume. But this North Carolina husband-and-wife duo, who I've caught live a couple times on their frequent trips to Baltimore, continue to make charmingly intimate, twangy records that sound best at a moderate volume anyway.
19. K. Michelle - Rebellious Soul
If Keyshia Cole amped up the Mary J. Blige formula with more working class grit and indulgent vocal gymnastics, K. Michelle throws the whole thing off its axis by going to further extremes on both counts. The result is borderline camp, to the point that song titles like "Pay My Bills" and "Hate On Her" and "Coochie Symphony (Interlude)" helped make K. Michelle as much a Black Twitter meme as she is a popular R&B artist. But the vocals, production and songwriting on Rebellious Soul
were all high quality enough to make the album function on its own terms as an album worth repeat plays, K. Michelle establishing herself as a female protege of R. Kelly that can actually keep up with him in terms of outrageousness and personality.
20. Kanye West - Yeezus
My review of Yeezus
was maybe the best and most certainly the most widely read thing I wrote this year. But in my efforts to avoid both the overly generous everything-he-does-is-brilliant praise and tedious 'let's rank all the Kanye albums' debates, a lot of people came away from the review thinking I hated the album and was panning it. The truth is, I hate his last couple solo albums and actually enjoy Yeezus
more than any of his albums since Graduation
, if not Late Registration
. I'm still not convinced that Adam Sandler references and "'Strange Fruit' really goes well what I'm saying about child support" bullshit don't muddle and hurt the kind of social statements he's trying to make, just like pretty much everything he said in an interview this year failed so utterly to convince anyone of anything that stans set up a little cottage industry dedicated to Kansplaining away his scattershot analogies into something coherent. But the album sounds fantastic, and does something none of his other albums do (as opposed to My Beautiful Dark Late Registration Retread
) and ultimately that matters to me more than the other stuff, at least in terms of what I want to listen to.
21. Matic808 - Yeezus: Baltimore Club Edition
The instant remixes that pop up within weeks, if not days, of every big event record are getting tiresome. But I've always been fascinated with how Baltimore club producers can make almost anything danceable, and Matic808 doing remixes of every track from a reputedly inaccessible album that urban radio practically ignored was just bold and awesome and worked even better in practice than it did in theory. Essential listening for any fan of the original Yeezus
, and maybe even some of the people who hate it. Check it out on Soundcloud
22. Juicy J - Stay Trippy
DJ Paul's recent Da Mafia 6ix project gives a good idea of what Juicy J could be doing right now that'd be more true to the Three 6 Mafia sound, but honestly I think it's kinda badass that he signed with Dr. Luke and one of major label rap's biggest sellout cautionary tales, Wiz Khalifa, and still basically managed to sound like himself. This album is full of jams, and yes Wale, it is better than your album, which also has strip club songs, but doesn't have any vague aspirations of being "conscious" rap to compromise on. Juicy J is just being himself, which is really the most you can ask any rapper to do on his album.
23. Prodigy & Alchemist - Albert Einstein
Prodigy is another old-ass rap dude who is totally incapable of trying to be anything but himself, in the best way. P and Alc's previous full-length collaboration, Return Of The Mac
, is a minor classic to me, not too far behind Mobb Deep's best records, and this is a worthy follow-up that manages to stake out its own distinct aesthetic. Alchemist has such a great ear for these odd little textures in his tracks that go beyond boom bap revivalism, like "Stay Dope" is a genuinely weird, almost psychedelic production.
24. Bilal - A Love Surreal
Bilal has always been a neo soul 2nd stringer to me, the guy who seems to channel Prince the most of all his contemporaries but doesn't quite have the originality or charisma to be as amazing as Prince and just winds up being kind of annoying. So I was pleasantly surprised to find his vocal affectations less irritating than usual on A Love Surreal
, his progressive jazz R&B pretentions leading him to something genuinely unique and interesting, at times approaching a kind of acoustic orchestral pop.
25. The Band Perry - Pioneer
No album in country, or perhaps in any genre, had as good a trio of hit singles this year as Pioneer
's first three tracks. But the Perry siblings, who look like a gang of sexy hobbits, didn't slouch on the deep cuts, which include equally anthemic tracks like "I'm A Keeper" and "Forever Mine Nevermind." I hope they go six singles deep on this motherfucker.
26. Robin Thicke - Blurred Lines
The Blurred Lines
album will always be overshadowed by its title track -- how could a gold album not
be overshadowed by a sextuple platinum single? But the album deserves credit for being really solid and enjoyable both as a pop crossover effort and as an R&B album that sits well in Thicke's underrated back catalog
27. Mr. Moccasin - XAHA
I have some vague connections to Mr. Moccasin -- the compilation of Baltimore bands
that I helped assemble this year opened with a track by them, and weirdly my band only got to play the release party for that comp because Mr. Moccasin had to cancel (don't really know the band outside of Greg Hatem, though -- his solo project Heart Of Hearts also played a show with my band this year). In any event, hearing this band's stuff shortly before this record came out really bowled me over, definitely one of the best things I've heard out of the Baltimore indie scene in a while, even if I can't quite put my finger on what they're really doing that's special, there's just this otherworldly ambiance. Check out the record on Bandcamp
28. They Might Be Giants - Nanobots
They Might Be Giants ended one of their best albums, 1992's Apollo 18
, with "Fingertips," a suite of over a dozen tracks of even shorter and sillier songs than their usual fare, designed so that they'd be peppered throughout the album if the CD was played in the 'shuffle' mode that was still kind of a new thing at the time. Nanobots, a respectable follow-up to 2011's Join Us
(which may have actually been their best since Apollo 18
), attempts something like the "Fingertips" concept again, spreading nine tracks that run under a minute long throughout the album, and the result is absurd and entertaining and a little offputtingly nerdy, just as TMBG's best records often are.
29. The Dismemberment Plan - Uncanney Valley
After Emergency & I
established The Dismemberment Plan as both a more popular and more serious, somber band than they'd ever been before, there started being some debate about whether they were (gasp) an emo band, back when that was, like, a deadly important thing to know. Travis Morrison responded to that chatter with a post on the band's site that pointed out that when they released their goofball first record, they were getting compared to They Might Be Giants and not Rites of Spring or Hoover. That popped into my head a few times this year as fans of Emergency & I
were shocked and appalled to find that the band's big comeback record was kind of a playful, silly dad rock record and not a fraught emotional journey or whatever. In some ways, the album is a big step down from their best work, but as a fan of Morrison's widely reviled Travistan
, I felt more prepared to accept the album on its own terms.
30. Deathfix - Deathfix
For every beloved D.C. band like The Dismemberment Plan that actually stays together for several records and then reunites years later, there are dozens that just splinter off and combine with members of other bands from the same incestuous scene under new names, to the point that it's hard to keep track of them all. So I was pretty annoyed with myself to realize just in the past week, while reading a year-end list, that Dischord released an album way back in March by a new band featuring a couple of my favorite D.C. musicians, Brendan Canty and Devin Ocampo. And though the thing very nearly gets derailed by an 8-minute novelty song called "Dali's House," it's otherwise a great listen, with some really talented guys exploring a kind of '70s riff rock sound that their previous bands have never really touched on before.
31. Kelly Rowland - Talk A Good Game
Kelly Ro killed it this year -- guest spots on my single of the year, Fantasia's "Without Me," as well as Future's "Neva End" and the Destiny's Child one-off reunion "Nuclear," and every single off of her best solo album to date, Talk A Good Game. She even addressed living in Beyoncé's shadow on "Dirty Laundry," in a way that gave her a more relateable public persona than she'd ever had before. Of course, then B came in at the end of the year and dominated everything again, once again insuring that people would continue to sleep on Kelly, but
32. J. Roddy Walston & The Business - Essential Tremors
J. Roddy Walston & The Business was a band in Tennessee before they relocated to Baltimore a decade ago, and at the moment only one member of the band still lives in the city. But they still feel like hometown heroes, and I always think fondly of them putting on some of the greatest shows I've ever seen at the Ottobar as they sign to ATO Records and tour the country and show up on national charts, especially when I hear "Marigold," one of Walston's songs most directly inspired by living in Baltimore.
33. DJ Mustard - Ketchup
For the first time in maybe 20 years, rappers all over the country are copping West coast sounds to stay current, and DJ Mustard is a huge part of that. Ketchup
only lightly surveys the huge year he had, and doesn't include most of the big hits he produced, but it works as a great sampler of his tracks, which follow a Lil Jon or early Neptunes template of incorporating a huge variety of sounds within a pretty consistent rhythmic framework. Check it out on hotnewhiphop.com
34. Meek Mill - Dreamchasers 3
Last year, Dreamchasers 2
broke records on mixtape sites like DatPiff, putting Meek's street buzz on an insane level that his major label album was doomed to not live up to (although I content that Dreams & Nightmares
is underrated as fuck -- tell me the title track isn't one of the best rap songs of the last 5 years). Dreamchasers 3
only notched maybe a quarter as many downloads as 2
did, and it's hard to say he hasn't lost some career momentum, but there's still nobody in the mainstream making music like Meek, and I appreciate that he's around. "Lil N***a Snupe" is incredible and the homie J. Oliver from Baltimore killed the beat on "Ain't Me," even if they didn't credit him in the liner notes. Check out Dreamchasers 3
35. Daft Punk - Random Access Memories
Random Access Memories
is like a Rattle & Hum
for dance music, a Grammy bait blockbuster that alienated a large number of the people who'd anticipated it by spending much of its time trying to educate them on the group's influences. That would be an effective premise for one of the album's many angry, disappointed reviews, but I don't actually mean it in a bad way -- I think it's kind of awesome and subversive that a hit album with an Album of the Year nomination exists mainly to prop up guys like Nile Rodgers and Giorgio Moroder as B.B. King-like legends (which, hey, if the Rock'n'Roll HOF is gonna keep snubbing Chic, why not?). I could do without the cornballs from The Strokes and Animal Collection on vocals making the album vaguely 'current,' but as a sincere celebration of '70s cheese, these guys made a heck of a Trans Am album.
36. Audio Push - Come As You Are
I always thought "Teach Me How To Jerk" was low key the best record out of that whole movement, and even if Audio Push's whole thing these days seems to be about disavowing that record or not letting it define them, whatever, it helped me give this tape a chance, and I'm glad I did. Dudes have a lot of personality and some bars and Hit Boy gave them some of his best tracks ever on here.
37. Yo Gotti - I Am
Yo Gotti has always been trap rap's most generic, offbrand star, and his career finally seemed to bottom out after 2012's anti-climactic major label debut, Live From The Kitchen
. Instead, he started finally making some hits that didn't rely on bigger guest stars, jumped from RCA to Epic, and came back bigger than ever. He's still not as charismatic or creative as a lot of his contemporaries, but right now he's winning with the sheer bulk of bangers he's putting out.
38. Thee Lexington Arrows - Dog That Bites
Hopefully when I put Baltimore artists on this list, it doesn't sound like I'm just plugging my friends' records because I know or have interviewed a lot of them -- I have to really dig their records to even think of including them here with all the records from everywhere else that I loved throughout the year. Thee Lexington Arrows
is one band I do have a lot of connections with, though -- their frontwoman, Kathleen, one of my favorite singers in Baltimore, did me the great favor of singing on my band's debut single's A-side
. Also, their bassist Curt has run our sound at The Sidebar whenever we've played there, and their guitarist, Alex, is a great illustrator whose work has accompanied several of my City Paper articles over the years (and also drew the awesome cover for Dog That Bites
). But this record is here because Thee Lexington Arrows have been making killer garage rock for nearly a decade, and seem to just keep getting better at it.
39. Vinny Vegas - The Big White Whale
Vinny Vegas is another band from Baltimore whose singer, Scott, really impressed me and I also asked him to do some singing on the Western Blot record. They've been playing shows and releasing singles and EPs for years and years, and this is the full-length debut they finally came out with just a few weeks ago. I'm kinda still digesting it, it's a really dense work, these guys just write incredibly complex, dramatic songs, but it's just great to finally hear them stretch out on an album, it's always felt like their songs needed and deserved a whole LP to sprawl across.
40. Kevin Gates - The Luca Brasi Story
As previously mentioned, I've taken a stand on rating Stranger Than Fiction
over its breakthrough predecessor, but I'm not gonna front, this is an awesome mixtape. Gates had a crazy year, totally deserves to be the only artist with two records on this list.
41. Ben Goldberg - Unfold Ordinary Mind
Awesome avant jazz from an all-star group featuring Nels Cline and Ellery Eskelin that I got to see in one of its first live performances last year
. This kinda thing is always more exciting to me to see performed in person than to hear on record, but hearing the material live and then getting the record was a good way to be introduced to these songs.
42. Dawn Richard - Goldenheart
2013 was weird and a little anti-climactic for Dawn Richard. She finally released her first full-length retail album, but Goldenheart
, good as it was, didn't quite have the staying power of its predecessor EP, last year's Armor On
, and she quickly started releasing new tracks online that were more immediate and accessible than anything on the album. By the end of the year, she'd cut ties with the collaborator who'd produced most of her best songs, Andrew "Druski" Scott, and reunited with the girl group that first brought her fame but who she's long since outgrown artistically, Danity Kane. So I dunno if this is a lull in her career or the end of her being interesting -- I'm still holding out for a Diddy-Dirty Money reunion, too.
43. Tiffany Evans - 143 EP
Evans, who once upon a time years ago had a mildly popular single featuring Ciara, is stuck in that awkward interzone of almost-mainstream R&B artists who's years removed from their last major label release, is just now starting to make really good music, but doesn't have even the mild critical cachet that Dawn Richard managed to amass. This record was awesome, though, listen to it
-- yet another 'EP' that's basically just a concise album the way people used to make them.
44. Haim - Days Are Gone
I'm not as crazy about this record as some people are, but it's enjoyable enough as a debut, and I could see them growing on me if they keep getting better from here. And it was fun to see women make unapologetically catchy pop/rock and get enough critical praise for it to drive the critics who would never stand for such a thing get really upset about that.
45. Sara Bareilles - The Blessed Unrest
A few weeks ago, Sara Bareilles gained one of the most surprising, confusing Album Of The Year nominations in recent Grammy history -- The Blessed Unrest
had a nonexistant critical profile, sold less than every other nominee (about a quarter as much as the next lowest selling album, Daft Punk), and its big hit single, "Brave," is mostly known for sounding like Katy Perry's "Roar" but blander. And it bums me out to see Bareilles becoming an emblem for Grammy voter cluelessness, because I've always thought she had a great, unique voice and makes lovely, well crafted records. People who like the Haim album would probably enjoy it!
46. Brad Paisley - Wheelhouse
Another incredibly uncool album I enjoyed this year was Brad Paisley's latest. Yes, "Accidental Racist" is a bad, bad song, but it may be the only bad song he's ever written, as he continues to be perhaps Nashville's most consistent star who writes his own songs and excels at deep cuts
47. How To Destroy Angels - Welcome Oblivion
Hesitation Marks returned Trent Reznor to the Nine Inch Nails formula with few surprises, but up until that point he'd spent a few years in the wilderness of film scores, and experiments like NIN's great Ghosts I-IV
, culminating in this woefully underappreciated side project. Reznor's own wife, Mariqueen Maandig, finally showed is that there's a way to sing over his versatile productions that made them sounded nothing like the same old same old industrial angst.
48. Atoms For Peace - AMOK
The most talented member of one of alternative rock's greatest bands collaborates with the weird-looking guy from Radiohead, har har. This album probably would've been higher but I haven't listened to it since they pulled it from Spotify, word to Vice
49. Caitlin Rose - The Stand-In
A swooning, swaying, self-consciously retro but still often disarmingly lovely singer-songwriter record, dressed up in slide guitar and sweeping strings, sometimes veering into country but just as often feeling like classic pop balladry. Rose's voice sometimes veers into that Zooey Deschanel kind of thing I can't stand, but when this record is good, I buy into the whole
50. Body/Head - Coming Apart
In the absence of new Sonic Youth music, the men have gone off and made music that pretty much sounds like the band's own classic indie rock guitar swing, which suits me fine with the Lee Ranaldo records and kinda bores me on Thurston's Chelsea Light Moving record. But Kim Gordon's new music with Body/Head harkens back to the band's early no wave era, while also hinting at the marital discord that led to the band's current indefinite hiatus on unnervingly stark tracks like "Last Mistress" that are as harrowing as anything she's done since "Shaking Hell."

domain: entertainment


text:
Home Tags Underage Marriage
Tag: Underage Marriage
February 24th, 2021; By Asra Haque; LAHORE; The father of the alleged 14-year-old bride of JUI-F MNA Maulana Salauddin Ayyubi denies reports that any such marriage took place in an affidavit to Chitral police
In voicepk.net's special webinar, senior analyst and journalist Rashed Rahman together with MPA Musarrat Jamshed Cheema of the PTI, former AIG Gender Crimes Maria Mehmood, former Chair of the PCSW Fauzia Viqar & Executive Director of the AGHS Legal Aid Cell Nida Aly discuss the lacunae in rape laws, barriers to implementation, and inability of the police and the justice system to look past the nikkah-nama and see sexual crimes against women and children.
A junior doctor of the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in Lahore was arrested for allegedly drugging and raping a woman. Khairpur police arrest 20 people for trying to marry a minor couple in Pir Goth, case registered under the Sindh Child Marriages Restraint Act 2013. Lahore High Court acquits two death row inmates, who had been languishing in prison for the past nine years, over insufficient evidence.
A Lahore sessions court magistrate has summoned Meesha Shafi and seven others to appear in court for a January 18 hearing on the defamation suit filed against them by Ali Zafar. For more stories on human rights abuses, keep scrolling.
Arzoo Raja case accused Syed Ali Azhar granted bail by sessions judge despite being booked for rape, a non-bailable offense....more HR news
November 23rd, 2020; By Ahmad Saeed; LAHORE; After the PTI govt took notice of voicepk.net’s report about the alleged rape of two sisters, Faislabad police have arrested the main accused Salman nominated in the case.
November 22nd, 2020; By Ahmad Saeed; Faisalabad; Asif Masih, a resident of Faisalabad, claims that his 12-year-old daughter, Farah, was abducted, forcefully married, and converted to Islam. The court refused to take into account the age of the girl and sent her back with her husband/abductor.
فیصل آباد کے رہائشی آصف مسیح کا اپنی بارہ سالہ بیٹی کے اغوا کے بعد جبری مذہب تبدیلی اور زبردستی شادی کروانے کا دعوی. عدالت نے کم عمری کو نظر انداز کر کے شوہر کے ساتھ بھیج دیا : چھوٹے بہن بھائی ایک دفعہ ہر ماں کے پیار سے محروم
November 9th, 2020; Bureau report; LAHORE; A medical board has told the Sindh High Court in Karachi that Arzoo Raja, a Christian girl forcefully converted and married to a Muslim man, is between the age of 14 and 15 years.
-SHC orders action against a man for marrying an underage girl -Kohat student beaten over ‘blasphemous’ remarks -Medical board to ascertain Arzoo Raja's age


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The Never Made the Tournament Club may lose another member this week. Eastern Washington’s 76-61 loss to Northern Arizona on Saturday means that North Dakota won the Big Sky regular season championship outright and will be the No. 1 seed in the conference tournament. Coach Brian Jones and the Fighting Hawks are now just three wins away from clinching their first trip to the Big Dance since making the jump to Division I just nine years ago.
North Dakota comes into this week red-hot, having won seven of its final eight regular season games. UND’s perfect 4-0 record against Eastern Washington, Weber State and Idaho make it the preeminent favorites to capture the Big Sky’s automatic NCAA Tournament bid.
The defending Big Sky Tournament champion Weber State will be the No. 3 seed. The Wildcats were the preseason favorites to win the conference but saw their hopes of hanging another banner in the rafters of the Dee Events Center dashed by a four-game losing streak in the final weeks of the season. Senior guard Jeremy Senglin, who is averaging a career-high 20.7 points per game this season, is on a mission to get his team back to the NCAA Tournament for the third time in four years.
Northern Colorado is currently serving a self-imposed one-year postseason ban over a plethora of NCAA violations that led to the dismissal of former head coach B.J. Hill during the offseason. The Bears’ absence means this year’s bracket will look slightly different than it has in the past.
The 11-team format awards first-round byes to the top five teams instead of the usual four. Montana is the beneficiary of the new layout, and it will face Idaho in the quarterfinals on Thursday. The first round kicks off on Tuesday from Reno, Nevada, as Portland State takes on Northern Arizona. Free streaming for the entire tournament can be found on Watch Big Sky.
Here is the entire bracket:


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In the last entry we discussed the latest info on incoming and outgoing, and pointed out Nathan Patterson’s sale had somewhat changed things.
And it has, because until Everton bought our second-choice RB for £16M, the notion of our players being worth, or more to the point, being sold for their theoretical value was unproven.
Mainly because in this modern era, we’d not sold a single player for Dembele Dollars.
That’s changed, finally, as a quality Rangers player leaves for the value he’s worth, and it’s changed the landscape at Ibrox as we can finally consider or only dignify offers for our players which truly express their proper value.
Morelos is a £20M striker, properly, because Rangers won’t sell him for less.
Aribo is a £20M mid, because he’s critical to the team.
Kamara is at least £15M if not more, given his CV.
It’s no longer theory, it’s no longer us just conjecturing about market value based on sales elsewhere, it’s understanding our players are worth serious cash and this sale has made a public statement about what Rangers value our players at and what we are willing to entertain in terms of bids.
No one is getting Morelos for £5M, no one is getting Kent for £10M – if any rich clubs want our best players, Rangers have now proven with this £16M sale they’d have to spend big money on them.
And that’s a welcome change.

domain: finance


text:
Mutations in the ganglioside-induced-differentiation-associated protein 1 gene (GDAP1) can cause Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) disease with demyelinating (CMT4A) or axonal forms (CMT2K and ARCMT2K). Most of these mutations present a recessive inheritance, but few autosomal dominant GDAP1 mutations have also been reported. We performed a GDAP1 gene screening in a clinically well-characterized series of 81 index cases with axonal CMT neuropathy, identifying 17 patients belonging to 4 unrelated families in whom the heterozygous p.R120W was found to be the only disease-causing mutation. The main objective was to fully characterize the neuropathy caused by this mutation. The clinical picture included a mild-moderate phenotype with onset around adolescence, but great variability. Consistently, ankle dorsiflexion and plantar flexion were impaired to a similar degree. Nerve conduction studies revealed an axonal neuropathy. Muscle magnetic resonance imaging studies demonstrated selective involvement of intrinsic foot muscles in all patients and a uniform pattern of fatty infiltration in the calf, with distal and superficial posterior predominance. Pathological abnormalities included depletion of myelinated fibers, regenerative clusters and features of axonal degeneration with mitochondrial aggregates. Our findings highlight the relevance of dominantly transmitted p.R120W GDAP1 gene mutations which can cause an axonal CMT with a wide clinical profile.
© 2010 Peripheral Nerve Society.

domain: health


text:
Soon, an experimental blood test may be able to predict the chances of breast cancer relapse in women. According to a latest research conducted by a team at The Institute of Cancer Research in the U.K., the new blood test can help predict the return of the breast cancer, months before the actual appearance of the new tumor signs in the breast cancer scan.
According to the researchers, the new blood test works by detecting the cancer DNA circulating in the bloodstream of the breast cancer survivor. Using a specialized DNA technology, the researchers identified the key genetic fault in the faulty cancerous DNA found in the patient's blood sample.
The blood samples were retrieved from the breast cancer survivors, who have received a chemotherapy after the surgery. The blood samples were withdrawn at different intervals after the surgery. The researchers discovered that the women, who had faulty cancerous genes circulating in their bloodstream, were 12 percent more likely to suffer from breast cancer relapse than women with no faulty genes at all.
By this method, the faulty genes in the tumor DNA can be identified months before the actual conventional diagnosis takes place. However, it will still take time to confirm that the test is practically feasible, according to Professor Jacqui Shaw of the institute.
“This important study suggests that looking for tumor DNA in a patient’s blood after they’ve been treated for early stage breast cancer could help monitor them, and even make predictions about whether their disease may come back,” said Shaw in a statement. “And it may be possible to do this before tumors become visible on conventional scans. But there is some way to go before this could be developed into a test that doctors could use routinely, and doing so is never simple.”
The test is still under experimental stage and has not been made available for public use yet. However, the researchers are hopeful that if the test is found to be successful and gets approved, it will eliminate the need to conduct a biopsy for breast cancer detection.


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Do Manchester United simply enjoy hearing what Barcelona star Pedro has to say on Twitter, or is there a deeper meaning behind their latest activity on social media?
The Red Devils official Twitter account began following the Spanish international on Monday night, soon after their 3-1 FA Cup win over Preston.
The Spaniard's last tweet came back on July 9, and so it's unclear why United would have made the sudden decision to add him to their list of persons of interest.
This season Pedro has only completed three full matches for Barcelona, while a regular for them in terms of making appearances, he usually either makes way early or finds himself utilised as a substitute.
The 27-year-old attacking midfielder has 10 goals this season in all competitions, and is known well to United after scoring the opener against them in the 2011 Champions League final.
Last week he was quoted by ESPN earlier this month giving mixed messages over his future: "Every year it's complicated to play here because I'm competing against the best players on the planet.
"It's difficult to be 100 percent happy, but I feel comfortable here. Those [of] us who have fewer minutes want to play. I don't know if they'll ask me to leave. I'm happy here and I want to continue but I don't know what might happen tomorrow. We'll talk at the end of the season."
Does United's social media activity signify interest? It's doubtful, but it's also worth noting that the last player they followed was goalkeeper Victor Valdes, who they signed last month.
Pedro has a contract with Barcelona which expires in a 2016, and while the Spanish side would try to refuse interest due to their own transfer ban, United are one of the few clubs in the world with the spending power to be able to tempt them.


The lame-duck Congress faces a long list of problems to solve by the end of the year.
If no agreement is reached, a series of tax cuts will expire and huge automatic budget cuts go into effect on Jan. 1. The combined actions could cost taxpayers an estimated $500 billion alone next year.
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Whether you're enjoying the refreshing taste of coca-cola in a glass bottle or mini coke can, it was meant to be enjoyed with friends and food taste the feeling. Dasani water, owned by coca cola is admitted to be nothing but tap water. The bets coca-cola has made on non-carbonated beverages are paying off in the united states on thursday, the large soda manufacturer reported that results last year in north america were fueled by strong volume gains for bottled water smartwater, flavored water vitaminwater, the dairy brand. The corporate accountability group is now looking to coca-cola’s dasani bottled water for false advertisement however,. Water vs coke water #1 75% of americans are chronically dehydrated (also applies to half the world population) #2 in 37% of americans, the thirst mechanism is so weak that it is mistaken for hunger.
Find out about the sustainability work coca-cola gb is doing around water stewardship & replenishment. New york - coca-cola company and its bottling partners expect to be replenishing 100 percent of the water used in their factories by the end of 2015, reaching a longstanding conservation goal five years ahead of schedule the beverage giant, which announced the replenishment target in 2007, said it. Pepsi admits that its aquafina bottled water is just tap water, the corporate accountability group is now looking to coca-cola’s dasani bottled water for false. This coca cola swot analysis reveals how the company controlling one of the most iconic brands the coca-cola company (2016) zico coconut water debuts larger.
Coca-cola and its bottlers 'replenish' all the water they use it might seem like a nice thing to replenish its water use, but coca-cola learned the hard. The coca-cola company's latest foray into the british bottled water market comes from the tap in sidcup, to be precise. For personal use: please use the following citations to quote for personal use: mla coca-cola on the yangtze: a corporate campaign for clean water in china. Coca- cola's water neutrality initiative coca- cola's water neutrality initiative water is essential to the business, they used around 80 billion gallons of water.
“water is to coca-cola as clean energy is to bp” so declares jeff seabright, coca-cola's manager of environmental affairs, when asked about the firm's new global water strategy the fizzy-drinks maker unveiled that strategy as part of its annual environmental report, released this week “we. Dasani (/ d ə ˈ s ɑː n i /) is a brand of bottled water from the coca-cola company, launched in 1999, after the success of aquafina (produced by coca-cola-rival pepsico)it is one of many brands of coca-cola bottled water sold around the world. Coca-cola is ensuring the sustainability of local water sources everywhere it operates water is the primary ingredient in coca-cola products. The coca-cola company offers various types of water products in the united states. A coca-cola bottling plant has been ordered to close in northern india after local farmers blamed it for using too much water, creating fresh headaches for the world’s biggest soft-drinks maker in one of its most important markets.
Coca-cola’s stuart hawkins on water replenishment and the economic empowerment of women entrepreneurs. Our products we have a variety of beverages to suit every lifestyle, taste and need the choice is yours find clear nutrition facts about your favorite drinks here. The coca-cola company expects to restore all the water it uses to make its beverages by the end of 2015 photograph: dylan martinez/reuters the coca-cola company expects to replenish all the water it uses to make its beverages by the end of 2015, five years ahead of its scheduled goal the beverage. Take a look at the 9 important questions around coca-cola and water wellbeing discover the difference between our three colas.
This water - coca-cola is a 58% shareholder in parent company innocent drinks thums up - carbonated soft drink in india and bangladesh. Coca cola’s operations have been blamed for exacerbating or causing stress on local water resources in some less developed countries review and discuss the evidence. The statistic depicts the global system water use of the coca-cola company in 2014 number of people using colas in spain from 2014 to 2016, by product type.


3D printers have been around for quite some time now, but like 4K TVs, we've yet to see them invade our homes.
The Micro is looking to change that with its affordable US$300 price tag and user-friendly design.
Easy on the eyes, The Micro offers plenty of design tweaks to ensure a less stressful printing experience.
For starters, the plastic filament spools fit inside The Micro itself, as opposed to attaching precariously on the outside within reach of renegade children and dogs with an appetite for destruction.
Coupled with its desk-friendly dimensions and 1kg weight, The Micro is easily portable and should be good to go within minutes of tearing open its box.
On the actual 3D printing side of things, The Micro features a motion chip for automatic levelling and calibration, along with self-lubricating carbon fibre rods and a ceramic heater for rapidly heating up.
It also claims to be the quietest 3D printer ever made with the lowest power consumption to boot, and it supports replaceable nozzles for tinkerers who want to take things further.
The greatest specs in the world mean nothing without the software to back it up, and The Micro creator M3D LLC has designed the 3D printing software to be as easy to use as possible.
It supports touch screen controls and has a simple interface, while an in-built search function lets you scour the web for objects which you can then watch come to life in front of your very eyes.
Advanced users have the option to enable expert settings which serve up more options for tweaking models and it's compatible with Windows, Mac or Linux-based systems.
If all that sounds promising to you then head on over to The Micro's Kickstarter page where you can slap down US$300 to pre-order one today to be delivered in August.


Back in the Golden Age of Hollywood, actors got cast in movies and, based on their performances in those movies or well the movies performed at the box office, they got cast in more movies. If they became popular enough, they made it into the strata of superstardom. But times are changing. Now, intellectual properties are the real stars. Iron Man and Captain America are the real stars of the Avengers movies, not Robert Downey, Jr. or Chris Evans. The quickest way to become a movie star today is to land a role in a big franchise. For example, here are 8 Actors Whose Careers Were Completely Changed By The MCU.
8 Sebastian Stan
Before playing Bucky Barnes in Captain America: The First Avenger, Sebastian Stan was known – if he was known at all – for minor roles in projects like Gossip Girl and Hot Tub Time Machine. The First Avenger didn’t make him a huge star, but when he returned as a brainwashed assassin with a metal arm in the present day in its sequel The Winter Soldier, moviegoers’ interest was piqued. After seeing Stan balance the conflicted mentality of Bucky as he combats his own brainwashing and tries to become a hero again, producers started casting him in substantial roles in Oscar-baiting dramas like I, Tonya, The Martian, Logan Lucky, and the Nicole Kidman cop thriller Destroyer.
7 Anthony Mackie
Before playing the Falcon in the MCU, Anthony Mackie was recognizable from supporting roles in Oscar-winning movies like 8 Mile, Million Dollar Baby, and The Hurt Locker. But he wasn’t necessarily a star until he joined the Avengers. Now, he’s had a bunch of opportunities to show his range as an actor. He’s appeared in comedies like Seth Rogen’s R-rated Christmas romp The Night Before, action thrillers like Triple 9, and socially conscious dramas like Detroit and The Hate U Give. Plus, he’ll be taking the lead role from Joel Kinnaman in the second season of Netflix’s cyberpunk science fiction series Altered Carbon.
6 Dave Bautista
It’s tough to make the jump from professional wrestler to Hollywood star. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, a former wrestler who is now the biggest movie star in the world, is the exception that proves the rule. They either go into B-action movies, like Stone Cold Steve Austin, or mock their formidable physique with comedic roles, like John Cena.
But Dave Bautista is following in the footsteps of The Rock and becoming an actual bona fide movie star, thanks to his role as Drax the Destroyer in the MCU. After Guardians of the Galaxy made him a favorite among blockbuster moviegoers, Bautista took roles in blockbusters like Spectre and Blade Runner 2049, as well as a starring role in the upcoming action comedy Stuber alongside comedian Kumail Nanjiani.
5 Tom Hiddleston
Tom Hiddleston was a little-known Shakespearean thespian before Kenneth Branagh cast him as the trickster god Loki in 2011’s Thor. He quickly became a popular character among both Marvel fans and regular moviegoers, which led to his role in the wider franchise being expanded significantly, including being the villain in the first Avengers movie. Now, Hiddleston is a huge star, which means that he’s getting high-profile projects like Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak and AMC’s spy thriller miniseries The Night Manager, and also that passive viewers have taken notice of his more highbrow performances in Shakespeare. He’s even tipped to take the role of James Bond from Daniel Craig.
4 Paul Rudd
A few years ago, Paul Rudd was known solely for starring in “bromantic comedies” with co-stars like Jason Segel and Seann William Scott. In fact, he became the poster boy for that whole subgenre. But when he took on the role of Ant-Man in the MCU, the kind of movies he was doing started to change. It’s weird, because the Ant-Man movies aren’t overly serious – they’re among the wackiest and most comedically toned movies in the MCU. Still, producers have started casting Rudd in a more serious light with dramatic roles in films like The Catcher Was a Spy and Mute.
3 Cobie Smulders
Most actors on successful TV shows struggle to shake the image of that character after the show goes off the air. But when Joss Whedon cast Cobie Smulders as S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Maria Hill, the closest confidante of Nick Fury, he ensured she’d continue to get film work after How I Met Your Mother ended.
We no longer see Robin Scherbatsky popping up in various movies; we see Cobie Smulders escaping the trappings of the sitcom and taking action roles in movies like Jack Reacher: Never Go Back. As the Infinity War post-credits scene and Spider-Man: Far From Home trailer show, Smulders still has a bright future in the MCU, too.
2 Robert Downey, Jr.
As a young man, Robert Downey, Jr. was a big movie star, but not as big as he is today. His drug addiction and public controversies led to a stint in rehab and what was thought to be the end of his career. But then Marvel took a chance on him with 2008’s Iron Man, betting on a comeback, and he was back in the Hollywood fold. The moviegoing public welcomed Downey back with open arms and he enjoyed the mother of all comebacks. Now, he can command $50 million paychecks for a single film and he’s fronting other franchises like Sherlock Holmes and the upcoming Dr. Dolittle reboot.
1 Chris Pratt
Before James Gunn took a chance on Chris Pratt by casting him as Peter Quill/Star-Lord in the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie, he was only known for playing the idiotic, yet well-meaning schlub Andy Dwyer on Parks and Recreation. No one thought he could play an action hero. But then he dropped the Andy weight, packed on a bunch of muscle, and embodied a cross between Han Solo and Indiana Jones to become an overnight sensation. Now, he’s one of the biggest movie stars in the world with leading roles in other huge franchises like Jurassic World and The LEGO Movie(s).


As the prototype confirms, the new Camaro won't look very different to the current model, but there are some big changes taking place beneath the skin. As we’ve known for some time, the new Camaro, which will arrive as a 2016 model, will be based on General Motors Company’s [NYSE:GM] brilliant Alpha platform, currently found in the Cadillac ATS and CTS.
Both light and stiff, the platform should ensure the new Camaro is leaps and bounds ahead of the relatively heavy Zeta-based model on sale today when it comes to acceleration, handling and economy. The lighter weight will also allow the new Camaro to offer a four-cylinder engine, providing a rival for Ford Motor Company’s [NYSE:F] new Mustang EcoBoost.
The four-cylinder engine will likely be a version of the 2.0-liter turbocharged unit that produces 272 horsepower and 295 pound-feet of torque in the Cadillac ATS and CTS. Of course, V-6 and V-8 engines should still be available for the Camaro. The prototype in this spy video is a V-8 model, most likely the Camaro SS. We hear the new SS will adopt a V-8 based on GM’s Gen V small-block instead of the current model's aging LS3.
At launch, we should see at least a base V-6 model, V-8-powered SS and perhaps the new four-cylinder model. Further down the track we can expect replacements for the 1LE, ZL1 and Z/28.
Production will take place at GM’s Lansing Grand River Assembly Plant located in Michigan, the same site where the ATS and CTS models are built (the current Camaro is sourced from Canada), and we hear that the convertible version will be launched alongside the coupe.


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The Seahawks don't have a scheduled regular season game until September and the season may not start on time due to COVID-19. But that development didn't stop Russell Wilson from receiving a huge offseason pay day.
Seattle's All-Pro quarterback received $35 million in deferred money on Wednesday, which was left over from his signing bonus as part of the massive four-year, $140 million extension he signed last April.
Immediately after striking the record-setting deal, Wilson received $30 million of the signing bonus last season. The deal in terms of average yearly value is the richest contract in NFL history.
The Super Bowl-winning quarterback certainly earned his keep last season as posted arguably the best numbers of his NFL career. The eighth-year veteran completed 66.1 percent of his passes for 4,110 yards and 31 touchdowns with a 106.3 passer rating, according to pro-football-reference.com.
During the first half of the season, Wilson was a front-runner for MVP honors, but Ravens standout Lamar Jackson eventually surpassed him. He would later be named the first-ever unanimous MVP in just his second season in the league.
Wilson's play on the field certainly warranted him the big contract extension he received last spring. However, it has presented a challenge for Seahawks general manager John Schneider to put a Super Bowl contending product on the field. Due a fully-guaranteed $18 million base salary in 2020, the six-time Pro Bowler accounts for 15.6 percent of the Seahawks salary cap for the upcoming season.
"It's awesome because you've got your quarterback. But then on the other hand, you've got to balance the rest of the roster right?" Schneider said at the NFL Scouting Combine. "So that's just a natural - it's a process for us. And you have to figure out, we have to make tough decisions every year, and so you have to decide.... But you have to navigate through that and how you're gonna balance your team."
Along with Wilson, ESPN's Field Yates also reported a couple of other Seahawks were due signing bonuses, including linebacker Bobby Wagner, who is owed $8 million of deferred money from his $15 million signing bonus after agreeing to a three-year, $15 million extension prior to the 2019 season.


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Love pixel art? This is a new form of pixel art you gotta check out. Using basic shapes and colors and a sprinkle of imagination, a little world is swirling under your fingertips. Share your art with friends or post it to our cloud gallery, we'd love to stumble upon your little world of new pixels :)
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domain: design


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I do so love a catchy title don't you? Sometimes that's all there is. Although I don't vividly remember the story itself, David Sedaris' Dinah The Christmas Whore is a title burned forever in my memory.
It's been brought to my attention (by me) that I cannot write unless I'm very interested in something, really happy about a particular event, pissed off or reviewing one event or another. Is there no middle ground? Perhaps this is it. Rambling around in my own brain looking for a way out.
A recurring thought - had I realized sooner that I, of all others, should by now be a literary scene darling pretending to hate the parties, I wouldn't be in this mess. You see, often I'll read something by one of the good Mssrs Sedaris, Lethem, Burroughs or Palahniuk, I think 'hey fucker, stop marauding around in my head and give me back my stuff'. Many's the time when I've already thought, said, described something in just the way one of them has and it makes me crazy/crazier.
Vicky and Sandra, booster commissionaires extraordinaires, tell me there there, you've got the Canadian perspective, the crazy family, the brilliant friends, just do it! They might be right.
I'll let you know how that works out for me. In between downloading songs for my iPod, my favourite inanimate object of late.
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domain: artistic


NSAI Summer Songwriter Series Presented By FORD featuring Hunter Hayes, Ben Caver, and Sara Haze
Nashville Songwriters Association International presents Artists & The Songwriters They Love. This unique series will highlight a recording artist and a hand-picked group of songwriters the artist works with, is friends with, is a fan of, or any combination of the three! In this acoustic in-the-round approach, the audience will be treated to intimate performances of the songs by these writers and artists and hear the stories behind them.
“I look at the world now,” Hunter Hayes says, pausing for a moment amid his typical whirlwind of excitable chatter, “and I’m like, ‘Why would I confine myself?”
The singer-songwriter and critically-revered musician is speaking to the open-ended possibilities of releasing music in today’s digital age. More specifically, how artists who were once confined to traditional delivery mechanisms, like albums and singles, are now able to share new material with fans at a moment’s notice. But one senses it’s as much a reflection of the 25-year-old’s unsparing, no-holds-barred mindset towards creativity. Yes, Hayes’ mind is an ever-brimming one, constantly overflowing with new ideas and songs and lyrics and melodies. He explains with palpable excitement that recent times for him — dreaming up new material in his home studio, working with trusted collaborators, road testing material in Europe and the States — have been no different.
“I’m at this place where I’ve written and recorded a lot of music and I’m still energized,” he says of a creative hot streak that followed last year’s release of “Yesterday’s Song,” “Amen” and “Young Blood.” “I’m not wiped of ideas. There’s so much more to say and do.” As the multiple GRAMMY-nominee and CMA winner notes proudly, “it’s only the beginning of an ongoing conversation.”
To that end, Hayes is picking up where he left off last year: by sharing new music directly with fans. “It’s honing in on what gives me joy,” he says of the thrilling new material, culled from more than 100 songs he’s written in recent months. “I’m focusing on me as an artist, what I want to be playing live and the music I want to be putting out.”
His is an ongoing creative process, and one that finds Hayes writing and recording some of the most boundary-pushing music of his career. “I want this music to come out every way it can. These songs deserve to see the light of day,” he notes. “We’re not thinking in boxes.” Working with songwriting heavyweights like Mike Busbee (Kelly Clarkson, Landy Antebellum, Keith Urban), Gordie Sampson (Dierks Bentley, Rascal Flatts, Miranda Lambert) and Barry Dean (Reba, Carrie Underwood, Blake Shelton), the forthcoming songs find Hayes pushing both his musical and lyrical talents into new and exciting territory. “A lot of stuff came out of my heart that I’d never let out before,” the Louisiana-native says.
Make no mistake, however: for Hayes there remains no greater place of refuge than the stage. It’s where the musician says the possibilities for musical and self-exploration remain open-ended and endless. “It’s the ultimate safe place,” he says of the high from his notoriously killer live sets. “That’s where I feel like we can try anything. And you know when we try something new we’re going to give it everything we got. We’re going to commit to it. For that time when I’m onstage my kid-self gets to go out and play. My heart gets to be free. No problems can touch me. There’s no thinking allowed. It’s the ultimate exercise in letting go.”
While in the past decade Hayes has undoubtedly created some of country music’s most memorable statements with his Double Platinum-certified, self-titled No. 1 debut, 2014’s chart-topping Storyline and the following year’s The 21 Project, moving forward he says he wants his fans to not merely get snapshots of where he’s at in his life but rather short stories detailing that moment in time. “Approaching music this way allows me to do what I love to do,” he explains.
“The musical landscape is changing and I’m nothing but excited to see where it leads.”
Ben Caver is a multi-talented vocalist and songwriter signed with Black River Publishing. Originally from Alabama, Ben moved to Nashville to attended Belmont University and quickly found success upon graduation. Caver is the co-writer behind “Relapse” for Carrie Underwood’s Storyteller, “Aftermath” for Rascal Flatts’ Rewind, “I Remember You” for Trisha Yearwood’s Prizefighter album, and “Oliva Mae,” from Brett Young’s self-titled album. He has also been featured as a background vocalist for artists such as Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, Thomas Rhett, and Brett Young.
Sara Haze grew up in Orange County, California and started writing and recording her own music when she was 14. Sara has had over 100 film and TV placements including; Safe Haven, The Hills and major motion picture Hot Pursuit. Sara has had songs recorded by Carrie Underwood, Rascal Flatts, Thompson Square, Elle King and more! Her songs “This City,” and “Think About You” landed on the recent Lady Antebellum release Heartbreak.


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RESEARCH SUPPORT, NON-U.S. GOV'T
Molecular characterization and complete genome analysis of human enterovirus 71 and coxsackievirus A16 from children with hand, foot and mouth disease in Thailand during 2008-2011.
Hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) has mostly been caused by enterovirus 71 (EV71) and coxsackievirus A16 (CA16). CA 16 was the most common cause of HFMD in 2010. EV71 had a high prevalence in 2008-2009 and has been identified with a higher frequency since 2011. Nearly complete genome sequences of three EV71 strains (2008-2009 strains) and two CA16 strains (2010 strains) obtained from outbreaks in Thailand in 2008 to 2010 were characterized. Based on a phylogenetic tree of the complete VP1 region, three EV71 strains grouped into the B5, C1 and C4 genotypes, and two CA16 strains grouped into the C genotype. Based on sequence analysis, nucleotide changes were found to cluster in the internal ribosome entry site (IRES) element of the 5'-untranslated region (5'-UTR). Amino acid differences identified in all strains were located in the non-structural protein. These data also provide the molecular epidemiology of EV71 and CA16 outbreaks in Thailand.
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domain: biology


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Planting and Pruning: The Twin Pillars of a Flourishing Landscape
Creating a beautiful landscape is a labor of love, and two activities at the heart of this labor are Planting and Pruning. These activities breathe life into your garden, helping it to thrive, bloom, and flourish. The art and science of Planting and Pruning can elevate your landscape from ordinary to extraordinary.
In this guide, we will delve into the intricate world of Planting and Pruning, explore their importance, discuss the steps involved, and explain why you should consider professional landscaping services.
The Importance of Planting and Pruning
Planting and Pruning hold a crucial place in landscaping due to several reasons:
• Growth and Health: Proper planting gives your plants a strong start, while regular pruning promotes growth and health.
• Aesthetics: Pruning maintains the shape and size of your plants, contributing significantly to the overall visual appeal of your landscape.
• Safety: Pruning helps remove dead or diseased branches, reducing the risk of damage to property or injury to individuals.
• Value: Thoughtful planting and routine pruning can enhance the value of your property by improving its curb appeal.
Key Steps in Planting and Pruning
Successful Planting and Pruning are not haphazard acts but follow a set of specific steps:
Choosing the Right Plants: Your choice of plants should consider factors like the local climate, soil type, sunlight exposure, and the available space in your landscape.
Proper Planting Technique: This involves digging a hole of the right size, placing the plant correctly, and filling the hole with soil while ensuring the plant is stable.
Aftercare: Newly planted trees or shrubs require regular watering until they establish.
Identifying What to Prune: Not all branches need pruning. Look for dead, diseased, or damaged branches, those crossing each other, or those growing in undesired directions.
Using the Right Technique: Make clean cuts at the correct angle and location to avoid damaging the plant and to promote healthy growth.
Pruning at the Right Time: The timing of pruning can vary depending on the plant species and the reason for pruning.
Making the Most of Your Planting and Pruning
To ensure your Planting and Pruning efforts are effective:
• Understand Your Plants: Different plants have different planting and pruning needs. Understanding these requirements is crucial for their health and growth.
• Use the Right Tools: Using the right tools for planting and pruning not only makes the job easier but also ensures the tasks are performed effectively and safely.
• Consider Professional Services: If you’re unsure about the right planting techniques or pruning methods, professional landscaping services can help.
Planting and Pruning are fundamental to achieving a beautiful, healthy, and safe landscape. They may require an investment of time and effort, but the rewards—a thriving, aesthetically pleasing garden—are well worth it. By understanding the needs of your plants and adopting the right techniques, or by engaging the expertise of professional landscapers, you can make the most of your landscape. Remember, effective Planting and Pruning are the stepping stones to a flourishing landscape that provides joy and enhances the value of your property.

domain: agronomy