KENDRICK LAMAR LEADS GRAMMY NOMINATIONS WITH 11 NODS

 

 

 

 

Taylor Swift, Kendrick Lamar and the Weeknd were among the artists nominated for the Grammys’ biggest awards as all three artists earned Album of the Year noms. Swift also locked up nominations in the Song of the Year and Record of the Year categories thanks to “Blank Space,” while Lamar’s “Alright” earned a Song of the Year nod and the Weeknd’s “Can’t Feel My Face” scored a Record of the Year nomination. The 58th annual Grammy Awards will air February 15th on CBS.

Swift’s 1989, Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly and the Weeknd’sBeauty Behind the Madness will face Chris Stapleton’s CMA Awards-dominating Traveller as well as Alabama Shakes’ Sound & Color in the Album of the Year category.

In the Song of the Year category, Little Big Town’s “Girl Crush,” Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth’s “See You Again” and Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud” will challenge “Blank Space” and “Alright.” “Thinking Out Loud” and “Blank Space” reappear in the Record of the Year category alongside “Can’t Feel My Face,” Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk” and D’Angelo and the Vanguard’s “Really Love.”

In the Best New Artist field, Courtney Barnett, Meghan Trainor and Tori Kelly will face off against Sam Hunt and James Bay for the award. Sam Smith won the award this year as part of a huge Grammy night that ended with the British singer taking home six Grammys, including Record of the Year and Song of the Year for “Stay With Me.” Beck’s Morning Phase was the surprise recipient of Best New Album.

Although Swift’s “Shake It Up” was nominated for Record of the Year and Song of the Year for the 2015 ceremony, her1989 was released on October 27th, 2014, outside of the eligibility window for the 57th annual Grammys, making it a frontrunner for the 2016 event.

The Grammy cut-off was September 30th, making Adele’s multi-platinum smash 25 and its debut single “Hello” ineligible for any awards at the February 15th event.

Album of the Year
Alabama Shakes – Sound & Color
Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp a Butterfly
Chris Stapleton – Traveller
Taylor Swift – 1989
The Weeknd – Beauty Behind the Madness

Record of the Year
D’Angelo & The Vanguard – “Really Love”
Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars – “Uptown Funk”
Ed Sheeran – “Thinking Out Loud”
Taylor Swift – “Blank Space”
The Weeknd – “Can’t Feel My Face

Song of the Year
Kendrick Lamar – “Alright”
Taylor Swift – “Blank Space”
Little Big Town – “Girl Crush”
Wiz Khalifa featuring Charlie Puth – “See You Again”
Ed Sheeran – “Thinking Out Loud”

Best New Artist
Courtney Barnett
James Bay
Sam Hunt
Tori Kelly
Meghan Trainor
The Rolling Stone
Posted by Odartey GH at 18

XENOPHOBIC ATTACKS

10 confirmed dead in xenophobic attacks in South Africa

Source: Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Naa Sakwaba Akwa | faustine.akwa@myjoyonline.com
Date: 20-04-2015 Time: 10:04:59:am

Ten people have so far been confirmed dead in xenophobic attacks in South Africa.

Spokesperson for the South African police, Solomon Makgale, revealed this in an interview on Adom FM’s morning show ‘Dwaso Nsem’.

Mr Makgale could not confirm the number of Ghanaians who have died in the attacks but said information available to the police indicates that “so far 10 people have died in the attacks”.

He also indicated that about a 100 people have been arrested in connection with the attacks and will be put before court later today.

Among the latest arrests were three men detained in connection with the murder of a Mozambican national in Alexandra, a township in Johannesburg.

Photographs showed Emmanuel Sithole being stabbed to death in broad daylight.

Emmanuel Sithole died two hours after he was sent to hospital. He sustained a 2cm gash in his chest

Five Ghanaians have died but it is yet to confirmed if all them was as a result of the xenophobic attacks.

He denied reports that residents in the province are up in arms against foreign nationals because their women prefer them over the locals since most of the men have not been circumcised – making sexual intercourse with them not enjoyable.

“We must not entertain that hogwash about sexual preferences and so on. We have been side by side for many years”, he said.

He added that “the issues are more complex and they require a lot of management and political leadership and as a police service we are behind our nation’s leaders to ensure that the perpetrators are brought to book”.

Mr Makgale said the police are out in their numbers in Durban and other places across the country to ensure that the hotspots are totally covered.

Due to the unorganised nature of the attacks, he said the police has had quite a tough time curbing the incident.

However, intelligent operatives and other forces are on hand to provide the police with information to enable it plan it operations, he noted.

He said he was hopeful that the situation will end soon and that as of this morning, the provinces where the attacks have been dominant have been brought under control.

He added that African countries across Africa should know that the attacks is not a South African position and that “many south Africans are against the attacks and have been protecting foreign nationals”.

” We are saying no to xenophobic attacks”, he said.

He assured that “we are worrying extremely hard that the criminals are arrested and prosecuted and hopefully the court will agree that they spend many many years behind bars”.

HOW IT BEGUN

A mining company in the KwaZulu Natal Province in Durban, South Africa decided that it will only employ foreign nationals at its mining site.

This did not go down well with South Africans in the province.

– See more at: http://www.myjoyonline.com/news/2015/April-20th/10-confirmed-dead-in-xenophobic-attacks-in-south-africa

xenophobic

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Technical talks between Greece and the Troika concluded today without a deal, another setback for Greece as domestic financial stress mounts.  Robin Brooks at Goldman-Sachs makes the important point—financial conditions have tightened sharply, and will have adverse and destabilizing effects on growth regardless of whether there is a deal next week between Greece and its European creditors on a reform package.  Household deposits in Greece (red line in the left chart) and deposits in non-financial corporations (right chart) have fallen sharply, causing a destructive tightening in financial conditions at a time when banks are already in trouble and constricting credit. (Anecdotal evidence suggests this trend is continuing, with additional outflows from Greek banks in March.) At the same time, a severe squeeze on fiscal resources is forcing the government to make tough decisions about who to pay and who not to pay—which I have called “the politics of arrears”.

Greece: Financial conditions

Source: Goldman Sachs

The experience with emerging markets highlights the high political and economic costs of a financial and fiscal squeeze.  In the run-up to Russia’s 1998 crisis, wage and interfirm arrears paralleled a weakening of budget discipline and were reflective of what the IMF came to call a “culture of non-payment” that undermined support for continued adjustment and was an impediment to recovery. In Argentina, after the introduction of banking sector controls in December 2001, financial conditions tightened sharply and arrears at the federal and local level mounted quickly. Paper IOUs issued by governments traded at deep discounts, and eventually most liabilities of the government and private sector were written down at preferred rates as part of an “asymmetric repesofication” by the government. A third example comes more recently from Venezuela, where the moral and political implications of continuing to pay external debt at a time when the government is running comprehensive domestic arrears and rationing foreign currency has generated a firestorm of debate. Weak fundamentals create the conditions for crisis, but payments problems determine the end game.

Robin argues that the risk of Grexit is rising, and I agree; it will become increasingly hard for the government to sustain support for its program and for continued participation in the eurozone as tight financial conditions cause a renewed recession.  Recent polls show Greek support for euro membership, but that could change quickly if stress intensifies. So while the long-term sustainability of Greece in the eurozone depends on fundamentals (e.g., a competitive, flexible economy and competitive exchange rate), the decisions the government makes in coming days domestically on payments and banking controls may have more to do with the outcome of the crisis than negotiations with European finance ministers.

Opinions expressed on CFR blogs are solely those of the author or commenter, not of CFR, which takes no institutional positions.

cardiovascular

The acclaimed surgeon and ‘father of computational biology’ are given the university’s highest distinction at the Academic Honors Convocation.
USC News, April 16, 2008

Vaughn A. Starnes and Michael Waterman are this year’s recipients of the university’s highest honor, the Presidential Medallion.

USC President Steven B. Sample presented the awards at the 27th annual Academic Honors Convocation April 7 at Town & Gown.

Starnes, an internationally renowned surgeon, has been a pioneer in cardiothoracic surgery, heart and lung transplantation and repair of congenital heart defects. He is also acclaimed for his expertise in heart surgery for newborns and children.

University Professor Michael Waterman, President Steven B. Sample and
USC Distinguished Professor Vaughn Starnes, from left, at the Town & Gown event

In 1990, Starnes performed the world’s first lobar transplant using a lung segment from a living donor. Three years later, he performed the first live donor, double-lobar lung transplant on a patient with cystic fibrosis. He has conducted more living donor lung transplants than any other surgeon in the United States.

Appointed as a USC Distinguished Professor in 2004, he is the founding executive director of the university’s Cardiovascular Thoracic Institute. He also directs the residency program for congenital cardiac surgery at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles.

Sample told the assembled guests that Starnes was being recognized “for his significant contributions to cardiothoracic medicine and transplantation, his distinguished career as a healer and educator, and his dedication to the advancement of human health and well-being.”

Speaking about Waterman, Sample said that the University Professor, a member of the USC faculty since 1982, “is widely regarded as the founding father of computational biology.”

The interdisciplinary field uses mathematics, statistics and computer science to study molecular mechanisms and attempts to unlock the mysteries of life itself.

He co-developed the Smith-Waterman algorithm for gene and protein sequence comparison and the Lander-Waterman formulas for physical mapping and sequencing. This second algorithm made it possible for the biotech firm Celera Genomics to accelerate and complete sequencing of the human genome well in advance of the government-funded Human Genome Project.

He is the principal investigator for the USC Center of Excellence in Genomic Science, a founding editor of the Journal of Computational Biology and a member in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences and the Institut de France Academie des Sciences, among other associations.

Dedicated to enriching campus life, for years he has overseen academic and social activities for students as faculty master at USC’s International Residential College at Parkside.

The medallion, Sample said, was awarded to Waterman “for his pioneering work in computational biology, his distinguished career as a scientist and educator, and his dedication to the well-being of USC’s community of scholars.”