Carlos Ghosn has spent more than a year trapped in a Japanese legal odyssey that’s transfixed the automotive world and thrown his life into chaos. Now, having pulled off an escape from Japan to Lebanon, he’s an international fugitive.

But the executive is also free to speak his mind fully, without legal filtering, for the first time since his surprise arrest on the tarmac at Haneda airport in November 2018. And this much seems likely: The former head of Nissan Motor Co. and Renault has stories to tell and scores to settle.

At stake is Ghosn’s entire legacy. Will he be remembered as the brilliant, cost-cutting manager who rescued Nissan and built one of the mightiest auto alliances in the industry? Or will he be just another name in a hall of infamy of white-collar fugitives?

Meanwhile, the Financial Times reported that Lebanon had pressed for Ghosn’s return one week before the escape and that he had the help of private security operatives who had been planning the operation for months. Quoting a person close to the Ghosn family, the Financial Times said the security operatives had split into several teams operating in different countries. Preparations were assisted by Japanese supporters of Ghosn, said two people familiar with the situation.

Ghadi Khoury, the Lebanese foreign ministry’s director of political affairs, told the Financial Times that Lebanon “had asked for [Ghosn’s] extradition.” He denied the government was involved in the escape plans.

Ghosn said in his statement from Lebanon on Tuesday that he would “finally communicate freely with the media, and look forward to starting next week.” So get ready for what’s likely to be a blistering public relations assault that will rattle some cages in Japan and France. Ghosn is planning a news conference Jan. 8 in Beirut, the Yomiuri newspaper reported.

Based on past statements by Ghosn and his wife, Carole, here’s a guide to what may be in store.

Japan’s legal system

“I have not fled justice,” Ghosn said in the first emailed statement after his exit from Japan. “I have escaped injustice and political persecution.” An even more robust indictment of the nation’s legal system is likely in the weeks ahead.

Ghosn’s arrest revived long-standing concerns about the fairness of Japan’s judicial system, where prosecutors can grill suspects repeatedly without their lawyers present and enjoy an almost 100% conviction rate.

Under the terms of the executive’s bail, the courts restricted contact with his family. In his Tuesday statement, Ghosn called the Japanese justice system rigged and said his “basic human rights” had been denied, including the presumption of innocence. Those are issues that he almost certainly would have put on the world stage had his case come to trial.

Nationalist conspiracy?

For months, Ghosn’s attorneys have been arguing that all of the charges against their client were bogus, the result of a broad conspiracy among nationalistic Nissan officials, Japanese prosecutors and the government itself.

The goal, Ghosn said, was to smear him in order to prevent the executive from further integrating Nissan and France’s Renault, a plan that threatened the Japanese carmaker’s autonomy and was vehemently opposed in the highest echelons of Tokyo officialdom.

Corporate payback

In April, Ghosn was detained before a scheduled tell-all news conference, prompting his camp to release a pre-recorded video for such an eventuality.

In it, Ghosn spoke of several Nissan executives who he said turned on him to advance their own interests. The original video named the people; that segment was edited out in the version released to the public.

“I’m talking here about a few executives who, obviously for their own interests and for their own selfish fears, are creating a lot of value destruction. Names? You know them,” Ghosn hinted in his video. Now, Ghosn may be ready to disclose names.

Nissan’s slide

In his video, Ghosn also criticized Nissan’s management for the company’s poor performance, saying it lost sight of the need to move the alliance with Renault forward.

“I’m worried because obviously the performance of Nissan is declining, but also I’m worried because I don’t think there is any vision for the alliance being built,” Ghosn said in the video.

Nissan’s earnings have tumbled to the lowest level in a decade and the stock was the worst performer on the Bloomberg World Auto Manufacturers Index last year (the second-worst was Renault), so he may hit that note again.

French establishment

In several interviews, Ghosn’s wife, Carole, lashed out at the French establishment for not doing more to help the former head of Renault, who also is a French citizen.

In an interview with Journal du Dimanche, she said President Emmanuel Macron hasn’t answered her pleas for help. “The silence from the Elysee Palace is deafening,” she said. “I thought France was a country that defended the presumption of innocence. They’ve all forgotten everything Carlos did for France’s economy and for Renault.”

It remains to be seen which talking points Ghosn will hit the hardest. Yet this much is clear: He is a fighter, and he has everything to lose if he can’t pull ahead in the PR war. That suggests his approach won’t be subtle.

Click Here: Australia Rugby Shop

Google has overhauled its global tax structure and consolidated all of its intellectual property holdings back to the U.S., signaling the winding down of a tax loophole estimated to have saved American companies hundreds of billions of dollars.

The internet search company said on Tuesday the move was designed to simplify its corporate tax arrangements and was in line with OECD efforts to limit international tax avoidance, as well as recent changes to U.S. and Irish laws.

Google’s actions came ahead of the close of the so-called double Irish tax loophole, which has been used by U.S. companies to channel international profits through Ireland and on to tax havens like Bermuda — putting them outside the U.S. tax net. That led American companies to amass more than $1 trillion offshore as of the end of 2017, when President Trump’s tax overhaul changed the treatment of overseas profits.

Ireland bowed to international pressure five years ago and agreed to close the scheme, which was popular with technology and pharmaceutical businesses, but companies that already used it were given until the end of 2020 to end the practice.

Most companies acted well ahead of that deadline, replacing their double Irish arrangements with new structures that have the same benefits, said Ed Kleinbard, a tax law professor at USC. Google’s move was unusual in that it suggested the company had acted later than others, he added.

A lack of disclosure requirements means that little is known about how specific companies have adjusted their tax arrangements, said Chris Sanchirico, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “Based on what we have been able to see in the past, there is no reason to think that planning [by multinationals] hasn’t already evolved several generations beyond the kind of classic double Irish that is now officially coming to an end.”

According to a report from the International Monetary Fund last year, one popular new avoidance arrangement involved companies injecting intellectual property into new subsidiaries in Ireland, known as IP onshoring.

Under double Irish arrangements, companies could place IP like patents and trademarks in separate subsidiaries that were legally based in Ireland, but not treated as domiciled there for tax purposes, as long as they were managed and controlled from abroad. That IP could then eventually be channeled through to tax havens like Bermuda.

Click Here: Australia Rugby Shop

Google said by moving its IP from Bermuda to the U.S. it was reacting to changes in U.S. tax law designed to limit the ability of companies to cut their tax bills by holding intangible assets offshore.

The Trump administration’s tax legislation, passed two years ago, imposed new taxes on companies’ excess profits from IP held overseas, partly to encourage American businesses to bring it back to the U.S.

American companies have in the past taken advantage of favorable Irish tax arrangements to shift profits out of the U.S. tax net, even when their IP is held in the U.S. Apple, for instance, keeps its IP in the U.S., but has used a research and development cost-sharing arrangement with a subsidiary in Ireland that allowed it to ascribe a large part of its international profits to the unit. Because the subsidiary was managed from Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, Calif., it did not fall into either the Irish or U.S. tax net.

The Apple structure had most of the same benefits of the double Irish, which came later, said Kleinbard.

The Financial Times Ltd. 2019. All Rights Reserved. FT and Financial Times are trademarks of the Financial Times Ltd. Not to be redistributed, copied or modified in any way.

Predicting the future is hard, even for the people with the most power to influence it. In 2013, Jeff Bezos said he expected Amazon.com Inc. would be delivering packages by drone in four to five years. Here we are seven years later, the flying delivery robots Bezos envisioned are still at the testing stage and have just started to get regulatory approval in the U.S.

Corporate fortunetelling is a common practice in the technology industry, and executives tend to choose round numbers as deadlines for their technological fantasies. So, as a new decade dawns, let’s take a look back at how some of the tech industry’s predictions for 2020 fared.

Uber will deploy flying cars

When Uber Technologies Inc. pledged to deliver on a promise of the Jetsons, it gave itself just three years to do so. The company still intends to hold flight demonstrations in 2020, but it’s safe to say you will not be able to hail a flying Uber in the next year. The company continues to explore the concept with regulators. In 2019, Uber added a form of flying vehicle that’s not particularly cutting edge: It’s booking helicopter rides in New York City. In December, Uber said it was working with a startup, Joby Aviation, to develop “aerial ride-sharing” and set a deadline of 2023. Uber Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi tweeted: “Getting closer …”

9 out of 10 people over age 6 will own a mobile phone

In 2014, Ericsson Mobility estimated that 90% of people on Earth older than 6 would own a mobile phone by 2020. This is a hard one to measure, but a visit to developing countries suggests we are nowhere close. Research firm Statista puts global penetration at 67%. One milestone achieved this decade is that the number of mobile subscriptions exceeded the world’s population for the first time, according to data compiled by the World Bank. The statistic is skewed by people who use multiple devices.

Concern about the potential harmful effects of video game and social-media overuse by children may mean this never happens. There’s now a national movement in the U.S. encouraging parents to wait until kids are in the eighth grade (age 13) before letting them have a smartphone.

The first 60-mile hyperloop ride will take place

In 2013, Elon Musk outlined his vision for a new “fifth mode of transportation” that would involve zipping people through tubes at speeds as fast as 800 miles per hour. Several tech entrepreneurs heeded Musk’s call and went to work on such systems inspired by the billionaire’s specifications. In 2015, one of the leading startups predicted a hyperloop spanning about 60 miles would be ready for human transport by 2020. Rob Lloyd, then the CEO of Hyperloop Technologies, told Popular Science: “I’m very confident that’s going to happen.”

It hasn’t. His company, now called Virgin Hyperloop One, has a 1,600-foot test track in California and hopes to build a 22-mile track in Saudi Arabia someday. Musk has since experimented with hyperloops of his own, and even he has had to scale back his ambitions. Musk’s Boring Co. is building a so-called Loop system in Las Vegas, starting with a nearly mile-long track that consists of a narrow tunnel and Tesla cars moving at up to 155 miles per hour.

Computer chips will consume almost no energy

Gordon Moore was famous for his foresight about the development of cheaper and more advanced computers. Intel Corp., the company he co-founded, stayed in the prognostication game years after Moore retired, with mixed results. In 2012, Intel predicted a form of ubiquitous computing that would consume almost zero energy by 2020. The year has dawned and phones still barely last a day before needing a recharge. The i9, Intel’s latest top-of-the-line computer chip, requires 165 watts of energy. That’s more than twice as much as a 65-inch television.

Jet.com will break even

Jet.com was an embodiment of the startup unicorn before that was even a term. Marc Lore started the online retailer after selling his previous company to Amazon. Jet would challenge Lore’s former employer by offering cheaper prices on products with a subscription that substantially undercut Prime. To do that, Jet quickly started burning through the more than $700 million it had raised from venture capitalists, and critics said the startup had no path to profitability. In response, Lore said on Bloomberg TV in 2015 that Jet would break even by 2020.

Walmart Inc. swooped in a year after that interview and bought Jet for $3.3 billion. According to news site Vox, Walmart is projecting a loss of more than $1 billion in 2019 for its U.S. e-commerce division, now led by Lore.

Google’s cloud business will eclipse advertising

Selling cloud services became a big business for Amazon, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Microsoft Corp. over the last decade. Google executive Urs Hölzle saw the shift coming and in 2015 predicted Google’s cloud revenue would supersede advertising by 2020. Alphabet Inc.’s Google has inched closer to Amazon Web Services since then, but it’ll take a lot to outgrow Google’s cash cow. The cloud is expected to represent almost 15% of revenue for Google in 2019, compared with 85% for ads.

Huawei will make a ‘superphone’

Here’s what Huawei Technologies Co. said in 2015 when predicting a “superphone” by 2020, according to ZDNet: “Inspired by the biological evolution, the mobile phone we currently know will come to life as the superphone,” said Shao Yang, a strategy marketing president of Huawei. “Through evolution and adaptation, the superphone will be more intelligent, enhancing and even transforming our perceptions, enabling humans to go further than ever before.”

It’s not entirely clear what that means, but it probably hasn’t happened yet. In the interim, Huawei found itself in the middle of a trade war, and the Chinese company is focusing largely on mid-priced phones for its domestic market.

Toyota will make fully self-driving cars

Auto and tech companies alike became convinced this decade that computers would soon be able to drive cars more reliably than people. In 2015, Toyota Motor Corp. made a companywide bet that it would have autonomous highway-driving cars on the road by 2020. It didn’t take long for the hype cycle to veer off course. In 2018, a pedestrian died after colliding with an Uber self-driving car. In 2020, Toyota’s Lexus brand will introduce a car capable of driving autonomously on the highway, but executives acknowledged that auto companies were “revising their timeline for AI deployment significantly.”

Bitcoin will be worth $1 million

John McAfee, the controversial computer antivirus mogul and an influential voice in the cryptocurrency community, predicted the price of bitcoin would reach $1 million by the end of 2020. McAfee posted the estimate on Twitter in November 2017, about three weeks before a crash would erase 83% of value over the next year. Bitcoin has recovered somewhat, but the current price of about $7,200 is far from McAfee’s magic number. Like other Bitcoin bulls, McAfee is standing by his unlikely prediction.

Dyson will sell an electric car

It was barely two years ago when the maker of blow-dryers and vacuum cleaners said it would sell an electric car by 2020. Dyson canceled the project this year, calling it “not commercially viable.”

Western Truck Exchange’s smiling retro trio of Wayne, Dan and Mark make up one of Los Angeles’ best-known company logos, traversing the city on the mudflaps of thousands of trucks.

But there are other local businesses with beloved designs. Here are a few, along with their backstories, from one nearly a century old to a more current symbol of the social media era.

Felix Chevrolet’s wonderful cat

Felix the Cat, “the wonderful wonderful cat,” to quote the cartoon’s long-ago theme song, was the first superstar cartoon character and reigned until he was eclipsed by a big-eared mouse named Mickey.

In 1921, Felix co-creator Pat Sullivan and a friend decided to help each other out on the promotion front, using the latter’s brand new downtown L.A. auto dealership. The friend’s name was Winslow B. Felix, and Felix Chevrolet has carried Felix the Cat as its official mascot ever since.

In 1957, painter Wayne E. Heath was commissioned to create a sign for the dealership’s roof. Aerospace engineers were brought in to make sure the huge neon (now LED) Felix sign — with three 50-by-50-foot sides — was anchored sturdily enough to stay on the roof in a high wind, said Greg Iverson, Felix Chevrolet’s internet and marketing director.

The South Figueroa Street sign, which has been designated a historic cultural monument, is easily visible from the Harbor Freeway and parts of downtown.

Felix Chevrolet branded items can be found for sale online, bringing in $10,000 or more a month to the dealership, Iverson said. Ten percent of the revenue, he said, goes to the current holder of the rights to Felix the Cat, DreamWorks Animation, which is owned by Comcast’s NBCUniversal division.

The biggest seller is Felix Chevrolet license plate frames and inserts, favored by lowrider clubs around the world, he said.

“I just finished the L.A. car show,” Iverson said. “They had 12 lowriders on display down there, and seven of them had our license plates on.”

Western Exterminator’s ‘Little Man’

Western Exterminator’s mascot, dubbed “Little Man,” first appeared in 1931, 10 years after the pest extermination firm was founded in Los Angeles. Dapper in his black tux, wingtips, gloves and top hat, Little Man holds up a warning finger at his arch nemesis, Menace Mouse, with a large mallet hidden behind his back to counter the rodent’s small knife and fork.

Sales representatives for the Yellow Pages, then the preeminent business ad platform, told owners Carl Strom and Ray Lovejoy that Western Exterminator’s sales would improve if they added a logo or a trademark to their advertisement.

Artist Vaughan Kaufman was commissioned to design the character, which was originally called Kernel Kleenup and then Inspector Holmes, the supposed distant cousin of a British fellow named Sherlock. Eventually the company settled on Little Man as a moniker.

In 2012, Western Exterminator was purchased by British firm Rentokil Initial. While that deal was in the works, “I was on a plane flying to Los Angeles, and the gentleman seated next to me asked what I was doing,” recalled John Myers, chief executive of Rentokil North America, based in Charlotte, N.C. “When I told him that I was working with Western Exterminator, he immediately exclaimed, ‘The little man with the hammer!’

“It became very clear to me at that moment the Little Man was so much more than a logo. The Little Man is part of our team, a brand ambassador, salesman and a customer experience expert all in one,” Myers said. “The Little Man is an iconic figure recognized around the world, and we are so proud to have him represent Western Exterminator.”

There are 17½-foot statues of Little Man above the Hollywood Freeway in Los Angeles, along the Bayshore Freeway outside of San Francisco and near Western Exterminator’s main office in Phoenix. He can also be found on every Western Exterminator pest control truck.

But the logo has never been confined to those roles. Little Man has been found on motorcycle gang tattoos and even accompanied the rock band Van Halen in 1984 on their nine-month North American concert tour, rocking out in a stage cartoon and adorning the group’s backstage and after-show passes, which have become a sold-out collector’s item. One of the band members was a client of the company.

El Tepeyac Cafe’s guardians

Elena Rojas still remembers the day in 1986 when a female customer announced that she had flown her boyfriend in from Denver so they could enjoy freshly made machaca burritos at one of Los Angeles’ oldest continuously operating Mexican restaurants. El Tepeyac Cafe opened in 1955. The woman couldn’t remember the restaurant’s name, but she knew to ask directions to the place with the distinctive caricature logo posted outside: a man in a huge sombrero standing with a woman and resting a rifle butt on the ground.

After wolfing down the food, Rojas said, the couple ordered 10 burritos to go before heading off to the flight back to Denver.

The restaurant’s logo dates back to the early 1960s, Rojas said. A student from a local community college drew it to look like Rojas’ father, Manuel, who founded the restaurant, and his sister.

“He was dressed in a charro suit like they wear in the mariachi bands, and she was wearing a Mexican dress. He made them look a little like rebels” with bandoliers across their chests. “It was done in fun and my dad liked it and we started using it,” she said. “Everyone recognizes it.”

Manuel Rojas died in 2013 at age 79. Now Elena Rojas runs the restaurant, which built its reputation on gigantic burritos, including the Hollenbeck, popular among LAPD officers serving in that patrol division.

“He embraced everyone who came to the restaurant,” Rojas said. “People thought of him as a gift from God.”

Happy Foot Sad Foot

For nearly 35 years, the Happy Foot Sad Foot sign advertised a Silver Lake podiatry clinic on Sunset Boulevard and Benton Way but was removed in September after the clinic relocated.

On one side of the rotating rectangle, a cartoon foot — the happy foot — grins and raises its tiny fists in triumph. On the other side, a sad foot grimaces as it hobbles on a flimsy crutch.

The sign was beloved in the neighborhood and regarded by some superstitious fans as a predictor of the near future. Seeing the happy foot first gave hope for a great day ahead. Seeing the sad foot first, not so much.

Barry Richman, the original clinic owner, who based the design on a patient’s sketch, told the L.A. Times in 1999 that the sign’s only power was attracting customers, but he didn’t begrudge others their spin on the sign. “People can make up any kind of craziness they want,” he said, “but I did it just for fun.”

Current owner Thomas D. Lim hopes to mount the sign at his new location, but the landlord so far isn’t keen on the idea. In the meantime, the sign is on display inside the Y-Que Trading Post on Vermont Avenue in nearby Los Feliz, where customers often have to be told that they can’t buy it.

Fiesta Auto Insurance’s magpie

Founded in 1999 in Long Beach, Fiesta Auto Insurance sells automobile insurance and tax preparation services, often in Latino neighborhoods, with the help of a black bird in a yellow hat, its wings assuming a comedic shrugging pose.

Most people think the bird is a crow, said Carlos Gil, director of operations for Fiesta Franchise Corp., now based in Las Vegas.

“It’s actually a magpie, inspired by the cartoon characters Heckle and Jeckle,” Gil said, referring to the yellow-billed avian cartoon pair that made their postwar animation debut in 1946 in the Terrytoons cartoon “The Talking Magpies.”

“The idea for the logo came together with the help of some of our original franchisees,” Gil said, starting out with “a dodo bird costume. We didn’t want to use a real movie star or a sports player because we had all heard horror stories about having your company tied to a person in a scandal. Humans make those kinds of mistakes. Cartoon characters typically don’t.”

From its modest Southern California origins, Fiesta has enjoyed steady growth. In 2006, the company started offering franchises. It now has more than 210 offices in California and eight other states: Colorado, Florida, Illinois, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Texas. Counting full-time employees and franchisees, there are about 600 people representing the brand, Chief Executive John Hollar said.

Max the Magpie is prominent on company websites, and most franchises have someone in costume making the rounds with customers or drawing attention to the business by walking the sidewalk and parking lot, waving at passersby and exhorting visitors to come inside.

How often are customers drawn in because of the magpie? “It happens all the time,” said Gil. “I’ve seen people taking selfies with the bird before they even come into the office.”

Snap’s Ghostface Chillah

The first logo for the company then known as Snapchat was designed by future billionaire Evan Spiegel, chief executive and co-founder of the company he created in 2011 with Bobby Murphy while they were students at Stanford University.

The ghost logo conveys the concept of the messaging app, which automatically deletes most messages and photos once they’re viewed.

Spiegel designed the logo in one evening, creating a white ghost with a silly face on a yellow background and the name Ghostface Chillah, inspired by Ghostface Killah, the stage name of a member of the hip-hop group Wu-Tang Clan.

The logo has evolved since it debuted, starting out with a quirky smile and a red tongue poking out. A subsequent version got rid of the face. A third version added a thicker border. The one constant has been the shade of the yellow background, which the company says is bright and cheerful without glare that might tire a person’s eyes.

“Our logo, the ghost “Chillah,” has been an important part of Snapchat’s visual identity since the early days of the app,” said Elizabeth Markman, director of product communications at Snap Inc. “We recently updated it with a bolder outline and a cleaner shape.”

CHICAGO — 

The sale of marijuana for recreational purposes became legal Wednesday in Illinois — prompting many to begin lining up hours early at dispensaries.

About 500 people were outside Dispensary 33 in Chicago. Renzo Mejia made the first legal purchase in the shop shortly after 6 a.m., the earliest that Illinois’ new law allowed such sales.

“To be able to have [recreational marijuana] here is just mind-boggling,” Mejia told the Chicago Sun-Times after buying an eighth of an ounce called “Motorbreath.”

Illinois already allowed medical marijuana, but it is now the 11th state to allow its use and sale for recreational purposes. The law approved by the Democratic-controlled Legislature and signed by Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker allows people 21 or older to possess up to 30 grams (1.06 ounces) of cannabis flower and up to 5 grams (0.17 ounces) of cannabis concentrate.

Pamela Althoff, executive director of the Springfield-based Cannabis Business Assn. of Illinois, told the Associated Press that she spent much of Wednesday morning in Chicago and the city’s northwestern suburbs. She said wait times of up to three hours were getting shorter as the day progressed.

“It has been joyous and well-run,” she said. “People are extraordinarily courteous and civil.”

Police were on hand at most shops, mostly to control traffic.

Althoff cautioned that recreational marijuana may not be consumed in public and added that like all new products, it may be a little expensive.

“We hope that down the line it will become less expensive,” she said. “The message from the industry is not promoting or opposing, it’s the state of Illinois made it legal and we’re here to provide a safe and a quality product for those who wish to consume. We encourage our customers to be responsible.”

Mary Yazel-Muska, 65, told the Chicago Tribune that she planned to celebrate her purchase from a dispensary in suburban Mundelein with champagne and edibles at home with her boyfriend.

“I’m a responsible human being,” Yazel-Muska said. ”I own a home. I worked for a bank as a fraud investigator for 20 years. I rescue dogs. I volunteer. I take care of my 93-year-old mother. It’s not like we’re all a bunch of hippies.”

Cannabis sales could generate $250 million for Illinois by 2022, according to estimates by state officials.

Neighboring Michigan made recreational marijuana legal starting Dec. 1. Missouri voters made medical marijuana legal in 2018, but the state is still working on licensing businesses.

Michigan has 23 retailers licensed for adult-use recreational sales. Its single-transaction limit is the same for residents and nonresidents.

In Illinois, nearly three dozen dispensaries have been issued licenses to sell recreational marijuana.

A key part of Illinois’ law is the expungement of some low-level marijuana convictions. On Tuesday, Pritzker granted more than 11,000 such pardons.

Click Here: WORLD CUP Rugby Shop

ELDON, Iowa — 

Tiny Eldon in southeast Iowa has been losing population, jobs and business for nearly five decades, but one woman is trying to turn things around with a focus on tourism centered around the community’s famous landmark — the house that served as the backdrop for Grant Wood’s “American Gothic” painting.

Donna Jeffrey, 70, has lived in Eldon her entire life. She is leading a nonprofit that seeks to reinvigorate the town by giving visitors a reason to spend more time and money there, the Des Moines Register reported.

“The town just seemed so desolate,” said Jeffrey. “It’s bad for people who have grown up in Eldon — we don’t have a restaurant anymore; we don’t have a grocery store. For our town to survive, we have to save these buildings and get this business back.”

Eldon formed in 1870 around a railroad depot. The economy grew when it became a stop for the Rock Island Company’s route between Chicago and Los Angeles and a crew change station.

But it was after Iowa-born Wood based the background of “American Gothic” on a white-framed house in Eldon that the town received international attention. Wood, who was raised in Cedar Rapids, visited Eldon after spending time in France and was struck by the home’s intricate second-story window, ordered from a Sears catalog.

The painting is in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, where it was first exhibited in 1930.

The house, still standing, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and the American Gothic House Center draws thousands of tourists annually.

The problem for Eldon is that visitors to the historic house rarely stick around after their visit.

Eldon’s population, which peaked at about 2,000 residents in the 1920s, dipped to 917 in 2018, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Jeffrey, a retired accountant, formed Eldon Uptown/Downtown in 2016.

The owner of a building that housed a burned-out bar gave the structure to the nonprofit. Jeffrey and her family tore down the bar. In the empty space between two other buildings, they built a small public courtyard with patio seats.

In 2017, the nonprofit received two other empty buildings across the street. Jeffrey received a $30,000 grant and has applied for another in hopes of putting a coffee shop with an upstairs apartment in the old cafe. In the other building, she imagines a retail space — preferably something like an antique shop that attracts tourists.

“We need to base all of our retail on tourism,” Jeffrey said.

Click Here: WORLD CUP Rugby Shop

JAKARTA, Indonesia — 

Severe flooding and landslides triggered by torrential rain in Indonesia’s capital have killed 17 people and displaced tens of thousands, a disaster official said Thursday.

Monsoon rains and rising rivers submerged at least 169 neighborhoods in greater Jakarta and caused landslides in the Bogor and Depok districts on Jakarta’s outskirts, according to Agus Wibowo, spokesman for the National Disaster Mitigation Agency.

Click Here: WORLD CUP Rugby Shop

The floods inundated thousands of homes and buildings and forced authorities to cut off electricity and water and paralyzed transport networks, Wibowo said. He said more than 31,000 people were in temporary shelters after floodwaters reached more than 8 feet in places.

Jakarta’s Halim Perdanakusumah domestic airport reopened Thursday after operations were suspended when floodwaters submerged its runway, said Muhammad Awaluddin, the president director of PT Angkasa Pura II, the airport’s operator. Nearly 20,000 passengers had been affected by the closure.

Residents of Bekasi on the Jakarta’s outskirts waded through water up to their necks or floated on makeshift rafts carrying clothes and other salvaged possessions. Some scrambled onto roofs to await rescue from soldiers and emergency workers in rubber dinghies.

“The government is awful and the rescue effort is too slow,” said Imas Narulita, who spent 36 hours on the second floor of her suburban house with her 6-month-old baby.

Social affairs minister Juliari Peter Batubara said the government dispatched medical teams and rubber rafts to the worst hit areas, while rescuers in boats delivered instant noodles and rice to those who chose to stay on the upper floors of their homes.

The flooding has highlighted Indonesia’s infrastructure problems.

Jakarta is home to 10 million people, or 30 million including those in its greater metropolitan area. It is prone to earthquakes and flooding and is rapidly sinking due to uncontrolled extraction of groundwater. Congestion is also estimated to cost the economy $6.5 billion a year.

President Joko Widodo announced in August that the capital will move to a site in sparsely populated East Kalimantan province on Borneo island, known for rainforests and orangutans.

Widodo told reporters in Jakarta on Thursday that one of the causes of flooding is due to damage to the ecosystem and ecology in addition to many people who throw garbage into rivers.

He said that the government is working to mitigate and prevent flooding in regions across the country. Especially in Jakarta, the construction of West Java’s Cimahi and Ciawi dams is expected to be completed by next year.

“Both the central and regional governments would work together to solve the problem,” Widodo said.

VICTOR, N.Y. — 

The top Republican in the New York State Assembly was charged New Year’s Eve with driving while intoxicated in his state-issued vehicle, just a week after he wrote a newspaper column warning citizens against getting behind the wheel drunk.

Brian M. Kolb, a Republican from Canandaigua who represents a district just outside Rochester, was arrested near his home after what he called a “lapse in judgment.”

Authorities said they were called to a crash in Victor just before 10:30 p.m. after a vehicle ran into a ditch. Kolb was found to be the driver of the 2018 GMC Acadia that crashed in front of his home.

An Ontario County sheriff’s deputy administered field sobriety tests, which authorities said Kolb failed, before taking him to jail.

While there, a breath test indicated Kolb’s blood-alcohol content was over the New York legal limit of 0.08%, authorities said.

No one else was injured. Officials did not say where Kolb was driving from.

Kolb said there was no excuse.

“This was a terrible lapse in judgment, one I have urged others not to make, and I take full responsibility for it,” the assemblyman said in a brief written statement.

“I made the wrong decision, and it is one I deeply regret,” he said.

Kolb has represented the district since 2000 and has served as Assembly minority leader since 2009. The district covers all of Ontario County and a portion of Seneca County. In 2018, Kolb briefly campaigned to unseat Gov. Andrew Cuomo before dropping out of the race.

On Christmas Eve, Kolb wrote a column in the upstate Daily Messenger newspaper that warned against people driving while under the influence of alcohol during the holidays, and acknowledged December is National Drunk and Drugged Driving Prevention Month.

“Many of our holiday traditions, especially our New Year’s Eve celebrations, involve indulging in spirits,” he wrote. “Done safely, and in moderation, these can be wonderful holiday experiences. However, tragedy can be only one bad decision away.”

News of Kolb’s arrest led fellow Republican Assemblyman Kieran Michael Lalor to call for him to step down.

Kolb “should step down as Assembly Minority Leader,” Lalor tweeted. “That he hasn’t done so already is a disgrace.”

Haas F1 boss Guenther Steiner has admitted that there were points during the 2019 season when he feared that the team’s two drivers were simply no longer manageable together.

Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen clashed at several points in the first half of the season, with the worst incident coming early in the British Grand Prix where contact between the pair on the first lap sent both cars into retirement.

For Steiner, it was almost the final straw in a season that was already proving to be a deeply disappointing one for the squad.

“After Silverstone I was to a point where I could not see this working anymore,” he told Motorsport.com. “We were struggling with the car, then we were struggling with the drivers.

• Magnussen looks to the past for confidence in Haas’ future

“If I cannot control the drivers, how can that be good for the team? I put a lot of pressure under them to work, to do everything good, and then they get together at turn 5.

“At a certain stage I thought it is not manageable anymore,” he admitted. “[They] forgot about that points are for the team and not only for them.

“They didn’t think about the team anymore at a certain point. They just saw the opportunity to do good like in Barcelona and Silverstone

“Was it because they were under too much pressure? I’ll find out maybe never. It could be as well just the pressure mounted dramatically for the team.”

The situation appeared to be largely defused over the summer. While the team’s on-track performance continued to be below expectations, the tension between Grosjean and Magnussen eased and both drivers ended up being retained for 2020.

From his point of view in the cockpit, Magnussen felt that the reports of friction with his team mate had been blown out of proportion by the media.

“It was annoying because it became such a big subject, especially in the press around the time,” he told Motorsport.com. “[It] created like a sense of emergency kind of thing. It wasn’t really any issue.

“Me and Romain had no issues,” he insisted. “We were on the phone to each other the week after Silverstone, there was absolutely no bad thing.

“Of course the team feels that we let them down, but there really was no intention,” adding that he didn’t take any offence from Steiner’s typically forthright comments. “The good thing about Gunther is that what you see is what you get.”

And in fact, Magnussen suggested that the struggles of 2019 might prove to be good for the Haas squad in the longer term.

“I think all of that stuff is made us closer and closer because of all that and the whole experience of this year,” he offered. “This made us closer as a team.”

Gallery: The beautiful wives and girlfriends of F1 drivers

Click Here: paco rabanne perfume

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

Spurs saw their talismanic striker injured on a tough New Year’s Day as they went down to the Saints on the road

Tottenham head coach Jose Mourinho was not optimistic as he waited to learn the extent of Harry Kane’s hamstring injury.

The Spurs striker – their stand-in captain in the absence of Hugo Lloris – pulled up as he scored a goal against Southampton on New Year’s Day that was subsequently ruled out for offside.

Click Here: chanel perfume sale

Kane had to be substituted, nursing his left hamstring, and Mourinho had not been updated on his status before his post-match news conference.

“It is negative. For Harry to come out is negative,” he said. “The hamstring is always negative.

“Is it a tear? Is it a small thing? Is it a spasm, a contraction? At this moment, I cannot say.”

Mourinho felt Kane’s absence, with Son Heung-min suspended, was a particular hindrance to his side late on at St Mary’s Stadium as they chased an equaliser having been trailing since Danny Ings’ goal in the 17th minute.

“The game was not easy. The second half was not easy,” he said. “They were winning, they were defending, basically with 10 players, fighting hard, being aggressive, the good aggressive.

“There were lots of fouls, lots of stoppages. The ball boys were well coached in the delaying of the game. There was not much play.

“When we lose our target man Harry Kane, we know we don’t have the part of the game where we are normally more dominant. We play the last 15 minutes plus added time without a striker. That is even more difficult.”

Mourinho was similarly downbeat on the fitness of club-record signing Tanguy , who was substituted just 25 minutes into only his 10th Premier League start.

“He’s always injured,” Mourinho said. “He’s injured, he’s not injured, he plays one match, next week he’s injured, he plays another match, we are full of hopes.

“This is it since the beginning of the season. Of course, it is a concern.

“You think you have a good player, you think he is in an evolution process, he plays very well against Norwich City, you are full of hopes that today he is ready for it.

“And he is not ready for it. I cannot say much more than that. It’s a situation from the beginning of the season.”