Despite a new announcement by the U.S. Department of Education that it will begin a process of debt-forgiveness for students cheated into high-priced loans by predatory for-profit colleges, one of the groups most responsible for lobbying to have the debts erased is reacting bitterly, saying the plan is more complicated than it needs to be and that those already victimized by one government-backed scheme should not be put through the ringer for a second time.
“The legal and most painless possible process for students is no process. […] An automatic, class-wide discharge for defrauded Corinthian students would not cost taxpayers, as it would be offset by government profits on the student loan program.” —StrikeDebt
On Monday, Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced that ten of thousands of students who attended institutions operated by Corinthian Colleges Inc.—which, before recently going bankrupt, ran hundreds of schools under the names of Heald, WyoTech and Everest colleges—would be eligible to apply for debt forgiveness as part of the new plan.
As part of the announcement, Secretary Duncan said he would “hold schools accountable for practices that undercut their students and taxpayers.” And he added, “Where students have been harmed by fraudulent practices, I am fully committed to making sure students receive every penny of relief they are entitled to under law. We will make this process as easy as possible for them, including by considering claims in groups wherever possible, and hold institutions accountable.”
Common Dreams is a not-for-profit news service. All of our content is free to you – no subscriptions; no ads. We are funded by donations from our readers. This media model only works if enough readers pitch in. We have millions of readers every month and, it seems, too many take our survival for granted. It isn’t. Our critical Mid-Year fundraiser is off to a very slow start – only 206 readers have contributed a total of $7,500 so far. We must raise $42,500 more before we can end this fundraising campaign and get back to focusing on what we do best. If you support Common Dreams and you want us to survive, we need you. Click Here: Bape Kid 1st Camo Ape Head rompers
As the Associated Press reports:
The DOE released a fact sheet to explain the new program and answer questions for students curious about whether or not they will be eligible for the loan-forgiveness program. But the fact sheet itself, a lengthy and complicated document, was already raising the alarm for student debt activists who appeared unconvinced that Duncan’s new plan will deliver on its “as easy as possible” promises.
SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT
In response to the plan announced by Duncan, the group Strike Debt—which made international headlines by bringing together Corinthian students who vowed publicly that they would not repay loans they considered fraudulent—said forgiveness of their debt need not be so complicated. Furthermore, they challenged the idea, made in much of the mainstream reporting on the plan, that it would somehow “cost taxpayers” to nullify their loans.
In a statement, the group said:
Our work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Feel free to republish and share widely.
Lando Norris landed himself in hot water with Formula 1 on Friday when the McLaren driver broadcasted a live chat with his fans on Twitch.
During Friday’s washout, when everyone was trying to keep themselves occupied or entertained during the endless wait, Norris kicked off a Twitch stream in his driver’s room flanked by McLaren teammate Carlos Sainz.
The pair were interacting with their fans who were also patiently waiting for proceedings to start when a member of the McLaren team ordered the two drivers to immediately end the stream, insisting F1 were “not happy” with the online initiative.
“What?!” replied a bewildered Norris.
“Ok I think it is time to say goodbye,” Sainz added. “We need to say adios. We’re getting told off!”
A disappointed Norris ended the broadcast by telling his fans to “Go and blame F1, chat.”
It’s likely Norris fell foul of Formula 1’s media rights that restricts drivers from streaming live from the paddock, even if it is from the confines of a private space at the track.
When it took over Formula 1 in 2017, Liberty Media gave teams and drivers greater freedom to engage with fans on social media from inside the circuit, relaxing the rules that had been highly controlled up to then by former F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone.
Teams and drivers were issued a formal set of guidelines, but streaming live from the paddock is still off limits for everyone.
Gallery: The beautiful wives and girlfriends of F1 drivers
Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter
Revealing their commitment to ravaging critical safety net programs while accommodating corporations and the ultra-wealthy, the Republican-controlled House unveiled on Tuesday a budget proposal (pdf) that would undermine both Social Security and Medicare, repeal the Affordable Care Act, and prioritize tax cuts for the one percent—all while boosting defense spending.
The U.S. Senate, also majority Republican, is expected to introduce similar legislation on Wednesday.
According to news reports, the initial proposals, authored by House Budget Committee chairman Tom Price (R-Ga.) and Senate Budget Committee chairman Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), seek to balance the federal budget over 10 years, without raising taxes. To achieve those goals, the plans are expected to include $5 trillion in cuts to domestic programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, Pell grants, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps, over the course of the next decade.
It would provide $90 billion in additional war funding—much more than the $51 billion proposed by President Barack Obama—while pushing cuts to renewable energy incentives and climate change programs and repealing parts of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law.
And, as Sahil Kapur writes for Talking Points Memo, “the budget sets the stage for a showdown next year on Social Security.”
The New York Times notes that the proposal “leans heavily on the policy prescriptions that Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin outlined when he was budget chairman”—prescriptions that were blasted at the time as “a path to more adversity.”
According to Politico:
SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT
The austere budget plan drew immediate criticism from many corners.
“There should be no compromise from the Democratic minority on any of this,” political analyst Charles Pierce wrote at Esquire. “It should be rejected, root and branch, because it is based on an economic philosophy, and an overall view of the relationship between people and their government, that has failed the country and its people savagely in the past and inevitably will do so again.”
In his breakdown of intra-party budget battles, Dave Johnson of the Campaign for America’s Future noted that despite any splits over specifics, the governing majority has one common desire.
“All of these Republican factions want the government cut back,” Johnson wrote. “None of them care about investing in infrastructure, investing in science, investing in education, expanding health care and safety-net programs for people who need it, or otherwise helping the public.”
Carmel Martin, executive vice president for policy at the Center for American Progress joined in calling on Congress to reject the proposal.
“Republicans are talking big with respect to tackling income inequality and wage stagnation, but the House budget proposal does not match their rhetoric,” she said. “Rather than creating jobs with investments in infrastructure and education or strengthening health care and nutrition programs to give families a foothold to climb into the middle class, the House majority has once again prioritized big tax cuts for wealthy individuals and corporations.”
In USA Today on Monday, journalist Nicole Gaudiano reported that Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, who may run for president in 2016, plans to fight the GOP budget plan tooth and nail.
Sanders, she wrote, said he wants to take next year’s budget resolution in a “radically different” direction from the one preferred by House and Senate Republicans, declaring: “I’m going to work as hard as I can with other progressive members of the Senate to do everything we can to make sure this budget is not balanced on the backs of working families and low-income Americans.”
Our work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Feel free to republish and share widely.
Arizona’s governor signed an extreme abortion restriction bill on Monday, which women’s health advocates say effectively writes medical malpractice into law.
The new law, which passed the state’s Republican-controlled legislature last week, requires that doctors tell women that drug-induced abortions can be reversed. Experts said the provision—the first of its kind to pass in the U.S.—was medically unfounded.
“This law will force abortion providers to give patients information about medical abortion care that is unsubstantiated and not supported by evidence—even abortion opponents admit there is no medical proof to support this information,” said Vicki Saporta, president and CEO of the National Abortion Federation. “This is unacceptable and not how safe medical care of any kind is provided.”
The LA Times reported that State Sen. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat who voted against the legislation, said the provision “requires medical professionals to commit medical malpractice.”
“This is junk science. It is quack medicine,” she said Wednesday. “There is absolutely no evidence anywhere in any peer-reviewed journal that supports this as a valid medical procedure.”
According to MSNBC‘s Irin Carmon, who said the bill was part of “the next wave of abortion restrictions”:
Reproductive rights advocates charge that the law is part of coordinated attack on abortion rights across the country. Indeed, Arizona’s “abortion reversal” language is cribbed from Americans United for Life’s 2015 model legislation guide (pdf).
“It’s just a piece of the larger strategy—using any means possible to dissuade a woman from a decision that she’s already made,” Hayley Smith, associate advocacy and policy counsel for the ACLU, told ThinkProgress last week.
SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT
Amanda Allen, state legislative counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights, echoed that charge.
“Efforts to encourage women to ‘reverse’ mifepristone with progesterone are rooted solely in the desire by anti-choice extremists to control the reproductive choices of women and are not based in any evidence-based medicine or research,” Allen told Common Dreams in an email.
She continued:
Arizona’s SB 1318 also bars insurance companies from providing abortion services to women who purchase medical coverage through the federal health-care exchange, except in cases of rape, incest, or where the woman’s life is endangered.
In a statement, Republican Gov. Doug Ducey said the legislation “protects Arizona taxpayers” by ensuring public funds are “not used to subsidize abortions.”
Arizona already has severe abortion restrictions in place. According to the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks abortion policies around the country, a woman must receive state-directed counseling that includes information designed to discourage her from having an abortion and then wait 24 hours before the procedure is provided. Counseling must be provided in person and must take place before the waiting period begins, thereby necessitating two separate trips to the facility.
On top of that, a woman must undergo an ultrasound before obtaining an abortion and the provider must offer her the option to view the image. The ultrasound must be provided at least 24 hours before the abortion.
In addition, the use of telemedicine for the performance of medication abortion is prohibited. Medication abortion must be provided using the FDA protocol, thereby preventing the use of a more common, simpler evidence-based regimen.
Our work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Feel free to republish and share widely.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth on Monday sentenced former Blackwater security guard Nicholas Slatten to life in prison for his role in a 2007 attack on Iraqi civilians, which left 14 dead and wounded 17 others.
The Associated Press reports that the three other Blackwater employees—Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard—were sentenced to 30 years and one day each on charges that included manslaughter, attempted manslaughter and using firearms while committing a felony.
Four former Blackwater guards face sentencing Monday for their role in the deaths of 14 Iraqi civilians during a 2007 massacre called “Baghdad’s bloody Sunday.”
The men, Dustin Heard, Evan Liberty, Paul Slough, and Nicholas Slatten, were convicted in October 2014 after years of legal battles. “Slatten faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole for first-degree murder before U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth,” the Washington Post reports; the other three men face the possibility of dozens of years behind bars.
While defense lawyers have argued that the men were acting in self-defense, federal prosecutors wrote that the men’s “crimes here were so horrendous—the massacre and maiming of innocents so heinous—that they outweigh any factors that the defendants may argue form a basis for leniency.”
In an interview with Democracy Now! last year, Jeremy Scahill, author of the bestselling Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, described the deadly traffic square shooting that left 17 people killed:
As Common Dreams previously reported, “the incident became a flashpoint of outrage over the atrocities that U.S. forces—particularly mercenaries—inflict on occupied civilian populations in Iraq.”
The Post reports Monday: “Defendants said that the case is the first in which the U.S. government prosecuted its own security contractors for the firearms violation, which involve weapons given them by the government to do their jobs in a war zone.”
Scahill wrote following the guilty convictions that they marked yet another instance in which high-ranking individuals failed to be the targets for accountability.
“Just as with the systematic torture at Abu Ghraib, it is only the low level foot-soldiers of Blackwater that are being held accountable. [Blackwater founder Erik] Prince and other top Blackwater executives continue to reap profits from the mercenary and private intelligence industries.
“None of the U.S. officials from the Bush and Obama administrations who unleashed Blackwater and other mercenary forces across the globe are being forced to answer for their role in creating the conditions for the Nisour Square shootings and other deadly incidents involving private contractors,” Scahill wrote.
Our work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Feel free to republish and share widely.
Marking yet another grim milestone for an ever-warming planet, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration revealed on Wednesday that, for the first time in recorded history, global levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere averaged over 400 parts per million (ppm) for an entire month—in March 2015.
“This marks the fact that humans burning fossil fuels have caused global carbon dioxide concentrations to rise more than 120 parts per million since pre-industrial times,” said Pieter Tans, lead scientist of NOAA’s Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network, in a press statement. “Half of that rise has occurred since 1980.”
This is not the first time the benchmark of 400 ppm has been reached.
“We first reported 400 ppm when all of our Arctic sites reached that value in the spring of 2012,” explained Tans. “In 2013 the record at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Observatory first crossed the 400 ppm threshold.”
However, Tans said that reaching 400 ppm across the planet for an entire month is a “significant milestone.”
SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT
A tweet released by NOAA on Wednesday shows that this development is consistent with rising levels over recent years.
However, zooming to a wider historical lens shows an even more dramatic increase. During pre-industrial times, CO2 levels were at 280 ppm. Scientists have warned that, in order to achieve safe levels, CO2 must be brought down to a maximum of 350ppm—the number from which the environmental organization 350.org derives its name.
Bill Snape, senior counsel to the Center for Biological Diversity, told Common Dreams, “The fact that we are now firmly over 400 ppm for first time in human history indicates to me that we ought to be moving with much more urgency to fix the underlying problem.”
Our work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Feel free to republish and share widely.
At the tail end of a frenzied legislative week, the U.S. Senate quietly voted to pass Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), also known as “Fast Track,” a bill that would give President Barack Obama increased power to ram through trade deals without congressional input.
The Senate voted 62-37 to approve a six-year renewal of Fast Track authority. The vote was expected, coming just days after the Senate voted to end debate over the legislation and move forward with the bill, which will now go to the U.S. House for what the Associated Press says will be a “highly unpredictable summer showdown”.
About 20 Democrat-backed amendments to the legislation failed along the way, frustrating senators who oppose Fast Track as a threat to the economy and workers’ rights. “We’re not going to do that,” Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), a lead sponsor of Fast Track, said of the amendments. “Let’s face it, we’re not going to debate this all over again.”
As Common Dreams has previously reported, “Environmental, labor, food safety, public health, and digital rights groups oppose Fast Track on the grounds that it forces Congress to abdicate its policy-making responsibility while greasing the skids for secretly negotiated, corporate-friendly, rights-trampling trade pacts like the TPP [Trans-Pacific Partnership]. “
They continued to voice that opposition on Saturday. In a statement following the vote, CREDO Action deputy political director Murshed Zaheed said that supporters of Fast Track and the TPP should expect even greater resistance as those bills move forward.
SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT
“The fate of this legislation was always going to be decided in the House of Representatives—and CREDO Action members are ready to fight against it,” Zaheed said. “Thanks to the activism of hundreds of thousands of Americans, President Obama and Mitch McConnell found the path to passage of fast track in the Senate was more difficult than they anticipated. They should expect an even more difficult fight in the House of Representatives.”
According to The Hill, “Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who led the opposition of liberal Democrats in the upper chamber, has already met Democratic House allies such as Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Mass.) to build a roadblock.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who is running for president as a Democrat, lambasted the Senate’s vote on Saturday. “The Senate just put the interests of powerful multi-national corporations, drug companies and Wall Street ahead of the needs of American workers,” Sanders said in a statement. “If this disastrous trade agreement is approved, it will throw Americans out of work while companies continue moving operations and good-paying jobs to low-wage countries overseas,” he continued, referring to Obama’s plan to use Fast Track authority to expedite passage of the TPP.
“Bad trade deals like the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership are a major reason for the collapse of the American middle class and the increase in wealth and income inequality in the United States,” Sanders said.
The Hill reports that the 14 Democrats who voted in favor of Fast Track are Sens. Michael Bennet (Colo.), Maria Cantwell (Wash.), Ben Cardin (Md.), Tom Carper (Del.), Chris Coons (Del.), Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.), Tim Kaine (Va.), Claire McCaskill (Mo.), Patty Murray (Wash.), Bill Nelson (Fla.), Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.), Mark Warner (Va.) and Fast Track co-author Ron Wyden (Ore.).
Our work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Feel free to republish and share widely.
While many questions still remain about what exactly happened to Sandra Bland in a Texas jail cell before she was found dead under mysterious circumstances on July 13, those looking for answers about why she was initially placed under arrest three days earlier were offered a look at devastating dash-cam footage released by the Texas Department of Public Safety on Tuesday evening which showed the arresting officer, Texas State Trooper Brian Encinia, actively escalating a situation with violence and threatening the unarmed black woman with a Taser.
The manner in which the escalation occurred led law enforcement officials to say that Encinia had not followed department procedures and failed to “maintain professionalism” during the arrest.
In one shocking moment, the officer tells Bland that if she does not get out of her car he will “light her up.” Subsequently, after she objects to having her head banged against the ground and telling him that she suffers from epilepsy, Encinia responds by saying, “Good.”
As the New York Times reports, several Texas lawmakers who were shown the footage said it is clear that Bland should never have been treated in such a manner nor ultimately taken into custody by police. “This young woman should be alive today,” said State Representative Helen Giddings, Democrat of Dallas.
According to the Times:
Watch the footage [Warning: Graphic and strong language]:
Mother Jones reports:
And Time magazine adds:
On Twitter, the reactions to what the newly released footage reveals about the arrest included expressions of outrage and confirmed for many that Bland should never have ended up in that jail cell in the first place:
#SandraBland Tweets
Our work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Feel free to republish and share widely.
This photograph taken on October 6, 2020 shows EU members' flags flying in front of the European Parliament in Strasbourg | Sebastien Bozon/AFP via Getty Images
EU struggles to coordinate pandemic response
Weeks of debate on aligning guidelines for travelers illustrates continuing failure to coordinate national health policies.
Press play to listen to this article
Voiced by Amazon Polly
The coronavirus pandemic isn’t waiting for EU capitals to get their act together.
With a second wave of infections surging across Europe, EU member countries have spent more than a month bickering and dithering over a modest European Commission proposal to harmonize travel guidelines, including testing and quarantine recommendations.
The reluctance of national capitals to coordinate relatively simple policies affecting travelers is hardly as problematic as the chaos and havoc of the early days of the pandemic, when EU nations hoarded protective gear and unilaterally shut borders. But the protracted debate illustrates a continued unwillingness to align national policies over which Brussels has no control, even on basic matters such as how long a person should self-isolate for after potential exposure to COVID-19.
On Friday, EU ambassadors are finally expected to vote on a compromise proposal regarding the travel negotiations brokered by the German presidency of the Council of the EU, after weeks of debate over seemingly trivial matters.
Negotiations on the German compromise concluded late Thursday with a slightly adapted text. The points of disagreement had included whether national governments should favor mandatory testing over quarantine for travelers arriving from higher-risk zones — as the Commission originally proposed and the aviation industry has clamored for — or if that decision should be left to national capitals.
The final proposal agreed Thursday expressed no preference for tests, and gave wide discretion to national governments — by urging but not requiring them to cooperate. “Member States should continue coordination efforts on the length of quarantine/self-isolation and substitution possibilities,” it said.
The Commission’s original proposal, put forward on September 4, called for imposing such a requirement only on travelers arriving from zones designated as red, for the highest risk, or gray, indicating a lack of sufficient data. The German presidency proposal would also allow restrictions on travelers arriving from medium-risk orange zones. But people moving between green zones would be assured unrestricted passage.
“What we think is a good idea is for member states to agree among themselves on the proposal which was made by the Commission and that’s what we are going to be focusing our work on,” Christian Wigand, a Commission spokesman, told reporters Thursday.
“We have been pushing for better coordination for months,” he added.
Brussels can claim a role in the debate over travel guidelines given the EU’s legal authority for the single market, and freedom of movement of citizens. But many basic decisions — such as rules on when to wear masks, limits on social gatherings, or whether schools or businesses should close — remain entirely in the hands of national, or even local health authorities.
An EU diplomat insisted capitals were on the same page. “The goal of getting the Council recommendations on COVID-19 coordination in the EU off the ground as quickly as possible is shared by all EU member states. The project is on the right track.”
Privately, Commission officials said that they had hoped for better alignment of national health guidelines but the Commission was powerless without legal authority to impose such rules.
Diplomats insist though that conditions varied so much between countries — including testing capability, testing capacity and economic factors — that it made little sense to try to align national health policies.
Recent debates among ministers meeting within the framework of the EU’s “integrated political crisis response” (IPCR), have only shown the futility of efforts to align national policies.
Last month, for instance, German Health Minister Jens Spahn pushed for consensus on a 10-day quarantine period for travelers returning from a red-zone. He didn’t succeed.
The 10-day proposal didn’t fly with health ministers and the discussion didn’t improve in the IPCR so it was dropped, said a second EU diplomat.
The European Center for Disease Control (ECDC) recommendation is generally for a 14-day quarantine if isolation is necessary, with the period shortened potentially by confirmed negative test results. The Commission, however, has been pushing for a test to replace the need to quarantine. In response, the ECDC has said that replacing quarantine with a single test is scientifically inadvisable, because the virus cannot be detected during incubation.
In recent days top EU officials and the bloc’s institutions have themselves had to grapple with the rules. European Parliament President David Sassoli announced Thursday that he had entered self-isolation after coming into contact with an infected person. His quarantine follows that of both the Commission and Council presidents.
Officials said that adapting the science to reality is ultimately a political decision — which is why achieving consensus among countries is so difficult.
As it stands, the German presidency’s compromise text is expected to be approved on Friday only by a qualified majority of EU ambassadors. Final adoption of the plan is not expected until a meeting of the General Affairs Council next week, meaning it will have taken more than five weeks.
Meanwhile, the second wave continues to grow. When the Commission released its proposal there were around 22,000 daily cases among the EU27. That number is now over 46,000.
Hanne Cokelaere contributed reporting.
Want more analysis from POLITICO? POLITICO Pro is our premium intelligence service for professionals. From financial services to trade, technology, cybersecurity and more, Pro delivers real time intelligence, deep insight and breaking scoops you need to keep one step ahead. Email [email protected] to request a complimentary trial.
Accepting and soliciting bribes. Diverting public funds for personal profit. Lying about the number of students. These are just a few examples of the fraud and malfeasance committed by charter school officials—cheating communities out of millions dollars that were supposed to go to education, a new report finds.
(pdf) was released Tuesday by the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools (AROS) and the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD).
It concludes that, in 15 states alone—a third of states with charter schools—such waste cost more than $200 million.
This number is significantly higher than estimates released last year by CPD, which identified at least $136 million lost to fraud and waste. The revised figure of $203 million includes “all of the cases from the 2014 report, $23 million in new cases, and $44 million in additional cases not included in the 2014 report,” the study states.
“Charter schools act like they have a ‘get out of accountability free’ card,” Jonathan Stith, spokesperson for AROS, said in a press statement. “Two-hundred-million dollars that was supposed to go to schools and classrooms is just gone. And that’s likely to be the tip of the iceberg, given the lack of transparency or standards applied to charter schools.”
SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT
However, the report warns, “The number of instances of serious fraud uncovered by whistleblowers, reporters, and investigations suggests that the fraud problem extends well beyond the cases we know about. According to standard forensic auditing methodologies, the deficiencies in charter oversight throughout the country suggest that federal, state, and local governments stand to lose more than $1.4 billion in 2015.”
“The vast majority of the fraud perpetrated by charter officials will go undetected because the federal government, the states, and local charter authorizers lack the oversight necessary to detect the fraud,” the report adds.
The report cited numerous examples of such transgressions in charter schools from California to Ohio, including the case of a Washington, D.C. institution, highlighted in a summary of the findings:
The release of the report comes amid growing nation-wide concerns about the dramatic expansion of charter schools and mounting evidence that this trend leads to greater racial inequality and segregation in education.
Our work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Feel free to republish and share widely.