Forbes has crowned Beyonce as the highest-paid woman in music.

Forbes magazine says the singer earned $105 million over a yearlong period stretching from June 2016 to June of this year. Beyonce’s earnings were boosted by her “Formation” world tour last year, which Forbes says grossed $250 million.

Runner-up Adele also enjoyed a successful year on the road. Her tour helped contribute to $69 million in earnings.

Taylor Swift, Celine Dion and Jennifer Lopez complete the top five highest female earners in the business.

Dolly Parton is a surprising sixth. Forbes says the 71-year-old brought in $37 million with the help of 63 shows during the yearlong period.
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From: MeNeedIt

Regulators in the U.S. state of Nebraska have voted to approve a route for TransCanada Corp’s Keystone XL pipeline – the last major obstacle to complete the oil pipeline that President Donald Trump has supported.

The regulatory body, which by state law could not consider the risk of leaks or potential environmental impacts, voted to approve the project just days after a leak in a separate pipeline – also named “Keystone” – spilled 5,000 barrels of oil in the nearby state of South Dakota.

The 3-2 decision by the Nebraska Public Service Commission is likely to be challenged in court by environmental activists in the nearly decade-long debate surrounding TransCanada’s project linking Canada’s Alberta oil sands to refineries in the United States.

The commission’s vote does not approve TransCanada’s proposed route, but a modified one which could prove more costly and difficult to build. It was not immediately clear whether the corporation would go through with the project as it considers its commercial viability.

In 2015, the Obama administration rejected construction of the pipeline, saying it would detract from America’s global leadership on issues related to climate change.

But the Trump administration overturned the decision in March, saying that the pipeline is safer than other methods used to transport oil, and calling its completion “long overdue.”

The 1,900-kilometer-long pipeline is designed to transport up to 830,000 barrels per day of tar sand oil from Alberta, Canada, to Nebraska, where it would then enter existing pipelines to the Gulf Coast refineries.

The pipeline construction sparked months of protests by Native Americans and activist groups, who say the project could pollute local water supplies.
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From: MeNeedIt

Bitcoin hit a new record high on Monday after smashing through the $8,000 level for the first time over the weekend, marking an almost 50 percent climb in just eight days.

The new high came after leading U.S. payments company Square Inc. said late last week that it had started allowing select customers to buy and sell bitcoins on its Cash app.

Bitcoin traded as high as $8,197.81 on the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange, up over 2 percent on the day and around 48 percent up since dipping to $5,555 on Nov. 12.

An eye-watering eightfold increase in the value of the volatile cryptocurrency since the start of the year has led to multiple warnings that the market is in a bubble, and institutional investors are broadly staying away.

Retail investors, however, as well as some hedge funds and family offices, are piling into the market. The “market cap” of all cryptocurrencies hit an all-time high of over $242 billion on Monday, according to trade website Coinmarketcap.
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From: MeNeedIt

Cancer doctors struggling to work out the best way to use modern immunotherapy drugs now have further evidence of the benefits of adding them to chemotherapy, despite earlier skepticism.

News that Roche’s immune system-boosting drug Tecentriq delayed lung cancer progression when given alongside chemo and its older drug Avastin validates the approach for the first time in a large Phase III clinical trial.

It is a significant milestone for physicians, patients and investors, who are trying to assess the competitive landscape as drugmakers race to develop better ways to fight tumors in previously untreated lung cancer.

Lung cancer is by far the biggest oncology market and first-line treatment provides access to the most patients, opening up potential annual sales forecast by some analysts at $20 billion.

Roche and Merck & Co have led the way in pioneering so-called “chemo-combo” treatment, while AstraZeneca and Bristol-Myers are betting primarily on mixing two immunotherapies. AstraZeneca notably failed to show a similar

benefit in a high-profile clinical trial in July.

Stefan Zimmermann, an oncologist at Lausanne University Hospital in Switzerland, said the Roche data would help scotch concerns that chemo might hamper the new class of immuno-oncology medicines.

“Many experts in the field will be relieved because there has been uncertainty … I think this will really encourage many of us to use this combination upfront,” he told Reuters. “For now, the only positive data that we have is for chemo combination.”

Merck, in fact, already has U.S. approval to add chemo to its immunotherapy drug Keytruda – but this was based on a small trial and the company withdrew a similar European application last month, knocking confidence in its strategy.

Since Keytruda, Bristol’s Opdivo, Roche’s Tecentriq and AstraZeneca’s Imfinzi are all rival inhibitors of biological switches known as PD-1 or PD-L1, the market is “largely a zero-sum game,” according to Bernstein analyst Tim Anderson.

“Roche’s good fortune means there is less to go around for other companies,” he said.

In the case of Merck, the U.S. drugmaker now faces a rival with a different and perhaps superior drug combination. Roche believes adding Avastin in addition to chemo can further help restore anti-cancer immunity.

For AstraZeneca and Bristol, the bar has just been raised for two other key clinical trials sponsored by the drugmakers that are expected to report results in 2018.

Roche itself will present full results on the ability of its new combination to delay the worsening of lung cancer at a European Society for Medical Oncology meeting in Geneva on December 7. Data on whether it also helps patients live longer is expected in the first half of next year.

Overall survival is the gold standard in cancer care but proving a treatment extends the time before disease progresses is an important marker on the way.

“If there is positive progression-free survival then I think it is very, very likely this will also translate into an overall survival benefit over time,” said Zimmermann.

Reporting by Ben Hirschler; Editing by Mark Potter.
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From: MeNeedIt

Preparing for a century of steadily higher tides is a central challenge for city officials from Boston to Bangkok. The U.S. city of Miami, Florida, and its neighbors are home to nearly 3 million people and billions of dollars of real estate development. VOA’s Steve Baragona has a look at what rising seas mean for one of the most vulnerable cities in the United States.
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From: MeNeedIt

Talks to update the North American Free Trade Agreement appeared to be in danger of grinding toward a stalemate amid complaints of U.S. negotiators’ inflexibility, people familiar with the process said on Sunday.

The United States, Canada and Mexico are holding the fifth of seven planned rounds of talks to modernize NAFTA, which U.S. President Donald Trump blames for job losses and big trade deficits for his country.

Time is running short to reach a deal before the March 2018 start of Mexico’s presidential elections, and lack of progress in the current round could put the schedule at risk.

“The talks are really not going anywhere,” Jerry Dias, president of Unifor, the largest Canadian private-sector union, told reporters after meeting with Canada’s chief negotiator on Sunday. “As long as the United States is taking the position they are, this is a colossal waste of time,” said Dias, who is advising the government and regularly meets the Canadian team.

Hanging over the negotiations is the very real threat that Trump could make good on a threat to scrap NAFTA.

Canada and Mexico object to a number of demands the U.S. side unveiled during the fourth round last month, including for a five-year sunset clause that would force frequent renegotiation of the trade pact, far more stringent automotive content rules and radical changes to dispute settlement mechanisms.

Calls for greater US flexibility

“Our internal view as of this morning is that if any progress is to be made, the United States needs to show some flexibility and a willingness to do a deal,” said a Canadian source with knowledge of the talks.

“We are seeing no signs of flexibility now,” added the source, who requested anonymity given the sensitivity of the situation. However, a NAFTA country official familiar with the talks said Canada had not yet submitted any counterproposals to the U.S. demands.

Dias said the United States was showing some signs of flexibility over its sunset clause proposal after Mexican officials floated a plan for a “rigorous evaluation” of the trade pact, but without an automatic expiration.

U.S. negotiating objectives that were updated on Friday appeared to accommodate the Mexican proposal, saying the revised NAFTA should “provide a mechanism for ensuring that the Parties assess the benefits of the Agreement on a periodic basis.”

Canada and Mexico are also unhappy about U.S. demands that half the content of North American-built autos come from the United States, coupled with a much higher 85 percent North American content threshold. Officials are due to discuss the issue from Sunday through the end of the fifth round on Tuesday, Flavio Volpe, president of the Canada’s Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association, said there was little chance of making substantial progress on autos in Mexico City, as the U.S. demands were still not fully understood.

“I don’t expect a heavy negotiation here,” he said in an interview on the sidelines of the talks.
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From: MeNeedIt

Mel Tillis, the affable longtime country star who wrote hits for Kenny Rogers, Ricky Skaggs and many others, and overcame a stutter to sing on dozens of his own singles, has died.

A spokesman for Tillis, Don Murry Grubbs, said Tillis died early Sunday at Munroe Regional Medical Center in Ocala, Florida. He was 85.

Grubbs said Tillis battled intestinal issues since 2016 and never fully recovered.  The suspected cause of death is respiratory failure.

Tillis, the father of country singer Pam Tillis, recorded more than 60 albums and had more than 30 top 10 country singles, including  “Good Woman Blues,”  “Coca Cola Cowboy” and “Southern Rain.” Among the hits he wrote for others were “Detroit City” for Bobby Bare; “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town,” by Rogers and the First Edition; and “Thoughts of a Fool” for George Strait.

Country music stars Charlie Daniels, Crystal Gayle and Blake Shelton offered their condolences on Twitter.

“He once spent an entire day at his place in Tennessee showing me all the memorabilia he’d gathered over the years where he gave me a pair of his stage boots,” Shelton’s account said.  “He even took time to talk me through some hard times in my life on a couple phone calls.”

Although his early efforts to get a record deal were rebuffed because of his stutter, he was a promising songwriter in Nashville in the 1950s and 1960s, writing tunes for Webb Pierce and Ray Price.

In all, the Country Music Hall of Fame member wrote more than 1,000 songs and in 2012 received a National Medal of Arts for bringing “his unique blend of warmth and humor to the great tradition of country music.”

He also dabbled in acting, appearing in such feature films as Clint Eastwood’s “Every Which Way But Loose,” and the Burt Reynolds movies “Cannonball Run I and II” and “Smokey and the Bandit II.”  He starred in several television movies and briefly had a network TV show, “Mel and Susan Together,” with Susan Anton.

In 2007, Tillis became a regular performer on the Grand Ole Opry country music show.

“You know what?  Another part of the dream has been fulfilled,” he said at the time. “It’s been a long, hard road.”

Tillis was raised in Pahokee, Florida, and developed his stutter as a child while being treated for malaria.  He dropped out of the University of Florida and instead served in the Air Force and worked on the railroad before relocating to Nashville in 1957.

Musical from an early age, he started performing in the early 1950s with a group called The Westerners, while stationed in Okinawa and serving as a baker in the Air Force.

He held a variety of odd jobs before breaking out, including being a truck driver, a strawberry picker, a firefighter on the railroad and milkman, which inspired his breakthrough song.  Feeling down one day he began singing to himself, “Oh Lord, I’m tired.  Tired of living this ol’ way.”  He turned his lament into “I’m Tired,” which became a hit for Webb Pierce.

Price, Skaggs, Brenda Lee and hundreds of others would cover his songs.

Tillis, meanwhile, became a major success on his own in the late 1960s and toured for decades, often using his stutter as a source of humor – though his stutter disappeared when he sang.

“One of the reasons I worked it into my show is that it’s my trademark,” he once told The Associated Press.

He said that when he was in the Air Force as a flight leader, he marched airmen right into a wall.

“I couldn’t get out the word `halt,” he said.

Grubbs says the Tillis family will release information about funeral services in Florida and Nashville.
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From: MeNeedIt

Britain will submit its proposals on how to settle its financial obligations to the European Union before an EU Council meeting next month, finance minister Philip Hammond said on Sunday.

British Prime Minister Theresa May was told on Friday that there was more work to be done to unlock Brexit talks, as the European Union repeated an early December deadline for her to move on the divorce bill.

“We will make our proposals to the European Union in time for the council,” Hammond told the BBC.

Last week, May met fellow leaders on the sidelines of an EU summit in Gothenburg, Sweden, to try to break the deadlock over how much Britain will pay on leaving the bloc in 16 months.

She signaled again that she would increase an initial offer that is estimated at some 20 billion euros ($24 billion), about a third of what Brussels wants.
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From: MeNeedIt

Brexit is still well over year away but two European cities on Monday will already be celebrating Britain’s departure from the European Union.

Two major EU agencies now in London — the European Medicines Agency and the European Banking Authority — must move to a new EU city because Britain is leaving the bloc. The two prizes are being hotly fought over by most of the EU’s other 27 nations.

Despite all the rigid rules and conditions the bloc imposed to try to make it a fair, objective decision, the process has turned into a deeply political beauty contest — part Olympic host city bidding, part Eurovision Song Contest.

It will culminate in a secret vote Monday at EU headquarters in Brussels that some say could be tainted by vote trading.

The move involves tens of millions in annual funding, about 1,000 top jobs with many more indirectly linked, prestige around the world and plenty of bragging rights for whichever leader can bring home the agencies.

“I will throw my full weight behind this,” French President Emmanuel Macron said when he visited Lille, which is seeking to host the EMA once Britain leaves in the EU in March 2019. “Now is the final rush.”

At an EU summit Friday in Goteborg, Sweden, leaders were lobbying each other to get support for their bids.

The EMA is responsible for the scientific evaluation, supervision and safety monitoring of medicines in the EU. It has around 890 staff and hosts more than 500 scientific meetings every year, attracting about 36,000 experts.

The EBA, which has around 180 staff, monitors the regulation and supervision of Europe’s banking sector.

With bids coming in from everywhere — from the newest member states to the EU’s founding nations — who gets what agency will also give an indication of EU’s future outlook.

The EU was created as club of six founding nations some 60 years ago, so it’s logical that a great many key EU institutions are still in nations like Germany, France and Belgium. But as the bloc kept expanded east and south into the 21st century, these new member states see a prime opportunity now to claim one of these cherished EU headquarters, which cover everything from food safety to judicial cooperation to fisheries policy.

Romania and Bulgaria were the last to join the EU in 2007 and have no headquarters. Both now want the EMA — as does the tiny island nation of Malta.

“We deserve this. Because as we all know, Romania is an EU member with rights and obligations equal with all the rest of the member states,” said Rodica Nassar of Romania’s Healthcare Ministry.

But personnel at the EMA and EBA are highly skilled professionals, and many could be reluctant to move their careers and families from London to less prestigious locations.

“You have to imagine, for example, for the banking authority, which relies on basically 200 very high-level experts in banking regulatory matters to move to another place,” said Karel Lannoo of the CEPS think tank. “First of all, to motivate these people to move elsewhere. And then if you don’t manage to motivate these people, to find competent experts in another city.”

As the vote nears, Milan and Bratislava are the favorites to win the EMA, with Frankfurt, and perhaps Dublin, leading the way for the EBA.

 
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From: MeNeedIt

When Britain’s 21-year-old Princess Elizabeth married 26-year-old Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten at Westminster Abbey in 1947, the wedding sparked joy and celebration in a country just recovering from World War II. 

Seven decades on, the couple who would become Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, both now in their 90s, are still going strong, their marriage a bedrock in British public life amid a world of change.

On Monday, they mark their 70th wedding anniversary, though officials say the milestone will be celebrated privately and no public events are planned. The royal family is reportedly marking the date with a gathering at Windsor Castle. 

The queen is the first monarch in British history to celebrate a platinum wedding anniversary. 

At their 50th wedding anniversary, Elizabeth praised her husband as “quite simply… my strength and stay all these years.”

Elizabeth first met Philip, a naval officer and the son of Prince Andrew of Greece, as they attended the wedding of Philip’s cousin in 1934. 

The pair wed at Westminster Abbey in London on Nov. 20, 1947. It would be nearly another six years before Elizabeth would be crowned as monarch, also at Westminster Abbey. 

In the decades that followed, Philip, who also holds the title Duke of Edinburgh, spent almost the entire duration of their marriage supporting his wife in her role as head of state. Both have cut back on their public engagements in recent years, and Philip retired from official duties earlier this year. 

The royal couple has four children, eight grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
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From: MeNeedIt

Another wearable health monitor is poised to enter the market. As Faith Lapidus reports, this one is on permanent watch for any signs of illness.
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From: MeNeedIt

A group dedicated to preserving and promoting the Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail has purchased private land in western Washington state to prevent a break in the path.

The Pacific Crest Trail Association bought more than 400 acres (162 hectares) in the Stevens Pass area this week from a private landowner for $1.6 million, The Seattle Times reported.

The association says the landowner had considered putting up a fence and cutting off public access to the trail.

“Given the topography, we found it very difficult to loop around that piece of private property,” said Megan Wargo, the group’s director of land protection. “There’s only a short window you can be out there building trail. It would have meant several years of access to the PCT as a through-hike would have been closed.”

The 2,600-mile (4,200-kilometer) trail from Mexico to Canada generally follows the crests of several mountain ranges, including the Cascades in Washington state and Oregon.

Wargo said the U.S. Forest Service manages the trail and has easements where it crosses private land. However, no one got an easement for the private land on the section of trail at the Stevens Pass Trailhead, she said.

“In most likelihood, it was just an oversight,” Wargo said. “Somebody thought there was an easement there, but the easement was not recorded.”

In 2015, the property owner was looking to sell and fence off the trail, so the association borrowed money to buy the land. It says the next step is to sell the land to the Forest Service at market value so it can repay the loan.
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From: MeNeedIt