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Your lifesaving tax-deductible gift to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF will be matched $1-for-$1, doubling your impact that will help save children’s lives. |
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Escalating violence in Syria and Iraq. Hunger and near-famine levels in South Sudan. Ebola still spreading in West Africa. This year’s emergencies are completely unprecedented, and there are countless children in peril. UNICEF is racing to save them – but we need your help. Thankfully, we have some good news: Until midnight December 31 every dollar you give will be automatically doubled, up to $1 million thanks to an anonymous group of donors. It’s the single, largest matching gift this year, and it came just in time. Donate before midnight on December 31 and every dollar you give will be doubled – 100% of your gift is tax-deductible. You + UNICEF = relief on a massive scale. UNICEF can deliver lifesaving relief, to any child, almost anywhere in the world, in just 72 hours. All that’s needed is your help, and UNICEF can rush:
You and other supporters like you have helped kids beat terrible odds like this before. When famine threatened countless children in the Horn of Africa in 2011, UNICEF treated 1 million children with therapeutic food. Those kids are alive today because you and others believed that we could make a difference – even when the odds felt overwhelming. Let’s help kids beat the odds again this holiday season. With gratitude, Caryl M Stern |
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U.S. and Cuba
Yesterday, after more than 50 years, we began to change America’s relationship with the people of Cuba.
We are recognizing the struggle and sacrifice of the Cuban people, both in the U.S. and in Cuba, and ending an outdated approach that has failed to advance U.S. interests for decades. In doing so, we will begin to normalize relations between our two countries.
I was born in 1961, just over two years after Fidel Castro took power in Cuba, and just as the U.S. severed diplomatic relations with that country.
Our complicated relationship with this nation played out over the course of my lifetime — against the backdrop of the Cold War, with our steadfast opposition to communism in the foreground. Year after year, an ideological and economic barrier hardened between us.
That previous approach failed to promote change, and it’s failed to empower or engage the Cuban people. It’s time to cut loose the shackles of the past and reach for a new and better future with this country.
I want you to know exactly what our new approach will mean.
First, I have instructed Secretary of State John Kerry to immediately begin discussions with Cuba to re-establish diplomatic relations that have been severed since 1961. Going forward, we will re-establish an embassy in Havana, and high-ranking officials will once again visit Cuba.
Second, I have also instructed Secretary Kerry to review Cuba’s designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism — a review guided by the facts and the law. At a time when we are focused on threats from ISIL and al Qaeda, a nation that meets our conditions and renounces terrorism should not face such a sanction.
Third, we’ll take steps to increase travel, commerce, and the flow of information to — and from — Cuba. These steps will make it easier for Americans to travel to Cuba. They will make it easier for Americans to conduct authorized trade with Cuba, including exports of food, medicine, and medical products to Cuba. And they will facilitate increased telecommunications connections between our two countries: American businesses will be able to sell goods that enable Cubans to communicate with the United States and other countries.
Learn more about the steps we’re taking to change our policy.
These changes don’t constitute a reward or a concession to Cuba. We are making them because it will spur change among the people of Cuba, and that is our main objective.
Change is hard — especially so when we carry the heavy weight of history on our shoulders.
Our country is cutting that burden loose to reach for a better future.
Thank you,
President Barack Obama
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Ok, what is that?
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Wait, Is That a Human on the Moon?
By Adrienne LaFrance 21 hours ago
In this age of big surveillance and miniature satellites, there is an idea that—once we are able to track everything around us—the magic and mystery of the universe will be replaced with data, knowledge, and understanding.
Yet it often seems like the deeper we get into the world around us, the more we realize how little we actually know. A mountain of data may promise us answers, but first you have to sift through the questions.
The latest evidence: A YouTube video that’s circulating and shows what looks like a human figure standing on the surface of the moon.
Sure enough, go to Google Moon and find the coordinates (27° 34′ 12.83” N, 19° 36’21.56 W) and you’ll see it, too. Here’s a screenshot I took (I added the red arrow):
Google Earth/NASA
It’s been a generation since humans ruled out the possibility of life on the moon—let alone a giant humanoid just chilling on the lunar surface. So, uh, what is that thing? NASA, which has checked the image against its trove of images from the same location, is shrugging it off.
“We have other images that do not show any imperfection so most analysts believe the image reflects nothing more than a tiny piece of debris on the lens,” spokesman Robert Jacobs told me. (And in a follow-up email: “Believe me, if there was a man on the moon, we’d be recounting our own astronauts to make sure we got them all back from Apollo and then telling everyone else!”)
Fair enough. The rational explanation, after all, is quite often the best one.
And yet there’s something about the image that lingers. In a vast landscape of shameless Photoshopping and Internet hoaxes, and at a time where most people have long since given up on the Loch Ness Monster and the Cottingley Fairies, there’s still that little tug of wonder—misplaced, though it may be.
Just think: We can zoom in on actual photographs of the actual moon from our unbelievably sophisticated handheld computers. But it’s the smudge of dirt on a camera lens that makes people marvel at the depths of what we still don’t know.
Read Wait, Is That a Human on the Moon? on theatlantic.com
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Weekly Address: America’s Resurgence Is Real
| Weekly Address: America’s Resurgence Is RealIn this week’s address, the President reflected on the significant progress made by this country in 2014, and in the nearly six years since he took office.
This past year has been the strongest for job growth since the 1990s, contributing to the nearly 11 million jobs added by our businesses over a 57-month streak. America is leading the rest of the world, in containing the spread of Ebola, degrading and ultimately destroying ISIL, and addressing the threat posed by climate change. And earlier this week, the President announced the most significant changes to our policy towards Cuba in over 50 years. America’s resurgence is real, and the President expressed his commitment to working with Congress in the coming year to make sure Americans feel the benefits. Watch the President’s Weekly Address now.
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| A Look Back at 2014As 2014 winds down, President Obama stopped by the press briefing room in the White House yesterday to offer his thoughts on what the past year has meant for the country.
“I said that 2014 would be a year of action and would be a breakthrough year for America,” he said. “And it has been.” If you missed the President’s news conference, check it out here:
The United States and Cuba are separated by no more than 90 miles of water, but an ideological and economic barrier has hardened between our two countries for the past 50 years. On Wednesday, however, President Obama announced historic new steps to chart a new course in our relations with Cuba. “Today, America chooses to cut loose the shackles of the past so as to reach for a better future — for the Cuban people, for the American people, for our entire hemisphere, and for the world,” he said.
Take a deep-dive into the President’s historic actions at WhiteHouse.gov/Cuba-policy. President Obama Visits the Troops, “Just to Say Thank You” On Monday, the President traveled to Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey to offer his thanks to the U.S. military members and families stationed there and across the world for their service to our country. “The message I’m here to deliver on behalf of the American people is very simple,” he said. “It’s just to say thank you.”
The President also marked an important milestone: After more than 13 years, we are finally bringing a responsible end to America’s war in Afghanistan. When the President took office, we had nearly 180,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. By the end of this month, we’ll have fewer than 15,000 in both countries. Over the course of six years, we have brought home 90 percent of our troops. And this month, Afghans will take full responsibility for their security. As always, see more of the week’s events in the latest edition of West Wing Week. |
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