Saturday, 3 October 2015

Elizabeth Olsen loves her witchy woman.
The actress also enjoys other roles as well, such as playing Audrey Williams in the upcoming Hank Williams biopic I Saw the Light in November, but spell-weaving telekinetic Wanda Maximoff is a favorite for Olsen. She stars as the Scarlet Witch inAvengers: Age of Ultron (now out on Blu-ray/DVD) — where the character was introduced with her brother Quicksilver— and the upcoming Captain America: Civil War (in theaters May 6), and probably will be in pretty much every big Marvel Studios movie after that. (She'll be needed when cosmic villain Thanos comes to town in Infinity War.)
“It’s so crazy and mindblowing being part of something that has that wide audience internationally,” says Olsen, a part of the new Avengers team in Civil War along with Falcon (Anthony Mackie), the enigmatic Vision (Paul Bettany) and of course Captain America (Chris Evans).

The Vatican fired a priest Saturday after he came out as gay and revealed he has a boyfriend on the eve of an important meeting of the world's bishops to discuss church teachings on family life, a topic that encompasses divorce, homosexuality and cohabitation.
Considered a high-ranking Vatican official, Monsignor Krzysztof Charamsa, 43, lived in Rome for the last 17 years and worked at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith since 2003.
In several interviews, Charamsa said he was happy and proud to be a gay priest, and was in love with a man whom he identified as his boyfriend, according to the Associated Press. He said he wanted to challenge the church's "backwards" attitude to homosexuality, the BBC reported.
"It's time the church opened its eyes and realized that offering gay believers total abstinence from a life of love is inhuman," he said, according to the network.
Charamsa also said he knew he would have to give up his ministry but felt he had a duty toward sexual minorities to come out, BBC reported.
Two married high school teachers were arrested Friday on charges stemming from a sexual relationship that police say the husband had with a student.
Brian Woolsey, a 45-year-old math teacher, and wife Jennifer Woolsey, a 38-year-old language-arts instructor at Sunrise Mountain High School in Peoria, Ariz., were arrested on Friday. Brian Woolsey faces charges of sexual misconduct with a minor, while his wife faces charges of failing to report the abuse, Peoria police said.
Police said the relationship with a then-15-year-old student started in January 2010 and continued for three years.
Former students who knew the teachers said they're shocked, and the school district said it had no warning of any illicit relationship involving the Woolseys.
"We had no information regarding any alleged incidents prior to this morning. Upon notice that they were in police custody, we immediately put them on administrative leave and are conducting an investigation," said Danielle Airey, a spokeswoman for thePeoria Unified School District, in a prepared statement.
The accuser, who is now an adult, came forward Thursday, according to police. Police arrested the Woolseys the next day.
Students who went to Sunrise Mountain described the school as well-rounded, well-spirited, quiet and full of pride. They said this was easily the biggest news to ever happen.
Abiel Valencia, 19, who is a freshman at Grand Canyon University, said he had classes with Brian Woolsey three out of four years and grew close to him. Woolsey helped with extracurricular activities, including student broadcasting, volunteering at elementary schools and freelance projects for the school.
Valencia said he was shocked by the allegations that Woolsey had an inappropriate relationship with a sudent.
"I don't know what to feel at this point," he said. "He was a good teacher. I had him a lot for classes, and I spent a lot of my high school time around him, his wife and his kids. He never seemed out of the ordinary. He was a family man -- a man that really cared about what he was doing," Valencia said.

Saving for retirement is challenging, no doubt. But if you want to know what's really tricky, consider spending that money in retirement.
Retirees in the past often relied on a simple rule for retirement income: Draw down 4% of your savings every year and you will be all set. But the retirement landscape has changed.
For one thing, people are living longer, and their money has to last all that time. One in four people who are 65 years old today will live to age 90, and one in 10 will live to 95.
Low interest rates also complicate the picture for savers. A one-year certificate of deposit came with a yield of just 0.28%, on average, through most of September, according to Bankrate. That's hardly enough to generate much retirement income.
Then there is the changing nature of retirement saving itself. Many people retiring now are able to count on pension and Social Security payments for the bulk of their retirement income, with investment income the icing on the cake. An AARP Public Policy Institute analysisof Census Bureau data found that in 2012, median income from Social Security for those receiving it was $13,972, and median income from pensions and retirement savings was $12,000. For these people, drawdown decisions matter, but represent just a portion of retirement income.
But as more and more people retire without defined benefit plans, their own savings, often in 401(k) accounts, will be increasingly important — and investors' choices about how to use them will be more complex.
"You need to have the safety in terms of predictable income, and you need to have part of your portfolio in risk assets. You could be looking at 30 years" of retirement, said Dan Keady, senior director of financial planning at TIAA-CREF.
Some investment pros say the 4% rule, first broadly proposed byWilliam Bengen, a former financial advisor, in 1994, can still apply, but differently.
"We talk about the 4% guideline as a starting point," said Judith Ward, a senior financial planner with T. Rowe Price.
Take longevity, for example. At T. Rowe Price, financial planners recommend that people planning for retirement assume that their money will have to last for 30 years, said Ward. Clearly, if retirement assets remain flat, a 4% drawdown will not last that long.
That's why Ward and others recommend that retirees use a 4% withdrawal rate as a loose target, but then adjust their drawdowns depending on market conditions. When markets are in a downturn, "great, tighten the belt," Ward said. Conversely, a strong market can enable retirees to draw down a bit more, since they will still be leaving plenty of savings in the portfolio.
"People need to every year come back and look what's going on," Ward said.
Another approach is to consider annuitizing some retirement savings. Annuities have gotten a bad rap at times for high fees and opaque terms, but as Americans live longer, more experts are pointing to them as tools to help your money last.
"An annuity is really like an additional pension for some people," said Keady, adding that it "adds some stability to where you are getting your income."
In addition to providing more stable income, annuities help offset the risk that investors will outlive their assets. And having an annuity that throws off income reduces the chance that retirees will have to draw on invested savings at a time when the market is weak.
"Most people don't want to be paying for basic, necessary expenses out of something that gyrates up and down," Keady said.
One annuity option to consider is longevity annuities, which start paying out at some date in the future, like when an investor turns 80. The investor spends less for the annuity because of the delay, but receives protection against outliving savings.
Last year, the Internal Revenue Service added an incentive to consider longevity annuities: Money that goes into those contracts is not counted when the government calculates the minimum required distribution of your retirement savings.
Whatever you do, it's wise to start considering these questions sooner rather than later. Advice on saving for retirement is a lot more abundant than advice on how to draw down the money you salt away.
The good news, said Ward, is that that is starting to change. For financial experts, "I think its going to become much more the focus as the baby boomers start to retire in greater numbers," she said.
Even if you don't develop a full plan, thinking about the income you will have in retirement can encourage you to focus harder on saving.
"(People) begin not thinking about the nest egg, but they begin thinking about the income that can be produced from that nest egg," Keady said. "All of a sudden, people realize, 'Wait a second, I actually have to replace a paycheck.' "
A Palestinian man fatally stabbed two Israelis and wounded two more, including a toddler, inJerusalem's Old City on Saturday before police shot and killed him in the latest in a series of deadly Palestinian attacks.
The Palestinian man stabbed an Israeli man, his wife and toddler before going after another man, the Associated Press reported. The attacker took a gun from one of the men, which he then used to shoot at police and tourists.
The two Israeli men died from their injuries. A woman in her 40s was in serious condition and the 2-year-old toddler suffered minor injuries, Haaretz reported.
Tensions have been rising in the region in recent weeks, mainly around the religious site known to Jews as Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, home to the Al-Aqsa mosque. The outer wall of the temple compound is the Jewish holy site known as the Western Wall.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told The Jerusalem Post the attack happened around 7:30 p.m. local time when the attacker began stabbing the family as they walked past Lion's Gate, en route to the Western Wall. Police later identified the dead suspect as Muhannad Halabi, a 19-year-old from Al Bireh, near Ramallah, AP reported.

Many factors determine the quality of education in a particular state, including federal, state, and local funding levels, the curriculum, and teacher and staff quality. A district's wealth, however, is often a very good indicator of how well the area's students are likely to perform.
In San Perlita, Texas, the poorest school district in the United States, the median annual household income is just $16,384, or less than a third of the national median income level. A typical household in the Scarsdale, New York, school district earns $238,478 per year. The quality of life for the 291 students in San Perlita and the 4,721 in Scarsdale is likely very different. 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the wealthiest and poorest school districts in the country.
Property taxes play a significant part in the funding of school districts, and for this reason, the public school systems in the nation's wealthiest districts are among the best funded in the country. Nationally, public schools spend an annual average of $10,700 per pupil. In eight of the 10 wealthiest districts, spending is at least $20,000 per pupil.
The poorest districts pull in relatively scant funding from local sources, but this does not mean these districts are necessarily underfunded. In fact, half of the 10 poorest districts spend more on average than the national average per pupil spending. This is largely because state and federal funding, which is often targeted to economically disadvantaged areas, can make up much of the difference.
Nationally, an average of 45.3% of total school funding comes from local sources. Only in one of the poorest districts does local spending account for more than 20% of the district's budget. In those same districts, state sources account for an average of 66% of total funding, and federal sources account for 18.1% of funding on average. Nationwide, state funding comes to 45.6% of total funding, and federal funding comes to just 9.1%.
Income has a strong correlation with educational achievement on a national level, and that is the case in these districts as well. There is a correlation between students who come from wealthier households and their achievements and graduation rates, likely because of the many advantages they receive. The majority of the wealthiest districts have at least a 95% graduation rate. Only two of the 10 poorest districts have graduation rates higher than 75%.
Policymakers cite to the importance of funding for student achievement. But the districts that receive large state and federal funding to make up for low local sources, primarily property taxes and parent contributions, highlight the fact that funding is often not enough to make up for the inequalities in a region that lead to poor achievement.

Tannehill once again is under fire heading into one of the Dolphins' games in London.
Last year the signal-caller used the International Series game against the Oakland Raiders to answer questions about his standing as the team's starter. Coming off a three-interception performance last week against the Buffalo Bills, Tannehill needs to find a similar turning point for this season.
But relief might be hard to come by against the Jets. In six career games against New York, Tannehill has just four touchdowns to six interceptions and averages 207.2 yards per game. And none of those defenses were as strong as this year's unit, ranked first in points allowed and takeaways.
Still, the Dolphins need Tannehill to jump-start an offense that has not been able to run efficiently. If he can find wide receiver Jarvis Landry early and avoid turnovers, Miami might find the rhythm that has eluded it so far.
With running back Adrian Peterson's return, theMinnesota Vikings' slow progress in the passing game has been understandable.
Yet as the quarter mark of the season approaches,Teddy Bridgewater finds himself leading the league's last-ranked passing attack and averaging fewer than 25 attempts per game. And Sunday's prime-time challenge is by far the most difficult on his early slate.
The Denver Broncos' top-ranked defense, allowing a league-best 176.3 yards per game through the air, gives Minnesota even more reason to rely on Peterson. But they'll have to turn to Bridgewater at some point, which would mark the end of the Vikings' cautious approach.
Minnesota has already identified its most troublesome matchups: outside linebackersVon Miller and DeMarcus Ware, who was the NFL's defensive player of the month in September with 3.5 sacks.