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TORONTO, March 29 (Reuters) - An Air Canada flight crash landed in the east coast city of Halifax and went
off the runway early on Sunday, local media reported, with the airline confirming 23 passengers and crew suffered non-life threatening injuries.

The airline said the incident happened shortly after midnight, and 18 of the 23 admitted to hospitals for observation and treatment of minor injuries have been released.

Air Canada said the Airbus A320 flying from Toronto was carrying 133 passengers and five crew members. The airline did not give the cause of the accident but said it was cooperating fully with investigators.

Local media reported it was snowing heavily at the airport at the time of the accident.

Photos posted online by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada showed the nose of the airline broken off and at least one engine badly damaged in the crash. (https://www.flickr.com/photos/tsbcanada/16342568434/)

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — Tunisia's prime minister said Sunday a leading suspect in a deadly museum attack on foreign tourists has been killed in anti-terrorist operations, as tens of thousands of Tunisians marched through the capital to denounce extremist violence.

State news agency TAP cites Prime Minister Habib Essid as saying that Khaled Chaieb, also known as Abou Sakhr Lokman, was killed overnight in an operation in the Gafsa region near the Algerian border. Chaieb is believed a prominent militant in al-Qaida's North African arm, and suspected of leading or helping lead the March 18 attack on the National Bardo Museum.

Twenty-two people, mainly foreigners, and two gunmen were killed in the March 18 attack on the National Bardo Museum.

French President Francois Hollande, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and several foreign ministers and legislators from other countries are joining an anti-terrorism ceremony in Tunis after the march.

The Tunisian government called on all major political parties to join the march from the seat of government at Bab Es-Saadoun to the museum.

The international visitors are showing solidarity with Tunisia, whose fragile new democracy was deeply shaken by the museum attack, for which the Islamic State group claimed responsibility.

Tunisian protesters unleashed revolts across the region known as the Arab Spring, and Tunisia is the only country to have built a democratic system as a result.

Authorities are struggling with scattered extremist violence linked to various radical Islamic groups, largely linked to neighboring countries Algeria or Libya.

Interior Ministry spokesman Ali Aroui said Sunday that nine suspected "terrorists" were killed when security forces clashed with the suspects in the southwest region of Sidi Aich, near the Algerian border. He said several extremists were wounded in another clash in the northwest region of Kef, as part of security operations around the country ahead of the march.

While I was presenting a program on sugar and artificial sweeteners and offering suggestions to change to healthier options, an overweight participant said, "But Margaret, everything we eat has artificial sweeteners." I asked her what diet plans she has used throughout the years. She mentioned tens of different ones, and I replied, "No, everything you eat has artificial sweeteners." She was not eating natural food that promotes lasting health. She had become dependent on diet food.

Usually by the time someone calls upon me to help them with their weight loss, they have already been to every diet center and tried every fad that money can buy. Their focus is always the quickest route to weight loss. After years of trying all these diets, they are heavier and very often suffering health consequences associated with being overweight. Many have Type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, blood pressure, or joint pain, and very often low self-esteem or poor body image. The ironic part is this could have been avoided if they had learned how to eat and care for their well-being instead of continually buying into the $60 billion dollar diet industry.

People look for the quick fix, to produce the weight loss for them. There isn't one. There is no timeline on a successful weight loss. Consider weight loss the byproduct of a lifestyle that includes eating food that nourishes you, and being active. Concentrate on your actions and not on the scale. Focusing only on the scale is a short-lived weight loss.

Stop listening to other people's opinions or statements. Others will make comments from their own insecurities. If you allow these comments to derail your efforts, how committed are you?

Dieting is not a bad thing. A healthy lifestyle is never about perfection, it's always about practice. Repeating healthy habits in all settings is the practice needed.

Diet only means the way you eat. If you eat healthy you have a healthy diet; if you are sick or preparing for a medical test and must only have fluids, then you have a liquid diet; and if you eat poorly, you have a poor diet. Your diet is your choice, but diet has come to be known as a deprivation. Diet and deprivation are not the same! Change the meaning of diet in your vocabulary. My definition of diet is:

D - Decide (How)
I - I'll
E- Eat
T-Today

Diet = Decide How I'll Eat Today.

You decide how to eat each day. You make the choices from what you know and what you make available. If it's not working, seek advice from a reputable coach or counselor. See the fads, gimmicks, half naked before and after pictures, and celebrities paid to tout a diet program for the marketing tactics that they are. Read everything you can that will give you the necessary information and use your own logic to decipher what works best for you. Focus on your actions and believe in yourself.

When you eat well, you live well.
When you eat healthy, you are healthy.
When you nourish your body, you nourish your mind.

"There is a wisdom of the head, and ... there is a wisdom of the heart."
― Charles Dickens, Hard Times

Recent discussions about inequality have focused on wealth inequality, and with good reason. Thomas Piketty's book "Capital" explores the idea that wealth is now more concentrated than income. According to the US Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the top 3% of Americans earn 31% of income, but they also own 54% of all assets. Wealth gains have far outstripped income gains.

"Hard Times" by Tom Clark and Anthony Heath tells the other side of the story-income inequality. It confirms what most of us already sense, that happy times are here again for some, while others - and in fact most others - continue to struggle in the aftermath of the 2008 Financial Crisis. It describes how desperate life has become for the working poor in the US and the UK. As the authors pessimistically conclude about their subjects, 'it is outright impossible to offer them any reassurance about when their hard times will end.' The data they serve up is as devastating as the personal interviews that make their conclusions inescapable.

Both Piketty and Clark say that politics, not economics, will determine the future. However, the economy will certainly be a major focus of upcoming election debates in both countries. The real question is, will the electorates in the US and the UK stage a revolt? Will the minimum wage, unemployment, and income inequality take center stage? Will the Invisible Man become visible?


Wealth vs Income Inequality

On the other end of the spectrum, extreme wealth is highly visible. Oxfam's Wealth, Having It All and Wanting More puts the wealth of the world's richest eighty people into perspective:

The wealth of these 80 individuals is now the same as that owned by the bottom 50% of the global population, such that 3.5 billion people share between them the same amount of wealth as that of these extremely wealthy 80 people.

What policies can counter this? Oxfam has an ambitious list, which includes the obvious along with the impossible. "Hard Times" offers a simpler prescription: 'Jobs, fairer shares, and a decent safety net'. Without a doubt, it all begins with jobs that produce both income and a social dividend. This is true globally.

Case in point: does anyone believe that the Middle East can become peaceful when 80% of young men there are unemployed? Or that Spain can prosper with a 50% youth unemployment rate? Should we be surprised at the sociology of Ferguson and the conflict between citizens and the police in the US in areas of high unemployment? Multiple system failures have combined with a drastic shift in the job market due to outsourcing, technology, and overall productivity gains to create a large group of people who will never be able to catch up. In terms of a safety net, a recent success--the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has resulted in an impressive jump in health care coverage, especially for young people. But the ACA was hugely expensive politically to implement, and entitlements cannot replace jobs.

The Hourglass Economy
Looking deeply at inequality with one very sharp lens can shed light on the worldwide challenge. "Hard Times" is focused on the English-speaking world, particularly the US and the UK. The inescapable conclusion for me after reading this book is that if rich developed countries can get things this wrong, where does hope lie for the developing world?

It is worth taking a look at the Charles Dickens novel of the same title. "Hard Times" was a counterargument to utilitarianism, the idea that a good society was one that produced the greatest happiness for the largest number of people. It was also a call to humanism, a view that happiness and a good life could not be based upon a mathematical average. Clark's book says that an existing trend towards inequality strengthened as a result of the Great Recession. But the underlying logic of what true equality means is the same. Even if overall economic conditions have improved on an average basis, as they have today, that is far from saying that suffering has been eliminated. Clark's argument, as highlighted in the subtitle of his book, The Divisive Toll of The Economic Slump is that in fact the misery has intensified even if the world as a whole has grown wealthier. More jobs have been created, but they don't pay as well. Growth has been restarted, but the wealthy are the primary beneficiaries as their assets increase in value.

So how does the Great Recession differ from the Great Depression? During the Depression, the poor suffered the most. But in what Clark calls our new hourglass economy, the middle class, not just low wage earners, has perhaps been damaged most of all, losing their formerly comfortable lives.

For poor people to be left behind as average incomes rise is nothing new in the Anglo-Saxon economies; but--in Britain at least--for stagnation to have set in the middle like this, and at the height of a so-called boom, is something disturbing and different. In the light of the great growth grab by the top 1%, it is worth checking whether it is not merely the lowly and modestly-paid who have been squeezed, but also those who might previously have thought themselves to be perfectly comfortable.


Clark follows up with a chart that shows a significant decline in real wage growth since the Great Recession for all wage earners, from middle managers to hourly service workers:



For the top 10% of earners however, wages have been increasing. The bottom 90% of earners has had either stagnating or declining real income for more than a decade. Clark describes the consequences of the loss of economic security, hope, and discretionary time and income this has created for the great majority of British citizens, resulting in what he calls a 'social recession'. Happiness, as FDR understood, matters.

No Happy Ending
By nature the longest lasting issue is the effect of the Great Recession on young people, which brings us back to the demographic challenges ahead. Our economy has changed since the Great Depression; a world that valued physical labor and so older workers suffered most, but average life expectancy was under 60 years. Today experience and judgment are critical, especially in white-collar jobs, and older workers who can expect to live to the age of 80 might not have enough savings to retire. In contrast to the Depression, younger workers have been disproportionately and adversely affected by the Great Recession, especially those without employable skills, the 'unqualified young'. The rate of home ownership by young families is the lowest on record, and their debt, thanks to student loans, has reached historical highs. They have suffered most of all in employment opportunities.


US & UK Unemployment Rates Under/Over 36 (Hard Times by Tom Clark)

The problem is that once the young begin with a decline in wages, they never catch up in terms of lifetime earnings compared to their parents. So what is the problem and how can it be solved? I believe that Clark would endorse economist Joseph E Stiglitz's view:

The near-global stagnation witnessed in 2014 is man-made. It is the result of politics and policies in several major economies - politics and policies that choked off demand. In the absence of demand, investment and jobs will fail to materialize. It is that simple.

Only hard choices will prevent harder times ahead. Who will make them?

Lyric Hughes Hale is a writer and economic commentator, and editor-in-chief of EconVue
________________________________________

DUBLIN (AP) — They came. They saw. They burned it down.

Over the past week, more than 60,000 people have taken turns writing messages — often to loved ones in the grave or still in the midst of suffering — on a hand-carved wooden temple overlooking Northern Ireland's second-largest city, Londonderry.

The 72-foot (22-meter) structure, built to resemble a cross between a Buddhist shrine and arabesque palace, was the brainchild of Californian artist David Best, who is famous for his temples built for the Burning Man festivals in Nevada.

He was invited to build one in Northern Ireland, where bonfires usually are a magnet for community division, and specifically in Londonderry, a city so divided that its residents cannot even agree on its name. While it's legally Londonderry, the name preferred on the predominantly Protestant east side, the Catholic majority insists on its pre-British version of Derry.

Best, 70, spent two months overseeing the Temple project supported by 40 apprentice carpenters drawn from both sides of the divide. It was erected on a hilltop on the Protestant east side overlooking the River Foyle and Catholic Derry beyond.

The result was so strikingly beautiful, many visitors expressed disbelief it was to be destroyed. But Best said that had to be the artwork's destiny.

"It's not a war memorial, or a mausoleum," Best said before his creation was set aflame Saturday night. "It's a place for celebration."

More than 15,000 people bought tickets to stand, from a roped-off distance, as a half-dozen torchbearers came forth at nightfall. Among them were relatives of the 13 killed on Londonderry's Bloody Sunday in 1972, when British soldiers opened fire on unarmed Catholic demonstrators.

Many cheered as the flames spread upward into the tower's steeple-like top. The fire's light revealed plenty of weeping faces, too, reflecting how thousands had inscribed hand-written memorials —sometimes accompanied with photos — to dead relatives on the structure.

Best said his biggest fear was that, in the typical Irish dampness, it wouldn't burn at all. But within two hours, the Temple was nothing more than air and ash.