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July arabica coffee (KCN25) Friday closed down -9.35 (-2.49%), and July ICE robusta coffee (RMN25) closed down -106 (-2.13%). Coffee prices on Friday fell sharply, with robusta posting a 5-week low. Signs of bigger coffee supplies are weighing on prices after Safras Mercado on Friday reported that Brazil's 2024/25 coffee sales were 97% done as of May 13, above the 94% from the same time last year. An increase in current coffee inventories is also pressuring coffee prices. ICE-monitored robusta coffee inventories rose to a 7-1/2 month high Friday of 4,890 lots. Also, ICE-monitored arabica coffee inventories rose to a...

Elon Musk and former Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) sparred on Wednesday as the failed vice presidential candidate celebrated the recent dip in Tesla’s stock price. “If you need a little boost during the day, check out Tesla stock,” Walz wrote, featuring a video of the former vice presidential candidate’s town hall in Wisconsin on Tuesday night. He even suggested that audience members that have a Tesla can pull the badge off of the electric car. Many analysts have blamed Musk’s more political role for the price performance of Tesla, while there have been many protests of Tesla dealerships, including one...

Slain UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson warned his colleagues about the health insurance company’s public relations issues in early 2024 as he tried to repair its reputation, according to a report. Thompson “understood that the public was frustrated with what they perceived the company’s actions to be,” according to one person who spoke to the Washington Post anonymously. “He was actively articulating a vision that helped better educate and help people better understand what the company is doing.” The typical American can lack an understanding of insurance conglomerates’ roles in the health care system, and it only becomes more convoluted when...

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said that the main subject of the meeting between the terrorist organization and UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov was the treatment of Hamas members held in Israeli prisons. According to the Islamic Jihad-affiliated website PALTODAY, Haniyeh told Mladenov that there is a Palestinian Arab consensus on the issue of the security prisoners. In addition, letters were sent from the leadership of the security prisoners, in which the "grave situation" was noted in the prisons because of the measures taken against them. The Hamas leadership asked the UN Secretary-General's envoy to...

  Courtesy Australian Government Department of DefenceAbout 300 Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers and Australian soldiers from the 1st Mentoring Task Force (MTF1) have conducted a targeted security operation through the Southern Baluchi Valley over the past two weeks to better facilitate Afghan government development opportunities.Commanding Officer of the 1st Mentoring Task Force, Lieutenant Colonel Jason Blain said that Operation JENUB FAYDA ('Southern Advantage' in Pashtu) concluded without incident and highlighted the important role that Australian troops play in training local Afghans to participate in ongoing operations."One of the local elders said that increased security would help build local...

Using the internet for just a few days alters our brains – and may help improve cognitive function in the elderly, according to new research. Scans of the brains of adults who had been immersed in the internet for the first time found that activity in parts of the brain used in memory and decision-making had increased.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 25, 2008 – The performance of Afghanistan’s army and constabulary continues to improve while more soldiers and police are trained and fielded, the senior U.S. military officer responsible for their training said today. Afghan National Army and police units “are leading in the fight here today,” Army Maj. Gen. Robert W. Cone, chief of Combined Security Transition Command Afghanistan, told reporters during a satellite-carried news conference at the National Press Club here. Combined Security Transition Command Afghanistan’s mission is to partner with the Afghan government and the international community to train Afghan security forces. Afghan army units take...

FALLUJAH — Marines geared for war walk in tactical columns through the once mean streets of Fallujah, ready for what may lay around the next corner. “Mister, mister shokalata! Shokalata!”shout exuberant children from a crowded neighborhood as Marines and Iraqi police pass out candy. Marines with Company B, Police Transition Team 8, Regimental Combat Team 1, have been working diligently over the past few months to help train Iraqi police to take over their respective areas and become self-supportive in day-to-day operations in the city. Recent increases in the number of Iraqi police have drastically subdued the violence in the...

CAMP TAJI — Technicians are modifying M1-A2 Abrams tanks to make them more effective in the dense, urban Baghdad environment. For Multi-National Division – Baghdad tankers in the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division these equipment modifications are taking place in the form of the Tank Urban Survival Kit being added to their M1-A2 Abrams tanks. In each of the Striker Brigade’s two previous deployments it operated in more rural areas of Diyala and Salah al-Din provinces. These TUSK additions include an increase to the Soldiers’ safety and the tanks’ effectiveness in operations in this area north of Baghdad....

BAGHDAD, Feb. 13, 2008 – Abas Rashed lives in Arab Jabour, 20 miles southeast of the Iraqi capital, and is a member of the local “Sons of Iraq” security group made up of local residents. He patrols the streets of his community and watches for insurgent activities, he said, because he knows the damage insurgents can do firsthand. Yassen Kodaier Hussein (left), a Sunni living in Arab Jabour, Iraq, and Abas Rashed (center), a member of the local “Sons of Iraq” citizen security group, talk with Alex, an interpreter from the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment,...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 29, 2007 – The Baghdad 5 embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team, attached to the 1st “Ironhorse” Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, is closely coordinating with the Inma Agribusiness Program to work with Iraqi farmers in the region here. A local sheik meets with Edgar Ariza-Nino (center) and Robert Dose (right), Inma Agribusiness Program coordinators, during a tour of the market in Taji, Iraq, Nov. 27, 2007. The Inma program was established to stimulate and support agricultural business expansion and help the region become self-sustaining. Photo by Tech. Sgt. William Greer, USAF  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available....

WASHINGTON, Nov. 9, 2007 – Ongoing training efforts, pay reforms and weeding out corrupt individuals have improved the image and performance of Afghanistan’s police, a senior U.S. military officer said today. Today the Afghan police are being successful against the Taliban, Army Brig. Gen. Robert E. Livingston Jr., commander of Joint Task Force Phoenix VI, told Pentagon reporters from Afghanistan during a satellite-carried news conference. Reports filed last year of police stations being overrun by Taliban terrorists is old news, said Livingston, a National Guard officer from South Carolina who has held his current command since May. His task force...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 31, 2007 – The senior leaders of Iraq’s national police are making progress in reforming and improving the country’s law enforcement body, the commander of the Civilian Police Assistance Training Team said today. During a news conference in Baghdad, Army Maj. Gen. Michael Jones told reporters he’s “very impressed” by Iraq’s national police corps’ progress, spurred on by a recent reform program and training regimen overseen by Italian paramilitaries. “It’s actually quite gratifying to see the considerable change and the progress that’s been made,” Jones said of the roughly 27,000-strong force. The National Police Reform Program established by...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 12, 2007 – Violence in Iraq’s Diyala River Valley has been slashed in half thanks to citizen volunteers, a coalition commander said today. “Currently in Diyala, we have 4,000 local citizens who have decided to reject al Qaeda and other extremist organizations as well as militia, and they’re now helping in the protection of their own neighborhoods,” Army Col. David Sutherland told online journalists and “bloggers” during a conference call from Forward Operating Base Warhorse near Baqouba, Iraq. Sutherland commands the 3rd “Greywolf” Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, deployed from Fort Hood, Texas, and assigned to Multinational...

LEBANON, N.H. - Hillary Rodham Clinton promised Thursday that as president she would improve health care quality by raising standards for providers, educating patients and requiring insurers to reward innovation. While rivals Barack Obama and John Edwards have proposed detailed health care overhaul plans, Clinton is taking an incremental approach. She started with a speech in June on reducing costs, followed by Thursday's address on quality, and will outline her plan for universal health care coverage next month. "My order here is deliberate," said Clinton, a New York senator. "In order to forge a consensus on universal health care, we...

WASHINGTON, July 16, 2007 – Local trust in Iraq security forces is leading to a record number of seizures of weapons caches throughout the country, a spokesman for Multinational Force Iraq said during a press conference yesterday. For example, more than 500 villagers outside the new security outpost near Taji have formed a grassroots movement to run al Qaeda out of the community, said Navy Rear Adm. Mark Fox. Since the outpost was established June 24, neighborhood watch groups have made reports resulting in the discovery of four caches of mortar rounds, makeshift mortar tubes and improvised explosive device timers,...

WASHINGTON, April 5, 2007 – Tangible gains in Baghdad’s security situation have been made possible in part by the cooperation of vastly improved Iraqi security forces, a coalition spokesman said yesterday. Army Maj. Gen. William Caldwell IV, Multinational Force Iraq spokesman, said that with 50 out of 75 planned U.S.-Iraqi joint security stations and combat outposts already in place throughout the Iraqi capital, the sustained, neighborhood-level presence is leading to an “effect that we can actually see.” Speaking from Baghdad to a group of online journalists, Caldwell pointed to a decrease in the number of sectarian murders and assassinations,...

WASHINGTON, March 5, 2007 – Traumatic brain injury, the signature wound of a conflict punctuated by daily bomb attacks on coalition forces and Iraqi civilians, is receiving increased emphasis from Defense Department leaders and the military medical community. DoD has made great strides in treating severe traumatic brain injuries -- those with obvious symptoms like open head trauma or loss of consciousness -- but the challenge lies in better identifying and treating mild brain injury, two top officials in the DoD health care community said. These mild injuries, which can be caused by repeated concussions or indirect exposure to...

MEXICO CITY - Mexico's head of migration on Tuesday pledged to improve the agency's detention centers in response to criticism that Mexico fails to give Central American immigrants the same respect it demands for its own citizens in the United States. Cecilia Romero Castillo, who said many of Mexico's 48 detention centers lack adequate personnel, supplies, medical care and social services, announced a plan to install doctor's offices in 16 centers, upgrade facilities and improve staff training. Romero also said the agency will no longer use jails as detention centers and will fire any supervisor found violating the rules. The...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 19, 2006 -- The improvements in the Iraqi security forces over the next six months will be dramatic, Army Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey said today. Dempsey, the commander of Multinational Security Transition Command Iraq, spoke via teleconference from Baghdad. He said the Iraqi security forces will reach their manning goals this month. But the quality of the soldiers and police will increase as more intensified training kicks in. “There are lead times in procurements and things and even in training, and those things will come to fruition here in the first six months of this next year,”...