To Be...

After six days of deliberation, the seven men and five women jury were unable to render a unanimous verdict on any of the three counts of felony aggravated indecent assault with which Cosby had been charged. The jury told the judge that they were deadlocked, and he ordered them to continue deliberations.

During the week-long trial, Cosby, 79, never took the stand, but excerpts from his 2005 to 2006 depositions in a civil suit brought on by Constand were read aloud.

Montgomery County District Attorney describing Cosby as a calculating sexual predator, who not only drugged and assaulted Constand in 2004, but also recast the attack as consensual and romantic.

Constand, 44, testified for seven hours over the course of two days last week, telling the jury that in 2004, Cosby gave her a drug at his home in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, that rendered her unable to stop his alleged assaults.   Being Asexual sounds great.

Plus...

AnBang...

A Chinese regulator announced that it had taken disciplinary measures against the Anbang Insurance Group, a financial behemoth, for the improper sale of two investment products.

The come against a backdrop of broader worries about the country’s financial system, in addition to ones about the insurance industry.

 

The State Council, China’s cabinet, announced the dismissal of the chairman of the insurance regulatory commission, who has been the subject of a corruption investigation.

One, the Anbang Longevity No. 5 Annuity, had been presented to regulators as a long-term investment. But the commission said should have been subject to more stringent regulations on short- and medium-term investments.

The other banned investment product, Anbang Endowment Insurance, was put on the market without an actuary’s signature, the commission said.

China's Anbang Insurance Group set a record for the largest acquisition of a U.S. real estate asset by a Chinese buyer when acquired Waldorf Astoria.

Game...

Spreading...

Transport chiefs in the Spanish capital, Madrid, have launched a campaign discouraging "manspreading" - men encroaching on other seats by sitting with their legs wide apart.

The aim of the new signs was to remind male travelers of the need to maintain civic behavior and to respect the space of everyone on board the bus and or the train. Just a thought.

Reschedule...

Researchers in 2007 proposed three criteria for a behavior to be classified as academic procrastination: it must be counterproductive, needless, and delaying.

 Procrastination is to voluntarily delay an intended course of action despite expecting to be worse off for the delay. Putting a task off is not procrastination if there are rational reasons for doing so.

PaPyrus...

Call...

Hang Up...

Just because it’s summer doesn’t mean that scammers are taking a break. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has issued a warning about a new telephone scam.

In the scam, callers posing as IRS representatives advise potential victims that two certified letters were sent to the taxpayer in the mail but were returned as undeliverable. The callers then threaten to arrest the potential victim if a payment is not immediately made through a prepaid debit card. The scammer also tells the victim that the purchase of the card is linked to the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System (EFTPS) system: it is not.

To ensure that the potential victim doesn’t back out, the caller warns the taxpayer not to contact their tax preparer, an attorney or their local IRS office until after the tax payment is made. This should be a red flag.         Hang up and call the IRS directly (1.800.829.1040) for more information. 

Kama-Sutra...