China’s Futile War on Web Pseudonyms

Chinese Internet cops are at it again. On Dec. 28, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress came out with new regulations forbidding Chinese citizens from using pseudonyms when signing up for Internet service.

The official Xinhua news agency quickly tried to reassure everyone not to worry about any chilling effect on Chinese cyberspace. “Instead of depriving netizens’ freedom and entitlement, the rules protect the legal rights of every Internet user,” Xinhua reported in a commentary helpfully titled “Nothing to fear from new Internet ID policy.” The new rules, Xinhua added, “will ultimately help to create a better online environment in China.”

Given China’s record of censoring blogs, banning YouTube (GOOG) and Facebook (FB), and blocking foreign news sites, not everyone is convinced of the government’s good intentions, of course. “Anti-corruption campaigns online have deeply tarnished the party and the government’s image, and social media discussions have increased instability in certain regions,” Zhang Zhi’an, an adjunct professor at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, told Bloomberg News. “Enforcing real-name registration will make Web users more cautious when posting comments online.”

It’s far from certain, however, that the Chinese government will be able to succeed in this latest attempt at controlling the Net. To understand why, I spoke today to Mark Natkin, the managing director and founder of Marbridge Consulting, a research firm in Beijing. Natkin says this isn’t the first time Chinese authorities have tried to force Internet users to register using their real names. He’s seen at least three of these campaigns. Indeed, the Xinhua commentary points out that the country’s three telecom operators have required real-name registration since September 2010.

Natkin is waiting to hear specifics about the new requirement before assuming the worst. “How do you enforce it? What are the penalties?” he asks. “If there are no answers to that, there is really no change.”

Earlier moves by authorities to document all of China’s Internet users have had limited impact. For instance, anybody who wants to sign up for fixed-line broadband access has to show ID. Likewise, somebody who goes to a China Mobile store for mobile Internet access has to show papers before getting a new SIM card.

There are lots of other ways to get online in China, though. People can buy SIM cards from the supermarket or from the local newsstand, Natkin says. Even before the government came out with the new rules, those vendors were supposed to be carding would-be Internet customers. Few do, says Natkin. And good luck forcing them to do it now, since these small vendors often don’t have the network infrastructure to verify ID cards and ensure that they’re genuine.

Changing that equation won’t be easy, given how thin the vendors’ margins are. “The amount of money a kiosk can make on a new SIM card or a recharge is small enough—are they now going to go to the extra hassle of checking your ID card, writing down your name, and sending it to the authorities?” he says. “Managing that whole process for an ocean of little kiosks and supermarkets is so enormous a task.”

The government could prevent such vendors from selling SIM cards, but that would cut out an important source of revenue for the country’s three cellular operators, China Mobile (CHL), China Unicom (CHU), and China Telecom (CHA)—all of them owned by the state. Ending sales via kiosks and supermarkets would “be potentially huge hit to the operators,” says Natkin.

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Pope marks end of difficult year, notes God’s good

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI marked the end of a difficult year Monday by saying that despite all the death and injustice in the world, goodness prevails.

Benedict celebrated New Year’s Eve with a vespers service in St. Peter’s Basilica to give thanks for 2012 and look ahead to 2013. He appeared tired during the service and used a cane afterward — an indication that the busy Christmas season may be taking a toll on the 85-year-old Benedict.

In his homily, Benedict said it’s tough to remember that goodness prevails when bad news — death, violence and injustice — “makes more noise than good.” He said taking time to meditate in prolonged reflection and prayer can help “find healing from the inevitable wounds of daily life.”

This past year was full of highs and lows for the pope, including a successful trip to Mexico and Cuba but also the betrayal of his butler, convicted in October of stealing Benedict’s personal papers and leaking them to a journalist.

After the service, Benedict was brought out in a covered car to pray before the Vatican’s main nativity scene in St. Peter’s Square. Walking with a cane in the chilly piazza, Benedict chatted animatedly with the artist who crafted the scene, which recreated an entire village from the poor, southern Italian region of Basilicata which donated this year’s crèche.

The Vatican gladly accepted Basilicata’s donation after the €550,000 price tag the Vatican paid for the 2009 nativity scene was revealed in the documentation leaked by Benedict’s ex-butler Paolo Gabriele.

Gabriele was convicted of aggravated theft by a Vatican tribunal and sentenced to 18 months in prison. He received a pre-Christmas papal pardon and is expected to soon leave his Vatican City apartment for a new home and job elsewhere.

On Tuesday morning, Benedict celebrates a New Year’s Day Mass, which the Catholic Church celebrates as its world day of peace.

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14 Solutions to Your New Year’s Midnight Kiss

Find a Baby

There’s got to be one crawling around somewhere. What’s cuter than kissing a baby’s fat cheek? Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

Click here to view this gallery.

[More from Mashable: Here’s a Depressing Look at Man’s Impact on Earth]

Do you find yourself in a panic every New Year’s Eve because everyone’s counting down and Billy Crystal has yet to explain all of the reasons why he’s madly in love with you?

No? Oh okay — me neither.

[More from Mashable: Watch the Scariest Skiing Lesson of All Time]

But the final holiday of the year can put a lot of unnecessary pressure on people. We want to end and begin each year with a bang — this often means the perfect outfit, an amazing soiree and the midnight kiss that will sweep you off your feet.

Instead of starting 2013 in a state of panic, then promising to be better later, enjoy New Year’s Eve and stop worrying about a silly superstition. We’ve come up with a couple solutions to the big smooch at the end of the night.

Photo by Ian Gavan/Getty Images

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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Pediatricians say kids need recess during school

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – A group of American pediatricians is telling school districts that children need recess and free time during the school day, and it should not even be taken away as punishment.

“We consider it essentially the child’s personal time and don’t feel it should be taken away for academic or punitive reasons,” said Dr. Robert Murray, who co-authored the new policy statement for the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The statement, published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, says recess is a “crucial and necessary component of a child’s development.”

Recess helps students develop communication skills, such as cooperation and sharing, and helps counteract the time they spend sitting in class, according to the statement.

“The cognitive literature indicates that children are exactly as we are as adults. Whenever they’re performing a complicated or complex task, they need time to process the information,” said Murray, a professor at Ohio State University in Columbus.

“Kids have to have that time scheduled. They’re not given the opportunity to just get up and walk around for a few minutes,” he added.

Previous research, according to the statement’s authors, found children pay closer attention and perform better mentally after recess.

Last January, a review of 14 studies found kids who get more exercise from – among other things – recess and playing on sports teams tend to do better in school (see Reuters Health story of January 3, 2012 here:.)

But a 2011 survey of 1,800 elementary schools found about a third were not offering recess to their third grade classes (see Reuters Health story of December 5, 2011 here:.)

Murray told Reuters Health that schools in Japan offer children about 10 minutes of free time after every 50 minutes of class, which he said makes sense.

“I think you can feel it if you go to a lecture that after 40 to 50 minutes of a concentrated activity you need to take a break,” he said.

Currently, the American Heart Association calls for at least 20 minutes of recess every day, but Murray said recess needs depend on the child.

“Most schools – on average – are working on the framework of 15 to 30 minute bursts of recess once or twice a day,” he said.

There is, however, consensus on when in the day children’s recess should take place.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Department of Agriculture both recommend schools schedule recess before lunch.

Previous studies have found that children waste less food and behave better for the rest of the day when their recess is before their scheduled lunch, the pediatricians‘ statement notes.

The statement also says schools should not substitute physical education classes for recess.

“Those are completely different things and they offer completely different outcomes,” said Murray. “(Physical education teachers are) trying to teach motor skills and the ability of those children to use those skills in a bunch of different scenarios. Recess is a child’s free time.”

The pediatricians also warn against a recess that is too structured, such as having games led by adults.

“I think it becomes structured to the point where you lose some of those developmental and social emotion benefits of free play,” said Murray.

“This is a very important and overlooked time of day for the child and we should not lose sight of the fact that it has very important benefits,” he added.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/HjQ8dI Pediatrics, online December 31, 2012.

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Behind the Bidding War For a Gene Sequencing Firm

In June, Complete Genomics (GNOM), the struggling maker of the world’s most accurate gene-sequencing machine, put itself up for sale. Nothing happened initially. Analysts predicted the company would soon need to wind down operations.

Cut to December. A pair of genomics superpowers, China’s BGI and San Diego-based Illumina (ILMN), have suddenly made competing bids to buy Complete, and politicians and regulators want to weigh in on its future. The question is whether foreign ownership might create a national security threat to the U.S. “This budding research area has the opportunity to really advance the development of bioweapons,” says Michael Wessel, a member of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, which reports to Congress. He’s concerned that Complete will “advance China’s capabilities in that area beyond what they already have.”

Founded in 2005, Complete has offices in a sedate office park across the street from Google (GOOG) in Mountain View, Calif. It makes a machine that can decode strands of DNA, but unlike most of its rivals offers a sequencing service instead of selling the machine to customers. In its most recent quarter, Complete posted revenue of $ 7.3 million and a net loss of $ 18 million.

Complete’s machines stand out for their ability to accurately sequence entire human genomes, instead of just portions of a person’s DNA. That’s much needed in clinical settings where physicians want to know for sure whether a patient has a particular illness. Complete also has been able to amass a large database of precise genomic information. Finding patterns among that data, comprising thousands of DNA sequences, could be useful in developing novel therapies.

The unique properties of Complete’s sequencers, which have been used for studies of cancer, aging, and disease traits, make them a good fit for BGI. Backed by loans from government-run banks, BGI has spent more than a decade creating a huge DNA database. Believed to be the world’s largest purchaser of sequencing machines, it’s been opening offices worldwide to offer services that complement its research. But BGI lacks the know-how to build its own sequencer, an area in which the U.S. remains far ahead of other countries.

In September, BGI offered $ 118 million to acquire Complete, and Complete’s board approved. Together the companies would have a database of 30,000 whole human genomes—about 10 times larger than that of their nearest competitor, says George Church, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School. With such a vast trove of data, BGI could gain a leg up in the race to create therapies and diagnostic tools using sequencing information. “I think this is a very big deal,” says Church, who advises dozens of companies in the industry including BGI, Illumina, and Complete.

The possibility of BGI and Complete uniting has not been lost on Illumina, the world’s biggest seller of sequencing machines, which counts BGI as a top customer. In November, Illumina offered a $ 123.5 million counterbid for Complete, which the company’s board rejected, saying regulators would not approve the deal because of Illumina’s market dominance. (Illumina claims its machines produce 90 percent of the world’s sequencing data.)

This in turn prompted Illumina Chief Executive Officer Jay Flatley to raise national security and privacy concerns about BGI’s bid in a letter to Complete’s board that the board later made public. An Illumina spokesperson declined to comment. In a statement, Complete CEO Cliff Reid said, “There’s no risk to U.S. national security raised by Complete Genomics merging with BGI.” Church and others have speculated that the real reason Illumina wants to keep BGI from acquiring sequencing machine technology is that it wants to avoid losing the company as a customer.

Both the Federal Trade Commission and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS), which weighs national security issues, are reviewing BGI’s bid and will make a recommendation that will likely determine if the deal goes through. Last year, Huawei Technologies, a Chinese maker of telecommunications equipment, abandoned its acquisition of hardware startup 3Leaf Systems, when CFIUS recommended rejecting the deal before it was reviewed by President Obama.

It’s hard to find a genomics expert who sees real national security concerns in a BGI-Complete deal. DNA sequencing machines are readily available, and Complete’s technology isn’t considered uniquely capable of some uniquely nefarious use. Several startups around the world are developing a new generation of sequencing machines that could soon make today’s obsolete. Church, though, says the Complete kerfuffle has provided U.S. regulators with “a good wake-up call” about the potential for this technology and the need for the U.S. to keep investing in its DNA sequencing lead. “Our politicians don’t follow technology as well as they should,” he says.

The bottom line: A BGI-Complete deal could lead to one entity owning 30,000 human genomes, 10 times more than its nearest competitor.

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Pakistan militants kill 41 in mass execution, attack on Shi’ites

PESHWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) – Pakistani militants, who have escalated attacks in recent weeks, killed at least 41 people in two separate incidents, officials said on Sunday, challenging assertions that military offensives have broken the back of hardline Islamist groups.

The United States has long pressured nuclear-armed ally Pakistan to crack down harder on both homegrown militants groups such as the Taliban and others which are based on its soil and attack Western forces in Afghanistan.

In the north, 21 men working for a government-backed paramilitary force were executed overnight after they were kidnapped last week, a provincial official said.

Twenty Shi’ite pilgrims died and 24 were wounded, meanwhile, when a car bomb targeted their bus convoy as it headed toward the Iranian border in the southwest, a doctor said.

New York-based Human Rights Watch has noted more than 320 Shias killed this year in Pakistan and said attacks were on the rise. It said the government’s failure to catch or prosecute attackers suggested it was “indifferent” to the killings.

Pakistan, seen as critical to U.S. efforts to stabilize the region before NATO forces withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, denies allegations that it supports militant groups like the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network.

Afghan officials say Pakistan seems more genuine than ever about promoting peace in Afghanistan.

At home, it faces a variety of highly lethal militant groups that carry out suicide bombings, attack police and military facilities and launch sectarian attacks like the one on the bus in the southwest.

Witnesses said a blast targeted their three buses as they were overtaking a car about 60 km (35 miles) west of Quetta, capital of sparsely populated Baluchistan province.

“The bus next to us caught on fire immediately,” said pilgrim Hussein Ali, 60. “We tried to save our companions, but were driven back by the intensity of the heat.”

Twenty people had been killed and 24 wounded, said an official at Mastung district hospital.

CONCERN OVER EXTREMIST SUNNI GROUPS

International attention has focused on al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban.

But Pakistani intelligence officials say extremist Sunni groups, lead by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) are emerging as a major destabilizing force in a campaign designed to topple the government.

Their strategy now, the officials say, is to carry out attacks on Shi’ites to create the kind of sectarian tensions that pushed countries like Iraq to the brink of civil war.

As elections scheduled for next year approach, Pakistanis will be asking what sort of progress their leaders have made in the fight against militancy and a host of other issues, such as poverty, official corruption and chronic power cuts.

Pakistan’s Taliban have carried out a series of recent bold attacks, as military officials point to what they say is a power struggle in the group’s leadership revolving around whether it should ease attacks on the Pakistani state and join groups fighting U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan.

The Taliban denies a rift exists among its leaders.

In the attack in the northwest, officials said they had found the bodies of 21 men kidnapped from their checkpoints outside the provincial capital of Peshawar on Thursday. The men were executed one by one.

“They were tied up and blindfolded,” Naveed Anwar, a senior administration official, said by telephone.

“They were lined up and shot in the head,” said Habibullah Arif, another local official, also by telephone.

One man was shot and seriously wounded but survived, the officials said. He was in critical condition and being treated at a local hospital. Another had escaped before the shootings.

Taliban spokesman Ihsanullah Ihsan claimed responsibility for the attacks.

“We killed all the kidnapped men after a council of senior clerics gave a verdict for their execution. We didn’t make any demand for their release because we don’t spare any prisoners who are caught during fighting,” he said.

The powerful military has clawed back territory from the Taliban, but the kidnap and executions underline the insurgents’ ability to mount high-profile, deadly attacks in major cities.

This month, suicide bombers attacked Peshawar’s airport on December 15 and a bomb killed a senior Pashtun nationalist politician and eight other people at a rally on December 22.

(Additional reporting by Saud Mehsud in DERA ISMAIL KHAN and Gul Yousufzai in QUETTA; Writing by Katharine Houreld; Editing by Michael Georgy and Ron Popeski)

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Facebook’s SnapChat Intimidator Was Great for SnapChat’s Business

This probably isn’t the outcome Facebook was hoping for. After Facebook created Poke, its very obvious SnapChat intimidator, the rival app saw a big boost in numbers. 

RELATED: Facebook’s SnapChat-Style Sexting App Is Called Poke (Seriously)

The people over at Bloomberg Businessweek looked at the hard numbers and concluded (with charts!) that SnapChat saw a huge uptick in attention after Facebook created Poke. What we initially thought was a clone war was not meant to be. Facebook helped SnapChat rocket to the top of the app charts. SnapChat, to its credit, was ready for the challenge as soon as the gauntlet was laid down by Facebook. SnapChat’s CEO had an Apple-IBM inspired response to Poke’s existence: he told The Verge, “Welcome, Facebook. Seriously.”

RELATED: When SnapChat Videos Don’t Disappear

It was clear from the start that the big boys in blue were big fans of the independent creation: Mark Zuckerberg himself helped code the copycat. But just because the app was touched by the hand of Zuck doesn’t necessarily mean success is guaranteed. Poke’s greatest success so far is helping royally piss off Zuckerberg’s sister. Whether or not Poke, or SnapChat for that matter, is a long-term success remains to be seen. We need to watch the success theater play out before our eyes. 

RELATED: Facebook to Launch Its Own SnapChat as Social-Network Clone Wars Live on

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Praying Hitler in ex-Warsaw ghetto sparks emotion

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A statue of Adolf Hitler praying on his knees is on display in the former Warsaw Ghetto, the place where so many Jews were killed or sent to their deaths by Hitler’s regime, and it is provoking mixed reactions.

The work, “HIM” by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, has drawn many visitors since it was installed last month. It is visible only from a distance, and the artist doesn’t make explicit what Hitler is praying for, but the broader point, organizers say, is to make people reflect on the nature of evil.

In any case, some are angered by the statue’s presence in such a sensitive site.

One Jewish advocacy group, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, this week called the statue’s placement “a senseless provocation which insults the memory of the Nazis’ Jewish victims.”

“As far as the Jews were concerned, Hitler’s only ‘prayer’ was that they be wiped off the face of the earth,” the group’s Israel director, Efraim Zuroff, said in a statement.

However, many others are praising the artwork, saying it has a strong emotional impact. And organizers defend putting it on display in the former ghetto.

Fabio Cavallucci, director of the Center for Contemporary Art, which oversaw the installation, said, “There is no intention from the side of the artist or the center to insult Jewish memory.”

“It’s an artwork that tries to speak about the situation of hidden evil everywhere,” he said.

The Warsaw ghetto was an area of the city which the Nazis sealed off after they invaded Poland. They forced Jews to live in cramped, inhuman conditions there as they awaited deportation to death camps. Many died from hunger or disease or were shot by the Germans before they could be transported to the camps.

The Hitler installation is just one object in a retrospective of Cattelan’s work titled “Amen,” a show that explores life, death, good and evil. The other works are on display at the center itself, which is housed in the Ujazdowski Castle.

The Hitler representation is visible from a hole in a wooden gate across town on Prozna Street. Viewers only see the back of the small figure praying in a courtyard. Because of its small size, it appears to be a harmless schoolboy.

“Every criminal was once a tender, innocent and defenseless child,” the center said in a commentary on the work.

Poland’s chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich, said he was consulted on the installation’s placement ahead of time and did not oppose it because he saw value in the artist’s attempt to try to raise moral questions by provoking viewers.

He said he was reassured by curators who told him there was no intention of rehabilitating Hitler but rather of showing that evil can present itself in the guise of a “sweet praying child.”

“I felt there could be educational value to it,” said Schudrich, who also wrote an introduction to the exhibition’s catalogue in which he says art can “force us to face the evil of the world.”

On Friday, a stream of people walked by to view the work, and many praised it.

“It had a big emotional impact on me. It’s provocative, but it’s not offensive,” said Zofia Jablonska, a 30-year-old lawyer. “Having him pray in the place where he would kill people — this was the best place to put it.”

Cattelan caused controversy in Warsaw in 2000 when another gallery showed his work “La Nona Ora” — or “The Ninth Hour” — which depicts the late Pope John Paul II being crushed by a meteorite. That offended many in Poland, which is both deeply Catholic and was John Paul’s homeland.

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Body of India rape victim arrives home in New Delhi

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – The body of a woman whose gang rape provoked protests and rare national debate about violence against women in India arrived back in New Delhi early on Sunday.

The unidentified 23-year-old medical student died from her injuries on Saturday, prompting promises of action from a government that has struggled to respond to public outrage.

She had suffered brain injuries and massive internal damage in the attack on December 16, and died in hospital in Singapore where she had been taken for treatment.

She and a male friend had been returning home from the cinema, media reports say, when six men on a bus beat them with metal rods and repeatedly raped the woman. The friend survived.

Six suspects were charged with murder after her death.

A Reuters correspondent saw family members who had been with her in Singapore take her body back to their Delhi home in an ambulance with a police escort.

Ruling party leader Sonia Gandhi was seen arriving at the airport when the plane landed and Prime Minister Mannmohan Singh‘s convoy was also there, the witness said.

The body was later taken to a crematorium and cremated, news channels reported. Media were kept away but a Reuters witness saw the woman’s family, New Delhi’s chief minister, Sheila Dikshit, and the junior home minister, R P N Singh, coming out of the crematorium.

The outcry over the attack caught the government off-guard. It took a week for Singh to make a statement, infuriating many protesters.

PROTESTS

Issues such as rape, dowry-related deaths and female infanticide rarely enter mainstream political discourse in India.

Analysts say the death of the woman dubbed “Amanat”, an Urdu word meaning “treasure”, by some Indian media could change that, although it is too early to say whether the protesters calling for government action to better safeguard women can sustain their momentum through to national elections due in 2014.

Protesters have staged peaceful demonstrations in the capital New Delhi and in cities across India in the last few days to keep the pressure on Singh’s government to get tougher on crime against women. Last weekend, protesters fought pitched battles with police.

Authorities, worried about the reaction to the news of her death on Saturday, deployed thousands of policemen, closed 10 metro stations and banned vehicles from some main roads in central New Delhi.

Most sex crimes in India go unreported, many offenders go unpunished, and the wheels of justice turn slowly, according to social activists, who say that successive governments have done little to ensure the safety of women.

Commentators and sociologists say the rape has tapped into a deep well of frustration many Indians feel over what they see as weak governance and poor leadership on social issues.

New Delhi has the highest number of sex crimes among India’s major cities, with a rape reported on average every 18 hours, according to police figures. Government data show the number of reported rape cases in India rose by nearly 17 percent between 2007 and 2011.

For a link to the poll, click

(Additional reporting by Devidutta Tripathy; Writing by Louise Ireland; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

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Starbucks expands cup campaign aimed at U.S. fiscal deal

(Reuters) – Starbucks Corp is expanding its campaign of using messages written on coffee cups to inspire U.S. lawmakers to reach a deal and avoid going over the “fiscal cliff” of automatic tax hikes and government spending cuts.

As President Barack Obama and congressional leaders were in a final effort to reach a budget agreement before year’s end, Starbucks this week began urging workers in its roughly 120 Washington, D.C.-area shops to write the words “come together” on customers’ cups.

A spokesman for the world’s largest coffee chain said the company would expand the effort to all U.S. stores, continuing through next week.

“Stores from across the country have been asking if they could join in and we have been saying absolutely yes,” Starbucks spokesman Jim Olson said in an email late Friday.

“Based on this unprecedented response, we are inviting all of our partners at U.S. stores to start signing their customers’ cups with Come Together through next Friday,” Olson said.

Starbucks’ cup campaign aims to send a message to sharply divided politicians and serve as a rallying cry for the public in the days leading up to the January 1 deadline to avert harsh across-the-board government spending reductions and tax increases that could send the U.S. economy back into recession.

“We believe the (Washington) DC effort caught on so swiftly because they Come Together message is such a simple and respectful gesture that expresses the optimism that is core to our country’s heritage and to Starbucks mission,” Olson said.

“This is an important moment for Starbucks to use its scale for good and give Come Together an even louder voice – as we move from signing tens of thousands of cups in DC to tens of millions of cups across the U.S. over the course of next week.”

(Reporting by Julie Ingwersen; Editing by Vicki Allen)

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