Cork Gaines

Michael Jordan became a billionaire this year, thanks mostly to the image he created on the court and the business decisions he made off of it. That combination was so powerful that he is still one of the world’s highest-paid athletes more than a decade after playing in his last NBA game.

With his income from endorsement deals and royalties from his namesake Jordan brand, a subsidiary of Nike, Jordan made $100 million in 2014, according to Kurt Badenhausen of Forbes.

That is more than any other athlete, active or retired, makes in endorsements. It is also enough to rank Jordan as the third-highest-paid athlete in the world, behind only Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao.

By Catherine Shakdam 

A Lebanese anti-government protester faces off with a riot policeman on a road leading to the parliament building before a scheduled meeting of political leaders to try to solve the on-going trash crisis and government dysfunction, in downtown Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2015. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar

BEIRUT — Lebanon has been described as “the next domino to have fallen to the grand anti-establishment movement currently playing out in the Middle East” by Jawad Fairouz, a former Bahrain MP for Al Wefaq, Bahrain’s main opposition bloc and the largest political party in the Gulf Cooperation Council.

All eyes are yet again locked on the Middle East, with politicians and experts assessing whether the Levant will be swept up in a fresh revolutionary wave, an awakening reminiscent of protests that kicked off in 2011, or another aborted attempt at democratization.

The Lebanese government’s failure to resolve a garbage disposal crisis and address chronic electricity and water shortages, sparked the You Stink campaign in the capital Beirut in July.

By Dana Ballout

BEIRUT—Nearly 40 protesters were arrested Wednesday as antigovernment demonstrators calling for a solution to Lebanon’s garbage crisis and an end to corruption clashed with police in Beirut, even as organizers said the protests would continue.

The clashes broke out as demonstrations attempted to block officials from entering Beirut’s central parliament building, where a second national dialogue to discuss a new election law and resolve the country’s presidential vacuum was being held. Members from all political parties were invited to join the dialogue.

By ZEINA KARAM, AP

BEIRUT — Lebanese police beat back protesters with clubs and sticks and arrested dozens of people in downtown Beirut Wednesday as a second session of dialogue between politicians got underway, the latest confrontations this city has seen over the country’s summer trash crisis.

The small group of activists had gathered near the parliament building, where the meeting was taking place. Some of the protesters had brought eggs to pelt politicians’ convoys with while others tried to block the street.

Baton-wielding riot police soon clashed with the protesters, at one point dragging two protesters on the ground while violently beating them both. Ambulances rushed to the scene and took the wounded away. The main group behind the protests, "You Stink," said 40 people were arrested.

A crisis over uncollected trash in the capital has ignited the largest Lebanese protests in years and has emerged as a festering symbol of the government’s paralysis and failure to provide basic services.

Lebanese anti-government protesters sit on the sidewalk in front of a finance ministry building as Lebanese policemen stand guard in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2015. AP Photo/Hassan Ammar

AP Photo/Hassan Ammar

A Lebanese anti-government protester with a tattoo on her back that reads in Arabic, "Revolution is a woman" attends a protest in front of a Finance Ministry building in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2015 – AP Photo/Hassan Ammar

Lebanese anti-government protesters sit on the sidewalk in front of a finance ministry building as Lebanese policemen stand guard in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2015. AP Photo/Hassan Ammar

BEIRUT (AP) — Dozens of Lebanese activists held a protest on Tuesday outside a Finance Ministry building in the country’s capital, after failing to storm it — part of a recent series of anti-government rallies stemming from a trash collection crisis The protesters attempted to enter the building earlier in the day, as employees were arriving. But security forces quickly prevented them, closing the doors to the protesters and other arriving staffers.

The protesters chanted against corruption in state institutions. They said they are taking their protests to the Finance Ministry, asking that it stop paying salaries for lawmakers who have been unable to convene. The protesters complain the parliament, elected in 2009, is illegitimate.

The Guardian: Lebanon is 400 times smaller than the European Union and has 1.2 million Syrian refugees, who have lived through bomb blasts and chemical attacks and are now in illegal tent cities or packed into small apartments. They share their extraordinary stories with photographer Marieke van der Velden and her film-maker husband, Philip Brink […]

catholicherald.co.uk:

Francis raised his concerns about the terrorist threat during an interview with a Portuguese radio stationAs thousands of refugees attempt to reach Europe, Pope Francis has acknowledged the danger of infiltration by ISIS terrorists.

“It’s true, I recognise that, nowadays, border safety conditions are not what they once were. The truth is that just 400 kilometres from Sicily there is an incredibly cruel terrorist group. So there is a danger of infiltration, this is true,” the Pope said during an interview with Portuguese radio station Radio Renascença. He added that “nobody said Rome would be immune to this threat”.

Lydia Ramsey

Just when you thought you’d run out of excuses to add olive oil to pretty much everything, science has given us yet another great reason.

In a study of older women published Monday in the medical journal JAMA, Spanish scientists found that a Mediterranean diet supplemented with extra olive oil appeared to help reduce the participants’ risk of breast cancer when compared against two other groups of women on either a low-fat diet or a Mediterranean diet supplemented with nuts. 

The Mediterranean diet is modeled off of foods commonly eaten in countries on the Mediterranean sea. It’s typically high in fruits and vegetables, fish, and whole grains like whole wheat and brown rice.

Richard Hall, GlobalPost

KETERMAYA, Lebanon — There is a small village in the mountains of Lebanon that is hosting more Syrian refugees than all 50 U.S. states combined.

Situated at the southern end of the Mount Lebanon range, Ketermaya is a quiet little place surrounded by patches of farmland. Much of the traffic in the area goes to and from a nearby cement factory.

It isn’t a particularly wealthy town, but the residents here have taken in thousands of refugees fleeing the war in Syria.

"We have a history of welcoming refugees," says Ali Tafesh, a local business owner. "In 2006 we did the same," he adds, referring to the displacement of people caused by Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon that year.

Tafesh has done more than most. When Syrian families started to arrive in the town in the early days of the civil war, he arranged housing for them. When there were no more places left to stay he offered up his own land.